She flipped her braid back with a quick jerk of her hand. “So you’re saying there’s nothing we can do.”
“There’s plenty we can do, but we’ll have to be imaginative about it. Now if I come in and confront this guy with accusations, no matter how many pieces of paper I can pull out of my file to prove my point, what do you think’s going to happen?”
Luci waved about an invisible magic wand. “Presto, change-o, gone.”
“Right. And I’d have to start all over again. So here’s my quandary. How do I get close to a man who doesn’t want to get close to anyone but his pigeon?”
Gaze narrowed, she still scoured the soccer fields and the edge of oaks and pines beyond as if she expected some sort of monster to pop up. “You play his game. You get someone else, who isn’t seen as a threat, to introduce you.”
“Now you’ve got it.”
A muscle rippled on Luci’s tension-tight cheek. “And that’s me.”
“I need to get close to him, Luce. If I show up as your friend, he won’t suspect I’m on his tail. He’ll buy my presence and my attempt at friendliness. And if I stop him now, he won’t hurt anyone else.”
“How’s that going to work? If he’s as good as you say he is, won’t he just look you up and know you’re lying? After all, Jill says he’s a private detective.”
“Not the way I’ve got things set up.”
“Are you using a pseudonym?” The skin on her knuckles was getting redder, the tips of her fingers whiter.
She may want to pretend she didn’t care, but she did. And not just for Jill; for Swanson’s possible next victim, too. “Easier to use my own name in this case because we have football in common. Gives us a starting position for conversation. Nothing shows I don’t want to. What he’ll find is that I’m an insurance salesman from Houston. He’ll see I was just transferred to Holliday & Houghlin in Nashua.”
“Won’t he find a real estate deed for your current residence?”
“Nope, it’s under a corporation name. On paper, Dominic Skyralov doesn’t own a thing. Even this truck is a brand-new rental.”
“So where am I supposed to say you’re staying?” Her voice was pricklier than a bed of cacti.
“Well, darlin’, that’s where imagination comes in.”
Eyes wide with panic, she jerked her head in his direction. Old hostilities bubbled up and spilled over. “No, absolutely not. I’m not inviting you to stay at my home. I have a young son to think about. That won’t work.”
Dom slung an arm carelessly over the back of the seat, trying to keep his body relaxed and nonthreatening. “Swanson’s last mark is dead.”
“Then stay with Jill. She’s the one in danger. Not me.”
“I don’t think Swanson’d be too happy about that. He seems like the jealous type, especially now that he’s so close to his prize.”
“So how do I explain your presence in my home?”
Dom shrugged. “We’re old friends, and you’re letting me use your couch until I find a place to settle down. She’s at the falling in love stage—everything is rosy and perfect. He’s a good talker. Look at what he’s already talked her into doing and he bumped into her only two weeks ago.”
Watching Luci struggle with the conflict of hatred and love, of duty and fear, pulling her in two directions, cut hard. The last thing he’d wanted was to hurt her.
“Okay,” she said, “come with me to dinner on Saturday.”
Relief sagged the tense muscles of his stomach. “That’s all I want, Luce. A chance to stop him before anyone else gets hurt.”
She reached for the door and pushed it open. “Tell me what information you need. I’ll get it for you while you talk to him.”
“I’ll need Jill’s identifiers and the number of any account he could deplete. I’ll have our computer expert put a flag on them. We’ll be able to tell when he starts pilfering and catch him red-handed.”
“Okay.”
She started to scoot out and he held her back, the warm feel of her sweatshirt a treat for his fingers.
“Saturday dinner,” she said, a cloud of pain dulling the green of her eyes. “That’s all I can commit to right now.”
“Well, darlin’, at this point, I’ll take anything I can get.” Even if it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy him.
Her clogs crushed the gravel as she exited the truck. She looked him up and down. “Do you own anything other than jeans? My parents’ll be there, too, and they don’t approve of denim.”
He let a grin bloom on one side of his face. “Tell you what, I’ll even shower and shave. It’ll be nice to see your folks again.” The only time he’d met them was at Cole’s funeral—not the best of circumstances. They’d probably forgotten the handshake and condolences. Cole had had so many friends, in and out of the Marshalls Service.
She shut the door, and letting her walk away, even after such a short time, hurt all over again.
After a few steps, she turned back, the ghosts of the past flitting in her eyes. “I was just getting over August, Dom. Why’d you have to come back?”
Dom stared at her eyes, reflecting his own demons back at him, then glanced away like a guilty man. Because August still weighed on his conscience, too. Cole’s death was his fault and he couldn’t bear the thought of her in pain again over someone she loved—or that he couldn’t be the man to comfort her. “To keep you safe and happy, Luce. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
DARK SURROUNDED HER, sucked at her, dragged her under. Her breath rasped in her ears. Sweat stuck T-shirt to skin, holding her prisoner in that airless black beneath the sheets. The more she fought, the tighter the bonds got, the thinner the air got. The smell of cordite and blood stung her nostrils, pinched her lungs. The ring of discharge scrambled her brain.
But even as she fought the dark, she pleaded for its protective cover. It never listened. The darkness always cleared, bringing soul-ripping pain that doubled her over with nausea.
Man down! Man down!
Cole. Right there in her scope. So close. So far away. His brown hair sticky with red. His brown eyes wide with surprise, lifeless. His blood a halo around his head. Dead.
Keeping him safe had been her job and she’d failed. When it had really mattered, all the training, all the practice, all the preparation had fallen short.
A fraction of a second. A millimeter of space.
And the man she’d loved was gone.
Her mistake. No matter how she looked at it. Her fault.
She’d proved in the most graphic of ways she wasn’t good enough.
She’d thought of giving up, of letting the darkness take her along with Cole, but Cole, with his life-lived-to-the-utmost wish, would have disapproved. Then there was Brendan, the tiny seed there in her belly.
Cole hadn’t known. She barely had.
For a while, she’d only gone through the motions, been nothing but a living dead. Dom’s voice, always Dom’s voice, calm and cool, trying to talk her back into the horrid world she’d created.
Her husband was dead. His child grew in her womb. So she did the only thing she could; she ran.
She ran from city to city, looking for something, anything that would connect her to a sense of support. But every time she’d thought she’d found salvation,