Running Wilde (2 page)

Chapter Two

New Orleans, LA

The two men weaving their way through the drunken crowd toward Lark Warren re
minded her of Vaughn. They had the same tough, ready-for-anything air about them, and her heart kicked hard with a familiar panic.

Had she been found?

No, that was impossible. On all counts.

And, dammit, she had to stop thinking of herself as Lark. She was Sage Evans now. Sage. Evans.

It had been three months since she’d erased Lark and became Sage, but she still couldn’t get used to the new name. Every other time she’d swapped identities, the mental shift had happened instantaneously—from her birth name to Violet Smith, then Violet to Rose Davis, Rose to Summer Harrison, Summer to Autumn Clark, Autumn to Robin Jones, and Robin to Lark Warren. It was a matter of survival, because she couldn’t slip up. Ever. But maybe she’d changed her name one too many times? Or maybe it was because she’d met Vaughn as Lark Warren. It was the name he knew her by, and she couldn’t shake the sentimental attachment to it.

But she had to.

She was Sage Marie Evans now, a blonde—thanks to L’Oreal and bi-weekly bleach jobs—slightly naive small town girl, who’d moved to New Orleans looking for excitement and ended up like so many others as a cocktail waitress at a bar on Bourbon Street. It was such a clichéd back-story in The Big Easy nobody bothered to check into it further, which was exactly what she’d been aiming for. Last thing she needed was for an employer to run a thorough background check and discover the real Sage Evans had been fifty-three years old when she died last fall of heart disease.

Of course those two nerve-wracking men headed directly to the back corner booth that had just opened up. The one in her section.

Oh joy.

She plastered on a smile and mentally slipped into Sage Evans’s skin as she walked over. “Gentlemen. Can I get you anything?” She gave her voice the lightest hint of a sweet Southern drawl, and the blond man grinned as he eyed her up and down.

“You certainly can,
cher
,” he said, and there was no mistaking the Cajun accent.

“Oh, a local?”

“
Oui
, caught me. Born and bred.”

She propped a hand on her hip. “What’s a local doing here? I thought you all avoided Bourbon Street in February.”

“Not me. This my home away from home.” He tilted his head toward his friend. “And it’s his first Mardi Gras.”

“Oh, yeah?” She studied the other man and, yes, he looked like an outsider. Even in February, he had a deep tan and wore a fedora over his dark, curly hair. His sense of style all but screamed SoCal, and her stomach clenched. What if…

No.

She shoved the thought away. Just her well-developed sense of paranoia talking. Really, what were the chances he was from LA? And even if he was, it was a big city. They couldn’t possibly know the same people. “What’s your name?”

He tipped the brim of the fedora. “Marcus.”

“In that case, Marcus…” She drummed up her flirtiest smile for him, because if he was from SoCal, he had money to burn, and God knew she could use the tips. She took one of the sets of beads from around her neck and looped it over his head. “Your first beads.”

“And I didn’t have to flash anyone to get them.” His smile was a gleam of white against his tanned skin and all panty-melting charm. “Maybe you’d want to earn them back…?”

“Nice try, but it’s against policy, and I need to keep my job.” She patted his muscled arm. “Don’t worry, you’ll find plenty of ladies outside willing to take them off your hands.”

“None as gorgeous as you.”

“Again, nice try.” This Marcus guy was exactly the kind of guy she’d fallen for in her other life—a tall, dark, and handsome-as-sin smooth talker who used his charm to conceal a deadly edge.

Actually, who was she kidding? That was still the kind of guy she fell for, because the description also fit Vaughn Wilde to a T. Well, except for the charm. Marcus had more of it in his pinky than Vaughn had in his whole hard body.

Would she never learn?

She straightened and returned her attention to the Cajun. “What are you having?”

“What you offering,
cher
?”

Marcus none-to-subtly elbowed his friend in the ribs and gave a slight shake of the head. Then his smile returned as he shifted his attention back to her. “What do you recommend?”

She sighed inwardly. If Marcus was warning his Cajun buddy off because he thought he had a chance with her, he was going to be disappointed. Her track record with men was scarily bad, and it was safer all around if she just stayed away from them. “Hurricane. Start off strong before the party gets rolling.”

“Sounds good. We’ll have that.”

She winked at him—because tips!—and gave her walk a little extra sway as she turned to go punch their orders into the computer.

Marcus called after her, “I didn’t catch your name.”

She glanced over her shoulder to answer, but she hesitated because she’d been about to call herself Lark, and that would have blown a hole in this new life of hers. God, she was so sick of moving, sick of new cities and new names and new crappy apartments. “I’m Sage.”

“Nice to meet you, Sage.” He held her gaze and smiled again, and a chill of dread scraped down her spine.

He knew. Somehow, he knew she was lying.

Oh, shit.

…

“This obsession with finding Lark is not healthy,” Cam said the moment Vaughn stepped through the door of Wilde Security.

Wel
l, fuck. He’d hoped Cam would be distracted from the subject by the time he arrived. Should have known better. And everyone always accused him of being the relentless twin.

He shook off the cold and stomped over to his desk where his laptop sat, still humming through the search he’d initiated two hours ago. “I haven’t been healthy in months. Why start now?”

“Goddammit, Vaughn. You gonna throw that in my face every time I get on you about this Lark thing?”

Yeah, that had been low of him. Cam already carried enough guilt around about the circumstances surrounding the bomb, and it hadn’t even been his fault to begin with. Vaughn had knowingly stepped into the line of fire to protect his twin, and to throw that calculated sacrifice in Cam’s face now was an asshole move.

“Sorry,” he muttered and sat down to scroll through his search results.

“This has to stop.” Cam shoved the laptop closed and rested his hand on the lid. His wedding ring sparked in the florescent overhead lights of the office, and some nasty emotion twisted in Vaughn’s chest. Something a lot like jealousy.

He hated that about himself.

He was thrilled for Cam and Eva. How could he not be? Their marriage had been a long time coming, and Cam was practically walking around with little hearts circling his head. It was pathetic, but he would not begrudge his twin that happiness.

Except…

The condo they had bought together was so fucking empty now that Cam had moved out. His twin had been at his side since day one, and now, less than a month from their thirty-second birthday, he was living alone for the first time in his life. And he didn’t like it one fucking bit.

He sat back and dragged his hands through his hair. It had finally grown out from the haircut he’d been forced to endure for their youngest brother’s wedding last fall, and he felt more like himself again.

He gazed up, saw the worry etched into his twin’s features, and sighed. “Listen. I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” Cam said. “You look like hell. I’m telling you, give it a rest. If you haven’t found her yet, you’re not going to.”

“I can’t. I’m too close.” He reached for the stack of papers on his desk and tossed them down one at a time so Cam could see each photocopied driver’s license picture. “Violet Smith, Rose Davis, Summer Harrison, Autumn Clark, Robin Jones, Lark Warren—different names, appearances, birthdays, social security numbers, and yet all the same woman. I know every name she has used since she first appeared on the scene five years ago—she always sticks to a nature theme, which leads me to believe her real name is something similar. She tends to steal her names from the recently deceased. I have her employment history for all of her aliases. She goes for just above minimum wage jobs—temp administrative assistant work, waitressing, bartending, nothing that anyone will run too deep of a background check for. I have most of her former addresses. I’ve even talked to some of her past acquaintances. It’s always the same story—one day, she just ups and disappears and nobody ever hears from her again.”

“Sounds like she’s running,” Cam said. “Which means she doesn’t want to be found.”

“Yeah, Reece said the same thing.” Their second oldest brother was a computer whiz and had been helping him uncover Lark’s past for the last few weeks. “Question is, running from what? Or is she just a common identity thief?”

Cam rubbed his jaw, then picked up the first paper in the stack, the picture that showed Lark as they both knew her, with streaky brown hair, blue eyes, and a Playboy bunny figure. “What do you plan to do when you find her, huh? Haul her back here for identity theft?”

“She broke the law. And if I can figure out her real name, I’ll probably uncover more criminal activity. People like this don’t wake up one morning and decide to start stealing identities. She’s been at this for a long time and needs to be held accountable.”

Cam handed the papers back. “We both know that’s not why you’re hell-bent on finding her.”

Vaughn grunted. The hairs on his arms prickled, like he was preparing for a fight he didn’t want. Twin or not, he wasn’t about to have that conversation with his brother. And the truth was, he couldn’t pinpoint why he had to find her. Hurt pride? Yeah, he had that in spades. Anger? Yep. She’d fucking lied to him about…well, everything. And…so many other messy emotions he didn’t care to dig around in, but it all swirled together into an inexorable need to track down the woman he’d known as Lark Warren.

Hands propped on his hips, Cam pushed out a breath in frustration. “All right,” he said after a moment. “At least let me help you.”

“Nah. I got this. Besides, didn’t Reece give you the case that came in yesterday?”

Cam rolled his eyes and went over to his desk as their incoming line rang. “Yeah, another cheating spouse. It’s about as interesting as watching paint dry.” He answered the phone, “Wilde Security.”

While Cam spoke to the caller, Vaughn opened his laptop again and clicked back to the internet. Before he’d gotten the itch to fight, he’d been frustrated by trying to trace Lark before she was her first alias, Violet Smith. If he could only figure out when and where Violet had come into being, he might be able to find—

“Vaughn,” Cam said.

“I’m busy.”

“No, man. You wanna take this call. It’s from one of Gabe and Quinn’s guys.”

Still typing with one hand, he grabbed the phone. He’d served on the teams with Gabe Bristow and Travis Quinn, and the pair had built up a solid private hostage rescue team over the last year. If one of their men was calling, it had to be important. “Yeah?”

“Hey, Vaughn. Marcus Deangelo.”

There was a lot of background noise, and he could barely hear the former FBI negotiator. “Marcus. What’s up?”

“That woman you and your brothers have been looking for? I think I found her.”

Vaughn froze. For a second, his brain didn’t comprehend the words. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Why would I?”

Holy. Shit. “You’re sure it’s her?”

“Dude, I have the picture you sent Gabe here on my phone, and I swear, I’m looking at that woman right now. She’s blonde and her hair’s shorter but…I have an eye for faces. Yeah, it’s her.”

Vaughn’s heart thumped painfully hard, and he shoved away from his desk. “Where are you?”

“New Orleans. She’s working at a bar on Bourbon called Elixir and going by the name of Sage.”

Sage. It fit her pattern.

“Do not let her out of your sight. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Uh,” Marcus said. “You do realize it’s Mardi Gras, right? Few more hours, this place is going to be packed to the rafters. How am I supposed to—”

“Do. Not. Lose. Her.”

…

At the end of Sage’s shift, Marcus and his Cajun friend still hadn’t moved from their booth. It put her on edge, though she couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe because they seemed like the k
ind of guys who enjoyed more than one drink during a night out, but they had nursed the hurricanes and hadn’t ordered a drop more of alcohol. For nearly six hours.

Or more likely, it was because she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were watching her.

Dammit. At the first niggle of paranoia, she should have known better than to stick around. Marcus must know her family, and if he had contacted them, she was so fucked that she might as well start digging her own grave now.

She’d grab her things and sneak out the back door, into the alleyway. Even if they wanted to chase her, they wouldn’t be able to get into the back of the bar without the door code and she’d be long gone by the time they made their way through the crowd on Bourbon. She’d go home, grab her emergency bag, and—

At the door of the locker room, she bumped into another waitress just coming on shift for the night. “Oh. Hi, Marcie. Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention.”

“No worries,” Marcie said and held the door open for her, giving her an assessing once-over. “Honey, you look like hell. Rough day?”

Sage worked up a smile. “It’s Mardi Gras.”

Marcie rolled her eyes and pulled off her T-shirt as she crossed to her locker. “Right. Dumb question.” She stuffed her purse and shirt into the locker and pulled on the black crop top that could loosely be defined as a uniform. Like all the other girls who worked at Elixir, her breasts strained the fabric and threatened to spill over the top. She tucked her girls into the shirt and did a little bounce to make sure they stayed put, then winked over at Sage. “But hey, good tips, am I right?”

“Yeah.” She felt her smile slipping, so she hurried to her own locker, changed into the sweatshirt and leggings she’d been wearing before work, and grabbed her purse. But the mention of tips gave her an idea. She spun back. “Marcie, there are a couple of guys in the back booth of our section—one’s a blond with a Cajun accent and the other has dark, curly hair. Good tippers, but they’ve been eye-fucking me all night, and it’s getting uncomfortable. Think you could throw a little distraction their way so they don’t see me leave?”