Dangerous Waters (9 page)

After a couple of days of trailing her everywhere without incident, Mac finally made the decision to leave her alone at the beach on busy days. He'd be sleeping on her couch for the rest of his life if he didn't take some steps to find out who'd conked him on the head and why. If she was ever safe, it was in the midst of a few hundred screaming kids.

The first thing he did was stop by Jim Kellerman's construction office, where he had worked these last months. When he walked in, Kellerman was digging through a dented file cabinet stuffed to overflowing. The balding man glanced over his shoulder and grunted.

"Back from the dead, I see."

"Yeah, I had a little accident," Mac said.

"So I hear. Pete Tevis gave me a call."

Mac had arrived at a decision on the way over. Kellerman was an older man, taciturn but fair. Megan had mentioned that her father had known him for years and considered him a friend. Mac was chafing already at the restrictions his situation placed on him: no access to data bases and police files, no authority to question people or dig into their affairs. If somebody local was responsible for his problems, his best attack was to investigate the people he'd encountered through his construction work. Kellerman wasn't going to let him sit and read files, note names and phone numbers, who paid and who didn't if he thought Mac was a drifter who'd done a decent job for two months, then not bothered to show up for work one morning. Sometimes you had to take chances; Mac had decided to take one with his ex-boss.

"I need some help," he said. "Do you have a minute when we won't be interrupted?"

Kellerman looked him over in silence, his blue eyes shrewd. "Now's as good as any other time," he finally agreed, lowering himself into his squeaky office chair behind the battered gray desk. Mac sat, too, then pulled out his badge and a wallet full of genuine ID he'd recovered from a safety deposit box. He'd lost the fake ones; maybe they tossed that wallet in the lake with him. He didn't know.

The older man barely glanced at the badge and ID. "You implying something's wrong with my business?"

Mac shook his head. "Nothing like that. I'm the one with problems, not you."

And so he explained, for the third time in the last few days. He was growing to like the people here in Devil's Lake. Each time he'd expected interruptions, questions, hysteria. Instead, Kellerman listened as thoughtfully as the deputy sheriff had. His only reaction was to pop a peppermint candy in his mouth and suck on it.

"You were mighty lucky Megan was around to fish you out of the lake," he said at last.

"I understand you know her father."

He grunted again. "I've known Megan since she was a toddler. Unusual kid."

"Not your usual lifeguard," Mac commented. He'd be interested to hear what the home folks thought of her.

Kellerman shook his head. "She's got to be rolling in bucks. Her face was everywhere after the Olympics. She still does some endorsements. I understand she's agreed to be a color commentator at the next Olympic games, too. But, you know, you'd never guess any of it. She's the girl next door. My granddaughter was in her kindergarten class last year, loved her. This stuff at the beach..." He shrugged. "She must enjoy it."

Enjoyed yelling through a bullhorn at kids who didn't seem to have the sense God gave them? Mac thought incredulously. Well, why else would she do it?

"The main thing I've discovered about her is that she's stubborn as hell."

"You don't get to be the best in the world at anything if you're not," the balding man pointed out.

Mac rubbed a hand over his face. "I suppose so. And God knows I have good reason to be grateful she's stubborn."

Kellerman nodded. "So what do you want from me?"

Mac told him.

Kellerman frowned and swiveled his chair to gaze in silence out the window toward the huge metal building that garaged the construction equipment. "How many jobs did you work on?" he asked.

"I've been trying to think. Maybe twenty, counting some one-day jobs."

"You know, those fellows who knocked you on the head asked specifically for you. Molly remembers that much. They called instead of coming in."

"Lucky for her."

"Yeah, so Pete said." The older man shook his head. "Things like this don't happen in Devil's Lake."

Mac didn't say anything.

Kellerman turned in his chair to face Mac. "Pete tell you the address they gave is an empty lot?" Mac had checked it himself two days ago, but he only nodded. His ex-boss looked him directly in the eye. "You can have the run of this place as far as I'm concerned. If you can't find something, ask Molly. I'll tell her to give you a hand. I can give you some time once you have a list of people you want to know more about. Half our customers I've known for years. There aren't too many strangers in Devil's Lake."

Mac offered Kellerman one of his rare smiles as he stood. "Thanks."

The balding man rose, too. When he came around the desk, he clapped Mac on the back. "You were a hell of a worker. You want to give up that FBI stuff, you know where to come for a job."

Mac's laugh was rueful. "You never know. I might be ready for something a little more restful one of these days."

*****

He'd known it wouldn't be easy, but the next few days were among the most frustrating of his life. Devil's Lake was a small community; there had to be some bad apples. Mac just couldn't find them. Yeah, Edith Whitney was a classic old maid who liked vicious gossip; her curtains twitched whenever anyone went by her small frame house. Chuck Lowe beat his wife; everybody knew it. The school board was starting to have their suspicions that a high school English teacher hired the year before was sleeping with a student.

But that was it. Mac couldn't find a damn thing on anybody he'd worked for. Or anybody else, for that matter. He retraced the steps he'd taken that summer, stopped by houses where he'd remodeled and chatted with their owners. Between Megan and Jim Kellerman, he'd heard more about the residents of Devil's Lake than he really wanted to know. That, and he watched for strangers—or for that one face that wouldn't be strange to him.

He found strangers, all right, but they tended to be families renting summer cottages, or dedicated fishermen who were out on the lake at the crack of dawn and then back out again before dusk. Hell, none of them would have been willing to miss the prime hour for fishing just to attack him. They would have aimed for noon or midnight instead.

Anyway, what were the odds of him having encountered an old enemy? He had worked in the Pacific Northwest, but years ago. Back then he had been younger, thinner, his hair regulation length, his clothes dark-gray suits instead of jeans and sweats. Somebody might have recognized him this summer, but it would have taken the devil's own luck. The thought brought an ironic smile to his hard mouth.

Over and over, he came back to the part that stuck in his craw. How likely was it that two enemies hunted him at the same time?

The days of deceptive calm weren't helping his cause with Megan, either, he thought in frustration. They were driving home from the beach, Mac behind the wheel. Megan was frowning as she stared ahead through the windshield, somehow removed from him. She was becoming more restive in his presence, more confident by the day that the bogeyman was his fantasy. She'd be ready to kick him out any day, he knew.

Only, he wasn't going anywhere.

Mac didn't trust the quiet any more than he did most people. Having come up empty-handed locally, he was becoming reluctantly convinced that Saldivar had indeed found him. If so, his old enemy was keeping it very quiet. But then, Saldivar wouldn't like admitting to failure. This time he'd want to see Mac's body before he'd celebrate.

But how had he been found? Mac squeezed his fingers so tightly on the steering wheel that they hurt. Damn it, how? He had traced enough people on the run to know how to disappear himself. He hadn't made any of the usual mistakes: he'd never used real ID or credit and bank cards, he hadn't taken up the same kind of work here or joined a favorite national organization under his new name. If he'd made a mistake at all, it had been going to ground in a place he had been before. But how in God's name would Saldivar know where Mac had gone fishing once ten years before?

For what good it did, once they were home he called his partner, Norm Eaton, for the tenth time. Megan had disappeared into the kitchen, making noises about dinner.

When he answered, Norm sounded as edgy as Mac was beginning to feel.

"Damn it, McClain, you're a sitting duck! You've got to do something, and you know what I vote for. Run again. Make Saldivar start all over. We'll get him sooner or later, you can count on it. Buy us some time."

"I can't leave the woman," Mac said tersely. "I owe her."

"Make her run, too."

Mac gave a snort of near amusement. "I wish I could."

"The only other choice I can see is to set a trap. With you as bait, the bastard won't be able to resist it."

Mac reached up to knead taut muscles on the back of his neck. Across the small living room and through the arched doorway he could just see a corner of the kitchen. Every couple of minutes Megan passed through his field of vision as she stepped between sink and stove. He liked the way she moved, quick and graceful, her stride more contained than the hip-swaying walk of most women.

"That's what I wanted to do in the first place," he said wearily. "Now I can't. Short of arresting her and tossing her in the local jail, how do I keep her from looking like bait, too?"

Silence was his answer, and he was left with the same problem. He had to find a way to remove Megan Lovell from this whole mess. As each day passed, he became more determined. She had risked her life for him. He had to pay her back in kind. Then he could move on with his life. He could forget her.

*****

Megan brooded as she worked on dinner. She tore the lettuce into shreds and chopped carrots with quick hands, hardly conscious of what she was doing.

He was there all the time, at the edges of her consciousness. Megan wanted to forget him and pretend life was normal, that this summer was just like every other one since she had come home again. But how could she, in a house as tiny as hers, in a town so small his constant presence at her side must be causing talk?

What he succeeded in doing was awakening her fear every time she saw him. Her rational side was convinced the threat was illusory. On a more primitive, emotional level, however, she couldn't help being afraid. Sometimes she thought it was Mac himself who frightened her.

She would glance over her shoulder at the beach and there he was. Nobody else seemed to notice him, and she couldn't understand why. He was extraordinarily handsome with the bones of a male model and that dark blond hair curling on his neck. But what struck her most was the quality of danger he possessed. He was a dark presence, an unsmiling, watchful man who never quite fit in with those around him.

Megan slowly realized, though, that she was more nervous when he wasn't there. It was then that she suffered doubts, wondered about that smiling father who approached her, the two vaguely Hispanic men who strolled past with fishing poles and tackle boxes. It was then that she felt vulnerable, and grateful when Mac reappeared.

She hated her dependence on him. This was her hometown, the one constant in a life of change, of new coaches and different swimming pools that all looked alike, of teammates who sometimes envied her and friends who didn't understand her drive to be the best. Devil's Lake was where she felt safest, most herself; where she belonged. Now she was being robbed of that sense of security. In saving a life, she had changed her own, she thought bitterly.

She could hear Mac's voice in the other room, but didn't try to make out words. It sometimes seemed to her he was playing games. Cops and Robbers. Or maybe she just wanted to think it was a game.

Puffing out an impatient breath, she grabbed a hot pad and pulled the biscuits out of the oven. "Dinner's ready," she called.

He raised his voice. "Be there in a minute."

She rolled her eyes. How cozy. They sounded like a couple who'd been married for ten years. Megan slammed the cookie sheet down on the counter with complete disregard for the sea-green Italian tiles she had tediously installed. With a pancake turner she flipped the biscuits off the sheet, her movements jerky, tension bound up in her muscles until she felt like a steam engine with the escape valve blocked. Explosive.

A biscuit landed on the floor and she felt like kicking it. Damn it. Before she could vent her childish anger, Zachary disposed of the biscuit in one gulp and Megan sighed, dumping the rest into a basket.

When she heard footsteps approaching she made herself close her eyes and take a couple of deep breaths. Why was she letting this ridiculous situation get to her like this?

Stupid question. She knew the answer, even if it was about as clear as a stew, with as many ingredients. She felt manipulated. Scared. Couldn't help wondering if she was being foolish. Stubborn. All the things he called her.

And then there was the kicker.

She turned to face him, and felt the same response: the leap of her heart, the lurch in her stomach, the warmth deep in her core. The remembrance of his mouth on hers, the gentleness and heat.

And she wanted him to kiss her again, despite everything. Fortunately, pride and some remnant of sense ensured that she do whatever it took to hide that.

"Would you grab the salad out of the fridge?" she asked in a voice so calm she amazed herself.

"Dinner smells good," he said, obligingly opening her refrigerator.

"It's a casserole my mom always made." Which Megan bothered to cook once in a blue moon—if then. With just herself to think about, she tended to settle for instant dinners: soup and crackers, a salad, something from the freezer department at the grocery store. She didn't even have to ask herself why she had suddenly turned into Little Miss Homemaker.

Setting the hot chicken dish on the table, she said, "Speaking of my mother, she called earlier. Wants us to come to dinner tomorrow."