A Beautiful Lie (Playing with Fire #1)(88)

“I didn’t say one more word to him after that. I just got out of the car and went back to my dorm. I was so fueled by rage, I just shut down. Until I met you and Milo,” Parker told Garrett, a smile turning up the corners of her mouth and softening the look in her eyes.

Garrett processed every single word Parker had told him about Agent Richmond with the perspective of an outsider. He could take what Agent Richmond said several different ways. He knew Parker had been in no position to think objectively about it.

“You know, he never came right out and said the CIA were the ones responsible for her death,” Garrett said.

“I know. Every single time I’ve gone over that conversation in my head I always remember that. He was careful not to implicate anyone in her murder. I thought he was doing it just to be a dick. Now I’m wondering if he just assumed that we were on the same page. That he didn’t need to spell it out because I already knew I had other enemies. At the time, the only enemy I had was the CIA―the people who knew everything about me and coerced me into joining them by holding my father’s life over my head. It never occurred to me that there could have been someone else out there,” Parker explained.

“When he said they cleaned up the mess, maybe he really meant just that. They were protecting you by making her death a suicide. Now that we know more of the facts, it is completely possible someone else killed Lacie.”

“It couldn’t have been Milo, could it?” Parker asked.

Garrett didn’t answer her. When he found out Milo had flown back to Maryland from the Dominican the day Lacie was killed, he knew it was more than just a coincidence. As much as he hated to think about it, he wondered if Parker had been on Milo’s radar before they’d even met that day in the coffee shop. Garrett was scared to death to think about what that implicated. Maybe the Capuano’s used him to spy on Parker as a way to threaten her father. Maybe there never was a Capuano threat and it had been Fernandez the entire time. Or maybe Fernandez was working with the mob, completely under the CIA’s radar. Garrett’s mind conjured up all sorts of scenarios, each one more extravagant than the last, and all that did was add more questions to their ever-growing list.

Garrett and Parker drove the rest of the way back to the resort in silence, lost in their own thoughts. They walked hand-in-hand through the lobby, and as they passed the front desk, the receptionist called out to them. They paused as the man hurried around the counter towards them with a slip of paper in his hand.

“There was a message left for you early this morning,” the man said as he handed Garrett and envelope with his name on it and then hurried back to the desk to answer an incoming call.

They continued walking as Garrett tore into the envelope and pulled out a note written in neat, block letters.

“Urgent. Need to speak with you. Will come to your villa at ten this evening,” Garrett read to Parker out loud.

“It’s not signed?” Parker asked as she reached for the note and looked it over.

“Nope,” Garrett replied as he pulled out the key card for their villa and swiped it through the slot.

Parker studied the note while she waited for Garrett to get the door open. Something about the handwriting was familiar to her. Her heart thumped erratically in her chest when she saw the date in the top right-hand corner The way it was written―day, then month, then year―such a little thing, but something she’d seen enough times over the years.

Garrett held the door open for Parker as she walked through, stopping in her tracks and forcing Garrett to bump into the back of her.

“Holy shit,” Parker muttered.

“What? Do you recognize the handwriting or something?” Garrett asked as he dropped their bags at the foot of the bed.

“Kind of, but there’s something else. The flag that was on that fax cover sheet I saw on the boat? This is it,” Parker said, holding the note up so Garrett could see and pointing to the flag in the top right-hand corner. “And I remember where I saw it before. The day Milo left to come here, I was in his office doing some cleaning and there was a fax on the machine. I picked it up and turned to take it out to him in the living room, but he was already there in the doorway. He saw the fax in my hands and blew his top. He started yelling at me to stay out of his things, snatched the fax out of my hand, and shoved me up against the bookshelf,” Parker explained.

“He pushed you? Are you f*cking kidding me?” Garrett yelled.

“I told you, it was really bad at the end,” Parker said sheepishly. “But that’s not the point. That fax? I glanced down at it when I picked it up. It had the same flag at the top of the first page.”

Garrett folded his arms in front of him so he wouldn’t feel the need to punch the wall at the thought of Milo being physically abusive with Parker. Arguing with her, keeping secrets from her, and closing her off was one thing. But pushing her around threw Garrett into a whole new level of pissed off towards his former best friend.

“So the fax on his boat, the fax at your house, and this note all came from the same place. Or the same person,” Garrett surmised.

“And whoever this person is wants to talk to us,” Parker finished.

They had a few hours to spare before ten o’clock, so they met up with the rest of the team to go over all of the facts they knew and to make a list of possible suspects that would knock on their door that evening.