The South Beach Search by Sharon Hartley

Author:Sharon Hartley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TAKI CLOSED HER eyes and swallowed hard. Now what? If she told Reese about her plan to check out Key West, which sounded like an interesting place to live, full of creative people, if also expensive, he might track her down. If he did, she wouldn’t be able to resist him.

But if she simply said, “I don’t know where I’m going,” he would think she was even loonier than he already did.

And of course she couldn’t lie outright. Not that lawyers didn’t love to lie. Or what had the judge called it? Misrepresentation.

Just thinking the word made her stiffen, brought back her white-hot rage when she’d learned her father’s attorneys had misrepresented the facts about her mom, told lies that ensured her dad got full custody of his daughter.

Taki shook her head to clear her chaotic thoughts. Once again Reese had thrown her mind into turmoil.

“I haven’t gone anywhere yet,” she told him. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to find our property.”

“Any more psychics up your sleeve?”

Matching his lighter tone, she said, “We could always try a séance.”

“Why am I not surprised you know a medium? Not that I’m questioning your beliefs,” he added quickly.

“Yes, you are, but I’m actually kidding. I still think I should contact Bruce Mayhugh again,” she said.

“Taki, please. We’ve been through this.”

“I know, I know,” she said. “But you and your FBI people can be in on everything. Isn’t it worth a try?”

He seemed to mull over her suggestion. “I’ll discuss it with Javi. Would you consider wearing a wire?”

“A wire? You mean like a listening device so you could hear what goes on?”

“Right. We’d be monitoring you the entire time.”

While Reese proposed a few scenarios to see what she thought, Taki breathed a sigh of relief that Reese had stopped his probing. She couldn’t tell him where she was going.

Then, with a rush of total, gut-churning horror, she realized her half-truths to Reese were exactly the same sort of misrepresentation her father’s lawyers had engaged in sixteen years ago. They hadn’t told an out-and-out lie, either, just cleverly shaded the truth about her mother’s rebellious life as a young woman. The cruel way they’d portrayed her mother to the court left the judge no choice but to deny her custody of a nine-year-old daughter.

And those heartless misrepresentations had resulted in her mother’s death.

She’d misled Reese about who she was, hid the total truth about why she was leaving. She hadn’t told him the depth of her father’s cruelty.

Tears pricked at the back of Taki’s eyes. She sincerely tried to be a good person, one that made a difference in the world, who made people’s lives better.

But maybe she was no better than the people she was running away from.

* * *

JUST AFTER DARK, Reese pulled into Taki’s driveway and cut the Jag’s engine. Considering how late they had left Mike’s, they’d made good time. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

Finally, he turned to her. Illuminated by a soft glow from a porch light, she gazed at her hands clasped in her lap.

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