The Guardian Page 10

  Stepping into the narrow tub, Jackson soaped himself under the warm spray while imagining the look of dismay on Lena’s face when he called her by her real name. After last night’s showdown, he couldn’t wait to turn the tables on her.

  Feeling a tingling in his groin, he glanced down to find himself fully erect. He indulged in a moment of fantasy, stroking his sex and envisioning Lena pleading with him not to tell Davis who she really was.

  “Please, I’ll do anything you ask,” she begged, her eyes welling with desperate tears.

  “Anything?”

  “Anything,” she confirmed, sliding her palm over the bulge in his slacks.

  Cut! Disgusted with himself, Jackson doused the lights on that imaginary vignette. Christ, was he that pathetic that he had to coerce a woman to have sex with him?

  Don’t answer that, he quickly warned himself.

  But then a new scene evolved in his head. He was telling Lena that he knew men in powerful places; that he could help her find the evidence to put Davis behind bars for good. It felt better to play the hero.

  “Are you serious?” Her eyes welled with tears of relief.

  “Positive. You don’t have to continue with this charade, Lena. I’ll take care of Davis. You just take care of yourself.”

  “You’d do that for me?” she asked, melting against him. Her breasts pillowed his chest. The kiss she planted on his lips ignited the kerosene in his veins.

  Suddenly, they were both naked and she was straddling his lap, guiding his cock into her liquid heat. She rode him with the same feisty bravado with which she’d wielded her pistol last night. Oh, baby.

  Grinding his molars together, Jackson swallowed the groan issuing from his throat as pleasure stormed him. Ejaculate shot across the length of the tub, hitting the fiberglass wall as he succumbed to a climax so powerful he had to throw out a hand to steady himself.

  Holy hell. The water continued to stream over him as he caught his breath. He dropped his hand with a touch of chagrin and a heavy dose of self-mockery.

  One thing he was sure of: His encounter with Lena tonight wasn’t going to go down like that, not at all. But a man could dream about rescuing a damsel in distress, even if that damsel refused to acknowledge she was in grave danger.

  **

  Lena peered through the dark drizzle. As tense as a hair trigger, she clasped the money pouch under her left arm while her right hand cradled the reassuring contours of the gun buried deep in the pocket of her purse.

  When she’d arrived at work in a downpour that evening, her usual parking spot under the floodlights had been taken, forcing her to back into a space under the pecan tree and make a mad dash for the store.

  Now she knew what a mistake it was to park so far away. The light cast by the floodlights didn’t reach as far as the pecan tree, which meant that Peter’s Jeep was sitting in total darkness. Considering Abdul had jumped her just last night, she shouldn’t have been so careless.

  But she neared the Jeep without mishap. No one leapt from behind the tree trunk to assault her. Her fears were a figment of her imagination. She relinquished her pistol for the car keys and slipped behind the wheel, locking the door and setting her purse and the pouch on the passenger seat.

  She was combing her damp hair back from her forehead when fingers emerged like tentacles from the darkness behind her. One hand stifled the scream that erupted from her throat; the other pinned her right arm to her chest, keeping her from groping for her pistol.

  “Shhh! Be still,” commanded a deep voice she would have recognized anywhere. Dear God, Abdul was going to kill her, after all! She twisted violently, scarcely registering the words he spoke firmly in her ear. “Calm down. I am not here to harm you. Magdalena, be still!”

  It was the sound of her full first name that penetrated her haze of terror.

  “Breathe,” he ordered, lifting his hand off her mouth and locking his arm loosely but threateningly around her neck.

  As she dragged deep breaths into her lungs, her eyes wide with fear, she saw him take both the money pouch and her purse from the front seat and stow them in the back. So much for shooting him.

  “What do you want?” she demanded in a voice that betrayed her by wobbling. “Why did you call me Magdalena?”

  He removed his arm from around her neck and angled his chest between the two front seats. “Because your real name is Magdalena Anastasia Xenakis,” he said to her profile with perfect pronunciation.

  Shock paralyzed her body. How could he know that? Had she registered her laptop by that name?

  “I know who you are,” he stated with calm certainty, “and I know why you’re here.

  “Well, let’s hear it then.” She tried to sound flippant, but her thoughts were scattering in all directions.

  “Rupert Davis murdered your sister, Alexandra,” he said on a sober note. “You’ve come here to coax a confession out of him.”

  Lena couldn’t breathe. If he told anyone else this, all her carefully architected plans had the potential to crumble into dust. “How could you know that?” If Davis found out, he would hunt her down until she lay six feet under.

  “Relax.” Abdul’s deep, musical voice steadied her erratic pulse. “So far no one knows but me. If you want to keep it that way, you need to do as I say.”

  He was blackmailing her, the SOB! It wasn’t so fun being on the receiving end for a change. “How dare you,” she seethed, conscious of the broad, warm shoulder touching hers.

  “Calm down and listen to my offer. The first thing you’ll do is surrender this.” His fingers curled around her pendant.

  “What are you doing?” Lena clapped a hand over his to keep him from tugging on it. “That’s a family heirloom.” She tried prying his fingers loose, but her efforts proved feeble against his superior strength. So that was why he’d had his hands around her throat last night. Just as she’d thought, he wasn’t going to strangle her; he’d wanted her pendant.

  “Bullshit. I know it’s a camera, Lena. I know you’ve been filming me and the other parolees all along. Is it recording now?”

  “Of course not. How would I have known you were waiting in the car? How did you get in here, anyway?”

  “You left a window cracked. Take it off or I’ll just break the chain,” he warned.

  Fuming silently, she lifted both hands to the back of her neck and unlatched the clasp.

  “Are my images still in the memory?” he asked, sliding the pendant off the chain as it slipped loose from her neck. “Or did you offload them somewhere?”

  In her befuddlement, it took her a moment to supply an answer. All she could think of was that after last night’s victory, she was losing this round badly. “They’re all still on there,” she lied. “How was I supposed to offload them? You stole my laptop, remember?” She made no mention of the computer in Artie’s where she’d offloaded all her files so far.

  “Part two of my offer.” He tried squeezing farther between the seats so that he could look her in the eye, only the opening was too narrow. “Hang on a sec.” In the next instant, he was out of the vehicle and rounding it to join her up front.

  Run! Lena told herself, reaching for the door handle. Only where would she go? She tried to think of something, but then the passenger door popped open and Abdul slid into the seat next to her, having apparently moved at the speed of light.

  “Who are you?” she asked, shuffling possibilities like a deck of cards. “How do you know so much about me?” She had purposefully kept her documents referring to Alexa and her killer on her home computer, but there must have been something on her laptop giving him a clue.

  She could tell nothing from his shuttered look. “Who I am doesn’t matter,” he insisted, sliding the seat back to give himself more leg room.

  “It matters to me!”

  “Listen.” His eyes resembled icebergs floating in a dark sea as he leaned intently toward her. “Do you honestly think you can get Davis to confess to killing Alexandr
a?”

  “Alexa,” she corrected him. “No one ever called her by her full name.” His dubious tone made her burn inside. “And, yes. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” she insisted.

  He heaved a sigh. “That’s suicide. Davis is going to realize what you’re up to, and when he does, he’ll do whatever it takes to silence you.”

  A phantom of terror passed through her.

  “Do your parents deserve to lose both daughters to the same killer?”

  Her anger surged again. “Don’t you dare bring my parents into this! Davis has no idea who I am, and unless you tell him, he’ll never know,” she insisted.

  “What if I do tell him?” he challenged.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Why would you do that?”

  “To force you to leave like I’ve been insisting you do for days.”

  “If you do that to me, I’ll have someone else snap your picture and plaster it on the front page of every tabloid in the country,” she threatened. “Why is it so important to you that I leave, anyway?”

  He leaned closer, his breath warm and fresh against her cheek. “I don’t know why,” he said intently. “There’s just something about you that makes me want to know you better.”

  All negative feeling vanished with that single phrase, replaced by a buoyant feeling inside.

  “Plus, I abhor the thought of Davis hurting you,” he added.

  “I won’t let him hurt me,” she whispered automatically, but she wasn’t evening thinking about Davis. Abdul had lifted a hand to cup the side of her face, and his tender touch seemed to travel through her body, zipping down every neural pathway.

  “I’d like to date you one day,” he murmured. “Would you agree to date me?” His thumb traced the curve of her lower lip, eliciting a shiver of overwhelming desire.

  Her mouth went dry and her heart began to thud. “Okay,” she agreed in a voice that sounded strange to her ears.

  “Then go home, Lena,” he pleaded softly. “Be safe. Once I’m out of this program, I will help you find the evidence needed to put Davis away forever.”

  Her sluggish brain had difficulty grasping his offer. What more did he gain by helping her with Davis than a chance to be with her one day?

  “Who are you?” she demanded yet again. “Why isn’t your criminal record in the federal database?”

  “I can’t tell you yet. Just trust me, Magdalena. Can you do that?” he urged. “Trust me to help you.”

  How could she trust a man with an alleged criminal past and yet no documented history in the mother of all data bases? Did that mean he wasn’t really a criminal, or was his identity being protected so that other criminals, higher up the food chain, couldn’t find him?

  Oddly, when his lips settled over hers, they silenced her confusion. It didn’t matter who he was. He was just Mocha Man, the star of her midnight fantasies, who tasted like a rum-laced piňa colada.

  She met his kiss with a whimper of defeat and the barest token of resistance. Deep down, she could not deny that she wanted him, too, that this moment had been inevitable since the day they’d met.

  His tongue glossed between her parted lips, rushing into her like a wave. Retreating and returning, he coaxed her further into his arms, into the current of desire that tugged her out toward deeper waters. But she felt no fear. His kiss was a life ring, keeping her afloat, just offshore of their private, paradise island.

  All too soon and with a ragged breath, Abdul severed the kiss, jarring her back to reality.

  His deep voice rasped in the quiet. “Just think about my offer. I can help you, Magdalena. You don’t have to do this alone.”

  To her sharp disappointment, he relinquished her. She watched him gauge the perimeter before rolling stealthily out of the Jeep. The passenger door gave a click. And then he was gone.

  Lena fell back in her seat feeling like the world had tipped on its axis. Cristemou! Never in her life had she experienced such a perfect kiss!

  Lifting fingers to her sensitized lips, she closed her eyes and replayed the interlude. Longing tugged at her anew. How unfair of him to kiss her like that then leave, with no explanation of who he was, or how he intended to help her solve a ten-year-old murder case?

  Just trust me, Magdalena. Can you do that? Trust me to help you.

  The words wrung her heart. He had to be sincere. No man could have conjured the passion that had leapt to life between them.

  But then doubts overtook her certainty because they were more substantive than her feelings. What if his promise and his kiss were just a means of getting rid of her, something he’d been trying to do from day one? She should not forget that he had threatened her life, wrecked her cottage, stolen her livelihood, and assaulted her in a dark alley!

  It was never more obvious that he was keeping secrets, things he didn’t want a journalist to know.

  Trust him? Hah. He was one to talk about trust when he had told her nothing about himself.

  **

  As he darted across the wet asphalt to his dorm, Jackson mentally patted himself on the back. That had gone as well as he could have hoped. He’d managed to convey his wishes and his concern and steal a kiss, all without giving away his identity.

  And what a kiss it was, he marveled, chasing away the grin that split his face. The only thing that had caught him off guard was Lena’s vulnerability. She wasn’t the diva he’d thought she might be, wresting the reins of seduction from his grasp and leading him. Rather, she had clung to him like a drowning person clinging to a life preserver, making him feel all powerful and protective. And now he wanted to slay all her dragons for her.

  Surely, now, she’d take him up on his offer and leave.

  Seeing the light blink on in his dorm room window, Jackson drew up short. The night wasn’t over yet. He’d thought he’d left Corey sleeping, only now his roommate was up and no doubt wondering where Jackson could be. He hadn’t left a note tonight.

  Scrounging up a lame excuse, he unlocked the door and casually let himself in. Corey looked up from the desk where he’d just cracked open his book. “That’s two nights now you violated parole,” he pointed out, pushing his glasses higher. “You got somethin’ to tell me, Abdul?”

  “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ illegal, if that’s what you’re thinkin’,” Jackson answered, locking the door quietly behind him.

  “I figured that.” Corey shut his book and laid it down.

  “Can we turn out the light?” Jackson didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than he already had.

  “I done figured out a lot of things about you,” Corey continued, ignoring his request and stopping Jackson’s heart with his words.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I know you ain’t no ex-con,” Corey said.

  “What makes you say that?”Jackson strove for a belligerent tone.

  “Come on, man. You ain’t like the rest of us.”

  Worse and worse. If Corey announced his suspicion to the others, he’d be doomed.

  “Since we met, I been tryin’ to figure out what you doin’ here, but now I know.”

  “What do you know?” He swam in a clammy sweat. Surely Corey hadn’t accomplished a one-in-a-million feat and identified him as an undercover agent.

  “You work for Imam Ibrahim, don’tchu?” Corey asked, rising from the chair to face his roommate squarely. “You one of his Five Percent followers put here to keep an eye on us. You been reportin’ to him each night. Ain’t I right?”

  Relief made Jackson lightheaded. “You is right,” he acknowledged, even though the very thought repulsed him. “You got me. I work for Ibrahim. You gonna tell the others on me or what?”

  Corey shrugged. “What I gotta tell for? ‘Long as you don’t get me into trouble, we cool.”

  “We cool,” Jackson agreed. “You ain’t no troublemaker.”

  “Jus’ make sure you tell me the next time there’s a room inspection,” the young man said, turning toward his bunk.

  �
�Why, you hiding somethin’?” Corey was the last parolee Jackson would have suspected of violating the program’s regulations.

  “No, but I know someone who is, only I ain’t tellin’ you.”

  Jackson chuckled. “Fair ‘nuf.” Snapping off the light, he made his way to the bathroom. “Thanks, man,” he mumbled. If Corey was loyal enough not to tell on his smuggling friend, then hopefully he was loyal enough not to rat out Jackson to the others. His reprieve dried the clammy sweat on his skin.

  Once in the bathroom, he flipped on the nightlight and regarded his tormented reflection in the mirror. This was his first job as a spy, and he was finding it tougher than he’d ever imagined. He hated lying to his roommate; hated pretending to Lena that he was someone he wasn’t; hated being away from his family. The fastest way to shake off this undercover job was to find the evidence the Taskforce needed.

  From now on, nothing would escape his notice.

  Chapter Ten

  Lena sped toward Artie’s with the Jeep’s top down. Wind, smelling of the river and of rain-soaked leaves, whipped at her chignon. The Maryland countryside had a freshly washed look and feel now that the rain had given way to sunshine. She was days away from trapping her sister’s killer. She ought to be ecstatic.

  But as she neared Gateway, the memory of her run-in with Abdul last night made her confidence waver. His insistence that she was endangering herself, coupled with a kiss that left her yearning for so much more had her rethinking her plans.

  Stripped of her pendant, she felt doubly vulnerable. What had once seemed a fairly straightforward process now seemed crisscrossed with trip wires. And on top of her sudden doubt, she was strapped with a nagging desire to get naked with an ex-convict.

  The sight of a police officer lounging in a cruiser on the far side of Artie’s parking lot, distracted her from her angst. The horse and buggy parked just off the narrow road behind him was nothing out of the ordinary. But why was an officer of the law hanging out in Artie’s parking lot?

  Lena rolled smoothly into her usual spot, happy to find it empty. Raising the Jeep’s roof, she chased the Amish man’s broad-brimmed hat into the store, while the officer watched her through narrowed eyes.