by Mandy Baxter
“I should probably get some work done.” At this point, her only other option was to offer him a full-body massage and she didn’t think that fell under his marshal duties. If only. Yeah, if Harper didn’t get to work, she’d have no pride left to speak of.
“Me too,” Galen said in a way that made her think work was the last thing on his mind. Of course, she’d misinterpreted him before, so she tried not to read too much into his tone. “I need to call Agent Davis and check in with Chief Deputy Monroe.”
“Right,” Harper said, the easygoing air of their previous conversation devolving into something stilted and awkward. Damn. “I’m on deadline, so, yeah . . .”
“I really need to check in with the rest of the team . . .”
And then it floundered and died.
Silence descended like an impenetrable fog that Harper couldn’t seem to find her way out of. The moment had passed, that instant connection, so like the night they’d first met, lost. She gathered their plates and put them in the sink, and searched for something, anything to salvage the moment. That was pathetic, though, right? Her inner voice chimed in to remind her that she’d wanted something more with this man a year ago. And he’d left her apartment before she’d woken up without a word in parting. It sent a pretty clear message. So why try to force something between them that was never meant to be? A good reporter knew when a lead was about to dead-end, and this one was running out of road.
“Harper? I asked if you’d mind if I use the balcony to make a couple of phone calls.”
Harper looked up from the sink. How long had she been standing there, staring into the stainless-steel basin like some kind of freak? She suppressed a groan of embarrassment and turned toward Galen, who was studying her again with that perplexed expression. Great.
“Sure. Let me know if you need anything.”
He gave her a wan smile and opened the sliding glass door. A frown creased his forehead and his expression darkened. “Monroe should have mentioned this, Harper, but you need to be sure to keep all of your doors locked at all times. Even this one. Okay?”
“Oh. Okay. Right, Curt did mention that. I must have forgotten. Sorry.”
He gave her a nod and slid the door closed behind him.
Hadn’t she locked that door? She could have sworn she’d checked it twice before heading to Curt’s office with him this morning. Huh. Maybe she was losing it. From now on, she’d triple check. Even though she doubted anyone would climb up to a sixth-floor balcony, Curt said it was a security precaution, so she’d keep it locked. Period.
Galen had his phone to his ear as he paced back and forth, back and forth across her balcony. She could have watched him all day, the way his body rolled with an easy grace, each step precisely placed as though he’d transformed the act of walking into art. She knew from memory the shape of his body, his strong thighs, rippled abs, sculpted shoulders, and if she closed her eyes, she could picture the muscles bunching and releasing as he walked. Harper gave herself a mental shake. Snap out of it and get your head on straight! Nothing but heartache would come from dwelling on something that was never going to happen again.
While Galen did his thing out on her balcony, Harper set up camp at her dining room table. Okay, so calling it a “room” was a bit of a reach; the space was a little square of tile to the right of the living room only big enough to accommodate a tiny table. Still, this condo was a palace compared to her former studio apartment. With her notes spread to one side of her laptop, she hunkered down and got to work. Her story on the long-term effects of abolishing collective bargaining in certain unions was an easy piece. Really, all it needed was a quick polish and it would be ready to send to Sam. Harper stared at the cursor as it blinked beside her byline. No way would she be able to focus on reading and revising this story right now.
She opened a Web browser and typed Blue Lake into the search engine. The first result was a farm in southeast Minnesota that grew nothing but the blue lake variety of green beans. She doubted Senator Ellis wanted her to look into organic beans. Crap. Wisconsin, Colorado, organic farms, geothermal farms, farms for sale, back country lakes in Washington and Michigan, a school district in Pennsylvania . . . Page after page failed to produce anything related to Oregon, Senator Mark Ellis or his wife, or anything political in nature. Obviously, the senator had intended to tell her more, but unfortunately, the bullet in his chest had put an end to any conversation—or revelation—that would have done Harper any good.
Down but not out. If Harper was anything, it was persistent. On an exhale of breath, she let her eyes drift shut as she thought back to that night, but the images were garbled and confused. One minute she was standing in front of Ellis. The next, a loud pop and he was dragging her to the ground, his voice strained in her ears. He’d mentioned a hazard of some kind. Mobile hazard? Hazard assessment? Could he have been referring to a threat? She might not have much to go on, but Harper was far from throwing in the towel. While Davis and the FBI were conducting their investigation, she was going to conduct one of her own. Being proactive would help her feel a little less out of control and who knows, maybe she’d find something useful she could pass on to Agent Davis. Harper had a friend or two at the state capitol who might be able to help her out. She did a precursory check to make sure Galen was still preoccupied—yep, pacing away—and grabbed her phone. Scrolling through her contacts list, she selected the entry named Liz, and dialed.
A not-so-chipper voice answered. “Did we or did we not agree that calls during business hours are prohibited?”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” She valued her contacts on the “inside,” and Liz , as she’d requested Harper refer to her, was very strict about phone calls while she was at the office. “I wouldn’t call you during the day if it wasn’t important.”
“Well, what’s done is done. Besides, you should be taking it easy. You’ve been through the wringer, sweet cheeks. The last thing you need to worry about is work.”
“If I don’t work I’ll go crazy.” Especially with Galen ever present.
“I get that. Sometimes work is a good distraction. Considering what you’ve been through the past week, I suppose I can let you off the hook this once. What do you need, cupcake?”
Liz was a sixtysomething secretary for the lieutenant governor and had the inside scoop on a lot of the goings-on around the state. Aside from having a penchant for using silly nicknames—cupcake, lamb chop, sweet potato, and Harper’s personal favorite, baby butter bean—she was the person to talk to if you wanted dirt, gossip, the inside scoop, or in this case, a phone number.
“I’m after two things, Liz, and if you can get even one of them for me, I’ll . . .” What? What perk could she possibly offer in exchange for a little info? “I’ll hook you up with a sexy U.S. marshal.” Okay, so she wasn’t positive that Curt was single, but he looked about Liz’s age and didn’t wear a ring. And he was pretty good-looking for an older man. Whether or not he’d be up for a blind date was another matter, but if it came down to it, Harper would work her charm.
“Cute?” Glad to see Liz had her priorities straight.
“Would I offer otherwise?”
“All right, pumpkin. What can I do ya for?”
Harper craned her neck toward the balcony. Thank God Galen was long-winded. “First, I need you to check out anything that contains the words ‘blue lake’ and let me know if you get any hits. I’m looking for whatever you can dig up, really. Local, related to Ellis, his family, his campaign, or any of his staff.”
She responded, “Hmm,” which in Liz speak translated to, Oh reeeaaally. Is that all? “And second?”
“Can you snag me Jason Meader’s personal cell phone number?”
“Your marshal better be really cute,” Liz warned.
And in classic Liz fashion, she hung up without even saying good-bye.
Galen pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen. On a good day most of the words out of Davis’s mouth translated to, �
��Blah, blah, blah.” But today, he’d hit an entirely new level of stupid.
“You’re telling me that after four days of investigation, you’re leaning toward a robbery gone wrong? Ellis was a United States senator, Sean. Not some random guy leaving work for the day.”
Davis took a while to answer, and Galen wondered if the FBI special agent was too busy practicing his golf swing to respond. “I’m sure you think you’re better equipped to handle this situation, Galen, what with coming off an international assignment, but maybe you should leave the heavy lifting to the grown-ups. Your job is to babysit the witness and that’s all.”
Dickhead. “See, here’s where we’re going to have a problem.” Galen’s blood was rising, his temper close to the surface. “What you fail to consider in this situation is the fact that you’re gambling with someone’s safety on your hunch. Let’s say this is a robbery gone south—why would a random mugger with no ties to the senator threaten Harper by letting her know that he had her digital recorder in his possession? If the suspect hadn’t reached out, I’d agree that Harper might not have much to worry about.”
“We don’t know it’s the suspect reaching out,” Davis stated in the smug tone that drove Galen insane. “It could be someone playing a prank.”
“Did you trace the call?”
“Yeah, traced it back to a pay phone downtown.”
Great. Nothing like a dead end to add to an already difficult case. “Look, Davis, I’m not saying that our guy isn’t a freaked-out mugger. I just think that by making that sort of assumption, and not exploring every possibility, we could be risking Harper’s safety. If your theory is wrong”—Galen took a deep breath—“it’s her ass, not yours.”
“Last time I checked, Deputy, you’re not my supervisor. In fact, you’re nothing more than a grunt working for me. So I’d advise you to watch the accusations. I don’t answer to you, and I’ll do my job however I damn well please. Ellis wasn’t exactly squeaky clean. The man was a total fuck-up in his personal life. He cheated on his wife, he couldn’t keep his kids in line, pissed away most of his money, and as far as I’m concerned, he bumbled through his job. But he came clean to the press, his wife, his constituents, time and again without even blinking. And his record over the past couple of years is pretty damn clean. No scandals. We can’t find a concrete motive for anyone to kill him, ergo, there’s no lead.”
Galen was going to take Davis’s ergo and shove it right up his overconfident ass. “Honestly, I can’t believe I wasted my time with this phone call. I was told I’d be brought up to speed on your investigation, but the only thing I know for sure is that the FBI doesn’t have a fucking clue how to do their job and you’ve got your head shoved so far up your—”
“I’d watch the next thing you say,” Davis warned. “All it takes is a phone call and you’ll be off this detail and writing reports for the next six months.”
Bullshit. Davis couldn’t do anything and he knew it. Monroe would laugh in his face if Davis tried to throw his weight around like that. The Marshals Service and the FBI worked together when they had to, but neither had power or jurisdiction over the other.
“Maybe you ought to ask the reporter what she knows about Ellis’s death.” Galen didn’t like the sneer in Davis’s voice. He clenched his hand into a fist so tight, the circulation cut off. “Maybe she’s got motive. The shooter left her alone—maybe they were working together. I interviewed her. She might be hiding something.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Galen squeezed his fist tighter, imagining Davis’s neck in his grip. “The security guards who found her said she was scared shitless. If they hadn’t interrupted the shooter, she’d be dead.”
“That’s what she says. The parking garage security staff said they saw a man standing by Ellis’s car. The garage was dark and they didn’t get a good look at him. What if he was coming to collect his partner, but rather than take any chances, they split up. She pretends to be a hapless victim, he escapes without being identified.”
Galen had heard some far-fetched theories before, but this one took the cake. “And what would her motive be?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Like I said, I think she’s hiding something. Maybe she and the senator had a fling on the side and he wanted to end it. Maybe she was stalking him. His office has logged frequent phone calls and interview requests from her.”
Jesus. Davis was certifiably stupid. “She’s a political reporter, Sean. I’d say interviews come with the territory. Did his office know why she made so many requests?”
“His assistant said he turned down every single one of her requests. Why? Ellis has been known to be pretty friendly with the press. And the more he turned her down, the more she persisted.”
Galen couldn’t help but smile. It fit Harper’s personality to a tee. Tenacious. It didn’t make her a target for suspicion, however. “How do you explain the missing voice recorder and the voice mail at her office, then?”
Davis scoffed, “We have nothing to go by but her word that the shooter took off with her digital recorder. For all we know, she left that message herself to throw us off.”
Was Galen hearing Davis correctly? The guy was clueless. “You’re off base. She’s not a person of interest in this case.”
“She’s a person of interest until I say she isn’t. This is my investigation.”
Great. So not only would Galen have to protect Harper from being a loose end that needed tying up, he was going to have to protect her from the FBI as well?
“This is the wrong move, Davis.”
“I think you need to do your job, and stick with the witness. Don’t worry about my job or how I’m doing it.”
Galen disconnected the call before he said something that he wouldn’t regret, but that might get him fired. He leaned back and looked through the glass door at Harper, typing away on her laptop. She had no idea she was a suspect. And why should she? No doubt Monroe had kept that little fact to himself.
Damn it, Harper. You got yourself into one hell of a mess.
Chapter Eleven
“I don’t believe it. I mean, seriously? What are the odds?”
Sophie sat curled up in a chair on Harper’s balcony, a glass of Moscato in her hand. She’d been perched in her seat for the past hour and her eyes were still bugging out of her head. Which under any other circumstance would be pretty hilarious.
“I know, right?” Harper took a sip from her glass and followed Sophie’s gaze to where Galen sat in the living room. “I’m pretty sure fate wants to see me suffer.”
“If this is what suffering is like, sign me up. Maybe I ought to go out and throw myself in the middle of a crime in progress. I need a hot deputy marshal for a babysitter, too.”
“Funny,” Harper remarked. “If you think I’m enjoying this, think again. He has no idea who I am, Sophie. Do you know how humiliating that is?”
Sophie arched a sinister brow. “You could always strip naked and remind him.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so. One rejection from him is enough, thank you very much.” Harper leaned in toward her friend. “And can you please stop staring? He’s going to know we’re talking about him.”
“I can’t help it.” Sophie reached across the patio table for the bottle of wine. She dragged her gaze away from Galen long enough to refill her glass. “Boy is fine, Harp. Like, fine, fine. I don’t know how you can focus enough to put one foot in front of the other, let alone make conversation.”
“Yeah, well, conversation isn’t the problem.” Her initial plan to be a pain in Galen’s ass had sort of dissolved after the first day. Once you extolled the merits of a perfect grilled cheese to a guy, it was sort of difficult to play the tough girl. “He’s almost too easy to talk to.”
Sophie flashed her a knowing smile. “I take it you’re not going out of your way to be a royal pain in his ass anymore?”
“Not so much. Honestly, this situation is stressful enough without adding ano
ther layer. I thought it would make me feel better to put him through his paces, but really, it’s not worth the effort.” Over the past couple of days, her whatevership with Galen had settled into companionable professionalism. It wasn’t too bad, until her thoughts drifted to memories she was better off not focusing on. Then she found herself envying Galen’s lack of recollection.
“Did it ever occur to you that he might be pretending not to know you?” Sophie pointed her glass at Harper as though to drive her point home.
“I doubt it.” Why play games? The night they’d met, he’d proclaimed himself to be a straight shooter, and even now he didn’t pull any punches. Harper imagined someone like Galen wouldn’t be able to downplay the situation. “When he saw me in that office, his face was totally blank. Not even a hint that he recognized me.”
“So, what, you just exchange small talk all day while you try to avoid mentioning that you’ve seen him naked?”
“Pretty much,” Harper said with a shrug. “He texted me last night to check in after his shift was over, though.”
“Oh, really?” Sophie said in an arch tone. “Sounds promising.”
“I think we’ve reached the stage of our whatevership that he’s just trying to put me at ease. The U.S. Marshals’ version of customer service.”
“Whatevership?”
“Yeah, it’s what I’ve dubbed our arrangement. How else would I describe my situation? Holed up in witness protection with the guy I slept with who doesn’t seem to remember the event.”
“Whatevership is right.” Sophie laughed. “I can’t think of a better way to put it. So, what does he say in his texts? Anything naughty?”
“You wish,” Harper replied. “Mostly small talk. Checks up on the other deputies, makes sure I don’t need anything.”
“For a guy who doesn’t remember sleeping with you, he seems pretty concerned,” Sophie said. “I bet I’m right and he’s pretending. Maybe tomorrow, he’ll say good morning by visiting you in your shower.”