Undercover Twin

“Tell it to the judge.” He grabbed her arms and marched her out the door.

* * *

IN HER HIGH SCHOOL years, Heather had thought rock bottom was getting an A-minus on her trigonometry final exam, knocking her out of becoming the valedictorian.

In college, she’d thought rock bottom was flunking the GMAT and failing to get accepted into the master’s degree program at Jacksonville University.

Later, when she’d been denied the small-business loan she’d wanted to start a private investigation firm, she’d thought that must surely be rock bottom.

But none of those were rock bottom.

Rock bottom was being arrested by her former boyfriend—there could be no doubt about that—and being thrown in a concrete-block holding cell that reeked of vomit and urine. A holding cell that currently housed five other women who looked like they could kill someone every morning before breakfast and never bat a false eyelash.

Heather didn’t know where her sister was. The police had refused to answer any of Heather’s questions about Lily. And no one had come back to update Heather or even give her the infamous phone call prisoners on TV shows always got. Not that she had anyone to call. Lily was her only family. Her friends had given up on her long ago when she’d started working seven days a week to try to build a P.I. business. And Nick... She shied away from that thought.

She was so tired. She wanted to rest her head against the wall behind her, but she was too afraid of lice, or something worse, that might be clinging to the surface. Instead, she stood a few feet away, trying not to touch anything, trying to pretend the speculative looks from the other women didn’t send shivers up her spine. She was also trying her best not to give in to the urge to cry.

She was appalled that tears kept threatening to course down her cheeks. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, or the last time she’d even wanted to cry. She had Nick to thank for her jangled nerves. He’d judged her without giving her a chance to explain. He’d assumed the worst. Fine. Let him think what he wanted, but if there was any chance he was going to be the one to interrogate her—if anyone ever did bother to interrogate her—she wasn’t going to let him see her with red eyes and tearstained cheeks.

She didn’t want him to know how much his betrayal had hurt her.

A buzzing noise sounded and the door opened. A policewoman stood in the doorway and motioned for Heather to step out. “Miss Bannon, your lawyer is here.”

“My lawyer? But I haven’t even had a phone call.”

The policewoman shrugged, her lack of interest stamped in her jaded, world-weary eyes. “Do you want to see your lawyer or not?”

Heather figured the police had made a mistake, that the lawyer was there for some other prisoner. But if playing along meant she’d get out of the foul-smelling cell for a few minutes, she wasn’t going to argue. She stepped into the hallway.

The door buzzed closed behind her, and the policewoman led her down the hall to a door stamped with the words Interview Room. As she went inside, she braced herself, expecting to see Nick or a police officer waiting to grill her with questions. Instead, a stranger in a suit that looked like it must have cost at least a thousand dollars was sitting at a small table. He gave her a friendly smile and stood to shake her hand.

“Miss Bannon, I’m Anthony Greary, your attorney. A mutual friend hired me to help you out of this unfortunate situation.”

The door closed behind Heather. She shook the attorney’s hand and sat. “Mr. Greary, who is this ‘mutual friend’?”

“Someone who prefers to remain anonymous.”

The fine hairs on the back of Heather’s neck stood at attention. “I don’t suppose this friend is the man who gave my sister those bricks of cocaine?”

Greary glanced at the door and cleared his throat. “As I said, I’m here to help.”

She had her answer. And it really sucked, because she’d so looked forward to a good half hour or more out of her cell. She pushed back her chair and stood. “I think you have me confused with my sister. My name is Heather Bannon. My sister is Lily. We’re identical twins, but I assure you, we’re nothing alike in any way that matters. And I guarantee we don’t have any mutual friends.”

“There’s no confusion. I’m here to get both you and your sister released.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say that one of you has something my employer wants returned.”

Cold fear iced over Heather’s insides. He had to be talking about the cocaine. What would happen if he found out she’d destroyed one of the bricks, and the police had the rest? Her hands started shaking. She clutched them together and gave the lawyer a false smile. “Like I said, there’s been a mistake.” She strode to the door and banged on the glass window.

A policeman Heather hadn’t seen before opened the door, a surprised look on his face. “You have fifteen more minutes, ma’am.”

“There’s been a mistake. This man isn’t my lawyer,” Heather said.

The cop looked past her into the room. He shrugged and led her back down the hall to the holding cell. At the door, he paused and pulled a key card from the pocket of his shirt.

“Wait,” Heather said, desperation lending her voice a high-pitched tone. She really didn’t want to go back into that cell. What if the other women had banded together while she was gone? What if they’d formed an alliance, like on those reality TV shows, and had decided to beat up the new girl just for fun, as a way to pass the time?

Panic was making her think crazy thoughts. But crazy or not, she couldn’t help the tight feeling in her chest and the way her lungs were laboring to draw an even breath. She had to get out of here. Maybe she could talk to Nick for a few minutes and straighten this out. She hated to beg, especially when she’d rather punch him than look at him, but if she was here much longer they’d have to take her out in a straitjacket.

“Please, I need to talk to Nick Morgan and explain,” she said. “He’s one of the DEA agents who—”

“I know who he is, ma’am. But Special Agent Morgan isn’t here. And he specifically said that if you asked for him, he didn’t want to talk to you.”

Heather closed her eyes, squeezing them tight against the ridiculous urge to cry again. How could you, Nick? How could you judge me like this and throw away what we had, like I never even mattered to you?

She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. “I believe I’m entitled to a phone call. I need to call a lawyer to arrange bail.” Not that she could afford it. About the only thing she could offer as collateral was a four-year-old dinged-up Ford Focus that had an outstanding loan balance higher than what the car was worth.

“I’ll set that up,” he said. “But you need to wait in the cell for now.”

She managed not to whimper, barely. The policeman opened the door and impatiently motioned her forward. She steeled herself, took a deep breath and stepped inside. The odor of vomit hit her, making her eyes water, crushing the last remaining shred of affection she’d ever felt for Nick Morgan.

Chapter Two

Heather stood at the counter, rubbing her wrists, before taking the pen the policeman offered her. She could still feel the metal rubbing against her skin, even though the handcuffs had been removed. How long before she could forget that terrible night at the dance club, and being locked up for an entire weekend?

She scrawled her name across the form and handed it to the policeman in exchange for the belongings that had been taken from her when she was arrested. She deliberately checked her credit cards and cash in front of him. If the police didn’t trust her and thought she was so dangerous that they had to lock her up, she wasn’t going to trust them, either.

Satisfied nothing had been taken, she grabbed her keys. Wait. What good would that do? She plopped the keys back on the counter.

“Sir, officer, my car—”

“Is in the parking lot outside the station.”

Relief had her smiling back at him in spite of her intentions. “Thank you.” Darn it. She nearly bit her tongue. Why was she thanking him for moving her car from the club where she’d been falsely arrested? Bringing back her car was the least the police could do. Then again, it wasn’t this police officer’s fault. It was the DEA’s fault.

One particular DEA agent’s fault.

“Don’t thank me,” the officer replied. “Thank Special Agent Nick Morgan. He dropped your car off this morning, right after you arranged bail.” He turned away to help someone else standing beside her.

Why would Nick bring her car back for her? She certainly didn’t think it was because he cared about her. If he cared about her, he wouldn’t have arrested her. Or at the very least he would have come to see her, maybe even helped her arrange bail. As expected, the bail bondsman had rejected her car as collateral. She’d had to max out almost all of her credit cards to get out of jail. Having already emptied her savings to help Lily when she’d shown up a few weeks ago, Heather now was down to a paltry three hundred dollars in her checking account, and about five hundred dollars of available credit on her last credit card. No, Nick hadn’t dropped her car off because he cared. He’d dropped it off because it was his job.

She grabbed her keys and hurried toward the exit. When she stepped outside, she was tempted to drop to her knees and kiss the ground. But she’d already suffered enough humiliation this past weekend. She didn’t want to add to it by having someone see her on her hands and knees. Instead, she settled for pausing long enough to take several deep breaths of fresh air, reveling in the pine scent from the nearby trees that was worlds different from the air in the holding cell.

Going home to a hot shower was at the top of her list of priorities. After that, she’d call the client she was originally supposed to meet Saturday morning and try to convince him, without telling him any details, that she’d had an emergency and still wanted his business. She couldn’t afford to lose a client right now, not when her business was just beginning to make a profit and she had no more credit cards to fall back on to pay her bills.

Other than groveling to her client, she had no plans to work today, even though it was Monday. She hadn’t taken a day off in nearly a year. And there was no way she could work right now. She needed some time to recover from her ordeal, and she needed to talk some sense into her sister. They also both needed to speak to the pro bono lawyer the court had appointed to defend Heather, and figure out what they were going to do about the drug charges.