“Yeah.” Fucking damn. He did not mean to let that out. The plan was to change the subject, throw his boss-weight around. Not to answer and certainly not with such a weak word.
Garrett’s eyes widened. “You’re admitting you have big-time feelings for her?”
Wren grabbed on to the armrests of his chair then let go. The tiny indents from his death grip stayed behind. He had the sudden urge to walk around, maybe somehow exercise this feeling away, but he didn’t.
He opened his mouth then closed it again. Okay, yeah. He felt it now. This huge zoom of unwanted emotions. He wanted to write it all off as attraction, but they went so much deeper. He worried about her. Liked being with her. Felt better when he saw her. Even enjoyed arguing with her.
She challenged him. She made him hard.
God, he was in love with her. Like, right on the verge of losing it over her.
“I moved her into my house.” That had been the major step. The one that should have tipped him off since it was a pretty huge clue. It wasn’t as if he moved people from other cases into his house. “Even I have enough self-awareness to know that was big.”
“I thought that was for her safety.”
“That’s how I sold it, yes.” But he knew better. Not then, but now. It was so clear to him. Hell, he even liked the sound of her voice.
“You really have a problem now.” Wren was about to answer when Garrett dropped the file on his desk. “Here.”
Wren didn’t pick it up. That’s how they operated. Garrett gave oral reports with backup documentation. The system had worked from the beginning, and Wren didn’t mess with success. “What’s this?”
“It’s on her father.” Garrett glanced at the cover then back to Wren. “Actually, it includes some intel on Tyler, too.”
“I thought we agreed he likely wasn’t involved.” Last thing they needed to do was waste resources on a job where they weren’t getting paid. Wren also wanted to give Tyler some space.
“Emery’s dad has been poking around, asking about you. Doing internet searches.” Garrett didn’t explain how he knew that. Didn’t have to because the office had protocols for this. Ways of tracking keystrokes and getting into other people’s computers.
Okay, that was annoying but not really a big deal. “Is that really a surprise? I’m sleeping with the man’s daughter.”
“So you’ve said.”
Funny how easy that was to admit now that he’d admitted the rest. “Even for a mediocre father it’s probably natural to want to know who has walked into his daughter’s life.”
Garrett shook his head. “You’re not getting this.”
There was nothing light or joking in Garrett’s tone. No amusement. None of the usual crap he liked to say to drive Wren to frustration. He didn’t even smile.
Wren knew that was really bad. “Explain.”
“He’s searching for Wren. He’s been obsessively trying to track you—the Wren, you—for days.”
He got this part. He didn’t understand why Garrett kept dwelling. “Right.”
“He should only know the name Brian Jacobs.” Garrett hesitated for a second then continued. “You told me you didn’t give him your name on purpose, yet he knows to investigate the name Wren. He’s been looking into it since the night the boxes were stolen out of Emery’s apartment.”
The words came together in Wren’s head. Her father knew more than he should. There were a limited number of ways that could happen and Wren hated them all. “Shit.”
“I talked with the senator and the detective. Neither of them gave him your real name. You said no one else knows it except Caroline, who promised not to repeat it.” Garrett sighed. “I mean, I guess it’s possible but—”
“He got it from the boxes he took from her apartment.” He wasn’t having the man followed back then, but that was the answer. They could dance around it and try to come up with convoluted explanations or wrongly blame someone, but one answer rang true in Wren’s mind. He broke into his daughter’s house while he thought she was staying with Caroline and then he took papers about Tiffany’s case.
“We know Emery had a piece of paper with your name on it, part of it anyway,” Garrett said.
“She would have checked it everywhere. She’d have had files and a paper trail.” Because that’s what Wren would have done. He had some memory of them talking about this.
Even if she hadn’t told him, he’d expected the first thing she’d do with the name was check the name she’d found. The same was true of his birth name. By now she’d looked up every detail of the case against his father.
Garrett cleared his throat. Looked every bit the professional giving a presentation. “There’s more.”
Wren flipped the cover open, but the words blurred in front of him. He looked up at Garrett again. “Of course there is.”
“In the original detective notes from his meeting with Emery she talks about being at home that night. She never mentions her dad being there or hearing him.” Garrett walked around to the other side of Wren’s desk and started typing on the computer keyboard. “That piece comes in later and seems to be taken as gospel.”