Sweet Liar (Candy #2)(5)

“You’ve known it too, then.”

That gave him pause. “I know you don’t believe me, but I wish I could’ve been honest with you.”

As I gripped the cold can of soda in my hand, I was about to tell him he was right, I didn’t believe him, when we both heard a car door close outside. A moment later, there was a bang at the door just as Jonah walked toward it.

When the door opened, his father stood outside.

My body tensed and my stomach rioted. I’d only caught a couple of glimpses of Jonah’s father before, but there was something about him that felt malevolent. Even before he turned his nearly black eyes on me, I felt it. Jonah had called my father a criminal, but this man was a criminal too if he worked for the same people my father did. They were all operating outside the law. They all had dark sides.

My father wore his loosely, but this man embraced the darkness, and I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Jonah’s entire demeanor changed when his father walked in. His shoulders tensed while his eyes came alive, looking both alert and on guard. His father put him on edge. I could feel how tightly coiled Jonah was from where I stood across the room.

Looking at them next to each other, I noticed that Jonah bore only a slight resemblance to his father. They had the same thick wavy hair, although his father’s was graying and longer.

While they were both tall and broad, Jonah wasn’t nearly as big. He was a refined version of his father. His features were less severe. His eyes and skin were lighter. They both possessed strong chiseled jaws, aquiline noses, and high foreheads, but on Jonah it was handsome. His father looked like an exaggerated version of him.

Since I’d met Jonah, he’d told me things to make me believe we had a lot in common, but he’d left out the biggest part. Our fathers were both spies, operatives of some kind, and we both wanted to follow in their footsteps. Although Jonah already was.

“Is she okay?” Jonah’s father asked him in a low, gravelly voice, even though he was looking right at me.

Jonah nodded. “She wants to know what her father did wrong.”

“I’m sure she does.”

Jonah’s father turned to close the door and winced slightly, holding his side. My heart knocked harder inside my chest as I watched him move in my direction.

“It’s time she knew,” he said, stopping in front of me, so close that I had to tilt my head back to see his face. “Sit down.” He gestured to the couch.

When I didn’t move, Jonah touched my arm. “Sit down, Candy.”

I blinked, realizing I hadn’t moved at all. When I finally sat down, Jonah did too.

Jonah’s father didn’t sit. Instead he watched us, his gaze moving between us in a knowing way that made me uncomfortable.

“You like my son,” he said simply, a smile playing on his lips. “You two make a nice couple.”

“Stop it,” Jonah said, his voice harsh and clipped.

His father eyed him with amusement, seeming to like the reaction he’d gotten. But his grin disappeared when he looked back at me. “Do you have any idea what I’m about to tell you?” he asked.

I glanced at Jonah before I shook my head.

Then Jonah’s father put it bluntly, delivering the words like he enjoyed saying them. “Your father’s a traitor. He sold classified information to a foreign government. China, specifically, and maybe others.”

Traitor? For some reason, I wanted to smile. It was ridiculous.

“It’s true,” Jonah said, reading my reaction. “A former contact of his is talking to us. We know it’s been going on for years.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked, wondering how Jonah could sound so sure.

“We don’t know,” Jonah replied. “We don’t think he accepted money for it, or if he did, we can’t find it.”

They watched me as my gaze traveled between them while I tried to make sense of what they’d said. But it made no sense. My father was the least greedy person I knew.

If it was true, I had no idea why he would have done it or what he would have gotten in return. Was it money? That thought had occurred to me when I first suspected my father was in trouble, but we didn’t live extravagantly, and I had no idea how much my father earned or whether it was enough to pay for the things we had.

“What he got in return doesn’t matter,” Jonah’s father said. “We need to know what information he gave them. In addition to there being no money trail, there’s no electronic trail either. It was all passed by hand either on paper or external computer drives. If your father kept copies, we need to find them.”

“If there’s no trail, then you have no proof,” I said.

As they both looked at me, an image of the safe I’d seen in my father’s closet flashed in my head, but that safe was gone now. I had no idea where it went or what was in it.

“We have enough to hold him. We don’t need proof for that.”

I narrowed my eyes at the man. “He wouldn’t keep anything that proved what you’re saying here. But you know that. You’ve already searched the house.”

Jonah’s father nodded, his impatience clear. “We have to search again.”

He stood up and waved to someone outside the front door. A moment later, two men dressed in jeans and T-shirts came inside. They greeted him as Victor.