Ironclad Cover

by Dana Marton

  Man, this awareness of her that he couldn’t shake left him feeling guilty and uncomfortable.

  He took her hand and settled into a leisurely walk. The idea was to look like they were on a lovers’ stroll instead of casing the neighborhood.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a real date. He had a less-than-stellar track record with women. His most serious relationship—God, how long ago that had been—ended when Jill had divorced him because she came to believe that he was married to his job and as she worded it, she didn’t want to “live in bigamy.”

  She’d been wrong. He had wanted her, wanted the family they had planned. But he was at a point where he needed to solidly establish himself in his career. It wasn’t going to always be like that. The hours he had kept were temporary. Jill hadn’t believed him, wasn’t willing to wait.

  He’d seen others after that, but nobody stuck. Then came Lynette—lithe with big blue eyes and soft blond hair and looking, oh, so lost—who brought a man’s protective instincts right out. He was investigating her husband’s death. The department wanted to pin it on her. The first suspect was always the spouse, with good reason, plenty of statistics supported it. And Lynette had a juvenile record, sealed. She had stabbed her stepfather at seventeen.

  She had told him her stepdaddy was doing vile things to her, broke down sobbing. Pretty little thing, so scared and shook up she still could barely say the words.

  Then, that night, she had called him when someone was trying to break into her house. She had cried on his shoulder, wearing next to nothing. She had been roused from sleep by someone out to take her life, she’d said. She had put her broken heart right into his hands, telling him how her husband hadn’t been the man others thought him to be, how he’d hurt her behind closed doors, how he’d kept lovers, had enemies, how he had denied her the thing she wanted the most—a child.

  And when, toward morning, half-asleep from the exhaustion of a frightening night, she had pressed her soft lips against his, he didn’t resist.

  “I love this place,” Anita said, making a visible effort to relax.

  “Who wouldn’t?” He looked up at millionaires’ row and closed the door on the past.

  “I meant the island. When we were growing up in Maryland—on the west side of the state, nowhere near the ocean—my grandmother was always talking about how it was when she was a kid. She grew up on a small island off of Campeche, Mexico. Her family was very poor and lived from the sea. I’ve never been to the Caribbean before this, but coming here was like coming home. I swear I remember the smell of the ocean. It smells different here than up north. And the water feels different, too.”

  He nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. It was a different world down here. He liked the atmosphere of the island—you could find excitement or peace depending on your mood. He liked the ocean, the relaxed attitude of the locals, the food. It would be nice if he had the time to go boating before he left.

  They were reaching Cavanaugh’s property so he crossed the street, pulling Anita with him. He didn’t want either of them to be recorded by the security cameras that sat on the wall closing off his place from view.

  A white sedan came up the street, stopped in front of the gate and was admitted in.

  Brant paused and turned Anita so he would be facing the opening gate and she would be facing him. He tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Two men, early forties, suits, briefcase with the passenger,” he said as if he were murmuring endearments to her. He also rattled off the license-plate number.

  He lifted the hand on which she wore her camera ring and angled it to his lips to kiss the tips of her slim fingers, working the button to snap a few pictures. He wasn’t sure how well they would come out, considering the lack of light and the fact that the gate was closing already, getting in the way.

  He lingered, pulled the other hand up, too, playing the role out in case anyone was watching. Her skin was soft, her hands graceful like the rest of her. He made a point not to enjoy holding them. It would have been grossly unprofessional.

  But once the men had disappeared inside the house and there was nothing more to see, he couldn’t help focusing his attention on the woman in front of him, on her upturned face and swirling cinnamon eyes. Her scent mingled with the scents of the balmy Caribbean night and became one with it. She was waiting for his cue, he realized a moment or so later. They should be moving on. Another second passed before he lowered her hands and did so.

  “Do you think he came back without us knowing?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so. Carly is monitoring the airport logs.” Although Carly was out at the turtle farm at the moment. Still, she had probably checked before she left. Even if Cavanaugh had filed a last-minute flight plan, he couldn’t have gotten in from Miami already and be receiving visitors.

  They walked slowly. He kept track of which properties had lights on and which didn’t, especially those that were close to the Cavanaugh estate, out of habit.

  “Do you believe in truth always triumphing at the end?” she asked out of the blue.

  “I wouldn’t be in this job if I didn’t.”

  She accepted his response with a slow nod, a thoughtful expression on her face.

  “How are you doing with all that information from this afternoon?” he asked.

  She bent her head as she considered. “I suppose all families have secrets. Everybody just assumes that theirs is the exception,” she said after a while. “How about your family? Do they have secrets?” She looked at him.

  He didn’t bring his family into his work, as a rule, didn’t share anything about them even with his coworkers, but now, he said, “Probably. I have four sisters, all younger than me and unmarried. It’s enough to turn a man gray.”

  She gave him a smile.

  “Maybe William did work alone,” he said, because he knew the idea that someone from her family could be involved bothered her. “We have no indication otherwise. Since he’s been caught, there hasn’t been another attempt.” And, yet, his instincts prickled every time he tried to figure out the how’s and the why’s.

  “Had his family been notified?” she asked.

  “Not yet.” He’d discussed the options at length with Tarasov and Moretti. “He’d told everyone he was going on a business trip. It won’t be suspicious, yet, that he can’t be reached for another day or two. He didn’t have a steady girlfriend, didn’t keep in daily touch with anyone according to his phone records. When he is reported as a missing person, the police will launch an investigation. I’ll do what I can with my connections to drag it out.”

  “Nobody can know that he came down here after me. Nobody can know that I’m down here on a mission and not in some halfway house back in the States,” she said. “If his story came to light it would compromise the mission.”

  “Right.”

  “Diosmio.” She shook her head. “From federal prison straight into a undercover operation that now involves a government cover-up of the death of a suspect in custody. My career is moving up.”

  They walked in silence for a while, reached the end of the street and turned around. And suddenly they were just walking along as any other couple on a moonlit, romantic night.

  He glanced through Cavanaugh’s gate when they reached it again. Nothing new in there. They had to keep on going. When they got to the car, he opened the door for her.

  “Thanks.”

  He went around and took his own place.

  Silence filled the small space as they both kept their eyes on the rearview mirror. What was she thinking about? He didn’t want things to start feeling awkward so he asked, “What are you going to do first when you get home?”

  Just as she asked, “Hungry?”

  “Kiss my nieces and nephews senseless,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he responded to her question.

  She pulled her black leather purse, which looked like a small backpack, from the backseat, brushing ag
ainst his arm on her way back. His awareness of her was becoming pitiful.

  She produced two cans of soda along with plastic-wrapped sandwiches. “Help yourself, there’s more.”

  “Thanks.” He unwrapped a sandwich and bit in. The explosion of flavors surprised him. He opened his sandwich and peered in. “What’s that?”

  “Salsa. You don’t like it?”

  He just hadn’t known he did. “It’s great,” he said, shifting in his seat. His hip had been hurting almost constantly for the last couple of days. Maybe bad weather was coming—hurricane season and all. The thought was depressing. You knew you were getting old when you got your weather forecast from your bones instead of the evening news.

  “Are you okay?” Anita asked.

  She had a sixth sense to notice whenever anything was wrong with anyone. He’d seen it at work at the office. She always looked out for the others.

  “Nothing serious,” he said, tired of denying the problem.

  “You’re worried that it’ll affect your work,” she said.

  “It’ll end my work.” It felt liberating to say the words, at last.

  “That must be hard to accept.”

  He thought for a moment. It should have been hard to accept, but it wasn’t. He shook his head. “I think I’m ready.” He had seen enough, had been on enough hair-raising cases to be okay with calling it quits. And despite what his ex, Jill, had thought, family did come before the job. And he wanted one. Maybe if he settled down, his wayward sisters would follow his example.

  He considered Eileen Mills, one of his neighbors back in Virginia, a sweet-natured school-teacher who sometimes brought over oatmeal-raisin cookies, the best he’d ever tasted. She was sweet and kind and caring, the type of woman a man could envision raising his children.

  They were friends, had been friends for years, which he considered a good foundation for marriage. He had thought about taking their relationship to the next level a couple times over the past year, but never got around to it. After this mission, he would have plenty of time to woo her. He didn’t have time to think about her right now.

  Movement in the rearview mirror caught his eye. The white sedan was leaving.

  “Put your head on my shoulder,” he told Anita.

  She did so without hesitation. He took her hand and pulled it to him again, not to take pictures, just to round out the image they presented.

  She fit into the crook of his neck perfectly. The way she felt pressed against him—A better man wouldn’t notice stuff like that, but he was obviously scum because he was aware of every inch of her body that touched his.

  She was off-limits. Nothing was going to happen between them. She wasn’t his type anyway.

  Tell yourself that a few hundred times, pal, and see if you start believing it.

  The car went by them, stopped then rolled out into the cross street.

  “We’re not following them?” she asked.

  “Not necessary. I got the plate numbers. We’ll know who they are by tomorrow.”

  She was pulling away when a cop car came up behind them. Parked.

  He watched in his side mirror as a female officer got out. Probably one of the neighbors had reported them. Neighborhoods like this didn’t like outsiders hanging around.

  “Damn. We don’t need to get on the radar of the local police.”

  “What does she want? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t get it into her head that we’re would-be burglars. The car is full of surveillance equipment.” He pushed his night-vision binoculars deep under his seat with the heel of his right shoe.

  “She can’t just search the car, can she?” Anita glanced into the rearview mirror.

  “It’s not the U.S. She can probably do anything she wants.”

  “Good evening,” the policewoman said as she came up to his rolled down window.

  “Good evening, officer.”

  “Are you having any problems?” she asked.

  “Just talking,” he said.

  She bent to get a better look at Anita, then at him again, drew her own conclusions as to why a man and a woman would sit on a secluded street when they wanted to spend time together instead of walking the public beaches or going to one of the many restaurants or back to one of their apartments, for that matter. Her voice was crisp as she said, “Go home to your wife, sir.” And walked away.

  He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was half past midnight. The windows at the Cavanaugh estate had gone dark, everything quiet. He turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

  Time to check in with Gina, Carly and Sam. Maybe they’d had better luck.

  HE COULDN’T get her home fast enough, Anita thought, embarrassed by her body’s reaction to him in the close confines of the car. The evening had been probably no big deal to him but it had been four years since she’d been out with a man, held hands, touched bodies—even if tonight was just pretend. Brant Law kissing her fingertips filled her with more heat than biting into a chili pepper.

  “I’ll walk you up,” he said when he stopped the car in front of her apartment building.

  “It’s not necessary.” His hip was hurting and her apartment building had no elevator. It wasn’t tall enough to require one, she supposed. She lived on the third floor, the very top.

  “Just the same,” he said, and got out, managing to get over to her side fast enough to open the door for her.

  The walk up the stairs was silent and awkward. Then again, maybe she was just projecting her frazzled frame of mind onto him. She was glad when they made it to her door. She pushed the key in the lock.

  “I’ll go first.” He stepped forward and pushed the door open slowly with his left hand while his right hovered over the gun tucked into the back of his jeans. She waited a few seconds before she followed him in.

  He held a hand up to signal her to stop where she was.

  He was probably overdoing it, but she couldn’t be mad at him for it. She was thorough—a quality they shared. She also believed in doing a job well and leaving it fully finished.

  She glanced around and her attention caught the stack of papers she had left on the kitchen counter. Something wasn’t right about them. A plastic bag was shut in the door of a cabinet above the stove.

  “Somebody was in here,” she called out.

  “Don’t touch anything,” came the response from her bedroom, then Brant appeared a second later. “Whoever it was, he’s gone now. I’ll come back with a fingerprint kit tomorrow. We’ll get you a room at my hotel for tonight,” he said.

  Anita backed out into the hallway. Sticking close to him was probably the smart thing to do. But she really, really needed distance right now.

  “I could crash with one of the other women. Sam is sick. She needs a little caring, anyway.”

  “Not when there’s someone after you,” he said.

  He was right. She didn’t want to bring danger to anyone. She wasn’t thinking straight. “Okay.” A room at the other end of the hotel should be fine. And she was not going over to visit with him under any circumstances. Seriously. Sooner or later he was going to catch onto the effect he was having on her and she was going to end up making a fool out of herself.

  But not tonight.

  HE HADN’T TOSSED her courtesy kit. She’d forgotten to do so before she left, frazzled by having spent the night in his room. It still sat there on the bathroom sink.

  She knew this because the hotel had been booked full. They were roommates again.

  Anita brushed her teeth and combed her hair, looked at herself in the mirror. He’d given her a shirt to sleep in once again. The hem came nearly to her knees. It didn’t stop her from feeling naked.

  She came out of the bathroom with some reluctance. “All yours.”

  “Thanks,” he said as he passed by her on his way in.

  Their eyes met. Her mouth went powder dry and she licked her lips, needing to say something to diff
use the situation, but it was he who broke the spell.

  “Gina called in. Their stakeout was a wash. ‘Nothing but thousands of humping turtles and an ungodly stench’ were the exact words.” A smile played above his lips.

  “Sounds like we got the better end of the deal.” She tried, in vain, to make herself relax.

  Once the door was closed behind him, she walked over and collapsed on the bed. Diosmio. Her nerve endings were still tingling. It made no sense to be this shaken up because they were sharing a room. They’d done so before. And besides, these weren’t nearly as cramped quarters as the car they’d spent the first half of the night in.

  She glanced at the turned armchairs he had obviously planned to sleep in again. She pulled a pillow and a blanket from the bed, made up the chairs and settled in, turned on the TV and flipped through the channels, settling on the local news. She needed distraction. Peace. Serenity. Anything to keep from thinking about Brant.

  But then the water started up in the bathroom and the domestic mood of the scene hit her with full force, leaving her unable to concentrate on what the anchorwoman was saying. Life could be like this. Again.

  She’d had that before, a home and a man who loved her to share it with. There was a fierce longing in her that went beyond the loss of Miguel. She wanted this again, she realized. She wanted a partner, a mate. She’d done the grieving. She’d done the career thing and the building of the business. She’d done the self-examination and the loneliness. She’d thought she would be happy just to have her freedom and her family back. She’d been wrong. She wanted moonlit walks. She wanted love. God help her, she wanted a man in her shower.

  When the bathroom door opened, she didn’t look over. She was afraid Brant would see the bare-naked need in her eyes.

  He came up to her and, judging from the sound, he was still rubbing a towel over his head. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that he was wearing a pair of shorts with an elastic waistband, the kind people wore to go running or play soccer. “You take the bed,” he said.