Part of her needed the comfort of a man—this man—making love to her and sheltering her body with his through the night. Part of her thought that was the worst idea in the world. They needed to be on guard, of course. No doubt that’s what Gabe was thinking. Or perhaps he assumed that after they both showered…
No, they’d been caught up in the moment—that was all. They didn’t have that kind of relationship. She didn’t know what to call what they did have.
She stepped into the shower and let steaming water beat down on her.
Unsure of Gabe’s intentions for the night, Renata wondered what she was supposed to do when she got out of the shower.
Her practical side took over. Her needs came second to the investigation.
That’s where she needed to concentrate her energies.
A little voice told her she was making excuses, that she’d done this before to keep herself emotionally distanced from men she dated and, yes, slept with.
But she didn’t really want to be emotionally distant with Gabe. She wanted to share everything, the way they had if only for a moment. And that thought scared her.
Torn about what to do, what to say, she stepped out of the shower and dried off. Her skin felt alive. She felt alive. She felt…she didn’t want to analyze whatever it was too closely.
That’s how she always ruined things for herself—by over-analyzing.
Renata pulled on the robe and brushed out her hair so the dark strands fell like a silken waterfall against the white terry robe.
But when she opened the door, she felt her anticipation drain. Gabe had turned down the lights, and it took her eyes a moment to adjust and find him in the darkened room.
The sofa bed was wide open and inviting, but Gabe wasn’t in it.
He’d made himself a bed on the floor from the discarded couch cushions.
Furthermore, he was sound asleep…
Chapter Nine
Gabe hadn’t really been sleeping when Renata had come out of the shower, but he’d figured pretending to be asleep would be the smartest thing. He’d wanted in the worst way to make love to her and he was certain she’d been ready, too. But he couldn’t do that to her. He’d deceived her from the first, and she didn’t deserve another betrayal.
So he’d pretended. And he’d lain awake listening to her as she’d settled down trying to sleep.
He figured they’d both been awake half the night.
Now it was morning and they’d overslept. If he wasn’t mistaken, Agent Renata Fox was a tad cranky this morning. He shoved a fresh cup of coffee at her, careful that their fingers didn’t so much as brush together.
“Drink. It’ll make a new woman of you.”
“I don’t need to be new. I thought I made that clear yesterday. I like myself exactly the way I am.”
“Exactly?”
To her credit, she didn’t take the bait. She practically drowned herself in that single cup of coffee.
“What would you like for breakfast?” he asked.
“Never eat it.”
“Ah,” he said knowingly.
“I’m going to give you a pass on that one,” she mumbled, shoving the cup over the counter toward him. “More coffee. Please.”
He refilled her cup and raided the refrigerator for some deli turkey. Without ceremony, he slapped it in a slice of bread, which he bent in half.
“You’re really going to eat that?”
“I need protein in the morning. And carbohydrates. I figured since you weren’t interested in a properly prepared meal, I would go with fast.”
She stuck her face back in the cup of coffee.
And Gabe couldn’t help smiling as he munched on his impromptu breakfast sandwich.
Even in a sour mood, Renata was something to look at. She’d already dressed, had brushed her hair back from her face and had applied makeup. She hadn’t shown herself until she looked perfect.
Hmm. Maybe he’d been on track with that obsessive-compulsive comment.
Finishing his sandwich, Gabe figured they might as well get to work. “So Chuck LaRoe had no relatives?” he asked.
“None that we could find. Not here. Not anywhere.”
“A mystery man.”
“So they say. People he worked with at the bookstore. Neighbors.”
“Everyone in his family died or disappeared?”
“Or never existed,” Renata said. “LaRoe didn’t have a past we could find. It was as if he was born full-grown.”
“Huh? And no one at S.A.F.E. thought that was curious?” Gabe asked.
“I wouldn’t know. By the time I got curious, it was too late. No one wanted to talk to me.”
“Let’s see what we can find out.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“No relatives or friends and he’s been dead a little over a week. Chances are his apartment is still intact. We need to get inside.”
“I don’t have access to keys.”
“Who needs a key,” Gabe said. “All you have to do is call the building manager and tell him who you are.”
But when they called the manager’s office, they got a message telling them he would be out of town until Monday.
“Now what?” Renata muttered.
“Let’s get going.” He knew she wasn’t going to like what he had in mind. “We’ll find a way in.”
WHEN GABE HAD blithely said they would find a way to get into Chuck LaRoe’s apartment, Renata had assumed he meant they’d find a neighbor who had a key. She hadn’t a clue that he’d meant to break in. But that’s exactly what they were about to do. Rather, what he was trying to manage.
“If we’re caught, this could mean my career,” she whispered, her mouth dry.
She was standing guard in the seedy hallway of a large apartment building filled with bad smells and occasionally with worse people. Gabe was using a set of narrow tools on the lock. Not wanting to know where he got them or the expertise to use them, she didn’t ask.
Gabe said, “If we don’t figure out the motive and therefore identity of the sniper, you won’t have to worry about a career, because you’ll be dead.”
“Thanks for the reminder.”
The reason she was going out of bounds here. A murderer was after her. She needed to protect herself the best way she could. Still, breaking and entering wouldn’t have been her first choice and didn’t sit well with her.
Hearing more than one set of heavy footsteps on the stairs above coming down toward them, Renata felt the knots in her stomach tighten. Great. No doubt whoever it was would want to know what they were doing.
“Hurry up!” she urged Gabe.
She eyed the stairs anxiously, and just as the first set of legs came into view, she heard a click and him saying, “Got it. We’re in.”
And a second later they were. Closing the door as the patter of feet reached their landing, Renata locked it, then closed her eyes and leaned her back against the door to regain her equilibrium.
“What the hell happened here?” Gabe asked.
Renata blinked and looked around.
The place was a mess. The S.A.F.E. team had been inside the week before, but she doubted they were responsible for the overturned chairs, the discarded dresser drawers, contents strewn across the middle of the floor or the stuffing pulled out of the couch cushions.
Renata sighed. “Looks like—if there was anything to find—we got here too late.”
“If the person responsible for this mess knew exactly what he was looking for.”
“You want to sort through the remains?”
“You have something better to do?” Gabe asked, after which he plunked himself down on the floor and started sifting through a pile of papers.
Rather than arguing, Renata sat down in the middle of the mess with him. Sorting through a dead man’s underwear. And his socks.
Just the career move she’d dreamed of.
“Anything interesting?” Gabe asked, his tone amused.
�
��You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“It’s not the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.”
“I mean me,” Renata said, trying not to sound put out. “You’re enjoying my reactions.”
“Hey, I know you’re tough. I saw you deck that Chinatown creep. This is the other side of the job.”
Remembering the attack—all three attacks—she said, “I hate violence.”
“Good career choice, then.”
“Somehow I didn’t think I would get that up-close-and-personal with the criminal element.”
“What did you think you would be doing?”
“Analyzing. Interpreting. Following a paper trail,” she said, throwing a pair of briefs back into a drawer.
“I see that you’re doing the wrong job there.” He held out a fistful of receipts. “Want to trade?”
“Too late,” she said. “I’m done with the fun stuff. Now you can keep your smirks to yourself.”
Renata slid closer to Gabe and starting sorting through bits of papers herself. They worked in silence for several minutes, and it actually felt good. Rather than bickering, they were working as a team.
And then, taking a good look at one of the receipts, she said, “Hold on.”
“What is it?”
“A fuel slip—the receipt you get when you use a credit card to buy gas.”
“Significance?”
“He bought the gas in Michigan,” she said.
In her mind’s eye, she could see the truck with Michigan license plates.
“Recently?”
She searched for the date and shook her head. “Last spring.”
“You said there wasn’t much information on LaRoe, like he sprang up out of nowhere,” Gabe mused. “When would that have been?”
“Last spring.”
They stared at each other.
“Look at this stuff more closely,” Renata said, excitement curling through her. “Maybe we’ll find more receipts from Michigan, something that can place him. If we can get a town or city, we might have a start.”
For the next few minutes, they resorted and rechecked, but to no avail. The only lead to Michigan was the fuel slip and that didn’t really give them any more information than that he’d been passing through the state.
And then Renata realized Gabe had stopped sorting, that he was staring intently at a piece of identification.
“You think it’s something significant?” she asked, realizing how tense he’d become.
Now she was tensing, her stomach knotting, gooseflesh spreading along her body with dizzying rapidity.
And Gabe practically jumped to his feet and shoved the ID into his pocket. “It’s significant,” he agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
He gave her a hand up and Renata easily rose to her feet, stopping mere inches from him. The close contact made her breath catch in her throat. Gabe seemed unaffected, as if his mind were elsewhere.
Or as if he were putting a wall between them.
Frowning, Renata took a step back and slid the Michigan fuel slip into her shoulder bag.
Gabe was already at the door, opening it a crack and carefully peering out, as if to make certain they wouldn’t be seen. Then he waved to her and opened the door. Renata flew right through and kept on for the stairs, glancing back to see him close the door and check that it was locked. As if that had stopped him from getting inside!
Part of her wanted to ask him about his lock-picking expertise. Part didn’t want to know. And part of her simply wanted to know where they were going. She waited until they got to his car to ask.
“We’re going to see a man about some fake IDs,” he said as he started the engine.
“What man?” Renata demanded. “And how in the world do you know him?”
“His name is Ned Coulter and he has a shop not too far from here.”
They happened to be in Edgewater, a community valued for the elevated rapid transit that ran a few blocks west of Lake Michigan. Well-heeled citizens lived east of the El in the high-rises lining Sheridan Road along the lake. Tenants of the apartment houses along the El were in a lower tax bracket. As were the people who frequented that section of Broadway, the main thoroughfare with restaurants and grocery stores and smaller shops.
They parked near Broadway Electronics, whose storefront windows boasted the best priced electronics in town.
Her mind whirling with the possible reasons Gabe might know a forger, Renata was understandably edgy. “This is where we’re going to find Ned Coulter?”
“Hopefully.”
“So you know him.”
“We’ve met.”
Met or done business?
Considering Gabe’s reluctance to spell it out, Renata figured it had to be the latter. Feeling as if she were in a drama about to unfold, she entered the store.
The young clerk behind the counter wore headsets attached to a boombox. His hair was spiked, his jeans were ripped, his eyes were closed and his head was bobbing to whatever music he was listening to.
“Hello!” Gabe shouted.
The clerk’s eyes remained closed and his head continued to bob.
Gabe whistled. Loudly.
No effect.
Finally, Gabe hitched himself over the counter and turned off the boombox.
The clerk’s eyes snapped open. “Hey, whaddya think you’re doing?”
“You work here?”
“Oh, yeah, right.” The clerk ripped off the headsets. “What can I show you?”
“You can tell your boss he has company.”
“You gotta name?”
“Yep, I sure do,” Gabe said without volunteering it.
The clerk gave him a look and disappeared into the back.
“So what name does this Coulter know you by?” Renata asked.
Like the clerk had done earlier, Gabe closed his eyes and bobbed his head at her in answer.
Making her wish she could find his Off button. Or maybe it should be his Play button to make him talk. Before she could try again, the clerk appeared in the doorway and waved them back. Renata poked Gabe—a good feeling—and then took the lead around the counter to the back room.
Ned Coulter was probably in his fifties, Renata thought. He was a small, neat-looking man with a mustache, goatee and reading glasses. And, bizarrely, she thought, he was wearing a suit, even in the back room of his shop.
“Gabriel, what brings you here?” Coulter asked, all the while eyeing her. “It is still Gabriel, is it not?”
“Nothing’s changed. This is Agent Renata Fox. If you’re into the news, you may recognize the name.”
Coulter tilted his head down so that he was looking over the reading glasses. “I recognize the face.” Then he gave Gabe a long, significant look.
“We need your help,” Gabe said, then added, “Renata’s all right, I promise you. When we leave here, she’ll forget about you. She won’t involve you in anything.”
Renata clenched her jaw to keep from speaking for herself. Though she had to admit, given the chance, she might have offered him the same agreement, if it was the only way to get information they could use.
“Come.”
Coulter took them through another doorway into a smaller room. His desk was spread with what looked like IDs of various sorts. The skin along Re nata’s spine crawled. She didn’t want to know about something illegal going on that she couldn’t do anything about.
She didn’t want to know Gabe wasn’t Gabe, either, but there it was.
“What can I do for you?” Coulter asked.
Gabe said, “Chuck LaRoe.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Sure you did, Ned.” Gabe produced the ID he’d taken from the pile on LaRoe’s floor and handed it to the man. “We found this in his apartment.”
Coulter shrugged. “He could have gotten this from anywhere. Ask him.”
“I recognize your handiwork. And it woul
d be a little difficult consulting with LaRoe, or whatever his name is, considering he’s dead.”
“I thought you paid attention to the news,” Renata added, trying to hang on to her irritation. “LaRoe was one of the victims of the City Sniper.” Which he had to already know considering he’d known who she was.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You know I reopened the case,” Renata said, taking over. “We’ve been giving the victims a closer look. Their connections, especially. We found a Michigan connection yesterday…” She purposely kept it vague. “LaRoe makes the second one. But we need to be able to put everything together and the name Chuck LaRoe doesn’t do it for us.”
Gabe added, “But his real name might.”
“Real? How do you know if anything is real?” Coulter looked from one to the other, then focused on her. “You’re not wearing a wire, are you?”
Renata lifted her arms. “Go ahead and search me.”
Gabe shoved one of her arms down and hung on to it. “She’s not wired. This is between us.”
The two men stared at each other long enough to make Renata even more uncomfortable. Renata lowered the other arm and released the one in Gabe’s grasp, wondering how he knew they could trust Ned Coulter.
“All right,” Coulter finally said. “Give me a minute.” He went to his computer and typed a series of commands. Seconds later, he grunted. “His name was Russell Ackerman. And that’s all I’ve got.”
It probably was, because Gabe couldn’t get anything more from the man, so a few minutes later, they gave him their thanks and left.
“Russell Ackerman. I know that name,” Renata mused as she slipped into the passenger seat. “I just can’t place it.”
“I guess that’s our next step.”
This time Renata insisted they go to her place so she could get a change of clothes and her laptop. If Gabe had any objections, he kept them to himself and drove.
Leaving Renata to speculate about and brood over his association with Ned Coulter, and to wonder about his story.
Who was Gabriel Connor really…and why had he been lying to her?
GABE COULDN’T BELIEVE Renata didn’t rag on him about Coulter’s “It is still Gabriel, is it not?” comment. She didn’t say anything, but it sat there between them like a bomb waiting to explode all the way to her place. For once he couldn’t think of a way to shake the tension.
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