FRIEND, LOVER, PROTECTOR Read online

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  Contents:

  Prologue

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

  Epilogue

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  Prologue

  ^ »

  "The money has been deposited in your account," said the voice on the other end of the line.

  Max Jamison didn't reply, but then, he wasn't expected to. His clientele was small and trusted him to be discreet and efficient. The less they all knew about one another, the safer it was for all of them.

  He took every precaution to ensure no one knew precisely where to find him. His caller had reached him through a series of forwarded lines scattered all over the country. He could have been sitting in Boston or San Diego. Instead he sat in the den of his home in rural Pennsylvania.

  "I trust everything is to your satisfaction," the voice added.

  "As soon as I've verified the deposit, I'll make my plans," Max said. He already knew who his target was. Dr. Dahlia Jensen, an assistant professor at Colorado Mountain University.

  "And you received the fax."

  "I did." Max frowned. Obvious points didn't need to be covered. All the information he needed to do the job was contained in the fax—the woman's photograph, address and dossier. He had retrieved the fax from his message box and had followed that up with his own background check on her. Thanks to the Internet, that was now easier than ever. The woman had no unusual habits, if you didn't classify being a storm chaser as unusual. She was single and lived well within her means. Her only claim to fame was a slew of scholarly papers, all having to do with obscure theories of lightning, published in various scientific journals. He couldn't lay his finger on a single thing about her that would make her a target for murder.

  Carefully, he dismissed that thought, reminding himself that the morality of whether someone deserved to die wasn't his to determine. He was hired to do a job. No more.

  "There is a bonus for you."

  Max didn't like the sound of that. Bonus by any other name was an additional fee for additional service. He observed a strict protocol, which this conversation violated.

  "Contact me via the usual means, and we'll discuss the matter." Max severed the connection, deciding this was a job he was no longer interested in doing. Not when the caller knew the rules, knew that details were never discussed over the phone.

  He stared unseeingly into the room, then stood and walked across the plush carpet to the window. A lake shimmered in the morning sunlight. A hundred feet from the water's edge, his sister was in a canoe with her two young children. Recently the twenty-two-year age difference between them had gnawed at him, a reminder he was no longer a young man, no longer had a promising future in front of him. He intended to retire soon.

  For himself, he had enough to be comfortable the rest of his life. For his sister and her children … he needed a bit more. Two more jobs, and they would never want for anything.

  An instant later, the phone rang. Max turned back to his desk. On the second ring, he crossed the room and sat down in the leather chair. On the third, he drummed his fingers against the felt blotter that protected the teak surface, uncharacteristic indecision claiming him. He let the phone ring twice more before picking up the receiver.

  "Hanging up again would be most unwise," the caller said. "Now, where were we? Ah, yes. We need to have her held for the next couple of weeks as well as proof that she's alive."

  "I'm no longer interested in this job," Max said. "Your money will be returned."

  "We don't want our money back, Max. You will do this job," the voice on the other end of the line said. "And the three reasons why are on the lake."

  Max's blood chilled, and he swiveled his chair around to face the huge window where sunlight streamed from a pristine clear sky. A series of thoughts crowded to the surface, but two prevailed. How had his caller known where to find him? How fast could he get his sister and her children to safety?

  "They'd be quite upset, don't you think, to know what you are. Not a quiet, mild-mannered man who invested well, but a cold-blooded killer."

  Again, Max didn't reply, certain his caller wanted only a reaction from him—something, anything that could be used as leverage … for blackmail or in a court of law.

  "I have in my possession certain … evidence that links you to the Aaron Sheffield murder in Lexington last year."

  Another chill chased down Max's spine. His caller hadn't arranged for the Sheffield job.

  "Very cool, Max," the voice continued. "Very controlled. Since you're not going to ask me what evidence, I may have to make you wait … and wonder. Let me simply say it has to do with a 9mm Glock that was left in a lunch sack at the bottom of a very full trash barrel outside a Seven Eleven store."

  The chill coalesced into a seething, icy knot in the pit of his stomach.

  "Now, about the matters at hand," the voice continued. "You will apprehend the target, you will videotape her, you will send me the tape, and you will hold her until you are told to finish it. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Completely." A kidnapping! Max had never stooped so low. Kidnapping was a messy, dirty business. Too much contact with the target, too much time, too many variables to control. Each one a reason why kidnappers were invariably caught. Max wanted nothing to do with this. Somehow he'd find a way out.

  "I knew we'd come to an understanding. And, Max, just so you don't think I'm bluffing, take a look at the lake."

  Max looked out at the lake, picking up a pair of binoculars, dreading what he would see. A speedboat appeared, headed directly toward his sister and her children.

  At the last possible moment, it swerved, clipping the bow of the boat. Wood shattered, water churned and the small boat overturned. The children and his sister bobbed to the surface, their bright orange life jackets doing their job. The speedboat made an arcing turn and at full throttle charged back across the lake.

  "Do what you are told, and your family will be fine," the caller said before hanging up.

  Max ran outside to rescue his family. And his mind raced, assessing details about the call. He hadn't heard the speedboat over the phone, so his caller hadn't been on the boat. Which meant, like Max, he could be anywhere.

  He'd do the job, Max decided. Then he'd track his caller down. That man would never again blackmail him or anyone else.

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  Chapter 1

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  "C'mon, Jack Trahern," Dahlia Jensen muttered beneath her breath when the Daniel E. Baker Building that housed the College of Physical Sciences disgorged a flow of students. She didn't know which one was hers, but he was late.

  Opportunity was vanishing at the same pace as the thunderstorm moving northeast at a good clip. It had the perfect profile for her lightning study, and she was anxious to follow it. Everything she had been working toward these past two years hinged on the data she collected during the next two months: funding for her own grant; a promotion to associate professor.

  All she had to do was stay away from her supervisor, Doreen Layard. The tension between them had been escalating for months. If the woman couldn't find anything obvious to take issue with, she dug until she found something. Dahlia reminded herself that her focus was to do her job to the best of her ability.

  With or without today's student assistant. She glanced again at her watch.

  The students either hurried by without giving her a second glance or stopped in groups of two or three to chat. Dahlia wondered which one was Jack Trahern.

  She wished she recognized the name. He hadn't taken any of her classes, which made him either new to the atmospheric science program or a storm chaser wannabe. Too many of the latter had cropped up after last year's b
lockbuster movie. She had hoped for a student assistant who was competent—at the moment she would settle for one who was prompt.

  This was midterm week, and none of her regular students were available. Jack Trahern's name was at the bottom of the list of undergraduates who wanted to be involved with the program next year—and the only volunteer available today.

  One last time Dahlia glanced around the parking lot and grounds in front of the building. She fished her keys from her pocket and looked around again, hoping to see some pimply faced eighteen-year-old looking for her. No such luck.

  Instead, a tall athletically built man came out of the building, paused at the top of the steps and gazed out over the parking lot as he put on a pair of aviator-style sunglasses. Dahlia gave him the second look his well-built physique deserved, then opened the door to the van.

  "Scoot over, Boo," she said, to the dog sitting in the driver's seat of her car after she opened the door. She patted the blond Cocker Spaniel on the head and, tail wagging, Boo dutifully moved to the passenger seat.

  Dahlia climbed into the van, unclipped the HAM radio from her belt that kept her in touch with the National Weather Service and set it on the dash, her attention immediately focused on the storm. She rolled down the window the rest of the way. A cool gust of wind swept through the car—outflow from the storm. Yes! This was the time of year she lived for—the volatile season of thunderstorms that began in late April and continued into midsummer.

  She started the van, then put it into gear and, looking into the rearview mirror, eased backward out of her parking spot.

  The man in the aviator sunglasses appeared behind her. She slammed on the brakes. He stared at her, though the reflective lenses of his glasses made it impossible to tell for sure.

  He came up the side of the car toward her.

  "Dr. Jensen?" he said, leaning down slightly so he could look at her through the open window.

  "Dahlia," she automatically corrected. She deliberately used her first name to cultivate rapport with her field students.

  The guy looked even better up close. His dark hair was cut military short, and his clean-shaven square jaw already showed the shadow of a beard. This was no kid, but a man in his prime.

  He took off his sunglasses, revealing deep-set, brilliant blue eyes, beneath thick, nearly black eyebrows. Bracing a hand on the car door, he said, "I'm Jack Trahern."

  This man was far removed from the eighteen-year-old she had been expecting. Kids she could deal with. Kids she could coerce into doing what she wanted. Kids … were one thing, and this man was no kid.

  "Jack Trahern?" she echoed finally, and could have kicked herself for her breathless tone. Firming her voice, she said, "You're late."

  "Sorry. I got hung up."

  "Great," she muttered, casting an eye toward the heavens. She didn't have time for this. Not for a tardy student—no matter how gorgeous—certainly not for a man whose mere presence snapped her lonely hormones to attention. "Get in the car."

  He put the shades back on and ambled around the hood of the car as though he had all the time in the world. Even as she mentally cursed him for taking his time, she couldn't help but admire how he looked. He was tall, six-three or four and he carried himself with an easy, loose-limbed grace. A small black backpack was slung over one shoulder—the omnipresent book bag of college kids and the only thing about him that struck her as remotely studentlike. She was positive she hadn't seen him around campus before. She would have remembered.

  What she did remember, vividly, was swearing off men. If her womanizing ex-husband hadn't proven to her that she had rotten taste in men, the ex-fiancé who followed him would have—a man who had chosen a drug habit over her. Two long years, and she was finally on her feet again. Finding Jack Trahern in her path was undoubtedly a cosmic joke to find out how serious her intentions really were.

  He opened the passenger door, and Boo sat there, wagging her stubby tail.

  "Hello there, you beauty," Jack said, smiling. Boo sat up straighter, her little body wriggling in anticipation.

  "Back seat, girl," Dahlia said, motioning toward the back of the van.

  By then Jack had set the pack down and was scratching Boo's ears, massaging them close to her head, something she loved only slightly more than cookies. The dog looked as though she might dissolve into a puddle. An unexpected longing to be touched—with as much affection—feathered through Dahlia.

  "Boo, back seat," she repeated, her voice more stern.

  Boo cast her a decidedly disgusted glance, jumped into the open space between the two bucket seats and plopped herself onto the floor.

  "Nice dog," Jack slid into the seat. "Her name is Boo?"

  Dahlia nodded. "When she was a puppy, she was scared of her own shadow.

  "She's not much of a watchdog, I take it."

  Remembering Boo's restless prowl around the perimeter of the yard with her nose to the ground just this morning. Dahlia said, "She's no rottweiler, but she'll do."

  He chuckled, the accompanying smile revealing a dimple. Gorgeous and a dimple. There was no justice.

  She was intensely aware of him, from the breadth of his shoulders and beautifully shaped hands to the button-down fly of his jeans. Dahlia could have sworn the temperature climbed fifty degrees. She flipped on the air conditioner and turned up the fan.

  The instant he buckled the seat belt, she put the car into gear, determined to reclaim her usual focus. Even so, the silence stretched, thick and awkward, as she eased into traffic and headed east. It was the time she would have normally reviewed—with her rider—the objectives for their day, defined her expectations and answered questions.

  It was a routine she had been through dozens of times, but darned if she could remember where to even start. Each time she opened her mouth to speak, her thoughts vanished. Finally she clamped her lips together, sure that she must look like a fish.

  She had the feeling he was watching her behind those reflective sunglasses. Despite her best efforts to choose clothes that minimized the size of her breasts, most guys looked. Usually she took that in stride, though this student—this man—made her feel off balance. She briefly glanced down at herself, relieved that the button-down shirt she had layered over a T-shirt concealed rather than revealed.

  "Sorry I'm late," he finally said.

  "No problem," she automatically answered. No problem? Hah. Jensen, get a grip. The guy was late, and you would have left without him.

  "Thanks for waiting, anyway."

  "You're welcome." Oh, brother. Dahlia cleared her throat. "I don't remember seeing your name on the roster for my classes."

  "I haven't taken any of your classes," he said.

  He didn't add anything further, which made her glance over at him. His attention had shifted to the mirror outside the passenger door. Curious about what he saw, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The usual assortment of vehicles were on the road, including a police car in the center lane that kept the traffic at an aggravating two miles per hour under the speed limit.

  "So why did you sign up for my field crew?"

  "I'm thinking about changing majors."

  His answer was ordinary enough, but he acted as though the storm they chased was barely noticeable. No matter how shy, her students seemed as interested in the thunder-heads as she did, their focus inevitably on whether they would see tornadoes. Some, in fact, were downright manic about the possibility.

  Keeping an eye on the traffic, she riffled though a group of papers in a box between the two seats, at last finding a map. She handed it to Jack.

  "We need to take one of the intersecting roads on the other side of I-25," she said. "I want to get about five miles in front of the storm."

  Navigating the straight county roads of the high plains of Colorado was a simple task but one that usually told her a lot about her would-be assistants. A surprising number couldn't have guided her off the campus. Jack opened the map up one fold and turned it around when he realized i
t was upside down. He glanced briefly at the street sign for the upcoming intersection, then continued to handle the map with the ease and dexterity of someone who used maps all the time.

  "Your storm's heading a little north from where it was," he said. "And it looks to me like it's picked up a little speed."

  Dahlia mentally gave him points for both observations. Even so, they were beneath the storm to the point she could sense the ozone in the air. Her anticipation increased.

  Five minutes after they crossed over I-25, he directed her north onto the graveled road that she would have chosen, and they were making good progress on getting ahead of the storm.

  "Are you new at CMU?" she asked.

  "You could say that," he responded.

  The laconic reply annoyed her. "And what would you say?"

  She glanced at him and found that his attention was once again focused on the side mirror. She looked in the rearview mirror. A car followed them, close enough to be catching the worst of the dust left in their wake.

  A moment later Jack said, "What I'd say is that car has been following us since we left the campus."

  She glanced again in the mirror. "You're sure?"

  "Yeah." He looked over at her, and she took her eyes off the straight road long enough to meet his glance—hidden behind the reflective sunglasses.

  "Do you know them?" she asked. Apprehension slithered through her. She had been with dozens of students that she didn't know, so riding with a stranger wasn't new. But this feeling of impending doom was. A feeling that wasn't supported by a single, substantiated fact.

  "Whoever is back there?" He shook his head. "No."

  Reminding herself that tardiness and being good-looking weren't valid reasons to distrust the man, she gave the other car another careful glance. It was white or beige or tan and looked like a thousand other cars. "I don't know them, either."

  She lived by empirical evidence, what she could observe and what she could prove. To determine if the car really was following them, she made a left turn at the next intersection. A moment later the car appeared again in her rearview mirror.