Read Online True Lies by Ingrid Weaver - Free Book Online Page A

succeed. I'm very proud of the way you're sticking with this venture, but you have to learn the importance of—” She caught her breath on a gasp. Bending down quickly, she looked at the ugly scar on the pontoon.
    The metal had been dented for a span of more than a foot. Two rivets had been sheared off at the head, and a rust red scrape mark extended to the waterline. Anger tightened her hands into fists as she stepped carefully back onto the dock. “What the hell is that from?” she said, her voice dangerously low.
    Simon glanced around, then quickly hefted a box and carried it to the back of the Wagoneer. “Oh, sorry about that, Emma. The water was a bit rough where I tied up, and the chain I was using sort of slipped.”
    “That’s it,” she stated. “That’s the very last time.”
    He maneuvered the rest of his samples to his vehicle and came back to take her hands in his. “I'm sorry, sis,” he said, his green eyes glowing with sincerity. “You're so terrific to put up with me. And I haven’t even thanked you yet.” He leaned forward, aiming a kiss for her cheek.
    Glaring at him, she yanked her hands loose. “No, Simon. This plane is now off-limits to you. Permanently.”
    “Aw, you don’t mean that. I'll fix that damage and—”
    “No.” She looked at the scrape mark again, outrage giving her the strength that she’d lacked before. “No more. I've given everything I could to you for ten years, but no more.”
    For the first time, his face lost its charming smile. He looked worried. “Emma, I apologized. I'll get it fixed. But I really need to use it again this week. I've made commitments.”
    She shook her head from side to side in a slow negative. “Make some other arrangements for your prospecting. I'm through letting you use me this way.”
    “You don’t know what you're saying. I have to make one more run, that’s all. Then I'll be finished.”
    “Run?”
    “Emma.” He grabbed her hands, squeezing painfully. “Listen to me. When I say I've made commitments, I mean real, serious commitments. This isn’t just a job, this is life or death.”
    “How can looking for a copper mine be a matter of life or death?”
    “I'm in debt, Emma,” he said desperately. “Real, serious debt. I'm doing this to work it off, but if I stop now, they'll kill me.”
    “What?”
    “I had a bad streak at cards. It was only supposed to be a friendly poker game, and I kept thinking my luck would turn. I didn’t know what kind of people they were. Oh, Emma, you've got to help me. Let me do this last run and then I'll have paid it off.”
    A coldness crept over her, a familiar coldness replacing her anger. They’d been through this before, so many times. She thought he had changed. “You're not prospecting. You never were.”
    “I really do want you to be proud of me, Emma. I tried—”
    “What are you into this time, Simon? What are you doing? Why do you keep calling it a run?”
    “These people I owe money to, they need to bring their product into the country without attracting any attention, so I pick it up at night in the St. Lawrence and bring it—”
    She grasped his arms and shook him. “Simon, what have you done?”
    “I haven’t touched the stuff. I just take it to their warehouse in these sample crates and—”
    “Simon!”
    He inhaled shakily, hanging his head. “It’s cocaine, Emma.”
    As quickly as she had seized him, she released her grip and stepped backward. Revulsion slithered through her body. “My plane? You were using my plane, and my dock and my property to bring that...that filth into the country?” Her stomach turned over. She battled the urge to be sick. “No. Oh, dear God, no.”
    “Just one more time, Emma. Then I'll quit. I promise.”
    She turned her head to look at the open tailgate of the Wagoneer, then ran forward and ripped the lid off the nearest crate. She didn’t want to believe it. Digging desperately through the broken rocks on the surface, she kept