LITMIR.BIZ

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then, he was on the other side of thirty now, not twenty. Things changed.

      What didn’t change, he reminded himself, stepping up his pace, was that Sherwood was waiting for results. And it was up to him to deliver them.

      Dennis tucked the tails of his shirt into his tan slacks, getting his story straight in his head, should the woman in 176 ask questions. Any questions. Hesitation might raise suspicions and then all his work would be for nothing. Not that he’d invested a great deal of time into this particular phase of the operation, but there was over six months of groundwork that he had put in that he didn’t want to see go up in smoke.

      Especially now, with the last bit of information Winston had given him. His partner had told him that Paul Trask was the key figure in the gambling syndicate the Justice Department was looking to place behind bars. Paul Trask. That made it personal.

      Dennis forced his thoughts back to the moment at hand. He favored simplicity. That meant keeping his cover as close to his own life as possible. There were less mistakes that way. Less room for slipups.

      He laughed to himself, though there was no sound. His own life, what was that? It seemed as if it had been an eternity since he had laid claim to having a life outside the Department. An eternity since he had shot hoops with his buddies at the gym or taken in a movie with Moira.

      Right after this was wrapped up, he was going to apply for some vacation. God knew he had racked up enough time without using any of it.

      Pressing the button on the tie rack his sister had given him as a joke, Dennis made a quick selection. He hated ties, but they were required—a necessary evil for the image he was projecting. Measuring the ends against one another, he began forming a knot. What sort of a demented fool had conceived of tying a noose around a man’s neck and then compounded the insult by calling it a fashion statement?

      No question about it. Right after this was over, he promised himself again, he was going to pick up the threads of his life and see about weaving them into some sort of a recognizable tapestry.

      Adjusting the knot, Dennis grinned at the simile. Dimples sprang up to both cheeks. Moira would have been proud of him. A Contemporary Literature instructor at UCLA, she was the creative one in the family. He was the practical one.

      He’d had to be.

      Dressed, with his jacket on his arm, Dennis strode through the living room toward the front door. His goal was not the carport where his vintage Mustang was housed, but the apartment next door.

      Her apartment.

      She hadn’t left since she had come in around six last night. A silent alarm he had rigged beneath her doorsill would have instantly warned him if anyone had come or gone during the night.

      Technology certainly made his job easier. But it still didn’t replace good old-fashioned legwork. Something he was about to implement.

      He’d asked for the big-screen television to be delivered today. It was an extravagance he was paying for out of his own pocket instead of the Department’s. The set would eventually find a home within his sister’s house. His own studio apartment was hardly large enough for the bed and the table that were in it now. It was far too small to accommodate the set.

      Besides, Moira had a fondness for old movies. The set would be his belated Christmas gift to her. After it did its work. Which was to wangle an instant introduction to the lady next door.

      Otherwise known as his assignment.

      Nicole Logan wrapped the blue-and-white-striped towel around her dripping dark brown hair. She arranged it into a turban as she walked out of the bathroom. The ends of her bathrobe hardly came together anymore, much less overlapped.

      She was outgrowing everything at such a rapid rate that if she didn’t give birth soon, she was going to wind up wearing circus tents, she thought glumly.

      The shower stall was beginning to make her feel claustrophobic. When she turned within it, it seemed as if her stomach was always brushing against the opaque sides. It took everything she had not to feel despondent. With every passing day, something else was either too small or too tight.

      Nicole looked down at her protruding stomach. It certainly looked a great deal larger than her sister’s had been just before Marlene gave birth.

      She sighed, shaking her head as she went to her closet to try to find something to wear that didn’t bind. The way she was going, this baby was going to be the biggest baby born on record.

      Everything felt cramped.

      And right now, it was also painted in shades of dark blue, like her mood.

      Shedding her robe, Nicole got dressed quickly. She purposely avoided looking at herself in the mirrored wardrobe doors. That had gotten to be too much to bear. Though her face mercifully hadn’t gained any weight, the rest of her certainly had. The woman reflected there bore little resemblance to the one she had been a scant eight months ago.

      Had she ever really worn a size six?

      Nicole settled on a cream blouse and a kelly green corduroy jumper which still left her room for growth. The very thought made her shudder. Only when she was dressed did she finally look at herself. The festive color didn’t help lighten her mood.

      Maybe it was because of the holiday less than a week away. From where she stood, Nicole could see the Christmas tree she’d put up in the living room. She supposed it was hopelessly sentimental of her, but Christmas meant something special. Or it should.

      But here she was, twenty-six years old, facing Christmas widowed, pregnant and alone.

      No, that wasn’t quite right and she knew it, Nicole amended, struggling to get hold of her emotions. She wasn’t alone. She had her sister Marlene and that meant quite a lot. Marlene was always there for her. She always had been.

      As for being a widow, well, she hadn’t been married to Craig in the true sense of the word for some time before his death. Apart from an occasional stopover after he had started winning in a big way on the racing circuit, Craig had distanced himself from her and their life together.

      Nicole went into the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea. Maybe that would help. At least it couldn’t hurt. Measuring out a cup of water, she set the kettle on the burner. As the element began to glow red, she felt her eyes begin to smart.

      She brushed a hot tear from her cheek. All she managed to do was clear the path for another to come rolling down in its wake. It sped faster because of the trail that had been forged.

      Hormones, she thought. Just hormones making her feel sorry for herself. Right now, her emotions were stretched out like a giant rubber band and some unseen hand was mercilessly plucking at it, making it twang first one way, then the other.

      The feeling was driving her crazy.

      This just wasn’t like her. She wasn’t the type to sit around and wallow in self-pity like some indulgent, self-centered, pampered brat. She was the one who always fought back. The one who stood up for herself. The one who took risks in order to make her point. She had refused to allow her father to relegate her into a neat little niche the way he had tried to do with her sister. And when James Bailey had seemed to have gone out of his way to ignore Marlene and her after he had divorced their mother, Nicole hadn’t begged for his favor. Instead, she had dug in and stood up to him.

      And gotten slapped down and then disowned for her trouble.

      The kettle screeched, steam billowing out of two tiny holes like smoke emerging from a fire-breathing dragon. She poured water over the waiting tea bag, then dunked it mechanically, her mind skirting the past.

      Her father hadn’t liked her spunk, he had been annoyed by it.

      But Craig had admired it.

      A bittersweet smile played on Nicole’s lips. Or, at least Craig had said he’d admired her spirit. She tossed away the tea bag, then picked up the mug, cradling it in both hands. The apartment felt cold. She husbanded the bit of warmth she

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