At Any Cost (20 page)

“I am giving you a fucking break, Livy. Otherwise, I'd have cuffed you by now.”

Harsh? Maybe. But it needed to be said. Nick had given her a lot of leeway and so far, Livy hadn't done anything to assuage his suspicions or doubts. He didn't want Morgan to be right, damn it. But Livy had done little to deny her involvement with Joel or her father's death. The guilty always professed their innocence. He'd heard the same spiel too many times to count. Or did she simply realize she'd been caught and didn't see the point? Either way, her continued silence on the matter drove him crazy.

Livy held out her hands. “Don't let me stop you. Arrest me.”

If he didn't think she'd take off, he'd get his damned cuffs from his cabin and slap them on her just to make a point. “I need you to start talking, Livy. Or you're going to give me no choice but to arrest you.”

“Does it matter what I say?” Her eyes narrowed and she wrapped her arms around her torso as though the simple act were the only thing keeping her whole. “You've already passed judgment on me. You already think you know what happened. Whatever I say, you're going to assume it's a lie.”

God she was stubborn. And frustrating the shit out of him. If she were any other suspect, he would have read Livy her rights by now. He flung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his jeans. Sitting under the sheet, naked, wasn't going to help him to gain the upper hand.

“That's bullshit and you know it.” Nick scooped up his jeans. He stuffed one leg and then the other inside and stood as he pulled them over his bare ass. “I know you're scared, Livy. I know you're worried. Let me protect you.”

“Let you arrest me. Isn't that what you mean?”

Nick felt like throwing something. “If you don't stop acting like a spoiled kid, then yeah. I'll happily arrest you if that's what it takes to keep you safe. You've done a damned good job of keeping yourself hidden for the past four years but if I can find you, that means Meecum can find you.”

Livy's expression changed from anger to stark fear. “Exactly,” she said more to herself than Nick. “Which is why I've got to get out of here.”

“That's not going to happen,” he replied. “You're not running again. I won't let you.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Nick was right. She couldn't run.

He was also right that if he'd found her, so could Joel. She'd known it was time to pull up camp when Nick first came to town. She should have trusted her instincts rather than let him get under her skin with his Prince Charming smile and sexy talk. Nick had been her fatal flaw and that scared the ever-loving shit out of her.

Livy let out a bitter bark of laughter. “I can't believe what an idiot I am. A cop lands right next door and I start to think of it as some sort of blessing! And you were so charming, so good at putting me at ease. I thought I could trust you, Nick! Hell, I was ready to spill my guts to you. You were working an angle the entire time.”

Nick's expression darkened. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

The hurt Livy tried to squash rose up inside of her like a tide. “You know damn well what that means! You fucked me into a false sense of security so that you could pull the rug out from under me when I was good and vulnerable.” His jaw squared and he took a lunging step toward her. Livy didn't cringe away. She was sick and tired of being afraid. Instead, she stepped right up to him. “Deny it, Nick. I dare you to.”

“You're goddamned right I'm going to deny it.” Livy had always known that Nick had a dark edge. She saw that darkness now in the anger that shadowed his handsome features. “What happened between us has absolutely
nothing
to do with this investigation.”

“Is anything you told me true?” She couldn't keep the tremor from her voice. His betrayal burned in her chest. “Did you make up that story about your sister? To make me think that you were sympathetic? To make me think that I could trust you?”

His gaze further darkened. “A guy just like Joel Meecum attacked my sister when she was a fucking
kid
.”

She let out a sad chuff of breath. “And you slept with me even though you thought I was the ex-girlfriend of a man who'd do something like that. Looks like you really will do anything to get your man.”

He flinched as though she'd slapped him. Maybe it was a low blow but Livy was too angry to care. Too hurt to care. So damned devastated by the truth to give a single shit about the words she flung around.

Livy slumped down on the small wicker chair beside the bed. All of the indignant fire drained out of her in an instant. She'd gone too far, accusing him of making up the story about his sister. The depth of hurt in his eyes was proof enough of the truth. She'd been angry with Nick for deceiving her but who was she to judge? She'd been lying about who she was for a long damned time. It was the way he'd wormed his way into her heart that laid her low. To know that he'd gotten close to her in the name of serving justice stung. Livy had thought—had hoped—that Nick wanted her for her. That she meant something to him because of the person she was, not what she could do for him. All of her plans yesterday to come clean and turn herself in had been waylaid by her feelings for Nick. She'd worried about how his feelings for her would change once he knew the truth. She loved him. And all she was to him was a gold star on his arrest record.

That didn't change the fact that she was ready for all of this to be over. Livy had let her own stupid heart get in the way of confessing the truth to him. The truth
hurt
. It was time to tear off the Band-Aid.

“I was never in a relationship with Joel Meecum.” She did nothing to curb her indignant tone. Livy cleared the emotion that clogged her throat. She couldn't meet his gaze and so she kept her own locked on the wood floors. “I didn't even know who he was until about five years ago. My mom's hospital bills were out of control and neither one of us had the money to pay them all. I went looking for my dad for some stupid reason.” The vice of bitter emotion squeezed her chest. Livy drew in a shuddering breath as she gave a rueful shake of her head. “I guess I thought he'd feel bad for leaving us high and dry. That his guilt would force him to help my mom since he'd never done a damn thing to help me. What I didn't realize about him was that he didn't give a shit about anyone but himself and in the end, that selfishness got him killed.”

“Livy.”

She held up her hand to silence Nick. “Don't. If you don't let me get this out now, I'm never going to be able to do it.” Livy felt the weight of his stare but she refused to look at him. If she did, she'd break down for sure. “I found him in Oakland, which really stung since he couldn't even be bothered to drive the three measly hours to Tahoe to see me. He was working as an accountant, and he offered me a job as his secretary. Can you believe that shit? Not a dime of child support in eighteen years and the jerk offers me a job. You know what's worse? I took it. I'd been skiing my entire life. It's not like the job prospects were pouring in. I worked for him for three months before I realized what he was up to—what I'd been helping him to do. He was laundering money for gangs, drug dealers. . . .” Her voice quavered and she forced it to steady. “Motorcycle clubs. Apparently it was the best scam he'd ever run. They didn't notice a few dollars here or there gone on top of his fees,” she said. “Not when they were sometimes cycling hundreds of thousands of dollars through him.”

Livy's limbs shook with unspent adrenaline. Already she felt lighter getting some of this off her shoulders, but it wasn't enough. It didn't matter anymore how Nick felt about her or why he'd done what he'd done. She needed to do this for herself. For her own peace of mind and conscience.

Nick's voice stretched out between them, warm and solid. “So he was embezzling the money he was supposed to be laundering?”

Livy nodded though she still couldn't look at him. “I wouldn't have known about it at all but I overheard him bragging about it to his girlfriend one day. I confronted him and he promised to help pay Mom's medical bills if I agreed to keep my mouth shut.” It was a shame that had blighted Livy's soul. That she'd trade her own integrity for a shallow promise and dirty money. “I'm not proud of myself for it, but I didn't think we had any other options. Of course, giving my dad a free pass didn't change anything. He kept stringing me along. Told me that if I stayed another week, and then another, he'd wire the money to my mom. I worked at his shithole office every day for an entire summer, watching thugs, murderers, and criminals cycle their dirty money through his dummy corporations, waiting for him to finally step up and take care of us. That's how I met Joel.

“My dad had been laundering and stashing money for him for a couple of years. He was also the person my dad was skimming the most from.” Livy let out a bitter laugh. “I guess he thought a stupid biker wouldn't catch on to what he was doing. That he wouldn't watch his money as closely as the drug dealers did.”

“Joel Meecum isn't stupid,” Nick replied. “If he was, we would have found him a long time ago.”

That was the truth. “I knew if Joel ever found out what my dad was up to, he was as good as dead and I realized too late that he was never going to give me or my mom any money. He was scamming me like he scammed everyone else. I went to his office to tell him I was leaving and when I got there, my dad was packing up his shit as fast as he could get it into boxes.”

Livy finally met Nick's gaze. She couldn't tell if the anger that furrowed his brow was directed at her or simply the story she told him. At this point, did it matter?

“I didn't even get the chance to ask him what was going on when we heard the motorcycles pull up.” She sighed. “I guess it was lucky for me that Harleys with straight pipes are loud. My dad shoved a ledger into my hand and forced me into a closet. I hid behind a stack of boxes and listened to Joel beat my father to death.”

The tears that she'd refused to allow herself to shed spilled over Livy's cheeks. She hated her dad for leaving her and her mom. For failing to take care of them. For making their lives so much harder than they'd had to be. But she'd never wished him dead no matter how much she hated him. And she'd never had to endure anything as frightening and gruesome as the long minutes she'd hidden in that closet and been forced to listen to her dad die.

“Jesus.” Nick's single word pierced the quiet.

That pretty much summed it up. “I think I waited in the closet for three hours or longer before I figured it was safe to come out.” Livy swiped at the tears that cascaded over her cheeks. “There was blood everywhere. My dad was on the floor, dead. I took the ledger and I ran.”

“Joel must have come back later for his ledger,” Nick said more to himself than Livy. “That's why he's looking for you.”

“No. I screwed up,” she said through her tears. “I figured he'd come after me next if he couldn't find it so I left him a message telling him I had it. I thought I could use it as leverage. I told him that if anything ever happened to me, I'd turn it over to the cops. He knew I wouldn't, though. I couldn't trust anyone so I took his stupid book and I ran.”

“This ledger,” Nick said, “it's got financial records in it?”

“Yeah. I know it back to front. I can tell you the names of every single person he's ever done business with. What they muled, traded, sold, or smuggled and for how much.”

“God, Livy. No wonder he put the word out that you were an ex-girlfriend. If any of his business associates had known why he was really looking for you, they would have killed him before they went after you.”

She'd never thought of that.
Good Lord
. It was a miracle she'd survived so long without someone finding her. “I learned a thing or two in the few months I'd been hanging out with my dad. A friend of his made me a fake ID and set me up with a new Social Security number. And as far as my dad was concerned, there was nothing to connect him to me. His entire life, he'd never told anyone he had a daughter. The only person who'd ever met me besides his friend Bruce who did my new ID was his girlfriend, and Joel and he didn't tell them I was his daughter. How's that for a daddy-daughter moment? I'd been using my mom's name since I was seventeen so I knew no one would connect me to my dad but I changed my last name to Gallagher to protect my mom.”

“Why didn't you go to the police, Livy?” The anger in Nick's voice gave way to concern and it sliced through her. “Running only makes you look guilty.”

She knew that but at the time she hadn't trusted anyone. “My dad told me that Joel had police, FBI, and customs agents on his payroll. I couldn't go to anyone local and I was too afraid to reach out to anyone out of state. I had no idea how far his reach was. He's in business with people from
everywhere
, Nick.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Who could I trust?”

“
Me
.” The forcefulness of the word caused her to look up. His gaze bore through her, the intensity of his dark eyes and the emotion there left her feeling too full of emotion and shaken. “You can trust me, Livy.”

The glow of headlights shone through the upstairs window. A fresh wave of fear crashed over Livy and pulled her into its undertow. Her breath stalled in her chest and no matter what she did, she couldn't draw in enough air to fill her lungs. Black spots swam in her vision and she swayed on her feet. Two in the morning wasn't exactly a prime time for company. Nick had found her. Easily. Who else had managed to figure out where she'd hidden herself?

“Don't move.” Nick held his arm out as he eased his body toward the window. He kept his back flat against the wall as he peeked through the partially closed curtains to the driveway below.

Don't move?
Livy didn't think she could take a single step if she tried. Paralyzed with fear, she had no choice but to wait for Nick's assessment of what was going on in her driveway and pray for the best. Maybe some drunk idiot had gotten lost on his way home. She'd deal with a shit-faced asshole and face the consequences of turning him in for a DUI any day of the week over a visit from Joel Meecum and his band of violent thugs.

“Livy?” Nick's careful tone sent a renewed spike of fear through her bloodstream. “Does this place have a basement?”

“N-no,” she stuttered. “There's an old food cellar under the laundry room, though. It's not much bigger than a closet. I've never used it.”

“You're going to use it,” Nick said. “We need to get downstairs. Now.”

“Why?” Violent tremors shook her and Livy remained planted to her spot on the floor. Nick spun and grabbed her by the elbow. He hauled her against him and rushed down the stairs, all the while helping her along. “What's going on, Nick? Who's here?”

“I'm not sure.” They hit the bottom of the stairs. The house was cloaked in darkness but Nick urged Livy to hustle through the kitchen hunched over and below the windows. “I counted five bodies total.” Once in the laundry room, Nick eased Livy behind him. “Where's the cellar?”

Livy pointed to the floor. “There's a trapdoor under that rug.”

Nick swept the rug aside. He lifted the door and urged Livy down inside. “Don't come out until I give you the okay, do you understand me?” She stood there, gaping, unable to acknowledge the fact that he was about to stuff her into the cellar while he ran off and possibly risked his life. “Livy. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Her teeth chattered with every word. It was a wonder she got anything past her lips.

“Good.” Nick reached for the trapdoor and lowered it over her head. Livy slid down the last three stairs, her legs no longer able to support her weight. “Now, be quiet and don't move.”

Holy shit, this was bad. Livy didn't need confirmation to know that Joel had found her. They were both as good as dead.