Deadly Identity

“Apricot for the lady,” he murmured, pulling it off the shelf.

“I’ll bet you’re a strawberry-jam guy.”

Grinning, Cade said, “Does it show?” He took both jars from the fridge and shut it with a nudge of his hip. When he looked up, her eyes were warm with laughter. There was an incredible ease between them, as if they had known one another forever.

“Mmm, you just remind me of a country-boy type,” Rachel said, breaking the three eggs into the black iron skillet. She grabbed a fork, broke the yokes and rapidly mixed them all together.

“Ah, I see,” Cade said, his mouth lifting. “What does a strawberry-jam man look like?”

She grinned. “Like you, I suppose. As an artist I see the colors, connections and symbols between things.” And because of her abuse from Dirk, Rachel had become hyper-alert and missed nothing. Brenda had told her she had post-traumatic stress disorder. It came from feeling so threatened that she feared for her life. And although several years had gone by without such a threat, the hyper-alertness never left. It was always there, like a frightened animal on the verge of running away in order to survive a coming attack.

“So, cowboys and deputies are strawberry-jam men?” He ambled over and poured himself some coffee. Rachel already had a cup of her own next to the stove. He was interested in how she perceived him. Still, Cade reminded himself that he was going to do a background check on her. Over the years he’d learned never to judge a book by its cover. As he leaned against the counter and watched her scramble the eggs, he hoped the report would come out clean. If it did, then he could trust his eyes…and his heart.

“I guess so,” Rachel said with a shy smile. The way Cade stared at her made her feel incredibly feminine, which was new to her. There was no question Cade Garner was a fine-looking man. Handsome in a rugged, outdoors sort of way, with straight brows above his intelligent gray eyes. The way he slouched comfortably against the counter—that lazy kind of masculinity beckoned strongly to her. Would she be able to keep these new feelings at bay while working for him?

Cade noticed she wouldn’t often meet his eyes. She was shy. Maybe she was an introvert by nature. He supposed that could account for her demeanor. “Are you okay being here in this house with me?” he asked her.

Rachel’s hand poised over the skillet for a moment. Startled, she asked, “Why…yes. Is anything wrong?” She scooped the scrambled eggs onto the plate he’d brought from the table.

“No, no, everything’s fine. I realize we’re strangers and a lot is being asked of you out of the blue. A woman might feel uncomfortable with a man she doesn’t know, more so sleeping in the same house with him.”

“Thanks for your sensitivity,” she said. Breaking two more eggs, Rachel quickly scrambled them for herself. “I always had my own apartment in New York City but sometimes I’d stay overnight at my employer’s home when they were out of town. I’m okay with the arrangement.” Cade couldn’t know that she’d awakened at 7:00 a.m. feeling joyous and safe. Two emotions she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. And Rachel knew it was due to that protection that emanated from Cade like a powerful beacon. That and the baby. For Rachel, Christmas had given her the one thing she yearned for the most: a baby to care for. It didn’t matter that Jenny wasn’t her biological child. Just getting to take care of a baby fulfilled her in a way she would never be able to put into words. Maybe, too, it was because of her large, tight farm family in Iowa.

“Thanks,” Cade said. He put the toast on his plate and loaded two more slices into the toaster. “So, if I’m a strawberry-jam man, then that makes you an apricot-jam woman. Right?”

Laughing softly, Rachel brought her scrambled eggs over to the table. Cade positioned himself next to Jenny’s bassinet and Rachel sat down opposite him. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought of myself in that way.”

Buttering his toast, Cade studied her. Rachel’s cheeks were flushed, almost as if she were unaccustomed to this kind of attention. Either that or she was hiding something. He realized upon closer inspection that sable was not her real hair color. She was more a blonde. “I hadn’t, either,” he chuckled.

The toaster popped. Rachel stood and retrieved the browned slices. When she sat back down, her expression was more serious. “Today is Christmas.”

“I know. Merry Christmas. Bet you didn’t think it would be like this, did you?”

She buttered her toast. “I feel like I’m in some kind of dream.” She looked out the window. “And your ranch is like a beautiful picture-postcard to me. This area of the country is truly breathtaking. If you take out yesterday, it’s a merry Christmas for me.”

As he salted and peppered the steaming pile of scrambled eggs on his plate, Cade felt a wonderful familiarity settling over him. Rachel was bright, quick and easy to talk with. Suddenly, breakfast was something special once more. And with baby Jenny sleeping between them, Cade swore he felt giddy. He hadn’t felt this way since his family’s death. “Well,” he said, “at least you didn’t wake up this morning thinking you were in a nightmare.”

Rachel forced a smile. Cade would never know about her nightmare. Slathering a thin layer of apricot jam across her toast, she murmured, “Oh, no, this is a dream. A wonderful one.”

One that Rachel wanted to last forever. But could it, with Dirk Payson out to kill her?

CHAPTER FIVE

DIRK PAYSON SMILED a little. He sat in a motel in Des Moines, Iowa, thumbing through a roll of hundred-dollar bills. He picked up his cigarette, took a deep drag and let the smoke drift out of his thin lips. Everything was going along fine. The Mexican drug cartel had welcomed him back like a long-lost brother. Of course, Dirk knew that that was because he’d been one of their best movers of cocaine into the U.S.A and Canada.

His contact, Pedro Morales, had the Iowa territory to ply his cocaine to the hooked addicts. He gave Dirk ten thousand in cash to reestablish his life after the prison escape. The green felt fine between his fingers. He was free and he had money. Life was good. He was letting his blond beard remain on his face. Last night, he’d bought some dark brown hair coloring. Every day he’d have to add it to his scraggly beard. And he was allowing his blond hair to grow. Luckily for him, he only had to dye it a couple of times a month. Now he knew what a woman went through. Shaking his head, he stood up and put most of the bills in a money belt beneath his red long-sleeved sweatshirt. The rest he put into a billfold.

Looking out the venetian blinds, he saw snow flakes twirling outside. Iowa at Christmas sucked. He hated the cold and snow but he had to connect with Pedro in order to get back into the organization.

His mind turned, as it always did, toward Susan. His sources in prison had been trying to get a lead on her since she’d entered the witness protection program. And on her mother, Daisy Donovan. So far, no luck. But he knew the Iowa farm where Susan had been born was nearby. In the phone book, he’d found the three Donovan brothers, Robert, Marvin and Donald—Susan’s three big brothers. She had been the baby and only girl in the family.

As he moved back to the bed, Dirk turned over possibilities. Because Susan had testified against him as his wife, the FBI had given her and her mother, Daisy, witness protection. The sons had refused it because they didn’t want to leave their five-generation family homestead. Good for them. He grinned, the cigarette clamped between his lips. The smoke made his eyes water.

Having had plenty of time to understand the federal witness protection program, Dirk knew that neither Daisy nor Susan could ever contact their family. Did Daisy and Susan talk, though? Were they allowed to do that? Dirk had not yet been able to find that out. Now that he was free, he would turn to other field assets, a group of computer-hacker friends.

Dirk paced the small room carpeted with a brown rug that had seen much better days. He knew one thing: he wanted to kill Susan. She was the initial target. His mind ranged over trying to find Daisy, but she was of much less interest to him. The three sons lived on the farm with their families. Could he believe that Daisy and Susan never contacted them? He found that tough to swallow. Susan was so tight with her Iowa farm family that she squeaked. And her loyalty to her family had always made him angry.

Sitting down, he snuffed out the cigarette in a yellow glass ashtray on the nightstand beside him. He was just the opposite of Susan: a kid from a broken home with a meth mother and father who were still serving prison time in Alabama. His Southern heritage, however, came in handy from time to time, he’d discovered. With his soft, Southern drawl and good manners, Dirk could fool everyone. His mother, her face pockmarked with craters the size of those on the moon’s surface, had taught him guile and manipulation. That was the way she was and Dirk had learned at an early age how to get his way.

He was the ultimate chameleon—able to bend, shift, change and become what people wanted him to be. It was all a huge manipulation dance, of course, but he’d learned from the best: his mother, Enid. Taking out the phone book, he thumbed through it some more. He wrote down the address of the farm, the full names of the Donovan brothers, and closed it.

First things first. He needed to get a PC laptop. Pedro had given him an email address and a couple of throwaway cell phones so that they could remain in touch. Pedro paid hackers a lot of money to get info, to break into banks and other repositories in order to steal social security numbers. He’d given Dirk a new name and the stolen number of someone who had recently died. Now, he was Steve Larson. Liking his new moniker, Dirk chuckled. Once more, he was a fish in the big sea of drug-running. A chameleon fish.

What to do now? His stomach growled. Across the street was a chain restaurant. Having money to buy food made him feel euphoric. He went to the closet and shrugged into his black parka, pulled a knit cap over his head and tugged on the leather gloves. He’d go eat and enjoy his freedom. Dirk sighed and smiled. How damn good it felt to be out of prison! Knowing the authorities were looking for him, Dirk stayed on the move. He didn’t look anything like his prison picture so the authorities were going to be hard-pressed to find him. All he had to do was stay smart, not drive the rental car over the speed limit and get stopped by some cop.

From the dresser drawer, he pulled a .45 pistol. Pushing it into his coat pocket where it would be unseen, Dirk felt secure now. A gun always made the difference. He took a wool muffler, wrapped it around his neck and tucked the ends of it into the front of his coat. Now, he was prepared to go out into this below-freezing snowstorm.

Trudging through the few inches of snow that had fallen last night, Dirk made it to his Toyota Corolla. The dark blue car was nondescript and that’s how Dirk wanted to be: unseen and unnoticed. He’d have preferred to get a bright red sports car, a Corvette, but that was out of the question. No, he was smart enough to know when to blend in instead of standing out.

Over a Christmas breakfast in a nearly deserted restaurant, Dirk felt the joy of his freedom as never before. Few patrons were around on Christmas morning. As he savored each bite of his ham, cheese and onion omelet, Dirk remembered the holiday with simmering anger. His parents, who were meth dealers, had always been so out of it they didn’t know when a day was or wasn’t a holiday. Dirk recalled the year he was nine years old when his parents had completely forgotten Christmas. When he’d gone back to school after break and all the children were excitedly sharing what they’d gotten, he’d avoided them. Worse, no tree had been put up and decorated, either. Dirk knew about these things because he’d go visit friends and see those glittering, beautiful trees in their homes. Aching to have that in his home, he’d made the mistake of asking his father, Joe, about it.

Dirk tried to avoid that memory—but it stuck with him like a festering cancer. Joe had jerked him off his feet by his T-shirt and slammed him against a wall. The power of his throw had broken the drywall where Dirk had struck it. For that question about Christmas, he’d received several fractured ribs. His mother had been shocked by her husband’s anger. But then, Dirk realized later, his father was high on meth. And meth users were very emotionally un stable when high. Dirk always tried to walk on egg shells around his father during those times. Except for that one mistake when Christmas had seemed really important to everyone except his family and he’d opened his mouth. Dirk learned after that to ignore Christmas and make up lies to his friends at school about the presents he received. Each year, it became easier. The experience taught him how gullible people really were. No one ever checked out his story. This one lesson was intrinsic to his ability to manipulate others to do his bidding. And it had made him a rich man until Susan had squealed on him. The bitch. I’ll find you. And then, I’m going to kill you…an inch at a time. Nothing fast. Just real slow. I want to watch the fear come to your eyes when I walk up to you. I want to hear you beg, see your tears and watch you scream.

IN THE LATE AFTERNOON, after clearing off the sidewalk of snow, Cade entered his home to hear singing. Halting on the mud porch, he listened to Rachel’s bell-like voice. Cade simply stood and listened. When he realized she was singing one of his favorite Christmas songs, “The Angel’s Song,” his heart burst open with an outpouring of gratitude. Abby had had a beautiful voice and belonged to the local church choir. This brought back poignant memories to him.

After Cade removed his boots and walked into the kitchen, warmth surrounded him. Rachel’s alto voice was clear and moved him. He walked quietly to the entrance to the living room and saw Rachel in the rocking chair with Jenny in her arms. She was feeding the baby and singing to her. If anyone was an angel, it was Rachel. Her profile was clean, the soft smile on her mouth made Cade realize just how lost he’d been until just now.

The baby suckled happily on the bottle, her arms waving back and forth. Rachel had a diaper thrown over her shoulder. She took the bottle away from Jenny, lifted her and placed her gently over her shoulder. Her soft, gentle pats on the baby’s lower back brought up several burps.

Laughing, Rachel lifted her up. “My, what a big voice you have.” She grinned at the baby who met her eyes. A smile bloomed on Jenny’s bow-shaped lips. “Hungry for some more now?”

Gurgling, Jenny lifted her hands after Rachel placed her back into the crook of her left arm. The infant suckled strongly and Rachel closed her eyes, feeling as if she were in bliss. Or, maybe it was heaven. Whatever it was, she was happy. Happier than she could recall.

“So,” Cade said, walking into the room, “you’re a singer, too.”

Cade’s gray gaze burned into Rachel. He had just come in, coat in his hand and in his sock feet. There was something vulnerable about Cade despite his remoteness and it tugged at Rachel’s heart. “Oh, I’m no great singer. I just love to sing is all.” She was struck by the sudden thaw in his expression. Generally, when she had seen him, he was scowling. “There’s a difference, you know.”

Crouching down in front of her, Cade gently brushed his index finger along the chubby curve of Jenny’s flushed cheek. “I’d be happy, too, if you were singing to me. My favorite song is the one you were just singing. It’s a Christmas carol we sing in church at this time of year.”

Rachel sucked in a breath as Cade leaned down. His closeness made her heart beat faster. She could feel his warmth, his masculine strength, and, hungrily, she absorbed Cade’s unexpected closeness. Her knees almost brushed his. As male as he was, he was so tender as he grazed Jenny’s cheek and then smoothed her fuzzy black hair across her tiny skull. He’s the opposite of Dirk. Rachel felt her stomach muscles lose their tension over that realization. How could she have been so blind as not to see Dirk for who and what he was? It was a question she’d asked herself a thousand times without a good answer. Her mother and brothers had warned her not to marry him, and she’d ignored their pleas. She’d paid the price.