He didn’t rush to defend himself, though the temptation hovered right there. His heartbeat kicked up and the revving started inside him. “Where did you get Wren’s name and how are you tying it to something that happened years ago?”
“Tiffany’s father kept files. Boxes and boxes of information he’d collected on the abduction.” Emery’s white-knuckle grip on the armrests of the chair eased as she looked back and forth between him and the senator. “When he died, I got them.”
“Got them?” Wren doubted they just fell into her car.
She shook her head. “That’s not important.”
“I sense it is, but go on.” Every bit he learned about her proved just how resourceful she was. How dedicated. If she weren’t throwing around wild and baseless accusations he might have taken a minute to be impressed. Instead, he waited for more intel.
“There is a notation about this Wren and I’ve searched everything. It took me forever to figure out it was a person.” She leaned forward as she talked. With every word she became more passionate, more intense, as if she were desperate to win them over. “I don’t know if Wren is a first name or a last name, but I’ll figure it out unless you want to save me some time and just tell me.”
Wren knew she was headed in the wrong direction, so he poked around in what could be the right one. “When did he die?”
“Gavin Younger? Last year.”
A wall. Wren hated those. Now for the tougher question. “And Tiffany is—”
“She’s never been seen again. There are no other leads.”
He could see Emery swallow. He rarely let emotion lead him, but in that moment her frustration hit him in a rush. Her need to find answers almost pulsed off her. “I’m sorry, Emery.”
She shifted in her chair. “If that’s true, point me toward Wren.”
“You have a bigger problem than identity.”
She gave him one of those men-are-so-stupid sighs. “Do you ever just talk like a normal person?”
The senator shrugged at him. “Hey, it’s a fair question.”
Since he had no idea what they were talking about, he kept going. Focused on Emery and willed her to listen. “I fear your basic information is incorrect.”
Emery’s eyes narrowed. “Which part?”
At least she was listening. He took that as a good sign. “All of it.”
Emery looked at the senator. “How is this helping?”
“Brian knows Wren better than anyone else.”
Emery’s gaze flipped back and forth between the senator and Wren. “Your name is really Brian.”
Sheila nodded. “Brian Jacobs.”
He felt like he was riding a runaway train. In another second or two the thing would careen and crash. He could feel it coming. Sense the trouble closing in, but not for the reason Emery or Sheila might think. No, they were heading for disaster because he hovered on the brink of doing something really fucking dumb. Something he never did.
“But he’s not Wren. He can’t know what his boss was doing years ago.” Emery’s arms tightened around her middle. “Wren does pay his salary after all.”
“I’m going to let Brian answer that one,” Sheila said, then looked at Wren.
If he didn’t end this soon the tension building in the room would suffocate them. There was an obvious, easy way to handle this. An answer he could give about knowing Wren for a long time. About background checks and other garbage that should throw Emery off. But it wouldn’t work for long. She was not one to be sidetracked.
He’d met people like her before. All of them in a business context and all insisting they could only deal directly with Wren on a deal. In the role of Brian, he pushed back. He should do that here. Of course. That’s what made sense. That’s what would preserve his image and the ruse and . . . what had Sheila called it? The curtain.
But he wasn’t a man who let his life be limited by what he should do.
“Wren has never heard of Tiffany Younger.” He said the words with a bit more bite in his voice than he intended.
Emery frowned at him. “And you know this because . . . ?”
It was time to lie or go all in. “I do.”
She frowned. “But how?”
“I’m him.”
CHAPTER 6
Emery jumped up from the chair. With that news it was a wonder she didn’t leap right out the window. All she could do was stare at the man who sat there as if he hadn’t just spilled one of the biggest secrets in the DC metro area.
The senator whistled. “I did not see that coming.”
Brian or Wren or whatever his name was just shook his head. “Me either.”
“What is this?” She couldn’t form a more coherent sentence, so she went with that one.
He had the nerve to hold his hand up, as if he were trying to soothe her. “Settle down.”
That tone, all smooth and cool, called out to her to punch him. She couldn’t figure out if he meant to be condescending or that was just his natural state. To be fair, she couldn’t figure out a lot of things because she could barely think.
She’d memorized those files. She saw the word Wren written in her uncle’s heavy scrawl almost every time she closed her eyes. And now . . . this.