Page 13 of Deadly Lies

“Did she know you were NCIS?”

“No, she didn’t. She knew me as Autumn.”

And then an idea hit me.

It was crazy. But it had been done before.

The same idea that must’ve hit Mia when she went undercover as Ksenya.

“Mia, we can’t give up. I can find her. Follow her. Make her trust me. Find out her secrets.”

“How are you going to do that?”

My heart raced. “I have to become Autumn again.”

Autumn. I had buried her deep in my soul. An undercover job that I never wanted. An undercover job that humiliated me. But part of me was Autumn. That carefree, sweet stripper with a dirty mouth. Autumn didn’t judge. She loved everyone. She wanted to help.

Maybe in general I should be more like Autumn. Mitch would love her.

And she would now do what Ashley couldn’t do during the Joaquín Cruz case. She would get to the bottom of this mystery. She would figure out if and why Joaquín had lied. She would figure out whose body was carted away. And she would figure out the secrets of the Se7en Deadly SEALs. If it was the last thing she did.

7

Mia

ASHLEY LEFT ME ALONE IN the hotel room so she could go gather what she needed to transform back into Autumn. Of course, she was an NCIS agent, but she hadn’t even asked permission to do this. And I doubted that she would. She was willing to risk her career to see if Tiffany was alive.

And now I was back in the same hotel that I had spent the night in after Grant and I had become engaged. I closed my eyes and tried to remember how happy I had been that night. Happy that for that brief moment, I had something to look forward to in the future.

But now, I had to focus on the past.

Joaquín.

I needed to see him. Speak to him. Alone. If he was going to lie to me, I wanted to look in his eyes.

There was no chance he would be open with Ashley, but maybe, just maybe, he would tell me the truth.

He owes me that. After he ruined my life.

I paused. Did he ruin my life?

Or had he saved it?

My mind was flooded once again with all the what-ifs. All the ways I had explained the case to myself at first came rushing back. Before Joaquín told me to my face that he had been the one to rape me, or, as he’d called it, made love to me.

But I had never believed him. Ever. Even when he stood before me and forced me to undress at gunpoint, to show him how much I loved him, I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t.

And maybe now, I didn’t have to.

Visiting hours were tomorrow. Tomorrow, I would sneak off and confront my brother. I needed to find out about Tiffany. And more importantly, I needed to see if she had anything to do with Sienna’s disappearance.

I picked up the phone and called Annie.

“Hey, Mia. Julián is right here. We’re having so much fun together.”

“Is he being a good boy?”

“Yes. He’s a delight. Here he is.”