Wilde at Heart (Wilde Security, #3)(33)

Damn.

Always came back to that.

As he strode back toward the office, wind whipped up a small dervish of snow near his feet, reminding him he needed to call the snow removal people to plow the lot before they got the forecasted four more inches tomorrow. Great. More money flying out the window. Maybe he should see about taking on a home security job soon. They were usually out-of-town gigs, and leaving right now would be a headache, but the paycheck would be a godsend for Wilde Security, and it’d take some of the strain off DMW Systems, which would make Dylan happy. He’d follow up with some of the people who had shown an interest in his home security system in the past. Maybe one of them would bite.

In the office, he found Cam talking to a dark-haired man. A potential client? One could only hope. Both Vaughn and Jude were absorbed with whatever they were doing on their computers, so Reece didn’t bother any of them and continued to his small office. He peeked into Greer’s office next door to his, but the desk sat empty and looked untouched from the last time he was here before the Vegas trip.

Jesus. Where was Greer now? This vanishing act of his was getting f*cking old. Starting Wilde Security had been his idea in the first place and now, out of all of them, he spent the least amount of time here.

They were going to have a heart-to-heart about that. Soon.

Reece sat down at his desk and before the computer even booted up, Vaughn darkened his doorway. He didn’t knock, but closed the door behind him and strode forward with a handful of printouts. “I found something.”

“About…?”

“Lark.”

Reece resisted the urge to sigh. Barely. He accepted the papers, still warm from the printer, but didn’t look at them. “Vaughn. Man, you can’t be doing this on company time.”

Vaughn crossed his massive arms over his chest. “What else am I supposed to be doing? That guy out there with Cam is the first client we’ve had in days.”

True. This time, he did sigh. “Have you seen Greer?”

“Nope. Not since we left Vegas.”

“Figures.”

“He’s up to something.”

“You think?” Reece snapped, but then took a breath. Told himself to rein in his frustration. “All right. I was just about to snoop into Lark’s financials anyway, so you might as well tell me what you’ve found.”

Vaughn grabbed a folding chair from against the wall and dragged it over. He was still in a walking cast and, although he didn’t say it, his leg had to be hurting him. “First thing, I talked to Libby. Lark was her bridesmaid, so I figured Libs had to know something about her. She said Lark started working at the district attorney’s office as a secretary two years ago and, although they were good friends at work, Libby didn’t know anything about her personal life. She played her cards close and put on this dumb bimbo act, but Libby saw through it. I saw through it at Libby and Jude’s wedding. Lark’s smarter than she pretended to be.”

“Okay,” Reece said and made a get-on-with-it rolling motion with his hand.

“So, knowing that about her, and knowing she must have passed a background check to work at the D.A.’s office, I started digging. She took the real Lark Warren—the sixty-some-year-old dead woman—and stole her entire life. To do that and pass an extensive background check tells me she’s done it before. And she has.” He took the papers back and spread them out on the desk. “Before she was Lark Warren, she was a maid named Robin Jones in Baltimore for just over a year. And before that, Autumn Clark, a waitress in Richmond, Virginia for a year. I’m thinking there are even more names I haven’t found yet.”

Intrigued, Reece picked up the paper nearest him that showed a driver’s license photo for Autumn Clark. It was definitely the woman they had known as Lark Warren, but with a shorter haircut. “She’s running.”

Vaughn straightened. “What makes you say that? She’s a thief. She’s stealing people’s lives.”

“Dead people.”

“Still, she’s hopping around the east coast committing acts of fraud, and we’re the only ones who know about it as far as I can tell. She needs to be caught.”

Yeah, if that wasn’t hurt pride talking, Reece would eat his tie. Vaughn could try to make it into a quest for justice, but it was a case of plain old bruised ego. Vaughn was the runner in all of his past relationships, and it was eating him up that for once, the woman had not only run from him, but all-out disappeared.

Reece rubbed his chin and then at the knots in the back of his neck. Vaughn wasn’t going to let this drop, especially now that he felt justified in his pursuit, but someone had to rein him in before he went into self-destruct mode.

And Reece knew just how to do it.

“All right.” He sat up straight again and met Vaughn’s gaze. “Here’s the thing. I need you working a case that’s not this.”

“Reece—”

“No. Listen. I need you to look into the arson at The Bean Gallery. I’m fairly certain someone was trying to kill Shelby that night, and I want to know who. You look into that for me, and I’ll dig up what I can on Lark’s previous identities for you. Deal?”

Vaughn’s jaw slid to one side as he thought it through. Finally, he gave a short nod. “Okay. But only because I like Shelby and the thought of someone trying to hurt her pisses me off.”