Mistaken for the Mob

“Just make sure you don’t lose yourself in a fun-house mirror and leave reality behind. Don’t miss the obvious for looking so hard through the filter of your past.”

J.Z. gritted his teeth. He knew what was what.

Maryanne Wellborn’s days as a free woman were numbered.

She was going down.

Maryanne gasped. Her heart began to pound and her stomach twisted.

That same, creepy someone’s-looking-at-me feeling hit her again. She looked around, and she went cold.

A familiar male figure was walking in the direction opposite from where she stood in the mall’s food court. Something about the dark hair, the set of wide shoulders, the taut fluid walk…

Could it be?

But she could only see the man from the back. She couldn’t be sure it was—or wasn’t—J.Z. Prophet.

Coincidence?

She doubted it. Mother always said she only believed in God-incidence. But if that was the case, then what did God have to do with the computer tech? His anger wasn’t the kind of emotion the Lord encouraged. It certainly didn’t dispose her to approach the man. Besides, she couldn’t see herself as a missionary to crazy computer techs.

She’d thought herself safe by going straight to church, joining in the potluck supper then taking her charges on their scavenger hunt. She’d sat at a table in the food court and made sure the teams understood they had to check in with her every thirty minutes—church rules.

The kids were great. And she enjoyed the time their pursuit gave her to work on her needlepoint project. At least, she had until a couple of seconds ago.

That itchy discomfort that seemed to strike so often since she’d met J.Z. Prophet had crept up the back of her neck again. When she turned in the direction of the lingerie store across the way, she’d spotted the dark-haired man propped against a pillar. But because his face had been hidden by shadows, she couldn’t be sure it was J.Z.

If it was him, what could he possibly want?

She didn’t know, but she did know one thing: she’d never felt like a hunted animal until he showed up at her work. She crammed her needlework into the tapestry sewing bag, grabbed that bag together with her tote bag and then slung the handles of both over her shoulder. A quick glance at her watch told her the kids should be back any moment now.

She’d have to get them out of the mall before that madman decided to hurt her, much less them.

“There you are,” Trudy said at her side.

Maryanne yelped. “Don’t you ever skulk up like that again! You just cost me ten years of my life.”

Her friend gaped. “What is wrong with you? I’ve never heard you speak like that before.”

Maryanne’s tremors grew so great that she collapsed back into her chair. The bags slid down her arm and fell to the floor.

“I think he’s here,” she whispered.

“Who’s here?”

She saw concern in Trudy’s eyes. “The Uni-Comp tech with the icy-cold eyes—that J.Z. Prophet guy.”

“You really think so?”

Maryanne nodded, unable to say more.

“Where did you see him? Did you call security? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t even think straight. And of course I didn’t get a chance to call security. I just saw him a moment ago, right before you came up.”

“Show me. Where is he?”

With her eyes shut tight, Maryanne pointed in the direction of the lingerie store, reluctant to again feel J.Z. Prophet’s anger. But when Trudy didn’t say a thing, Maryanne looked up at her friend.

With worried brown eyes, Trudy looked from the lingerie store to Maryanne and back again. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “I’ve never known you to be so paranoid.”

“Aside from that guy scaring me half out of my wits, of course, I’m fine.”

Trudy kept silent for long moments. Maryanne looked up at her friend. A frown on her forehead, Trudy said, “There’s no one there.”

Maryanne stood, used the table for support and slowly turned to look across the expanse. As Trudy had said, no one stood by the window draped in frivolous, pastel-lace frills; no one leaned in that distinctive way against the pillar at its side; no one glared at her right then.

“He’s gone,” she said, not reassured. “For now.”

“What do you mean?”

Maryanne met her friend’s worried gaze. “Everywhere I go, I feel someone watching me. I can’t shake the feeling. And somehow, I’m sure I’m going to see him again. I just don’t know when or where. Or why.”

THREE

“You’re nuts,” Dan told J.Z.

“Why? Because I know she’s pulling a fast one?”

“No. Because, man, you’ve taken a long walk down the diving board and gone off the deep end this time. You’ve let something personal get in the way of your work. Will you just look at her? I doubt she’s ever even killed a fly.”

J.Z. looked at Maryanne Wellborn as she smiled at and hugged other worshippers on her way down the church steps.

“That,” he said to his partner, “is what she wants us to believe. I’ll admit she’s good—very good.”

When J.Z. had first seen the librarian, she’d worn a boring baggy tan skirt and brown-and-white checked shirt. The next time, she’d sported garments in a gloomy shade of gray. Today, for Sunday School and the worship service, she had on a dingy-taupe dress that hung to about an inch above her ankles. A narrow brown belt caught the shapeless thing at her waist.

“Even if you can’t,” he added, “I can see right through her.”

Dan tapped J.Z.’s shoulder with a fist. “Then you must have X-ray vision. I don’t think there’s anything here. I’ve a feeling she’s just what she looks like, a serious librarian with more on her mind than the latest fashions.”

After a pause, Dan went on. “Don’t take it wrong, okay? I’m worried about you. You’re not yourself. I mean, you almost blew it at the library, and then at the mall. All that after you promised you’d be careful.”

J.Z. went to argue, but Dan held up a hand.

“She’s not dumb, you know. You shouldn’t have talked Zelda into letting you take her place. You have to keep a professional distance.”

“You forget I’m the senior agent here.”