Never Trust A Lady

was the right train, headed in the right direction, and all she had to do now was watch and listen for the right stop. Whew!

If she hadn’t been so caught up in it all, she might have noticed him sooner. But it wasn’t until the train had left the station and was rocketing beneath the Potomac River-next stop, Foggy Bottom, a name she’d always adored- that she caught a glimpse, through several layers of windows and flickering reflections, of a dark-browed, scimitar- nosed profile.

Her heart, just settling down to normal rhythms, jolted once more into high gear. It was that man, the one from the auction-Aaron Campbell! Yes, she was sure of it-she’d recognize that dark hair and Arab sheikh’s profile anywhere.

What could he be doing on this train, if not following her? Oh, God, what should she do?

And now-even worse-he seemed to have disappeared. Where was he?

The train was slowing, the loudspeaker announcing the Foggy Bottom stop. She was supposed to get off here, according to her maps and Metro schedules. But now what should she do? Get off and go for help?

Ridiculous notion-what would she say? “Excuse me, Officer, but I think a man is following me… Why? Because he wants my painting… What painting? Oh, well, I have it right here… No, it’s not valuable. I bought it yesterday at an auction for seventy-eight dollars and fifty cents.”

As Tracy would say, Yeah, right.

The train was stopping, the doors whooshing open. She had to make a decision… .now.

The instant the doors cracked open, Hawk squeezed through, stepped out onto the platform and headed for the escalators without looking back.

The one big advantage he had in this game was that he knew what Carlysle’s next move was going to be. A gallery in Georgetown, that was what she’d told him-assuming, of course, that she hadn’t thrown him a red herring. Which he was fairly confident she hadn’t, since he’d spotted and made note of the address her friend had jotted down for her and left on the dresser in her hotel room.

Plus, he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Jane Carlysle didn’t have a devious bone in her body.

Unless, of course, she was the most devious person he’d ever met.

In either case, his strategy was the same one he’d been following since leaving his room at the hotel. It was easy, since he knew his way around Washington so well, to get ahead of his quarry, find himself a hidden vantage point and wait and watch to see which way she went. There-he had her spotted now, in the crowd making for the GW University exit. So she’d told the truth this time, at least; Georgetown it was.

He was feeling pleased with himself as he stepped onto the escalator, figuring Mrs. Carlysle ought to be just about reaching the top. And then he got a nasty surprise.

Damned if that wasn’t her, coming back down the other side!

He was able to turn away before she spotted him, but not before he’d gotten a pretty good look at her face. And what he saw there didn’t make him happy. What he saw was fear. That was unmistakable. But he also saw purpose. No doubt about it, the woman was taking deliberate evasive action.

Dammit, how in the hell had she spotted him?

Roused and fuming and marooned on the Up escalator, Hawk could only watch helplessly while his quarry, his supposedly guileless innocent, dodged through the crowd like a broken field runner as she sprinted toward the exit at the far end of the station.

It was while he was silently and bitterly cursing the duplicity of women and his own gullibility that he gradually became aware of a commotion somewhere above him on the moving escalator. It merely distracted him at first; someone-a man-seemed to be pushing and shoving through the standees, trying with some haste to make his way to the top and generating considerable unhappiness among the passengers in his wake. It was only after the man had done a one-handed vault onto the Down side and was hurtling toward him at great risk to life and limb that Hawk got a really good look at the “rude commuter.” What he saw altered his frame of mind completely.

Campbell! So that was it. That was who Jane must have spotted. No wonder she’d taken off like a vixen with a pack of hounds on her tail.

Those weren’t good moments for Hawk. Another hunter was after his quarry, and he was stuck on the damn escalator!

But it was more than that, and something as yet unacknowledged deep within him knew it. The terrifying truth was, he was beginning to care what happened to Mrs. Jane Carlysle of Cooper’s Mill, North Carolina. He hadn’t counted on that.

At least he hadn’t lost her. Not this time. Thank God, he thought grimly as he tightened his grip on the handle of his briefcase, for high-tech toys.

Jane told herself that she was acting like a crazy person. She was jumping at shadows, behaving like a complete ninny. She’d never been paranoid before in her life. What she needed to do was stop a minute, get her bearings, get a grip on herself. Think.

Bursting out of the Metro station like a flushed pheasant, she found herself in the midst of a throng of camera- bearing tourists, all of whom seemed to be wearing Bermuda shorts, never mind that the temperature wasn’t likely to hit sixty. It seemed enough that it was Saturday, the sun was shining and spring was officially four days old. In spite of her not having a camera with her, Jane seemed to fit right in with her sunglasses and oversize tote bag, so she allowed herself to be swept along with the crowd toward the Lincoln Memorial.

No one paid the slightest bit of attention to the fact that she kept turning to look behind her, to the right, to the left, and behind again. After all, they were all doing much the same thing, jostling one another and pointing out landmarks along the way.

By the time she’d reached Constitution Avenue and there was no sign whatsoever of either Aaron Campbell or Tom Hawkins, she began to relax and even enjoy the sights a little herself. Walking through the park, with the pristine white columns of the Lincoln Memorial visible through the charcoal-gray skeletons of trees, she no longer felt fearful at all-merely foolish.

This is all so silly, she scolded herself as she settled onto a sunny bench with a sigh. I surprised a burglar last night-big deal.

And Mr. Hawkins was some sort of law officer on some sort of assignment that had nothing to do with her. No one was following her, nobody was trying to take her painting away from her. That was just…silly.

She was just plain Jane Carlysle who worked at a bank in Cooper’s Mill, North Carolina, divorced mom facing empty-nest syndrome, gardener, bird-watcher, closet romantic, day-dreamer… to whom nothing exciting ever happened.

But all the same, she checked to make sure the paper-wrapped parcel was secure in her tote bag, and looped the handles carefully over her arm as she rose.

Well, now. Since I’m here, she thought, why shouldn’t I see the Lincoln Memorial, at least? And The Wall, of course.

She could always go to Georgetown later this afternoon.

Besides, the Lincoln Memorial would be crowded with tourists; she’d be safe there.

What in the hell is she doing? Hawk wondered

The woman had been sitting on the Lincoln Memorial steps for a good twenty minutes. Just sitting there. He couldn’t figure it out. He’d even taken the risk of getting close enough to see her, to make sure she was actually there, thinking she might have found the tracking device in her purse and left it behind to throw him off her trail.

But no, there she sat, soaking up sunshine, enjoying the view, apparently waiting…for what? Or who? He couldn’t decide whether she was waiting for a contact, carrying out some sinister agenda, or whether, with the instinctive cunning of a hunted animal, she was merely seeking high ground in order to sniff the wind, to see who might be on her trail.

Campbell had spooked her badly; she had to be wondering whether he was still out there somewhere. Hawk was wondering about that, too. He hadn’t spotted him yet, but that didn’t mean much. Unless the guy was a