couple webpages had revealed that. Clark’s murder was all over the news, and so were pictures of a striking look-alike to Remy Lang, known in Newport Beach, California as Sabrina Tierney, top HR executive for OneDefense Corporation. A far cry from the assistant she was now. He’d stopped reading then. He wanted to hear it from her. Better yet, he’d rely on some strategic friends for better intel.
At last she gathered her wits and straightened.
“I didn’t kill him,” she said. “Tristan Coulter is trying to frame me for his murder.”
“Why?” His patience had already worn thin, and he struggled to hang on to what was left of it now.
“I was a friend of Kirby’s.”
He stepped forward. She stayed on the other side of the bed. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
Ramrod straight and still, she didn’t respond. Why would she? She’d assumed a false identity to escape the trouble that had chased her away from California.
“What kind of friend was Clark to you?” he said to help her open up.
Several seconds slid into the past before she turned and sat on the bed.
He went there and sat beside her, partly to let her know he wasn’t leaving until he had answers, and partly as a supportive gesture. He had no idea where the latter came from. The woman had lied to him. But he wanted her to tell him the truth.
“I met him at a conference,” she finally said. “We struck up a friendship after that. He wanted more. An opening came up at OneDefense, and he helped me get the job.”
“What conference?”
Again, she hesitated. “It was a gun show.”
A gun show. “You like guns?”
“I’ve taken up an interest recently.” She sounded almost sarcastic.
“What’s recent?”
“Over the past two years. But I’ve target practiced before that.”
She didn’t strike him as the type to have an NRA membership. “Did you know about the job when you went to the gun show?”
“No. The gun show was a few weeks before the job became available.”
“And you suddenly took an interest in a job at OneDefense? Didn’t you already have a job?”
“I worked for an insurance company that wasn’t paying well. Certainly not as well as OneDefense. And...”
And what? Had she known about the illegal gun sales? Had her allegiance with Kirby primed her to get in on the profits?
“Did you ever become romantically involved with Clark?”
Her eyes blinked. “As I said, he wanted more. I didn’t.”
He’d seen from pictures that Kirby Clark was an attractive man. Divorced. Available. Had she used him to get in on the gun sales? She claimed to be trying to gather evidence against Tristan. That much must be true. Lincoln had seen the envelope, and Tristan was trying to kill her. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have her own agenda where the gun sales were concerned. And she had developed an interest in guns before she’d met Kirby.
“Why was he murdered?” he asked.
That upset her. She averted her head and again didn’t reply immediately.
“We had plans to go for drinks and dinner one night. I was early getting to his office.” She looked up at him, and he saw the truth in her eyes. “Tristan was there. He was trying to convince Kirby to join him in his illegal operation. I couldn’t tell if Kirby was seriously considering it or if he was playing along to keep Tristan under control. Tristan saw me in the doorway. There were still a lot of people in the office building, so he didn’t do anything right away. He pulled me into Kirby’s office and closed the door. That’s when he told Kirby he thought they should get rid of me. Kirby argued with him, and eventually we were able to get out of the building.”
She lowered her head, tears springing to her eyes. “We were sure Tristan would try to kill me. We went for a quick dinner to make plans. He gave me Wade’s name and told me to leave California. When he drove me home, Tristan was waiting inside my house. He had a gun.”
Wiping away a tear, she took a pillow from the bed and hugged it, then slowly turned to look at him, cheek resting on the pillow. “Tristan found a knife in my kitchen and tried to stab me. Kirby stopped him. He and Tristan fought, and Kirby was stabbed. Tristan forced me to handle the knife. He was wearing gloves. He never used his gun and took the knife with him when he left. The police found it in a Dumpster near my house. As Kirby lay there dying, he told me to go as we’d planned. I called for help for him and did as he suggested. Now I wish I never had.”
Because going to Wade had led to more trouble. Lincoln reached over and touched her back, rubbing gently. “Did Wade help you the way Kirby said he would?”
“At first. He arranged a false ID for me. But he held that over my head, tried to get me to start buying guns through his store so that he could sell them illegally on the street. He was getting greedy. I refused, and he began to get violent. Then he discovered I was gathering information on him. Most of the money he made from the illegal gun sales went to Tristan. Tristan is running the operation.”
“Why was Wade killed?” Lincoln asked, although he already had a pretty good idea.
“He knew about Kirby, that Tristan was the one who murdered him. I told him. He must have threatened to go to the police.”
Because Wade wanted more money out of the gun operation. So Tristan had killed him. If what Sabrina was saying was true, she hadn’t known Wade was in on the gun sales until after she’d gone to him for help.
Lincoln believed her. She was telling him the truth. But there were some things she was keeping from him, such as why she’d gone to the gun show. Why would someone who worked for an insurance company take interest in firearms? He supposed it was possible. Lots of people had hobbies outside of work they didn’t share. But other aspects of Sabrina’s personality didn’t fit the profile of a gun enthusiast. Her femininity. Her relationship with her dog. Hell, the dog itself. Although a hunting breed, Maddie was no hunter.
Perhaps she’d known about OneDefense, taken an interest in the company and planned to get a job there. What drove her? What was she after? To expose Tristan? Or use what she had on him to get what she wanted? What could that be? Money? Or was meeting Kirby innocent?
Now that Tristan had thwarted her efforts to clear her name, what would she do? What would they do? It was time for him to take charge.
“Go pack a bigger bag. We’re going to California,” he said.
“What? No. The police are looking for me there.”
“They’re going to be looking for you here, too. If they haven’t pieced together Kirby’s murder and your false name yet, they will very soon.”
“How do you know that?”
“They’ll recognize you in photographs,
