Page 98 of Deception

Nova hit a button and held the phone out between the three of them. “This is Nova. Is this Miranda?”

There was a pause before a soft voice said, “Yes, you left me a message. Honestly, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should call you back. But I finally decided I would. I’m still hoping I don’t regret this.”

“I appreciate the callback. I’ve been hired as a private investigator to look into your ex-husband, and I’m trying to put together some information about him and his background.”

“Who hired you?” Miranda asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“What exactly are you investigating?”

Nova’s gaze flicked up to Olive’s. “The person who hired me believes Matt might be guilty of fraud.”

“Fraud?” Miranda’s voice lilted with interest. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I was hoping to ask you a few questions . . .” Nova said.

Another pause lingered. Then Miranda said, “I can’t promise to answer all of them. But you can try me.”

Olive gave Nova an encouraging nod.

Nova leaned closer to the phone. “We heard you were married to Matt Hansen when he met Rebecca. Is that true?”

More silence. Then, “Everything I say is off-record. Do you understand?”

“Of course.”

“Yes, Matt and I were married. We’d only been married about eight months at the time he met Rebecca. And our marriage had been rocky.”

“He claims he didn’t cheat on you, that he didn’t start actually dating Rebecca until you were divorced,” Nova said. “Is that the case?”

“No, that’s not the way it went down.” Miranda released a bitter laugh. “He started working all these extra hours at the college. Claimed it was because he had so much work to do. But it was really because he was seeing Rebecca. Now, if you want proof, that will be hard to find. But it’s the truth.”

“Did you ever meet Rebecca? Were you a student there also, by chance?”

“I wasn’t a student there,” she said. “I was working as a waitress at a local steakhouse to help pay Matt’s way through school. However, a couple of the girls I worked with were students.”

“Did they know Rebecca?” Nova asked.

“They didn’t seem to actually know her. But they knew of her. She made quite the name for herself on campus.”

Olive’s heart pounded harder. This was exactly the kind of information they were looking for.

Despite the riveting conversation, she scanned the trees around her again, careful not to let down her guard. Last time she had done that here, that motorcycle man had appeared out of nowhere and shot at them.

“How did she make a name for herself?” Nova asked.

“It turns out she was telling everybody a sob story about how her dad was dying of heart failure. No one could see through her lies. I couldn’t believe it.”

“How did you know it wasn’t true?” Nova asked.

“Once I found out that Matt was seeing Rebecca, I decided to do some research into this ‘dream girl’ of his.”

“What did this research show you?” Nova asked.

“That research showed that Rebecca’s father was alive and well. Not a hint of sickness in the present or in the past.”

“So she definitely lied?” Nova asked.