He returned his gaze to the road, checked traffic and made a U-turn. “What type of vehicle am I looking for?”
“A white RAV4.” She shifted around in her seat, probably still feeling the lingering edginess of adrenaline. “Thanks for helping me. If you hadn’t stepped in... Well, I’m not even going to attempt to finish that sentence. Do you always think really fast on your feet? That lunch-toting, garden-loving girlfriend story was darn creative, and you told it so convincingly it seemed like the guard was going to let me leave.”
He slowed the pickup to allow a van to merge. “I figured it was worth a try, but unfortunately, Latschenko didn’t quite buy it.” He added, “What’s your name?”
“Brooke Rogers.”
“You said your brother-in-law was being held at gunpoint. What’s he mixed up in?”
“Nothing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes...of course.” Her slight hesitation indicated a little less conviction than her first denial.
“Why were you looking in Sidorov’s window?”
She muttered something under her breath that sounded like “neurotic sister.”
He shot a sideways glance at her. “I didn’t catch that.”
“It has nothing to do with you.” Pink infused her cheeks, a sure sign she was embarrassed, but he’d been trained to get all the facts, and he intended to keep after her until she came clean.
“I ran interference for you and nearly got shot. The least you can do is answer my question.”
A dark green Ford Explorer switched into their lane without warning, forcing him to brake hard to keep from rear-ending it.
“My reason for being there is personal,” Brooke said. “What were you doing there? Why were you pretending to be a gardener?”
He shot her an offended look. “What do you mean, pretending?” Bracing the bottom of the truck’s steering wheel with his knee, he held up his hands to prove his point. “There’s nothing phony about these calluses. I cut grass, trim hedges—”
“—and warn off trespassers, which I doubt is part of your job description,” she finished for him. “You walked up to a guy with a gun like it was no big deal, you tried to use his fear of his boss to manipulate him, and when that didn’t work, you got the drop on him.” She paused. “You’re an undercover cop.”
He stiffened. “You’ve got some imagination.”
“You insisted I leave because you didn’t want me to come into contact with Latschenko, and also because I was distracting you from your assignment.”
Damn right, she’d been distracting. Then again, any man with a pulse would’ve had a tough time ignoring a woman whose face and body were more striking than any Hollywood starlet’s.
“How long have you been watching Sidorov?” she asked.
He needed to shut down her curiosity, without letting her know she was on the right track. “Hey, I’m not watching anybody, Blondie. I get paid to do lawn maintenance, and that’s what I do.”
“Yeah, right. I don’t want to seem ungrateful for your handling of Latschenko, but my brother-in-law is in danger, and I need to know what’s going on.”
He kept his eyes on the road and his manner benign. “I understand your concern, but I’m the wrong person to ask.”
“I don’t believe you. And until you admit the truth about why you were on Sidorov’s property, I won’t talk about my reasons for being there.” She sat up straighter and pointed through the windshield. “That’s my vehicle.”
He checked his rearview mirror, then slowed the Green Thumb truck to a crawl while he scanned the immediate vicinity. There were no occupied parked cars and no one hanging around who could have her SUV under surveillance. Satisfied with his findings, he pulled to the side of the road opposite it.
The instant he parked, Brooke jumped out. As he joined her on the street, he noticed her top had slipped down, exposing pale pink bra straps and the upper swells of her breasts. His body hardened as if she were topless, which annoyed the heck out of him. Work boots clomping, he crossed the street ahead of her.
“What are you doing?” she called out.
“Making sure your SUV hasn’t been tampered with. I assume you wouldn’t want me to drive off and then discover you have a flat.”
“No, that would be bad. Thanks.” Her lips curved in a smile that shimmered through his body.
Whoa. That felt good. Too damn good.
He must have looked at her for a few seconds too long because her smile faltered as she stared back at him. What was she thinking? More important, what was she feeling? The same attraction he was?
Eventually, she cocked an eyebrow as if to say, “What are you waiting for?”
What, indeed? With her blond hair, long legs and dynamite figure, she must have guys gawking at her all the time. The thought that he was one of a crowd of admirers cooled his ardor like a few ice cubes tossed down his jeans, and he jerked his gaze away from her.
“Move your car after you call the police,” he told her. “Latschenko might wake up and come looking for you.”
While she unlocked the driver’s door, he circled the vehicle, checking each tire in turn. At the last one, he leaned down and attached a GPS tracking device to the underside of the car. Now wasn’t the time for a lengthy conversation, but he definitely wanted to talk to her again and check out the contents of her camera. Based on their earlier exchange, her cooperation was unlikely unless he produced his FBI credentials, which he wasn’t in a position to do; he’d left them in his car at the lawn-maintenance company when he’d gone undercover. And there was another reason he needed to keep track of her. She was related to the guy in the suit who had been threatened by the Russian mobster he’d been watching. Maybe he could learn more about Sidorov by questioning her sister’s husband.
Brooke tugged her purse out from under the front passenger seat, where she’d hidden it, and dug around inside until her fingers made contact with her cell phone. As she touched the digits 911, a flash of silver in her peripheral vision caused her to look up from her phone. A familiar sedan had just reversed onto the street. Trevor’s car. But was her brother-in-law behind the wheel, or was it someone else moving the Lexus away from Sidorov’s property?
The front headrest obscured the identity of the driver, but then the brake lights came on, the car jerked to a stop, and the driver’s door opened. A man wearing steel-rimmed glasses and a gray suit lurched sideways and vomited onto the asphalt road.
“Trevor,” Brooke breathed, her forehead sagging against the steering wheel in relief. Had he escaped or been released? There was no way to know, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was unharmed.
“This is 911 dispatch. What’s your emergency?”
She jolted at the voice coming from her cell phone. She’d been so focused on the sedan and Trevor that she’d forgotten she’d placed the call. She started to answer, then hesitated as Joe’s words played back in her mind. What’s your brother-in-law mixed up in?
She’d been quick to defend Savannah’s