Wanted: Bodyguard

With his equipment all in place, he left the bedroom and headed for the kitchen, where he could hear the sounds of Lana talking with her little girl.

As he entered the kitchen he instantly spied the toddler in her booster seat at the table, a streak of strawberry jelly across one plump cheek and a tumble of blond curls on top of her head. Even though Riley wasn’t into kids, this one was definitely a little doll.

“Hi, kid,” he said.

She smiled at him. “Hi, Daddy!”

“Her name is Haley,” Lana said. “Haley, this man is Riley. Can you say Riley?”

Haley nodded. “Daddy,” she repeated, and clapped her hands together in happiness.

Lana leaned with one hip against the counter. “I don’t know why she’s doing that,” she said, obviously irritated.

“Do I look like your husband did?” he asked.

Lana shook her head. “Not at all. Joe was blond, and he was a smaller man than you are.”

“Her calling me daddy works well with the little make-believe world we have to build quickly.” He sat down at the table. “Is that coffee I smell?”

She nodded, her shoulder-length hair shining in the sunlight that streaked through the windows. “I decided to brew a pot to show you that I intend to cooperate, but in return I want you to tell me everything that’s going on and exactly why you’re here.”

She poured him a cup, then sat at the table opposite him. He took a moment to study her features. She had a cute upturned nose and full Cupid-bow lips that looked as if they were just begging for a kiss. He frowned, irritated by his own wayward thoughts.

“Basically, I’ll be staying in your guest room, although I’ve got extra backup at night so I can catch a couple hours of sleep. During the day I’ll be manning a camera and watching what goes on next door at the Cary house, taking down license plate numbers and trying to identify anyone who comes to visit him. Everyone you know, especially Greg Cary, has to believe that I’m your new husband.”

“That’s the part I’m having trouble with,” she said. “How am I supposed to explain the sudden appearance of a husband in my life?”

He took a sip of the coffee, then explained. “We’ve got a cover story already in place. You and I met online about six months ago, one of those dot-com dating services, and of course the minute you saw my photo it was love at first sight.”

She laughed and it lit up her face, making her look prettier than she had moments before. “Full of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Maybe just a little,” he replied agreeably. “Anyway, we met online. I’m from Arizona, and we talked on the phone and e-mailed each other for the last six months. We got together twice, once in Santa Fe and another time in Denver. The FBI knows that over the last six months you’ve traveled to jewelry shows in both those cities. We realized how much in love we were, and so last weekend we tied the knot in Vegas.”

“Because you know I was at a jewelry show in Vegas last weekend.” Her smile fell away and her eyes grew guarded. “What else do you know about me?”

“Lana Tyler, twenty-nine years old. Widow of Joe Tyler, fallen police officer shot at a convenience store while buying a gallon of milk. Your daughter was a cesarean birth, and since your husband’s death you’ve been trying to build a line of jewelry that expresses your love of nature. You like to take your daughter for walks in the park and to feed the ducks, and you sometimes still sleep in one of your husband’s old shirts.”

He’d guessed at the last part but realized he’d hit the nail on the head when she gasped and shook her head, obviously appalled by how much they knew about her, about her life.

He could almost feel sorry for her, the way they’d barged into her life with no warning. But as far as he was concerned, the end justified the means.

“Lana, we checked you out thoroughly before deciding to use you. We had to know that we could trust you, that you were smart enough to be able to pull off a fake marriage with me so I could get close to your neighbor.”

“But why? What do you think Greg is guilty of?”

He realized her eyes weren’t an ordinary shade of blue, but rather with a touch of purple like a periwinkle. He held her gaze for a long moment, trying to decide if he should tell her the truth or not.

As the wife of a cop she would have had to be strong to cope with the stresses of her husband’s work. As the wife of a murdered cop she had to use that core of strength to deal with her grief and still function as a single parent.

Lana Tyler was stronger than she looked, and he had a feeling she could take the truth, would demand it before truly offering her full cooperation.

“We believe Greg Cary has killed four women in the last four months and that within the next ten days he’ll claim his fifth victim,” Riley said. “Your neighbor, Lana, is a serial killer.”

Chapter Two

Lana stared at him as if he’d suddenly begun to speak Martian. “Is this some kind of a joke? Am I being punked?”

He wrapped his long fingers around his coffee cup and shook his head. “I wish it were a joke, but to the family of his victims it’s damn-straight not funny.”

“If you all believe that he’s killed these women, then why isn’t he already under arrest?” she asked, struggling to make sense of everything.

“Lack of any real evidence,” he replied.

She stared at him in confusion. “I don’t understand. If you don’t have any evidence against him, what makes you think he committed the murders?”

“Right now our case against him is strictly circumstantial. He knew all the victims. They all worked out at the gym where he works. He fits our profile, but unfortunately he has a solid alibi for one of the murders, and that has complicated things.”

“I read about this in the paper, along with a warning that women should be careful about whom they work out with in the local gyms. But if you don’t have anything but circumstantial evidence, maybe he isn’t guilty after all,” she replied, still unable to believe that the man who had helped her light her pilot light on her furnace when it had gone out last fall, the man who had fixed her garbage disposal when it had gone on the fritz, could possibly be a cold-blooded killer.

“He’s guilty all right. We all know it, and it’s just a matter of time before he’s arrested. But we think he’s working with a partner.” Riley lifted his coffee cup to his lips, and when he lowered it, he cast her a brash grin. “Now let’s talk about our honeymoon plans. I’m thinking maybe a beach setting. I love a girl in a bikini.”

Lana didn’t like him. He was cocky and arrogant and wasn’t even trying to make this as painless as possible for her. She broke eye contact with him and instead looked at Haley, who was smearing the last of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich across her plate.

She got up from the table, grabbed a dishrag and quickly cleaned up the mess, then got a box of cookies out and gave her daughter one of the wafers.

Haley smiled and held it out to Riley. “Daddy, you want a cookie?”

“No, thanks, kid,” he replied.

Lana threw the dishrag into the sink and then turned to face him once again, her lips thinned with displeasure. “Haley, her name is Haley, not kid. Apparently you don’t like children?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Kids are okay. As long as they’re other people’s kids.”

She really didn’t like him. “Is it too early to ask for a divorce?”

He grinned. God, the man had the sexiest smile she’d ever seen. Despite her dislike of him, it created a wave of heat that swept over her and undulated in her stomach. “Ah, don’t be like that. I promise I’ll grow on you.”

“Like fungus?” she retorted. “I don’t like you, Agent Kincaid, but I realize it’s important that I do my civic duty. I would appreciate it if you would get on with whatever you need to do and be as unobtrusive in my life as possible.”

He eyed her with open amusement and got up from the table. “I just want to let you know that you’ll miss me when I’m gone.” With that he picked up his coffee cup and ambled out of her kitchen.

“Bye-bye, Daddy,” Haley said. “See ya later.”

“Not Daddy,” Lana retorted a bit crossly. She returned to the table and wrapped her hands around her cup, trying to digest everything that had happened in the last thirty minutes.

Greg Cary a serial murderer? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. There had to be some sort of a mistake. He’d been her neighbor for the last six years. He’d been a bowling buddy of her husband’s, a man who participated in the neighborhood watch program. Everyone in the neighborhood liked and respected Greg.

Surely if he were a criminal Joe would have known. Her husband might have been many things, but he’d been a terrific cop.