Cut To The Chase. Julie Kistler

      2

      AS SEAN UNPACKED AT the Illini Union, he could feel himself begin to relax. A beautiful summer day. A nice hotel room overlooking the Quad on a serene, green college campus where most of the students were gone for the summer. And just about no chance in hell he would ever run into anything remotely connected to the bimbo in the hooker shoes his mother wanted him to find.

      Okay, so he felt a little silly being on a wild-goose chase. But as long as he already knew it was a wild-goose chase, what difference did it make? He could hang out in Champaign-Urbana, enjoy himself for a few days, and then head back to town and tell his mother with a crystal-clear conscience that he had done what she’d asked and gee whiz, he just didn’t find hide nor hair of the woman she was looking for. Sounded like the easiest case he’d ever been assigned.

      And, hey, accepting her crazy mission got him out of town, didn’t it? Out of town, away from his desk, away from Mom and her endless string of fix-ups, and away from the responsibility of baby-sitting Cooper at a fishing cabin for a week. Not so bad. Especially when it meant he was back in Champaign-Urbana, which struck him as a great place for a little R&R.

      He’d gone to college here, and he had fond memories of pickup basketball games, excellent pizza, lousy beer and general irresponsibility. Good times.

      After stowing his belongings, he didn’t waste any time, grabbing a bottle of water and quickly taking the stairs down to the ground floor of the Union. He planned to make a fast trip down memory lane to check out some of his old haunts and get his bearings. Then he would tool around town with the blonde’s picture, put out a few discreet inquiries, enough to truthfully say he’d done his duty, and get beyond that to the beer and pizza as soon as possible.

      First, memory lane. Sean was actually smiling as he slid out the big white doors onto the Quad, feeling footloose and fancy-free for the first time in forever. That smile lasted approximately four minutes, which was as long as it took him to walk down the west side of the Quad, past a group of kids and a guide walking backward on a college orientation tour, and glance up at the auditorium looming ahead.

      Because that was when she showed up.

      Her. As nearly as he could tell, the same one from the photo.

      From out of nowhere, she came walking toward him. Automatically, he assessed the details. Head down, looking at the sidewalk. Left hand rammed into the pocket of a long denim coat. Right hand wrapped around the handle of a canvas tote bag with Chicago White Sox written on it.

      Her eyes were hidden by dark, impenetrable sunglasses, similar to the ones in the picture. She had brown hair, cut kind of choppy, with the ends visible under a bandanna. Pale skin. Clean, elegant jaw. Feisty little chin. Perfectly formed lips.

      Sean blinked. Was he nuts? Or was that really her, the one in Bebe’s photographs?

      He felt like someone had set off a signal flare inside his head. Surprise, excitement, the thrill of the chase… The zing in the air was as unexpected as it was unwelcome.

      Luckily, he had the presence of mind to keep moving after she cut across in front of him and took up residence under a tree. As casually as if he were any old tourist retracing his college memories, he ambled around the steps of the auditorium, turning to gaze back up the Quad, pretending to take in the vista of sun-dappled trees and stately buildings as he gathered data on his mystery woman.

      Although she looked a little nervous, fussing with the ends of her hair, arranging her coat, adjusting her sunglasses, she seemed unaware of his scrutiny as she plunked herself down on the grass under a maple tree. Sean bided his time, watching, sipping quietly at his water bottle, wishing his instincts would knock off the high alert already and quit pumping adrenaline through his veins.

      Forcing himself to judge the facts, he noted that she wore a lot less makeup than the woman in the picture, plus her hair was a different color and length, and there was no sign of trashy footwear, just plain flat sandals. On the other hand, her lips, face shape, and overall bone structure were a good match, she was the right height, she was wearing a bandanna, which was something Bebe had specifically mentioned, and…

      And he had a strong gut feeling, the kind he had learned to trust. After all, an “uncanny knack for seeing the truth” was right there on his resume.

      Impatient with that “knack,” as always, Sean went back to hard, cold facts. His mantra was that bones didn’t lie, and those sure looked like the cheekbones and chin line of the woman in the photo.

      What else? He couldn’t see much of her body inside the bulky coat, but that itself was suspicious, considering the fact that everyone else around was in shorts and T-shirts or tank tops in the hot weather. Plus she was wearing sunglasses and a scarf and her hair was a phony shade of brown, all of which had “disguise” written all over it. In his opinion, her demeanor was anxious, somewhat furtive, as she huddled there under the tree, deliberately not looking at anyone. She was definitely sending out “pay no attention to me” vibes.

      It all added up to someone who had a lot to hide.

      But it couldn’t be the right woman, could it? Not only had he not expected to find her in the first five minutes he was in town, he hadn’t expected to find her at all.

      And he hadn’t expected her to be so…interesting. Even with the odd clothing, she had this kind of aura, as if she was just more vivid than anybody or anything around her. Call it ESP or just that blasted “uncanny knack” he was supposed to have, but Sean had a strong feeling that if he peeled off the scarf and the sunglasses and the bulky denim coat, he would conclude that she was…

      Beautiful. Smart. Intriguing. A knockout.

      “Okay, now you’re really going around the bend,” he said under his breath. Must just be some weird kind of investigative eagerness kicking in, making him feel all hot and bothered in inappropriate ways. It had never happened before, but there was a first time for everything.

      Taking a long swig of water to cool his jets, Sean pushed himself back to reality, back to the question at hand. Was she the quarry he was supposed to be looking for?

      Physically, the details matched. But the fact remained that she was not at all what he had expected from the woman in Bebe’s photo, the one with the frizzy, bleached hair and trashy ’ho shoes. The one who might be playing mattress macarena with his father.

      That idea had become even more disgusting now that he’d found her.

      Frowning, Sean backed off. Putting a little more distance between them, he looped around the side of the Foreign Language Building to keep an eye on her while he decided what to do. Since he’d had no reasonable expectation of finding her, he had never gotten to the point of planning what he should do if he did. Take a picture and send it back to Bebe for a positive ID? Get fingerprints and try to track down her identity or her rap sheet? Chat her up and see if he could get her to spill what was happening with his father, if anything was happening at all? None of it made any sense.

      Meanwhile, as he pondered his next move, she still didn’t appear to have a clue that he was there, which meant she had lousy survival instincts. Or a trusting nature.

      He got his answer on that one when a scruffy kid on a bicycle rode up. “Hey!” the kid shouted, jumping off his bike right next to her. Petty thief? Purse-snatcher? Something worse? Sean decided he was close enough to jump in if his law enforcement skills were required, but he hung back for now. She sat up abruptly, looking very, very nervous, sort of like Bambi in the headlights. But then the kid extended