LITMIR.BIZ

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watched Laurel Wilkins leave the coffee shop and stepped out of his car. Laurel had hung around longer than he’d expected, which was a good sign—meant she was eager to meet him. Or Russ Evans.

      Trevor chuckled to himself. That still made him laugh, using cops’ names to pick up women. He had a whole laundry list of detectives whose names he used on a rotating basis, and they had no idea. It wasn’t identity theft—he wasn’t using anything more than their names—but it was a good private joke. Flipping the bird at those screwups, who let him walk around and get away with stealing left and right. Plus, it was an easy system for him to keep track of who he was supposed to be from day to day.

      Jill was waiting for him in the coffee shop, probably wondering what was keeping him, so he picked up the pace, tossing his cigarette butt down onto the sidewalk. It was colder than a wart on a witch in Alaska, and his leather coat didn’t do squat to protect him. Maybe he should have headed south this year, worked his way down to the Florida Keys.

      But that would mean starting over from scratch.

      He had a system going in Cleveland, been working it for over five years, and the cops were none the wiser. Three women, at all times. One at the starting gate, one in the race, and one crossing the finish line.

      Worked like a charm.

      Jill spilled her coffee when he walked in, then mumbled to herself as she mopped it up. She gathered up the wet napkins and pushed them aside, wiping her fingers on her blue sweatshirt.

      “Hi, sweetheart.” Trevor kissed Jill’s forehead and sat down across from her. “Spill your coffee?”

      “Yes, I’m such an idiot.”

      “But a cute one.” He winked at her, knowing she’d blush. She did. Jill was easy to figure out. The minute he’d seen her struggling to get her gas cap off at the gas station, her nose red, her hair flat under a knit hat, he’d known she was the next one.

      Trevor liked unattractive women. He liked the way they were so damn eager to please, so desperate for touches, so sure he was going to bolt at any minute. He even liked the sex. It made him feel powerful to know he was giving them something no one else would, and the control always rested with him, just as firmly in the bedroom as out of it. He could do whatever he wanted, because in the end, in the dark, it was all about him.

      “I was starting to worry about you. I thought you were going to be here sooner.” Jill brushed her mud-brown hair back. “I mean, it’s not a big deal or anything, I’m not nagging, I was just picturing you in a coma.”

      That nervous laugh she gave, that worry, made him smile. He had her.

      He’d been living in a hotel since he’d skipped out on Rachel on Saturday, so the timing was perfect. “Sorry, babe, I should have called you to tell you I was running late. But I was having a hell of a time with my landlord, trying to reason with him. He raised my rent two hundred bucks a month.”

      “What? Oh, Pete, that’s awful!”

      “I don’t know how I’m going to afford it.” Trevor sank back, let his shoulders slump, a sigh of defeat emerge.

      And waited for Jill to pull out of the starting gate.

      “And they just cut your hours at the office, too,” Jill said, hating the way Pete looked so worried, the corners of his cute blue eyes crinkling up. He was always such an upbeat person, it was difficult to see him like this.

      It still amazed her that a man as good-looking as Pete Trevor had looked twice at her, a woman about as exciting as day-old oatmeal. She had plain hair, a plain face, and a plain body, except for overly large breasts that had earned her the high school nickname Charmin. Don’t squeeze the Charmin…

      But Pete was so sweet, so good to her. She was pretty sure she was falling in love with him.

      “It will be okay. I’ll figure something out. I have a little savings.” His eyes darted off to the left, and his fingers went into his hair.

      He was lying to reassure her, Jill realized with a start. He didn’t want her to worry. Her heart swelled, and she spoke before she could think, doubt, talk herself out of it.

      “Why don’t we move in together?” Jill blushed at her presumptuousness, but forged ahead despite Pete’s look of surprise. “I mean, you spend the night with me a couple of times a week anyway, and why should we both waste all this money on rent? If we moved in together it would save us about four hundred dollars a month each.”

      She held her breath, waited for his response.

      “I thought about it,” he admitted. “But I didn’t want you to think I was freeloading.”

      “Of course not! We’ll be splitting the rent.”

      Pete gave her a smile, the one that made her insides tumble and burn. “What if living together reveals all my flaws? I don’t want to lose you.”

      It was love. It was definitely love. “You won’t lose me. You have me as long as you want me.”

      He picked up her hand, kissed the back of it. “I’m counting on that.”

      Russ zipped up his jacket when he stepped outside. He could feel the tension actually lifting and rising into his chest and head, squeezing him, pissing him off, and making him want to grab Laurel and lock her in a room with crime scene photos.

      Take care of herself. Ha. Laurel was a bunny in a city full of foxes. Some day she was going to be just hopping along, all soft and sweet, looking for clover, then wham…in for the kill.

      He had a job to do, and it wasn’t protecting naive women from themselves. Laurel was walking west down the street, head down, not the least bit aware of her surroundings. Shit, someone could step right out of that hedge and just grab her and she wouldn’t even realize until it was too late, because she wouldn’t hear a damn thing.

      Take care of herself? Please. She screamed rich, vulnerable woman alone, take advantage of me. She was so damn appealing, Russ wanted to take advantage of her himself.

      Watching her hit the button to unlock a white Lexus SUV, Russ swore. He jogged the last ten feet to the bookstore and got in the passenger seat of Anders’s black truck, keeping Laurel in his view. “Follow that Lexus SUV.”

      Jerry shifted the truck into gear, but tossed him a petulant look. “Where the hell have you been? You’ve been gone for thirty minutes. You cheating on me? Got another detective on the side you’re hooking up with?”

      Russ laughed. He liked working with Anders, who kept the laughs rolling even when they were knee-deep in scumbags—or worse, paperwork. “Come on, Jerry, you know I’d never do that to you. But a good relationship needs to be based on trust, you know.”

      “You’re gone all the time, you don’t talk to me anymore, what am I supposed to think?” Jerry stopped at the light behind Laurel’s Lexus and shot Russ a grin. “You come home late, smelling like cigarettes and coffee, which I know you don’t drink. I think we either need counseling or it’s over, man, it’s just over.”

      “Shut up, Anders. You know you’re the only partner for me.”

      “Be still my heart.” Jerry glanced around as he followed Laurel down Lake Avenue and onto Edgewater Drive, past stately brick and stone homes built in the twenties as suburban getaways for the rich. “The blonde lives well, huh?”

      “Her house, but she lives with her mother. Inheritance, I guess.” Russ kept one eye on the taillights of Laurel’s car while checking out the neighborhood. “She didn’t know who Dean was, never heard of him. Get this. She thought she was chatting online with Russ Evans, her friend Michelle’s old high school classmate.”

      Jerry whistled. “Dean’s a smart-ass.”

      “Who knows more than we thought.” He watched Laurel pull into the driveway of a massive brick three-story house, the front flat, its architectural focus the two dozen windows reflecting

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