Guardian in Disguise. Rachel Lee
Well, except for that freaking law degree. She would probably find that odd for a beat cop, but he couldn’t be the only one who had a J.D. So what if the reporter dug a little more? What would she find?
Very little. He wasn’t even using his real name, not that that would make a difference. He’d gone so far to ground that even his real name wouldn’t yield anything except possibly a birth date.
He was a man who didn’t exist. And it had to stay that way for a while yet.
So why the hell had he allowed himself to be blinded by a pretty face and a luscious figure into holding still long enough to have a conversation? She’d been trying to get information about him. He was smart enough to know that. Many had tried over the years.
But maybe her curiosity was just passing. Maybe she’d let it go.
He’d have to keep an eye on her, that was for sure. If she started prying too much, he would have to hit the road. Not that he wanted to. He kind of liked the gig they’d set him up with here, in a place where you could spot a stranger from a hundred miles.
He kind of liked the thought of teaching. And even though he’d been here for only a short while, he kind of liked this town, too.
Finally he pulled his cell phone out of its holster and punched a number he tried not to call too often. One he definitely never put on speed dial and always erased from the phone’s memory of recent calls.
“Ames here,” said a familiar voice.
“Max.”
“Oh, man, what’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure. I just got the inquisition from a reporter. Are you sure my background holds up?”
“Considering how many databases we had to modify, yeah. It had better.”
“A J.D. looks pretty funny hanging off a beat cop.”
“Not if that cop wants to be a detective someday. Or run for prosecutor. Or teach at a college. Take your pick.”
Max sighed and ran an impatient hand through his hair. “Okay.”
“Why? Did she say she was going to check into you?”
“No, but her eyes did.”
Ames surprised him with a laugh. “She must be pretty.”
“You could say that. Why?”
“You noticed her eyes. Okay, we’ll keep tabs on it. What’s her name?”
“Liza Enders.”
“Got it. What paper is she with?”
“None. She teaches at the college, too.”
“All right. I’ll blow the whistle if anything looks suspicious. In the meantime, I think one of our nerds can make sure she runs around the maypole a few times if she tries to crack your background.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
“That’s what I’m here for. Need anything else?”
“No, that was it.”
He put the phone away and resumed his contemplation of the ceiling. It wasn’t long, though, before he was seeing Liza Enders rather than the Texas water spot.
She sure was an attractive armful. He didn’t go for the skinny women who looked more like boys, and no one would mistake Liza Enders for a boy.
She might be a great reporter, but he was better at a far more dangerous game. He knew from long experience how to cover his butt. And there was entirely too much at stake to let a reporter blow it.
His life, for one thing. And the lives of other innocents, too. Not to mention if he let anyone close to him, they could get caught in the cross fire.
He had to find a way to keep her distant.
He closed his eyes. At least it was safe to fantasize about her. It would never be more than that, but he’d been living on fantasies for a long time.
One more surely wouldn’t hurt.
Growing hot and heavy, he imagined removing the clothes from Liza’s curvy body.
Nope, it couldn’t hurt.
He awoke in a cold sweat and sat bolt upright with his heart pounding. The room was dark except for a nervous strip of blinking red neon light that crept between the curtains.
For an instant he couldn’t remember where he was. For an instant he wondered if someone had entered the room while he slept.
Reaching out, he found the pistol on his bedside table and thumbed off the safety. Was someone in the room with him? He listened, but heard nothing except the whine of truck tires on the state highway outside.
At last he flipped on the bedside light. Empty. Shoving himself off the bed he checked the tiny bathroom. He was all alone, the door still locked.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, pistol still in hand, he waited for the adrenaline to wash away. Nightmares. He’d had a few of them in his time.
Dimly he remembered some of it. They’d found him. Yes, that was it. They’d found him. They surrounded him and threatened him and kept demanding his real name.
He hadn’t been able to remember it. And each time he failed, they hit him again. It may have been a dream, but his head and stomach felt as if those blows had been real.
And Liza. She’d been there, too, demanding his identity.
As if he had one anymore.
Crap. He thumbed the safety on again and put the pistol on the table. Now he felt cold from the sweat drenching. He needed a shower, but didn’t feel safe enough to take one. Not yet.
That damn reporter was going to be a problem. He had to get rid of her somehow.
This might look like a game to her, but for him it was life or death.
Chapter 2
By morning, Liza’s curiosity had only grown. Max McKenny had indeed graduated from the University of Michigan and Stetson College of Law, both with high honors. Beyond that, she hadn’t found a thing, even when she searched Michigan newspapers for his name, thinking he might have been on a case that had gotten some publicity.
But responding cops seldom made the news unless something spectacular came down. Unless a cop was involved in a shoot-out or something equally serious, only the Public Information Officer talked to the press, rarely mentioning the specific cops involved. Very often the names of the first responders never rose to the surface of awareness. So Max might just have had a dull career.
The lack of information wasn’t terribly surprising, except that there was no record at all of any Maxwell McKennys in Michigan. It wasn’t a common name, and that should have made her job easier. Instead, her search was giving her a blank wall.
The American Bar Association had proved opaque. If it had a public membership directory, it wasn’t available online. Checking state licensing boards, as she’d learned long ago, was a total wash if you didn’t get the name exactly right. Maxwell McKenny, if listed as Maxwell D. McKenny, would never show up in a search.
Ah, well.
She tried to force her attention back to the day’s work ahead and forget she’d awakened from a dream that morning about a gorgeous hunk of manhood who resembled Max. Not entirely, but close enough that she couldn’t fool her waking brain into thinking it had just been a generalized dream.
Maybe part of her problem was that it had been way too long since she’d had a boyfriend, something which had everything to do with her former career. There were just so many times you could break a date before a guy went looking elsewhere. Which pretty much meant she had to date other reporters who would understand her schedule, except most of the single men in her