Divulging Secrets

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2018 Lynn Burke

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-601-9

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Audrey Bobak

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  For the real Tom, Candace, & Archibald Reginald.

  DIVULGING SECRETS

  Lynn Burke

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  Lila

  I followed the two marshals carrying the four suitcases I’d been allowed to pack. Nothing personal, no documents. No electronics. I had been forced to leave behind Butter, my old tabby that I had gotten for my tenth birthday. The locket my late mother had inscribed with my name and gifted to me on my sweet sixteenth birthday still lay inside its velvet box, left with one last longing, loving gaze, same as I’d done with her in a satin-lined coffin five years earlier.

  Boston’s spring air chilled me through as we stepped outside, and I gladly climbed into the dark-windowed sedan, wrapped my sweater tight around me, and allowed myself one last look at the condo Papa had bought for me.

  Papa.

  My throat thickened, and welling tears blurred my vision. I had unknowingly helped him smuggle millions of dollars’ worth of stolen gems and jewelry to and from overseas.

  I had knowingly helped put him behind bars in return for leniency in my own sentencing. But freedom had cost me my life.

  Everyone and everything I had known for twenty-five years lay in my past, and a new beginning loomed before me. Where, I had no clue—and I couldn’t bring myself to care. My luxurious condo … gone. My group of friends … gone. The gym I’d been going to for yoga classes since moving to Boston for college … gone. The diploma I had received from Harvard Law School with Lila Scorzoni written on it would never hang on my wall.

  I followed the marshals aboard a small, private jet inside a hangar at Boston’s Logan. Settling onto one of the seats, I tipped my head back and shut my eyes.

  The knot in my stomach had twisted months earlier when my lawyer suggested testifying against Papa to save my own ass. The nauseating twist had yet to relent, but at least I’d lost those damn freshman twenty I’d picked up over the years spent in college.

  The only good thing to come from the fucked-up situation that was my life.

  I heaved a sigh and turned my head, opening my eyes as the plane sped down the runway. We lifted into the air, leaving my home behind. Forever.

  Drawing easy breaths had proven difficult since finding out Papa wasn’t the successful business man—honest one—I’d always thought. His communications business at the office building downtown worked as a front for his shady dealings. The board of six who had helped to oversee said company, nothing more than a band of thieves.

  Witness protection.

  My mind chewed on the two words, but I wondered how protected I would be. Four of Papa’s associates were in the slammer, thanks to me, and two who had last been seen overseas—one in Rome, the other in Paris—still wandered free. Two men with the connections and motive to do away with me. Money at their disposal and without doubt, thugs or hitmen on their payroll.

  Where could the WITSEC plant me that would be safe from such men?

  Nowhere, I feared.

  The sun sank out of the windows on my right as Long Island stretched into the dark blue far below on my left.

  “Drink?”

  The low voice jolted me back to reality, and I glanced up at Marshal Taft, one of the four men who would know Lila Scorzoni had become a different person. Four people. In the entire world.

  “Sure.” My voice rasped from the countless tears I’d cried in the previous year.

  “Coke? Sprite?”

  I sat up a little straighter and pushed my long blonde hair over my shoulder. “Got anything stronger?”

  He grinned, revealing perfectly straight, white teeth, and if I’d been in a different frame of mind and in entirely different circumstances, totally would have hinted my interest.

  “Bloody Mary?” he suggested.

  “Minus everything but the vodka.”

  “Rocks?”

  “Please.”

  He returned a few minutes later and sat beside me. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” I took the tumbler from his hand and attempted a smile.

  His hazel-eyed gaze studied my face. “I wish I could tell you everything will be all right.”

  My smile wobbled, and I sipped. The cold liquor slid down my dry throat and landed with a swish in my empty stomach.

  “I wish I could tell you it’ll be an easy transition.”

  “But, you can’t,” I tossed out and sipped again.

  “No.” His large hand covered his knee close to mine. Wide palm, long fingers—he could probably kill with that one hand alone.

  Marshal Taft’s confidence intimidated me more than just a little, his character was one that promised danger. He was the type of man men avoided confrontations with. The kind of man women swooned over with his buzz-cut dark hair and those thickly-lashed, piercing eyes.

  I turned away and stared out into the darkening, cloudless sky, unmoved. Numb to needs such a man reminded a woman she had.

  “Do you have any questions about our arrival in D.C.?” he asked a short time later.

  I shook my head.

  A safe spot where I would prepare for my new life. An all-paid, exclusive vacation for one traitorous daughter unlike the countless ones Papa had sent me on, insisting I get away once in a while.

  My throat thickened again, and I fought to swallow the vodka I sipped.

  Thinking up a new name is like naming a baby, Marshal Knight, the second of the two accompanying me on my flight south, had said while I packed. Eventually, you take on that identity. You become that person.

  Lying, I realized.

  Play-acting a life that wasn’t your own.

  Unable to be myself, the half-Sicilian, half-Irish only child of the man who had considered running for mayor the fall before being found out for the criminal he was.

  “You’ll have a say where you’ll live,” Marshal Taft said, drawing me back to the present.

  Old news, but I nodded.

  “You’ll even be able to choose your name.”

  I don’t want to change it. I lifted my half-empty glass, nodding once more only to acknowledge I’d heard him.

  “We’ll check in with you a couple times a week…”

  I tuned out my babysitter, turning my thoughts to memories of my innocent childhood. Our loving threesome family … Papa, Mommy, and me. We’d stuck together. Done everything as a family, including vacationing a couple times a year. Papa had helped me with my Algebra, Mommy my reading and spelling.

  When her second round of breast cancer stole her from us, Papa and I had become even closer. My rock, I’d called him. My reason for living, he’d claim in return.

  Tears slid down my cheeks, into the corners of my mouth, and eventually dripped off my chin. I didn’t care that they would ruin my silk blouse. Why the hell had I worn it, anyway?

  “Always look your best,” Mommy had always said, her blue eyes I’d inherited sparkling. “Dress to kill, even if you’re dying inside.”

  But I was already dead.

  ****

&
nbsp; Candace Lake, I signed for at least the five-hundredth time in the previous couple of weeks.

  Not bad.

  I studied the flowing script, hating I had a new identity, but loving I’d been able to choose it. The first name had popped into mind with no clue where it came from. The last I had taken because of my favorite author. Dark, raw erotic romance and BDSM at its best. Her stories were delicious with a capital D.

  But I no longer had my e-reader and its cloud loaded with pussy-tingle-inducing goodies.

  Thank God I had been my mother’s sole heir, otherwise I would be at my marshals’ and the government’s mercy, needing to budget out the tiny stipend afforded to others like me for such luxuries.

  High concrete walls enclosed my tiny courtyard. Children played in the one beside me, but I’d never met or seen either girl who enjoyed squealing at each other.

  A small bungalow in no-man’s-land Maine awaited me, a rental Marshal Taft had set up when I decided Maine would be as good a state as any. A backwoods, quiet place for me to begin my new, unwanted life.

  “I’m Candace Lake from the North Shore,” I mumbled to the threatening sky. Seeing as how I had a Boston accent, I couldn’t very well claim I hailed from North Dakota or the sticks of central Pennsylvania.

  “I recently lost both parents and decided to head north to escape the heartache. Mountains in my back yard, the ocean less than an hour to the east,” I muttered the lie into the empty air.

  A natural, Marshal Taft had said the first time we’d sat down together to go over my new past. He’d thrown question after question at me, and I hadn’t stumbled a single time over the lies. Papa had always said I had an answer for everything. Head-strong, opinionated, and quick-minded, I’d always had a story to cover my ass if late for curfew as a teen. Always had a reasonable excuse for being late with papers in college, too.

  I would have made an incredible lawyer—but I would never get the chance.

  I needed to make a life for myself, but not draw attention. A boring existence, void of family—and love. A relationship started with lies and hiding one’s true self would never endure the test of daily life together.

  Still, better than jail for all the items I had smuggled. Never mind I hadn’t known they were stolen. It was the aiding and abetting Papa. Obstruction of justice … and the list went on.

  Once I realized Papa couldn’t escape the consequences for his life as a criminal, I caved to the pressure. Pointed fingers and spilled my guts. Selfish, but necessary.

  Witness protection or protective custody. Who wouldn’t choose the first?

  One last psychological exam, and I would be ushered down the hushed, carpeted hallway I’d entered the capitol’s hideout by, security cameras at every turn, doors swishing open and shut as though on their own.

  Into a van without windows—same as when I’d arrived at Dulles—back into a tiny jet bound for Portland.

  A rain drop landed on my notebook, smearing my new signature, not that my chicken scratch wasn’t already ineligible, anyway. Hand on the door knob, notebook slash diary clutched to my chest, I gazed around the only exterior space I’d been allowed in weeks.

  I had written every day while sitting at the plastic table. Drank my coffee in the hard chair, imagining the sun rise as the sky above my concrete jail lightened. Wrapped in a blanket, jotting down a memoir that wouldn’t be given the chance to leave the WITSEC safe house.

  A waste of time and energy, but I’d had nothing else on which to spend my time.

  In the morning, I would leave for Maine. In the morning, I became Candace Lake for real. Lila Scorzoni would always haunt the shadows of my mind, but I felt confident I wouldn’t blow my cover.

  But I was confident, too, in Papa’s associates to exact revenge on the one who had single-handedly brought down their lucrative, illegal business.

  Chapter Two

  Tom

  My black-speckled rooster stretched out his neck and crowed at the sedan pulling into my property’s shared driveway.

  “Shut it, Archie,” I grumbled while brushing the dirt off my hands and standing from the raised bed I’d been transplanting pepper plants into.

  The car turned toward the smaller of my two houses a hundred yards away from the Cape I called home.

  Time to greet the new tenant.

  I started across the uneven land, skirting the stumps I’d yet to remove, Archibald Reginald the rooster still crowing and leading the way.

  She climbed from the back of the car, a curvy, short-haired brunette. The shape of her ass drew my gaze and held it. My cock twitched.

  I’d gone too long without getting laid.

  She turned, and a sucker punch-like oomph slammed me in the gut. Wide, blue eyes, square jaw, pouty lower lip … Christ, she was beautiful. She was also out of her element, dressed like a city girl with her designer clothes, makeup, and manicured nails.

  Two men had accompanied her. One removed suitcases from the trunk, the other approached me.

  Still crowing with his neck outstretched, Archie flapped his wings to avoid the man and made for the woman. She shied away, backing against the car, but Archie quieted and peered up at her.

  Huh. Archie hated everyone but me.

  “Charlie Taft.” The man stepped into my line of sight and held out his hand. From his buzzed dark hair to his boots, he reeked of military experience.

  “Tom Berkley.” I said, grasping his hand. “Marines?”

  “Army.”

  “Thanks for your service,” I said, releasing my grip.

  A knowing glint lit his eyes. “Same to you.”

  We stood around the same six-foot-four height, but I had a good twenty pounds of muscle on him. I peered around his head to find the woman still leaning away from my rooster, body pressed against the sedan’s back door. A stirring of what felt too much like my old protective nature rose in my mind. “He just wants to be petted,” I called to her.

  She didn’t move.

  Taft turned, and I followed him as he started back toward the car.

  Archie didn’t fight as I gathered him up and tucked him beneath my left arm. “Tom Berkley,” I said, holding out my free hand to my new neighbor. “I’m the landlord.”

  “Candace Lake,” she replied in a honey-smooth tone. Her hand fit snugly in mine, soft skin void of callouses.

  Not a working girl, I noted.

  And a superb liar.

  My cock twitched again as her fingertips slid across my palm, disconnecting our hand shake. I mentally ordered my cock to relax and smiled. “Welcome to Crooked Fence Farm.”

  Her gaze flitted across the cleared two acres of my ten-acre property, seeming to assess and calculate. Surrounded by woods, my five-year-old farm was finally starting to take shape. “Thanks,” she murmured.

  “So, where are you from?”

  Candace didn’t tense or still, but opened her mouth without hesitation while gazing at my Cape. “Saugus, Mass.”

  “I haven’t been to Boston in years,” I said, stroking Archie’s feathered head and testing her a bit like Taft had asked me to do when I’d spoken to him the day before. “What brings you to the sticks?”

  “Lost my parents a few months ago,” she replied, lifting her gaze to meet mine. Wetness coated her eyes. “Just needed to get away.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Tight lipped, she nodded and glanced at Taft, who had grabbed two suitcases. “My friends Charlie Taft and Danny Knight.”

  “Danny,” I said, dipping my chin toward the other marshal with mousy-brown hair. Another former military man, if I had to guess. “Door’s open. Keys are on the table. Make yourself at home, and feel free to rearrange any of the furniture. Give a shout if you need anything.”

  “Will do. Thanks.” Candace turned toward the house, Danny on her heels.

  Taft lingered until they disappeared inside.

  “Anything I need to know?” I asked.

  “Nothing more than you alread
y do.”

  “You got my number.”

  “Yes.”

  I nodded. “See you in a couple days.” I turned and strode back the way I’d come, Archie still snuggled against my side.

  Candace Lake wasn’t the first protected witness I’d rented the house to, but I had only agreed to another because the agency had all but begged. An ex-SEAL, I knew how to handle myself and guns. Once upon a time, I imagined I knew how to protect people, too.

  She would be in my periphery for a few months and gone on to her own place like most of the others. Candace had secrets, but so did I, and even though she roused my blood and protective nature, I wasn’t about to give into temptation.

  ****

  The next morning, I heard her approaching before Archie did. I squeezed one last squirt of milk from Betty the goat’s teat and shifted on the stool to face Candace.

  Head down, she gingerly stepped through the free-range area of my yard, travel mug in hand. Archie took notice of her and crowed, racing toward her. Candace stopped and glared at him as though wishing to see him plucked and in the stew pot.

  “Give him a little pet,” I said as he stopped in front of her, quiet, head lifted.

  Her lip curled. “I don’t think so.”

  Shrugging, I stood and grabbed the bucket before Betty could kick it over. “Are you getting settled in?”

  “Good enough.” She lifted her head and that sucker punch slammed into me again. Wariness filled her blue eyes and furrowed her brow. “Do you have any creamer? I remembered coffee, but almond milk isn’t cutting it.”

  “No creamer, but I’ve got fresh goat’s milk,” I replied, lifting the bucket.

  Her lip curled again, and she glanced at her travel mug. “I can’t stomach coffee without something to make it blonde. Guess I’ll give it a try.”

  “Come on in.” I turned toward the house, and Archie darted ahead of me, leading the way. He paused on the stoop and let out a short crow. “Give me a minute,” I told him while opening the door.