THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (3 page)

“You from the area?” the clerk asked her as she hunted down a pen
.

“No, I’m from D.C, but I just moved here.” She had found a cottage with a short-term lease.

He handed her the pen from the cash register. “Name’s Bill,” he said, holding out his hand
.
  

“Nice to meet you, Bill. I’m Maggie Alexandra.” As with other undercover jobs, she used a variant of her first name,
Magdalena
. Her seven silver bracelets, worn for luck, tinkled as she raised her hand to his
.

“Moving here for good?” Bill asked
.

“Well, I’m going to write a book, and I thought this rural town would be conducive to my writing.”

“A book, huh? What about?”

“The long-term effect of religious conversion on prisoners.”

Bill’s eyes widened. Another customer ambled in, and
Lena
stepped aside to fill out the application, using her boss, who knew of her scheme, as a character reference.

When the customer moved off, she handed Bill her application and held her breath while he skimmed through it
.

“Looks good to me,” he declared. “You know, we only pay ten bucks an hour.” He sent her an apologetic look
.

“That’s all I need,” she assured him.

He still looked skeptical. “Can you work seven days a week until I find another part-timer?”

“What are the hours?”

“Six P.M. till close, which is midnight every night, except for Sunday when we close at ten.”

The thought of locking up at midnight with parolees prowling the area made
Lena
’s blood thin. “That’s fine,” she said. “Do the men across the street ever come over here often?”

“Pretty much every day,” he acknowledged. “But if you’re worried about your safety, we do have security cameras.” He pointed up at the black domes on the ceiling.

“Oh, I’m not worried.” Their visits would make her undertaking that much easier. “When can I start?”

“Show up tomorrow morning at nine, and I’ll train you for a full day. Starting Friday evening, you can work by yourself. How’s that sound?” 

“Terrific. Thank you, Bill. I’ll see you at nine tomorrow.” Unscrewing the cap to her Gatorade, she backed toward the door, beaming
.

“Bye, now.” He waved in a way that suggested he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

It never ceased to amaze
Lena
how susceptible men were to her charms. At least she channeled her power to good use, using it to pry information out of criminals.

Whirling at the door, she pushed it open with her hip as she tipped the liquid she craved to her lips. The last thing she expected was for the door to give way suddenly causing her to stumble into an unyielding, sun-warmed body.

Gatorade showered her blouse. “Hey!” she cried, her protest trailing off with a gasp as she found herself face-to-face with the subject of her voyeuristic impulse
.
    

Oh, my God.
He was even more striking up-close. Staring aghast into his gray-green gaze, she found she couldn’t breathe. “Sorry,” she muttered, trying to squeeze past him. But he stepped into her path again, and her wet bosom bounced off his rock-hard chest like rubber balls bouncing off of concrete. A whiff of sweat, soap, and man made her head spin.

“Excuse me!” She managed to sound indignant when, in fact, she was hoping the sidewalk would just swallow her
.
  

“Personal or public?” he inquired, coiling a large, surprisingly gentle hand around her elbow and drawing her farther outside. The door bumped shut behind them.

“I’m sorry?” She could hardly hear him for the blood rushing past her eardrums. An ex-con was holding onto her!

“Your reason for taking pictures.” His deep voice held a cadence that brought to mind steel drums and fruity rum beverages, suggesting some
Caribbean
heritage.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried diving past him a third time, but his grip, however gentle, proved unbreakable
.
  

“You don’t have my consent to publish those photos,” he stated. Both his warning and his educated-sounding speech astonished her. As
Lena
gaped at him, his gaze dipped appraisingly toward her soaked blouse. Her nipples responded to his gaze as if he’d stroked them, springing to attention like diligent soldier
s
.
 

“What photos?” Ignoring her body’s response, she sent him a blank look. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

Her denial wrested his gaze upward. His thick lashes came together as he narrowed his eyes, stepped closer, and enfolded her in his cool shadow. “I know what I saw,” he insisted, his breath warm across her cheek. “Come. We’re going to go delete them.” His grip on her elbow tightened as he drew her in the direction of her vehicle
.

Digging her heels into the sidewalk,
Lena
resisted. The realization that he could easily overpower her both frightened and enthralled her
.
If any man was going to have his way with her, she’d want it to be him, but the issue with the pictures was unsettling
.

Suddenly, the door behind her opened. Mocha Man glanced over her shoulder and reluctantly released her
.

“Everything okay here?” Bill asked, dividing an anxious look between them
.
 

“Fine,”
Lena
assured him with a bright smile. Taking advantage of the ex-con’s slackened grasp, she broke free. Without a backward glance, she fled for her Jeep, slamming the door shut and locking it. Then she peeled out of the gas station, racing a yellow light at the intersection to distance herself from the man’s blistering regard
.

A glance into her rearview mirror showed him standing at the corner of the building with his arms crossed, his eyes potent and intense, transmuting his will
.

Cristemou!
Lena
kept a lead foot on the accelerator until Highway 235 curved, blocking the convenience store and Mocha Man from view.

Two miles later, she turned off the four-lane highway onto the rural route that took her to her rental cottage. Her racing heart slowly subsided. A parolee had seen her taking pictures. So what? He couldn’t prove she’d had a camera, could he? And now that she’d gotten away, he couldn’t stop her from uploading her pictures, either.

But he might tell
Davis
what he’d seen and point her out to him. If
Davis
had any reason to be suspicious of her, she would never gain his confidence and trust.
Damn it!

Who did Mocha Man think he was, telling her about the law? There was nothing remotely illegal about photographing people in a public setting, not unless she used the pictures for commercial gain, which wasn’t her plan at all. She would probably have deleted the man’s pictures if he hadn’t jumped down her throat. But not now. Oh, no, there had to be a reason why the ex-con had treated her like paparazzi.

Maybe he was a celebrity.

Nah, if he were famous, she’d have recognized him. More likely he had testified against powerful men, and he was worried about their retribution.

Whatever his reason and whoever he was, she was likely to run into him again. The prospect turned her mouth dry. As long as she kept her camera out of sight, using her hidden camera, she would be alright, she assured herself.

She lifted a hand to finger the pendant hanging between her collarbones. Above the interchangeable gemstones, the filigreed bail disguised the tiny camera’s lens. No one looking at it would ever suspect its filming functionality.

Not even
Davis
would know, she assured herself, when she befriended him—when she conned the ex-con, luring him into friendship by teasing him with the possibility of getting to know her better
.

The thought alone made her break into a clammy sweat. But what choice did she have? The detectives she had hired over the years had failed to find evidence that would implicate
Davis
in her sister’s murder. The only witness, a boy named Curtis, could not be found.
Davis
would never pay for his heinous crime unless he confessed to it
.

If Mocha Man ruined
Lena
’s golden opportunity to outsmart her sister’s killer, by God, he would regret it. She would take those sexy pictures of him and plaster them on the front cover of
Crime and Liberty
.

Lena Alexandra was after justice. And no mere mortal was going to stand in her way.

Chapter Two

The bombshell had gotten away, taking her snapshots with her.

Special Agent Jackson Maddox stalked to the corner of the building to watch her speed away. She appeared to be heading straight toward
Washington
D.C.
, where her tags told him she was from. No doubt she intended to publish her photos in some magazine or newspaper headquartered in the capital.
Damn it straight to hell.

Cutting a glance at Gateway, he realized construction was once more underway. Break time was over, and he’d be missed if he didn’t hurry, but he had to make a call first.

Slipping into the loading area at the back of the store,
Jackson
wedged himself between the dumpster and a chain link fence. His colleague, Toby, had sabotaged the security camera aimed in his direction. Taking an ear bud equipped with a mike from the hidden pocket in his shorts,
Jackson
pushed it into his right ear. Feeling inside the same pocket for his sleek, multipurpose cell phone, he speed-dialed headquarters.

Isaac Calhoun, team lead for the Inter-Agency Counterterrorism Taskforce, answered on the third ring. “What’s up, son?” Communications over an unsecure line, like a cell phone, required both men to encrypt their speech
.

“Not much, Pops, but I just met a hot chick in a Jeep with D.C. plates,”
Jackson
answered, talking like a college-aged son.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I think she digs me ’cause she just took my picture.”

“That right?” Ike’s tone turned dour
.

“Maybe you could find out who she is for me.”
Jackson
rattled off the numbers and letters on the tags he’d committed to memory.

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

“Thanks, Dad. Gotta go.” The parolees had been taught from day one to look out for one another. If “Abdul” didn’t return soon, a couple of his brothers would come looking for him. That was one thing you could count on at Gateway; someone always had your back.

Returning the ear bud to his pocket, he headed back across the highway. As he paused on the grassy median between the double lanes, waiting for a vehicle to pass, an awful thought occurred to him.

He’d been so distracted by the bombshell’s allure that he’d forgotten to speak and act like Abdul Ibn Wasi, the ex-con he was impersonating.
Double damn.
All he could do was wait to see what she would do with her pictures. One click of a shutter could thwart an investigation that was three months in the making.