THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) (14 page)

“Wait a second.” Jamal frowned. “How you gonna write a book in just three weeks? We all leavin’ after that.” 

“That’s plenty of time to interview you. I just need an hour with each of you, say right at 8 P.M. That way you’ll be done by curfew. Before you leave Gateway, we’ll exchange contact information so we can keep in touch.” 

Jamal tried to negotiate a fifty-fifty split on royalties.

Lena
smiled wryly. “Sorry, babe. That would compromise your anonymity.” She jotted down the names of all the men present. “Where’s Abdul?” she asked, casually glancing up at Corey. It had taken the wind out of her sails when he’d failed to show up tonight.

Corey shrugged and looked around. “I don’t know.”

“Ask him if he wants to be interviewed.” A danger to her or not, they had to discuss the roadblocks he kept throwing up on her highway to justice. “Tell him I have a slot open this week.”

Jamal elbowed Hasan. “You hear that? She got a
slot
open for Abdul.”

“Man, shut up,” Muhummed snapped.

Feeling her face heat,
Lena
fixed her attention on the schedule she was putting together. “Muhammed, Jamal, and Nadim, I have you down for this week. Corey, Sulayman, Hasan, and—what was your name again?” she asked the other parolee she’d just met.

“Shahid,” he said.

“Shahid.” She wrote his name down. “You four can come next week.” 

“We can’t do Friday nights,” Corey reminded her.

“I already factored in your Friday night service. We even have an extra week in case I need to follow up with any one of you,” she assured him as she handed each man a piece of paper with his appointment noted on it. “Give this one to Abdul for me?” she asked Corey. She still hoped to see him sooner than Wednesday night when she’d set aside time to interview him. But, if not, he’d at least get the message that she wanted to talk
.

As
Davis
accepted his appointment, pinpricks trekked up
Lena
’s arms and stabbed at her scalp
.
 

She had done it! She’d secured an interview with her sister’s killer. The next step—getting him to reveal incriminating evidence—was going to be the hard part
.

**

“Here’s your appointment time to interview for Maggie’s book,” Corey announced
.

Stretched out on the bottom bunk,
Jackson
accepted the scrap of paper Corey offered him and glanced down at the decisively written
Wednesday, 8 P.M.
His pulse sped up at the prospect of a private interview three nights from now.

“She must like you,” Corey noted with a pout. “I gots to wait till next week.”  

“You ain’t serious,”
Jackson
said, ignoring Corey’s observation. “She expects us to talk to her under all those cameras?” 

“Naw, man. She takin’ us all into the
back
room, where there ain’t no cameras.” Corey tried to hide his grin of anticipation.

Jackson
frowned. What the hell was Lena Alexandra thinking
,
boxing herself, alone and defenseless, into a small room with ex-cons? “Is Sulayman getting interviewed?” he demanded, wondering if an interview with
Davis
was her real intent
.

“Yeah. I think he go next week, right after me. Why?”

“No reason,”
Jackson
muttered, looking away.

“You don’t think she should be alone with him,” Corey guessed. “I know, right. He ain’t like the rest of us.”   

“No, he ain’t,”
Jackson
agreed. He wondered how far Lena would go to discover
Davis
’s darkest secrets. What did they matter to her, anyway?

There were two ways to find out. One, the Taskforce analysts would eventually discover what linked Lena and
Davis
. Or two, Jackson could just follow his own instincts this time and ask her himself
.

“So
,
you in?”  Corey eyed him closely.

“I’ll think about it,” he hedged
.

Corey chuckled. “Yeah, you playin’ all cool about it. I know you ain’t missin’ that appointment.” He ambled into the adjoining bathroom and shut the door.

As
Jackson
pictured himself sitting face-to-face with Lena, it occurred to him with starling clarity that, as a journalist,
Lena
would never conduct interviews without a camera handy.

Holy hell!
He and Toby had completely overlooked the obvious. Her Canon Rebel wasn’t the only camera in her possession. She had to have a hidden one, as well, which meant she probably still had more pictures of
Jackson
than those they’d already seized
.

Son of a bitch! Where was the goddamn thing?

Sifting through his memories of her, he hunted for the kind of items that disguised miniature recording devices—something like a watch, an ink pen, or a hair clip.

What about her necklace? Dangling between her delectable melon breasts, where he’d love to bury his face, it had caught his eye on more than one occasion. While the stone in the pendant varied, the setting was always the same—a tear-shaped bail with a scroll-pattern at the top, inlaid with a diamond chip. Only, he’d bet his next paycheck that wasn’t a diamond chip; it was a fucking lens
.

He threw an arm over his eyes. The pendant explained so much, like how she always seemed to stand with stiff shoulders and glide as she turned, like a jewelry box ballerina. He’d mistakenly assumed that she was flaunting her wares to her admirers, but it wasn’t that at all. She’d been aiming her camcorder.

Christ, he had to take the thing away from her before she ruined his investigation
.

Only, Ike would never agree to that. He knew exactly what kind of plan Ike would want to execute:  Send Toby over to catch
Lena
unawares. Toby could grab her after work on her way to her car and rip the necklace off her throat. End of story.

All
Jackson
had to do was share his revelation with Ike, and it would be over
.

He teased his ear bud out of his pajama pocket. In the bathroom, Corey had just turned on the shower.
Jackson
could give Ike a quick call. He knew Toby would be more than glad to address the situation.

On the verge of dialing the team lead,
Jackson
hesitated. He pictured
Lena
struggling in Toby’s grasp. The mental image evoked both jealousy and reluctance. He didn’t want Toby touching
Lena
. The thought of Toby bruising her or, worse yet, charming her like some dashing bandit, left a bitter taste in
Jackson
’s mouth
.
 

So, what now, Stonewall?
demanded a voice in his head that sounded just like Toby’s.

I’ll take care of it myself.

No sooner did the thought cross his mind than the neon sign for Artie’s flickered and went out. On Sunday nights,
Lena
closed at ten. If he wanted to catch her before she left, he needed to get over there ASAP
.

Rolling out of bed, he scribbled a note to Corey on the same scrap of paper that held his interview time.
Be right back
.

He hoped to God Corey wouldn’t blow the whistle on him for breaking curfew. Leaving the note on the book his roommate was currently reading,
Jackson
jammed his feet into his sneakers, pulled on a dark T-shirt, and let himself out.

Chapter Eight

Floodlights at either end of Artie’s kept
Jackson
hemmed behind the dumpster. His heart beat out a primal rhythm as he waited like a panther for
Lena
to leave the store, which should be any minute now. A moment ago, he’d overheard the locks at the front of the store scrape closed, which meant she’d be leaving via the delivery door at the rear of the store where the sabotaged surveillance camera had yet to be fixed
.

Conscious of the anticipation zinging through his veins,
Jackson
realized he was blatantly defying orders for the first time in his life. While the ramifications made him nervous—who in his right mind would want to piss off Ike?—the physiological effect was highly stimulating.

Insane amounts of endorphins and adrenaline ricocheted through his body
.
No wonder it was human nature to defy the rules. What had obedience gotten him in the past but a shit-load of responsibility and a miserable, neglected wife, anyway?

It wasn’t like Ike wanted Lena Alexandra toting around a hidden camera with images of his undercover agent on it. In seizing it himself, he’d save Toby the trouble or, rather, the pleasure of stealing it himself
.

If anyone was going to confront Lena,
Jackson
figured it should be the man who’d first laid eyes on her. Since that was him, he got dibs.

At the sound of the rear exit clanking open, he rounded the corner of the dumpster unseen by the woman moving briskly toward him. Up the alley she stalked, between the back of the store and the ivy-choked chain-link fence.

Two more seconds. Now
. Walking out of the shadows, he intercepted her path
.

With an audible gasp,
Lena
startled back, but to her credit, she didn’t scream. The
chink
of coins as she clutched a pouch to her chest told him she was carrying money.

“Abdul,” she exclaimed, recognizing him in the scant light that wrapped around the edges of the building. “What the hell do you want?” 

Her hostile tone left no doubt that she blamed him for the wreckage at her rental
.

“Why are you still in the area?” he demanded, acknowledging his guilt as he bore down on her.

She scuttled backward until her heels hit the wall, but instead of seeming afraid of him she glared at him fearlessly. “We need to talk,” she stated resolutely
.

Talking wasn’t part of the plan. He’d come over here to reiterate his threats, confiscate her pendant, and leave. “I don’t think so.” He spoke in the same, cold voice he’d used for interrogating insurgents in the war. Too bad, insurgents had never smelled so damn delicious nor looked so damn hot. “You need to leave this place and not come back.”

Her eyes flashed like road reflectors. “Who’s going to make me, you?” she scoffed.

Her temerity amazed him, though he did elicit a flinch as he dug his fingers into her shoulders. “Yes,” he said. Transferring one hand to the slim, silky column of her throat, he encircled it with just enough conviction to elicit a tremor of fear. Beneath his palm, her pendant glinted in the dark.