“Maybe when you hear why I came in the first place, you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.” Mentally, she crossed her fingers.
“We’ll see,” he told her, making no promises one way or another.
Turning away, Ethan hiked up the pajama bottoms that were resting precariously on his hip bone, threatening to slip, and started back to his apartment.
Kansas sat in her car, watching him walk away, appreciating the view and trying not to let her imagination carry her away.
It was a couple of minutes before Kansas started up her car engine again. Her other engine was already revving.
Chapter 14
“Do you really think that little of me?” Ethan demanded, his voice controlled, the second she walked in. “So little that you just assume that if I’m with another woman, it has to be something sexual? That I have to be cheating on you?”
“No, I don’t think that little of you,” she answered, raising her voice to get him to stop talking for a moment and listen. “I think that little of me.” He looked at her, confused, so she elaborated. “I’m not exactly the greatest judge of character when it comes to the men in my personal life. I try not to have a personal life because...because...” The words stuck in her throat and her voice trailed off.
“Because you’re afraid of making a mistake?” he guessed.
She shrugged dismissively, wanting to be done with this line of discussion, and looked away. “Something like that.”
Ethan threaded his fingers through her hair, framing her face with his palms and gently forcing her to look at him. When she did, he brought his mouth down to hers and kissed her with bone-melting intensity.
After a very long moment, he drew back and asked her, “Does that feel like a mistake?”
Kansas’s adrenaline had already launched into double time, threatening to go into triple. Everything else was put on hold, or temporarily forgotten.
The only thing that mattered was experiencing heaven one more time.
At least one more time, she silently pleaded with whoever might be listening. Because tomorrow would come and it might not be kind. But she had today, she had right now, and she desperately wanted to make the most of it.
“Ask me again later,” she breathed. “I’m too busy now.”
And with that, she recaptured his lips with her own and slipped off for another dip in paradise’s sun-kissed waters.
He lost no time in joining her.
* * *
It wasn’t until dawn the next morning, as Kansas woke up by degrees in his arms and slowly started removing the cobwebs from her brain, that she began thinking clearly again.
“What was it that you came here to tell me?” Ethan wanted to know, bringing everything back into focus for her.
Kansas raised herself up on her elbow to look at this man who, however unintentionally, kept rocking her world. From his expression, he’d been watching her sleep again. The fact that he hadn’t woken her up with this question, that he’d waited until she’d opened her eyes on her own, just reinforced what she already knew to be true—the man was completely devoid of any curiosity.
Unlike her.
She needed to know everything. Public things, private things, it made absolutely no difference. She had always had this incredibly insatiable desire to know everything.
As for him, if the information wouldn’t help him crack a case, he could wait it out—or even have it just fade away. It appeared to be all one and the same to Ethan.
“It’s about Nathan Bonner—” She saw that there was no immediate recognition evident in his expression when she said the name. “The firefighter who was giving that old man from the nursing home CPR. The old man who died,” she added.
It was the last piece that had the light dawning in his eyes.
“Oh, him, right.”
Playing with a strand of her hair, he was completely amazed that he could be so fiercely drawn to a woman. In the past, his usual M.O. was to make love with someone a couple of times—three, tops—and then move on, deliberately shunning any strings. But he didn’t want to move on this time. He wanted to dig in for the long haul.
That had never happened to him before.
“What about him?” Ethan asked, whispering the question into her hair.
His breath warmed her scalp and sent ripples throughout her being. If this wasn’t so important, she would have just given in to the feeling and made love with him. It was a hell of a good way to start the day.
But this had to be said. Ethan needed to know what she had discovered. “He doesn’t exist.”
Ethan looked at her, somewhat confused. “Come again?”
“Nathan Bonner doesn’t exist,” Kansas told him, enunciating each word slowly—then quickly explaining how she’d come to her conclusion. “He didn’t even exist seven years ago. There’re no federal income tax forms filed except for the last three years. If you go back four, there’s nothing. No driver’s license, no tax forms, no credit cards. Nothing,” she emphasized.
Ethan stopped curling her hair around his finger and straightened, as if put on some kind of alert. Kansas had managed to get his undivided attention. “Hold it. Just how did you get hold of his tax records?”
A protective feeling nudged forward within her. Kansas shook her head, even though she knew her response frustrated him. She couldn’t tell him how she’d gotten the information.
“If I don’t tell you, the chief can’t blame you,” she told him. “Or kill you.” Then, because he was staring at her intently, obviously not pleased with her answer, she sighed. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him. She didn’t want him blamed. But he had to know that her information was on the level. “I hacked into his files. His and a few others’,” she confessed.
For a second, she looked away and heard him ask in a quiet voice, “How many are a few?”
She thought of hedging, then decided against it. “All of them,” she said quietly.
He’d never been this close to speechless before. “Kansas—”
“I was looking for something we could use,” she explained, afraid he was going to launch into a lecture. “I didn’t expect to find that Bonner was just an alias this guy was using.” The moment he disappeared off the grid, she started hunting through old tax returns, trying to match the Social Security number. Her dogged efforts brought success. “He got his identity off a dead man.”
That kind of thing happened in the movies, not real life. Ethan cast about for a reasonable explanation. “Maybe he’s in the witness protection program.”
The suggestion took some of the wind out of her sails.
“I suppose that could be one possibility.” She rolled the idea over in her mind. Her gut told her it was wrong, but she knew she was going to need more than her gut to nail this down. “Do you know anyone in the marshal’s office?” she asked him. “Someone who could check this out for us?”
Ethan grinned in response. She was obviously forgetting who she was talking to. “I’m a Cavanaugh by proxy. If I can’t find out, someone within the family unit can.”
There were definite advantages to having a large family beyond the very obvious, she thought with a mild touch of envy. “You’re going to need a search warrant,” she added.
“We are going to need a search warrant,” he corrected.
“No,” she contradicted him in a deceptively mild voice that made him decidedly uneasy. “Technically I can search his place, warrant or no warrant. Some people might see that as breaking and entering, but if I find anything incriminating, it can be used against him.”
Ethan knew that look by now. It was the one that all but screamed “reckless.” He had a feeling that it was probably useless, but he had to say this anyway. “Don’t do anything stupid, Kansas.”
The expression she gave him was innocence personified. “I never do anything stupid.”
It took all he had not to laugh. “I wouldn’t put that up for a vote if I were you.” Throwing back the co
vers, he got up and then held his hand out to her. “C’mon, let’s shower.”
Taking it, she swung her legs out to the side and rose. “Together?”
Ethan paused for a second just to drink in the sight. Damn, he wanted her more each time he was with her. “It’ll save time,” he promised.
But it didn’t.
* * *
Within an hour, they were at the firehouse. Together they confronted the captain with their request.
The veneer on the spirit of cooperation had worn thin and there was definite hostility in Captain Lawrence’s eyes as he regarded them. The brunt of it was directed at Kansas.
“Bonner? You’ve already questioned everyone here once. Why do you want to talk to him again?” Lawrence demanded impatiently. The question was underscored with a glare. Before either could answer, the captain said, “He’s one of the best firefighters I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. I don’t want you harassing him.”
Ethan took the lead, trying once again to divert the captain’s anger onto him instead of Kansas. After all, she had to come back here and work with the man as well as the other firefighters. A situation, he thought, that was looking more and more bleak as time wore on.
“We just want to ask him a few more questions, Captain. Like why there’s no record of him before he came to the firehouse. And why he has the same Social Security number as a guy who died in 2001.”
If this new information stunned him, the captain gave no such indication. He merely shrugged it off. “That’s gotta be a mistake of some sort,” he replied firmly. “You know what record keeping is like with the government.”
“Maybe,” Ethan allowed. “But that’s why we want to talk to Bonner, to clear up any misunderstanding.”
“Well, you’re out of luck.” Lawrence began to walk to his small, cluttered office. “I insisted he take the day off. He’d been on duty for close to three weeks straight. The man’s like a machine. We’ve been short-handed this last month, and he’s been filling in for one guy after another.”
“Isn’t that unusual?” Ethan challenged. “To have a firefighter on duty for that long?”
“That’s just the kind of guy he is,” the captain pointed out proudly. “I wish I had a firehouse full of Bonners.”
“No, you don’t,” Kansas said under her breath as Ethan asked the man for Bonner’s home address.
The look that the older man slanted toward her told Kansas that her voice hadn’t been as quiet as she’d initially thought.
* * *
Less than twenty minutes later they were walking up to Bonner’s door. The man without an identity lived in a residential area located not too far from the firehouse where he worked. The ride to work probably took him a matter of minutes.
Ethan rang the doorbell. It took several attempts to get Bonner to answer his front door.
When the firefighter saw who was on his doorstep, the warm, friendly smile on his lips only grew more so. Kansas would have wavered in her convictions had she not read the files herself. The man looked like the personification of geniality.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I was just catching up on some Z’s. I like to do that on my day off. It recharges my batteries,” he explained. “Come on in.” Opening the door all the way to admit them, he stepped to the side. “Sorry about the place being such a mess, but I’ve been kind of busy, doing double shifts at the firehouse. We’re short a couple of guys, and since I really don’t have anything special on my agenda, I volunteered to pick up the slack. The pay’s good,” he confided, “but it leaves my house looking like a tornado hit it.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Kansas told him as she looked around.
Actually, she thought, she’d lived in worse. One of the foster mothers who had taken her in, Mrs. Novak, had an obsessive-compulsive disorder that wouldn’t allow her to throw anything out. Eventually, social services had come to remove her from the home because of the health hazards that living there presented.
But for all her quirkiness, Mrs. Novak had been kinder to her than most of the other foster mothers she had lived with. Those women had taken her in strictly because she represented monthly checks from social services. Mrs. Novak was lonely and wanted someone to talk to.
“What can I do for you?” the firefighter asked cheerfully.
“You can tell us why you’re using a dead man’s Social Security number,” Kansas demanded, beating Ethan to the punch. She slanted a quick glance in his direction and saw him shaking his head. At any other time, she might have thought that her partner looked displeased because she had stolen his thunder. But not in this case. Ethan wasn’t like that. He wasn’t, she had to admit, like any of the other men she’d worked with. Maybe he thought she should have worded her statement more carefully.
Too late now.
“Oh.” The firefighter cleared his throat, looking just a tad uncomfortable. “That.”
The response surprised Kansas. Her eyes widened as she exchanged a glance with Ethan. Was Bonner, or whatever his name was, actually admitting to his deception? It couldn’t be this easy.
“Do you care to explain?” Ethan prodded, giving him a chance to state his side.
The firefighter took a breath before starting. “All my life I wanted to be a fireman. I was afraid if they saw my record, they wouldn’t let me join.”
“Record?” Ethan asked. Just what kind of a record was the man talking about? Was he a wanted criminal?
“Oh, nothing serious,” the firefighter quickly reassured them. “I just got into trouble a couple of times as a teenager.” In his next breath, he dismissed the infractions. “Typical kid pranks. One of my friends took his uncle’s car for a joyride. I went along with a couple of other guys. But he didn’t tell his uncle he was taking it, so his uncle reported the car stolen and, you guessed it, we were all picked up.
“I tried to explain that I hadn’t known that Alvin was driving without his uncle’s blessings, and the policeman I was talking to thought I was giving him attitude.” He shrugged. “He tried to use his nightstick, and I wouldn’t let him hit me with it. I was defending myself, but the judge in juvenile court called it assaulting an officer of the law.” And then he raised his hand as if he were taking a solemn oath. “But that’s the sum total of my record, I swear on my mother’s eyes.”
Ethan supposed that could be true, but then, since it could all be explained away, why had he gone through this elaborate charade?
“That doesn’t exactly make you sound like a hardened criminal,” Ethan pointed out.
Bonner looked chagrined. “I know, I know, but I was afraid to risk it. I didn’t want to throw away the dream.”
“Of rushing into burning buildings,” Ethan concluded incredulously. Most people he knew didn’t dream about taking risks like that.
“Of saving lives,” the other man countered, his voice and demeanor solemn.
That seemed to do it for Ethan. He rose to his feet and shook the firefighter’s hand. “Sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Bonner.”
Ethan glanced at Kansas. She had no choice but to rise to her feet as well, no matter what her gut was currently screaming.
A bright smile flashed across the firefighter’s lips. “No bother at all,” Nathan assured him. He walked them to the front door. “I understand. It’s your job to check these things out. In your place, I would have done the same thing. That’s why this city gets such high marks for safety year after year,” he said, opening the door for them.
The minute they were alone, as they walked to his car, Ethan said to Kansas, “It all sounds plausible.” Before she had a chance to comment, his cell phone began ringing. Taking it out of his pocket, he flipped it open. “O’Brien. Oh, hi, Janelle. How’s that search warrant coming?” He frowned. “It’s not? Why?” He said the word just as Kansas fired it at him in frustrated bewilderment. His response was to turn away from her so he wouldn’t be distracted. “Uh-huh. I see. Okay. Well, you tried. I appreciate it, Janelle. Thanks
anyway.” With that, he terminated the call.
Kansas was filling in the blanks. “No search warrant?”
He nodded, shoving the phone back into his pocket. They were at the curb and he released the locks on the car’s doors. “That’s what the lady said. Turns out the judge that Janelle approached for the search warrant had his house saved from burning to the ground last year by guess who.”
Kansas sighed. “Bonner.”
He gestured like a game show host toward the winning contestant after the right answer had been given. “Give the lady a cigar.”
She opened the passenger-side door and got in. “The lady would rather have a search warrant.”
“Maybe we can find another way to get it,” he told her, although he didn’t hold out much hope for that. “But maybe,” Ethan continued, knowing she didn’t want to hear this, “it’s as simple as what Bonner or whoever he really is said. He didn’t want to risk not being allowed to become a firefighter because he was a stupid kid who went joyriding with the wrong people.”
Kansas stared off into space. “Maybe,” she repeated. But he knew that she didn’t believe that for a moment.
* * *
The rest of the day was mired in the same sort of frustrating tedium. Every avenue they followed led nowhere. By the end of the day Kansas was far more exhausted mentally than physically. So much so that she felt as if she were going to self-combust, she told Ethan as he parked his car in her apartment complex.
Ethan grinned seductively. Getting out of his beloved Thunderbird, he came around to her side of the car and opened the door.
“I have just the remedy for that,” he promised, taking her hand and drawing her toward the door.
She hardly heard him. “Maybe if I just go over—”
He cut her off. “You’ve gone over everything at least twice if not three times. Anything you come up with now can keep until morning. Right now,” he whispered into her ear, “I just want to get you into your apartment and get you naked.”
That did have promise, she mused, her blood already heating. “I take it your girlfriend canceled on you,” she deadpanned.
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