“I get it. Moving past lies like that—I’m not pretending this is easy. But I’m an open book now. Anything you want to know—just ask. Even if it’s something you don’t think I’ll want to tell you.” I put up my hands. “Anything.”

  “That’s just it, though,” he said softly. “I can’t tell a truth from a lie.”

  I sighed, letting my shoulders sag. What could I even say? Apologize again?

  “I’m not saying you’re not trustworthy,” he went on. “If anything, I don’t trust myself.”

  “You don’t trust yourself to know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”

  “Exactly,” he whispered.

  I rubbed the back of my neck. What could I say? There were people back home who gave me a wide berth, and I’d never lied to any of their faces. Just… faked my own suicide, vanished off the face of the earth, and resurfaced half a decade later. Minor things.

  Seth was the only one who hadn’t been given a reason to believe I was dead—well, apart from my complete radio silence and total disappearance—but I’d also looked him in the eye and lied. Repeatedly. About everything from my name to where I got certain scars. Even with reams of justification for all those lies, who wouldn’t have trust issues after that?

  “Some of the things I told you were closer to the truth than you might think,” I said softly.

  He cocked a brow. “How so?”

  “Well, part of creating our identity—they try to make it so we’re less likely to slip up. Keep our first name or have one similar to it. Give us backstories that have some of the same overarching themes but different details. Like how I told you I went to the University of Washington when I actually went to the University of Indiana, but I did get a master’s and I did pay for a chunk of it with the GI Bill. So… most of what I told you, there was truth in it.”

  He furrowed his brow. “And that’s how you ended up going from working as a homicide detective to managing a credit union?”

  I laughed uncomfortably. “Yeah, that was a tougher one. But they didn’t want to stick me in law enforcement again for obvious reasons.”

  “Okay, that makes sense.” He shifted a little, crossing his arms. “Don’t they do background checks? Fingerprinting? All of that?”

  I nodded. “They do. And the marshals have their sorcery to make sure everything comes back Andrew Keller instead of Brandon Gaines. It’s…” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Honestly, the bases they cover and the lengths they go to—it’s kind of mind-blowing. They think of everything.”

  Pursing his lips, Seth nodded slowly. “Yeah. They’re good at what they do. So I’ve heard, anyway.” He turned to me. “So what was your degree really in? Because I’m suddenly not so convinced you have an MBA.”

  “No, I don’t. I think the curriculum would put me into a coma.” I chanced a laugh, but he didn’t, so I sobered. “Undergrad was criminal justice with a minor in forensic psychology. Master’s was in criminology.”

  “Oh.” He shifted a little. “And you said you used the GI Bill. So… were you really in the Army?”

  “Navy, actually.”

  His eyebrows flicked up. Then his gaze drifted to my left arm and the tattoo that was partially concealed by my sleeve. My skin prickled at the memory of him tracing the elaborate lines and curves like he’d done so often when we were lying in bed.

  I rolled my shoulders. “I actually did four years in the Navy. The, um… It was part of keeping a consistent past so I didn’t slip up, but the marshals also figured a backstory involving combat would explain away the PTSD.”

  Seth’s eyes lost focus, and I thought he shuddered. If I had to guess, his mind had gone back to some of the nights we’d spent together when nightmares had driven me out of bed in a cold sweat, trembling and gasping for breath. I’d insisted they were from my time in combat, and he’d seemed to believe me. When I’d asked him if I’d said anything during those nightmares—if I talked in my sleep or called out a name or something—he’d said I would say all kinds of things in the throes of those dreams, but it was never anything coherent. Never anything he could grab on to and identify.

  I’d always been relieved by that, not to mention terrified I’d let something slip while I was asleep.

  After a moment, Seth shifted his weight. “People in the Navy served in combat, didn’t they? Boots on the ground?”’

  “Some did. I never did. Couple of shipboard deployments, yeah, but never front line combat.”

  “But why didn’t the marshals just call your scars—the ones from the bullets—war wounds? Instead of doing plastic surgery?”

  I squirmed, suddenly itching in all the places I’d been scarred before the plastic surgeon had worked her magic. “Too many possibilities for questions. Civilians get really interested in wartime experiences, and veterans will ask for details like where you served, what the name of your unit was—shit like that.” I swallowed past the bile trying to rise in my throat. “And the marshals had a psychologist who flat out said that with the amount of trauma I have associated with those injuries, I’d be a lot more likely to get rattled and let something slip or mix up a detail.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t fun, getting those surgeries, but everyone involved agreed it was the safest thing under the circumstances.”

  “Holy shit.” He was quiet for a moment. “So… the nightmares. When loud noises made you jump.” He met my eyes. “Those weren’t from your time in the military.”

  I shook my head. “No. My time in the Navy was about as uneventful as it gets. The nightmares and the PTSD—those were—”

  “From being a cop,” he whispered.

  What could I do but nod?

  “Whoa. That’s…” He exhaled, slumping over the railing and rubbing his eyes. “That’s a lot to take in. I didn’t realize…”

  “I know.”

  The fact that he too was a cop meant I at least didn’t have to spell out that, yes, PTSD was a thing. The job wasn’t for the faint of heart. While Coeur d’Alene wasn’t exactly a crime-riddled cesspool, things happened. The occasional violent crime. Terrible car accidents. Domestic violence. Suicide. The kinds of tragedies that stuck with anyone. Seth hadn’t been to the scene of a mass murder or witnessed a fellow cop get gunned down, but he’d seen some things. He had nightmares sometimes, and I’d learned early on there were certain sounds and smells that could take him back to places he never wanted to revisit. Shortly after we’d started dating, he’d responded to a particularly bad domestic call. He’d never gone into detail about what happened, just that it was horrifying. For almost a year after that, the smell of burnt popcorn would nearly make him dry heave. I’d never asked him why because I still gagged at the smell of a particular household cleaner after a scene that no one in my personal life was getting the details about.

  He also had coworkers who’d transferred in from places like Detroit or New York or even Los Angeles looking for something quieter, and the trauma was plain to see in any of them. So… he got it. He knew what kind of trauma this job could inflict.

  Seth stared out at the trees. “All this time I thought you’d just been fucked up in Iraq.” He didn’t sound angry. Not really. Incredulous, maybe. Exhausted as he digested that yet another piece of my past—and, to an extent, our past—was a lie.

  Shifting his weight, he said, “You worked in Homicide, right?”

  I nodded. “I made detective the first time I took the exam, and made the switch over the Homicide two years later. I’ve, um…” I cleared my throat. “I’ve seen some things.”

  Seth chewed his lip. “I bet. And that was before what happened to you and your partner.”

  “Exactly. So the marshals needed something to explain away the PTSD episodes.” I half-shrugged. “A military background was the best option, especially since I spent enough time in the ranks to be able to fake the rest.”

  His quiet, dry laugh was unexpected.

  I cocked my head. “What?”

  “Just…” His humor faded as he turned around to lean back against the railing. “One of my coworkers has been convinced all this time you’re one of those stolen valor assholes.”

  I flinched. “Yeah. I know. I used to dread running into him because he’d always have some question at the ready to try to trip me up.” I paused, then admitted, “He almost got me a few times. There’s enough difference between the Army and the Navy, and the devil’s in the details.”

  Seth nodded slowly. “But you did serve.”

  “I did. I might’ve stayed in longer, but I’m a little too claustrophobic for ships.”

  Seth’s eyebrows rose. “You’re claustrophobic?”

  “Not in general, no. But when I’m floating around the ocean in a sardine can with five thousand people?” I shuddered.

  “Oh. Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun.”

  “It wasn’t. I asked about changing rates to a job that was mostly shore-based, but the fleet needed people in my rate. So if I reenlisted, I’d have another year on shore, and then I’d be back on a boat, and I just…” I shook my head. “I couldn’t do it.”

  His eyes lost focus, but flicked side to side a little, as if he were running through some thoughts or memories. Maybe going back to moments when I might’ve let that phobia show, like when I’d decline to go with his dad and brother on a fishing trip that involved sleeping on a boat.

  After a moment, his gaze sharpened again and met mine. “What about that story you told me about having to clean out your grandma’s attic when you were a kid?”

  I shuddered as that memory crawled over me. “It was my aunt’s house, but the rest of the details?” I nodded. “Yeah. Especially the part about hating being in that tiny, suffocating space.”

  “What about the spider?”

  I chafed my arms, then brushed the back of my hand over my jeans as if I could still feel that creature skittering across my skin.

  Seth laughed quietly. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Uh-huh. Arachnophobia and claustrophobia at the same time. Fuck that.”

  He studied me for a moment, then gestured at my arm. “What about that scar?”

  I ran my hand along the familiar silvery line just below my elbow. “Broke my arm falling off a horse at summer camp.”

  “So that was… That was true.” It wasn’t a question. More like he was filing it away.

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. As much as I wanted to tell him all the truth he asked to hear, it was still hard to admit the lies. Even the tiny, benign ones. “It, um… It wasn’t church camp, though.”

  Seth’s eyes snapped up to meet mine.

  I moistened my lips. “It was Boy Scout camp.”

  “Oh.” He tilted his head. “Why was that something you had to hide?”

  I took a deep breath. “Because I was an Eagle Scout. And there’s an article about it in the local paper, and the reporter included an offhand comment I made about how I was waylaid a little finishing my Eagle Scout project because…” I gestured at my arm.

  “Because you broke you arm falling off a horse at camp.”

  I nodded. “The broken arm from a fall off a horse isn’t too out of the ordinary. But tying it to the Boy Scouts made it a few degrees closer to my real identity.”

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “Even stuff like that can be used to find you?”

  “Yep. If someone’s really determined to hunt you down, you’d be amazed at what details can lead them to you.”

  Seth chafed his arms. “Fucking hell.”

  We stood in silence for a long moment, as if neither of us could figure out what to say. I sure couldn’t. After a while, I sipped my coffee, which had gone cold. “I’m still sorry for lying.”

  “I know. I just hate how easy it was for you to do it.”

  “It wasn’t easy. It never was.”

  “No, I…” He rubbed his eyes. “I guess I mean, how easily I believed it all.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I was only trying to protect myself and the people around me. Including you.”

  He nodded, though he didn’t look at me. “I know. I’m not blaming you or anything. It’s just a hard thing to process.”

  “And it’s hard to trust yourself to know when I’m telling the truth after I had to lie to you for so long.”

  Another nod.

  I still had no idea what to say. Wasn’t like I could blame him.

  Seth tapped his nails beside his coffee. “And I, um… Maybe while we figure this all out, we should, uh… Shelve everything else.”

  “Shelve everything else? What do you—” But then my brain caught up, and my heart sank. “Everything physical.”

  Gaze fixed on something in the distance, he nodded. “Yeah. It’s not that I don’t want to sleep together. I just—”

  “I get it,” I whispered, fighting hard not to put a reassuring hand on his arm. Nothing physical meant nothing physical. “If you’d rather not, then we won’t. It’s that simple.”

  He turned to me then, studying me uncertainly as if he thought I might rescind my agreement.

  “I mean it,” I said. “I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Okay. I’ll—” He stiffened, craning his neck slightly. Then he pushed back from the railing. “Shit. The captain’s calling.”

  I didn’t have time to tell him to go ahead and answer.

  He’d already gone inside.

  Chapter 15

  Seth

  I was admittedly relieved to have a break from our fraught conversation, but most of that relief was canceled out by Captain Anderson’s ringtone. Did I even want to know? Was he calling me back in to work because he really was too short-staffed to fill shifts?

  I grumbled some curses as I picked up my phone off the kitchen counter, though I schooled my tone before I actually answered. “Officer Byrne.”

  “Good morning, Seth.” Captain Anderson’s voice was guarded and uneasy, and my own guard went up because this man never called any of us by our first names. “I’m sorry to catch you when you’re out of town, but, uh…”

  Worry coiled in the pit of my stomach. Beside me, the sliding glass door opened, and Brandon gave me an is everything okay? look. To the captain, I said as casually as I could, “No, it’s okay. What’s up?”

  “I’m, uh…” There was some movement on the other end. Voices, too, I realized, along with what sounded like some radio chatter. Then everything was quieter, as if he’d stepped far enough away from the activity to have some relative privacy. “Listen, son. There’s really no easy way to tell you this.”

  My blood turned cold. I knew that script all too well. I felt around until I found the edge of the counter, and when I did, I gripped it for dear life. “Just say it. Whatever it is.”

  Anderson exhaled. “Officers were called to your place early this morning. Neighbor called 911.” He paused. “It looks like a possible home invasion or—we’re not sure. But… your housemate…”

  My heart dropped into my stomach. “Oh no. Is he…”

  A heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, Seth.”

  I couldn’t even breathe. My knees weakened, and I leaned hard against the kitchen counter to stay upright. “Are you… Are you fucking serious?” Captain Anderson wouldn’t joke about something like that, but I just couldn’t process that it was real.

  “Yeah,” he said evenly. “Looks like it happened sometime last night.”

  “Holy—” I almost choked. “How did it happen?”

  I swore I could feel him shaking his head through the phone. “The coroner is on her way. She’ll analyze—”

  “Just tell me,” I gritted out. “Based on what you saw. What happened?”

  Long, painful silence. Another sigh. “Single GSW to the head. Looks like it happened while he was asleep.”

  I closed my eyes as nausea rolled through me. There was cold comfort there, knowing Marcus’s death had been quick. That he probably never even knew he was in danger.

  How the fuck did someone get into the house, into his room, and shoot him? A light sleeper like him? That was insane.

  “Jesus Christ. I…” I paused, swallowed bile, and tried again. “Do you need me back in town?”

  The captain didn’t answer immediately. “The detectives are going to want to speak with you.”

  Shit. That was cop shorthand for “you’re not quite a suspect yet, but you’re not off the hook either.” I wanted to ask if he or the detectives thought I was involved, but I knew how these things worked. Even with my head reeling and clouded from shock, I could also guess that me booking it out of town on a moment’s notice the morning before my housemate was murdered would make me a person of significant interest.

  “Understood,” I rasped.

  “Where are you right now?”

  “My dad’s cabin in Washington state.”

  More silence. I knew what he was thinking. I was a potential flight risk, and I had about a four-hundred mile head start on anyone who might want to interview me or potentially take me into custody.

  I took a breath. “I can stay here and wait for an escort if you want.” I sighed. “I didn’t do it and I had nothing to do with it, but I know how this works. I get it, Captain. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  “I’m sorry, kid,” he said, and I believed him. I had a feeling he didn’t think I’d had anything to do with this either, but he had to do his job. “Listen, I want to talk with the detectives who are taking point. Stay put for now, and I’ll be in touch. You leave your phone on, you hear me? If we can’t reach you, that isn’t going to look good.”

  Numbly, I said, “I know. I’ll, uh… I’ll keep my phone on. The reception out here can be a little intermittent, but I’ll do the best I can.”

  “Thank you.” He paused. “I’m sorry, kid. I really am.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  We ended the call. I lowered my phone and stared at it, my head swimming as I tried like hell to process what he’d told me.

  Marcus was dead. There’d been a home invasion. Detectives were definitely going to want to speak with me because…

  Because they had to cover all their bases, and “housemate suddenly leaves town just before the murder” was a whole pile of red flags.