“He had everything to do with this! He told his wife that he was working on a big exposé, something huge. He claimed to have seen a pattern in the data he stole.”
She blinked, utterly confused. “Wait a minute, are you talking about Dennis?”
“Yes, Dennis. Your married ex.” He said the words with biting distaste.
“You think I was having an affair with Dennis? No! We weren’t lovers. We were friends.”
“Friends who have sleepovers?” he asked snidely.
“What are you talking about…? Oh…no, he stayed over at my place one time, and that was because he’d had too much to drink. The same night he told me about the…data.”
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. “So you admit you know about it.”
“Yes,” Shanice replied in a small voice. Suddenly very tired, she placed the backpack on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. “Instead of driving home, I told him to sleep on my couch.”
“He could have called a Lyft or a cab,” Cruz said pointedly.
“Why spend money when I had an available couch and he was my friend?”
Cruz examined her, searching for the lies in her statement. She didn’t flinch or avert her eyes. This time she was telling the truth, and she wanted to make that clear. There was no romantic relationship between her and Dennis.
Cruz dragged the rolling chair in front of her and sat down. “Tell me everything.”
“Before I do, will you tell me something?”
“What?”
“What’s your name?”
“Vicente,” he said in a clipped voice.
“No, your real name. Not the one you made up to get close to me and make a fool out of me.”
“I didn’t make a fool out of you.”
“So you were genuinely planning to pursue a relationship with me?”
She didn’t know why she kept pushing him—why she kept wanting him to say that she was wrong and that he really did care for her. Was it simply because she cared about him? She couldn’t get rid of the sour taste of betrayal, no matter how much she tried.
He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re a difficult woman. Before I tell you my name, I need to know you won’t try to run again. You need to decide now. Are you going to take your chances on your own, or take your chances and stay with me? What’s it going to be?”
She hesitated, but in retrospect didn’t have much of a choice. “I’ll stay with you,” she answered in a low voice.
Her actions had been impulsive, and the thought of endangering her mother had never crossed her mind. He studied her for long moments, and she waited with tight insides.
Finally, he responded. “Cruz. My name is Cruz, and that’s all I can tell you for now. You have to trust me, because I’m your only hope.”
She didn’t know if what he’d told her was true, but she had no choice but to believe him at this point. Even if he didn’t have genuine romantic feelings toward her, he did have a point, that he’d saved her life tonight.
“Okay. Cruz.” Trying out his name, she decided she liked it. “I need to explain my relationship with Dennis, because you have it all wrong. We were not lovers. We were always only friends. We went to high school together and lost touch but ran into each other at a bookstore a few years ago and developed a friendship. At the time, he was going through a rough patch with his wife and things weren’t getting any better. I happened to be going through a rough patch with my boyfriend at the time—that’s who I thought you were talking about. We comforted each other, that’s it. He listened to me complain, and I listened to him complain. We gave each other advice. A true, genuine, trusting friendship developed from that.”
She stopped for a moment, watching him to make sure he didn’t doubt her words. She couldn’t tell whether or not he believed her because his face didn’t give anything away.
“Continue. How did he end up with the data?”
“It was all part of an investigation he was working on. Whenever he was working on something big, he tended to be very secretive about it, so he wouldn’t give me much information, except to say that it was a big deal. The night he stayed at my apartment, he told me more. He had a list of names, but he never said anything about national security. What he did tell me was that Logan Investors was under investigation for questionable practices in real estate development.”
Cruz leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Who the hell is Logan Investors?”
“They’re based out of Houston, but they have developments all over the country—condominiums, apartment complexes, and commercial space. The Logans are stinking rich. Billionaires. The owner and head of the company is Randall Logan and he has all kinds of political connections. He’s like a god in Houston. Dennis was working on something huge regarding him. The only problem is, I think they must have found out and picked him up.”
“Who picked him up?” Cruz asked. His eyebrows had formed a deep vee as he listened.
“The police. They grabbed him at home, at the apartment he was renting. They accused him of using cocaine. And yes, he had a drug problem in the past, but he’d been clean for a long time and wouldn’t have started using again.”
“You don’t know that. People slip up and go back to rehab.”
“We were close—best friends. I knew him, and I would have known if he was using again. He was fine. Better than fine. He was even optimistic that things would work out between him and his wife, and they were talking about getting back together.”
“She mentioned that,” Cruz said slowly.
“See? He wouldn’t screw that up, because he looked forward to having his family back. Plus he was busy with this investigation and mentioned more than once that this could be his shot at a Pulitzer. This exposé was his big break, a way to prove that he was worthy of being with the niece of Senator Sandoval. He called me from jail and told me not to come down there because he didn’t want me to get involved. He said the cops planted the drugs in his apartment, claiming they’d received a tip.”
“So you’re saying that Randall Logan had the police in his back pocket and got them to arrest Dennis?”
Shanice nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. Dennis was scared, and before he went to jail he told me about his concerns. He told me not to trust anyone with the information he’d given me.”
“So he gave you the names?”
“Yes, he did. But before I left Texas, someone broke into my apartment. Dennis was old school and used notebooks all the time. He had a separate one with that list of names and asked me to hide it for him, as insurance in case something happened to him. But when they broke into my apartment, they found the notebook in the hiding place and took it.”
“If they took the notebook, then why were they after you tonight?”
“Maybe because I called the FBI earlier today, after you and I talked.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them that I had the list. But I got scared at the last minute and hung up when one of the agents came on the phone.”
Cruz straightened in the chair. “What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. Why would you tell them you had the list when you just told me the notebook was stolen from your apartment?”