LITMIR.BIZ

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a sheaf of papers that likely reflected the details of his life thus far.

      Pauline turned toward her computer, putting her back to him. “Good thing you’re so tall, Jake, or else nobody would know you were there.”

      Jake entered the office. “What do you got on a Lambert, Michelle?”

      Pauline entered the name in her computer. “French. Point of entry, Dulles. Extension denied.” She swiveled slowly toward him. “Why?”

      “Who handled the case?”

      “Brad. You didn’t answer my question.”

      “Thanks.” Jake stepped out of the cubicle and headed to one down the hall.

      “Jake McCoy, one of these days I’m going to cut off your special privileges. Then where will you be?” Pauline called after him.

      He grinned.

      Brad Worthy was between cases. Jake repeated his request for information on Michelle. Information that either hadn’t yet been or wouldn’t be entered into the computer.

      Brad leaned back in his chair and tossed his pen to the desktop. “The Frenchwoman? Quite a looker, that one, eh?”

      “I hadn’t noticed.”

      “Yeah. You wouldn’t.” He shuffled through the files on his desk. “Extension denied.”

      “What else you got?”

      Brad stared at him from under lowered brows. “What’s the interest?”

      Jake suddenly felt uneasy. He had a hard time explaining that one to himself. Maybe if he knew she was heading out, leaving for France, he’d be able to get her out of his head. “Indulge me.”

      “Okay.” He opened the file and scanned the contents. “Lambert, Michelle. Twenty-eight years of age. Chef. Came in on a B2 tourist visa, though it’s noted she tried to get a special travel visa. Claims her three-year-old daughter, Elizabeth aka Lili, was kidnapped by her biological father and brought to the States two months ago.”

      Jake digested the information. Chef. A transient profession. If she chose to violate the terms of her visa and stay in the country, she could find a way to stay indefinitely. “Why was her request for an extension denied?”

      Brad sat back again. “She lied on her initial application about her criminal past. Information we didn’t have when she came in but we since got.”

      Jake frowned as he recalled her vulnerability when her purse had been stolen. “Kid stuff?”

      “Not this one.” Brad shook his head. “Her visa’s up at midnight tonight. But I can already tell you she’s going to defy.”

      “How do you know that?”

      Brad grinned. “Because she told me so. Let’s see, how did she put it? That if I wouldn’t give her the time she needed to find her daughter, she’d take it. Yeah, that’s it. If she wasn’t such a looker, I’d have had her detained on the spot.” His grin widened. “Anyway, I’m planning to pass her file on to Edgar in the morning.”

      “Edgar?” Jake repeated. What could she have possibly done to warrant high-profile attention? He and Edgar Mollens took on the high-risk cases. Suspected terrorists. Drug runners. Russian Mafia. Sweatshop owners. What could Lambert, Michelle, possibly have done to earn the same regard?

      And would her file have been passed to him if he wasn’t officially on vacation?

      He was about to ask for specifics on the conviction when Brad’s phone rang. “Hang on a minute.” He swiveled his chair away to speak to the caller. “Brad Worthy.” Jake inconspicuously turned Michelle’s file in his direction. The Four Pines Motel. He noted the address.

      Jake’s cell phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He slipped it out and stepped closer to the door. “McCoy.”

      “How about that? There’s a McCoy here, too.”

      Jake grimaced at the sound of his youngest brother’s voice. “What is it?”

      David chuckled. “You know, one of these days you’re going to have to work on those phone manners, Jake. Then again, your entire demeanor could use a little work. Something I’m hoping to start on first thing in the morning.”

      “Are you at the house?”

      “Yep. Thought I’d hang around until you got here.”

      “Listen, I can’t find my INS ID. Have you seen it around there?”

      “Can’t say as I have. Boy, you must be feeling awfully naked. Anyway, I don’t think you’re going to need it where we’re going, unless there are some illegal aliens hiding out in a cave or two.”

      “Right.” Jake watched Worthy hang up the phone. “I’ll call you back.”

      “Jake, don’t you dare—”

      Jake pressed the disconnect button and slid the phone into his pocket. Brad had closed Michelle’s file and was motioning a new applicant to enter. That was it. Just like that, Brad had drawn their conversation to a halt. No more information. To press the matter would not only put him at a disadvantage, it would make his unusual interest in the sexy Frenchwoman even more obvious than it already was.

      With a reluctant wave, Jake left.

      “Hey, you’re welcome, McCoy.”

      MICHELLE HAD NO IDEA why her extension request had been denied. If she had, maybe she could have done something to fight it. But the best she could come up with was that stupid situation she’d gotten herself into in San Francisco so long ago. Though why that brief period in her life meant anything to the American government, she couldn’t begin to fathom.

      She plucked her nylons and panties from the shower curtain rod, then stuffed them into her back pack on the double bed. She was blind to the crummy state of the room. The cigarette-burned carpet. The torn bedspread. The stained bathtub. Not because she’d been there long, but because in the course of the past six weeks she’d seen virtually identical rooms across the country. Truth be told, she’d lived in her share of such tacky places in Paris when she’d first struck out on her own. In Kansas, at least the rooms had smelled better, but North Carolina had to be the worst simply because of the bug population and the strong metallic smell of the well water.

      The low-rent rooms were all she could fit into her budget. Actually, she’d have found they tested her budget if she’d sat down to think about it. The money she’d been saving to open her own place in Paris’s Left Bank couldn’t have run out faster had someone stuck a vacuum hose in her handbag and flipped the switch. And gone also was the additional money her father had wired to her two weeks ago. Of course, she hadn’t expected her search to be so long, America so very large.

      The mattress sagged pitifully as she sat on the side and tugged on her shoes. At least she’d finally gotten a decent latte, thanks to tasty Jake McCoy. In fact, she was thankful to him for much. If not for his quick reaction, she’d be sitting here with even less than she was now.

      She absently rubbed her palm along her bare leg. And why had he reacted the way he had? In Paris, she’d had her purse snatched no less than two times, a third thwarted because she’d been determined, the thief careless. She’d been surrounded by people both times, but no one had lifted a finger to help. But Jake…

      She sighed gustily, remembering her impulsive kiss and the masculine taste of him on her lips.

      She wasn’t certain which interested her more: the fact that she was thinking of someone other than Lili for the first time in so long, or that the someone on her mind was a man.

      She pushed from the bed and smoothed the creases she’d made. Her mother had once told her, a year or so before she died, when Michelle was ten, that men were the one thing women could never live without. Michelle hadn’t believed her. She’d forgotten the advice when she’d met Gerald Evans at

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