would she ever know? Or would she just never see or hear from him again?
“Tonight, we’ll brainstorm a plan to get those pictures back for you,” he said, and suddenly she felt small and petty. He was offering to help her. Putting himself at risk to take care of her problem with Sam. Including her when she knew he’d rather work alone, and she owed him more than her anger. Max was who he was. She could not ask him change to please her; all she could do was protect her heart.
From several car lengths away, Max followed Lola’s ex-fiance to Camden Yards in downtown Baltimore. The Orioles were playing Toronto at seven o’clock in the first of three before they took it on the road. Max watched the man’s car pull into Oriole Park, then he backtracked to the simple white house in the suburbs. He parked down the street beneath the shade of an oak, and he reached for his phone and dialed Lola’s cell number.
She picked up on the third ring, and just the sound of her hello twisted his gut. “Where are you?” he asked.
“At work,” she sighed. “Where are you?”
“About a hundred feet from your ex’s. He’s at the Orioles game just as you suspected.” Max glanced at his watch. “I’m going to wait until it gets dark before I venture over there and get a look at his security system. See what toys I’ll need to bring day after tomorrow.”
“A gun?”
“I doubt I’ll need a gun.”
“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed as hell.
“Might bring a Taser,” he added to cheer her up.
“Can I zap him with it?”
“Hopefully we’re going to be in and out before he returns home.”
“Dang. I kinda wanted to zap him.”
Max laughed. “You’re bloodthirsty. But I’ll tell you what. If you’re nice, I’ll let you look at the weapon.” He lowered his voice and added, “Maybe even touch it.”
Several moments of silence passed before she spoke again. “Are we talking about your stun gun, Max?”
“I am.”
“Right,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “So we’re still on for Friday?”
“Yep, I’ll pick you up at Ronald Reagan at six.” He quickly went over the plan they’d talked about over the weekend, but instead of trying to disguise her appearance to get her in and out of town before anyone could recognize her as they’d discussed, Max had revised the plan that morning. A disguise of any kind would automatically make her appear guilty, and when Sam noticed his hard drives were wiped out and the photographs missing, the first person he’d suspect would be Lola. Since Max would be Lola’s alibi, the last thing he wanted was for either of them to seem as if they were hiding.
He figured the police would question Lola- him, too-but they would have no proof to tie either of them to anything. With no evidence, the case would get shoved in a file and just be one of a thousand other unsolved crimes in an area of the country that had its share of crime.
“Are you sure that’s the wisest thing to do?” Lola asked after he’d relayed the latest.
“Yep. We’re going to hide in plain sight. Let everyone know you’re in town.” He thought of that red dress she’d been wearing the other night when he’d driven to her house. He’d liked that dress. It had been classy and sexy at the same time. Then she’d changed into shorts and that T-shirt and he’d about lost his mind. “Maybe act like we can’t keep our hands off each other. That we’re so hot for each other that when we leave a little bar I know, people will naturally assume we’re headed straight for bed instead of breaking and entering into your ex-fiance’s.”
“Hmm, are you sure that will work?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. So wear something memorable,” he added before he pushed the disconnect. He tossed his cell on the passenger seat and prepared to wait for the first shadows of dusk. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and tried to catch a few, but his thoughts of Lola made sleep impossible.
He’d ended up spending the weekend with her, and it seemed as if he’d spent a lot of it right there on her purple sofa, surrounded by all those doily pillows while Baby laid on the top of the couch by Max’s head and licked Max’s ear.
Lola hadn’t made him sit through six hours of
The Carlyle family reunion hadn’t been the torture he’d envisioned. In fact, they’d all seemed to be real down- to-earth people, and for some reason they’d liked him. He supposed that had a lot to do with Lola herself, and her stretching the truth so far that he’d come off as a hero who’d saved her from all but certain death.
After they’d eaten at the reunion, he and Lola had returned to her condo and sketched out an op plan. Then he’d gone to bed. Alone. And for the second night, he’d gotten very little sleep. He’d left early the next morning for Charlotte and checked into a hotel just so he could catch some z’s before meeting with the Duke people the following day.
He was obsessed with her. When he wasn’t with Lola, she wasn’t far from his thoughts. He’d been in Charlotte for two days, but it had seemed longer. As he’d met with the heads of the Duke Power Company, she’d played hell with his concentration. That had never happened to him before. He’d always been able to focus on the job before him.
But as he’d toured the Duke facilities, pointing out the weak links in their security, images of her popped into his head. The way she’d appeared in her backyard, the moonlight tangled up in her short hair. Simple things, too: the way she smiled when she walked toward him and held out her hands.
After he’d concluded his business in Charlotte, he’d planned a short stop off in Durham. It was on his way home, and he always had the excuse of going over the final details of their plan with Lola. But in the end he’d driven past every exit. He hadn’t given in to his weakness to see her.
Oh, yes, he was definitely obsessed. And there was only one thing to do about it. As soon as he took care of her problem for her, as soon as he handed her those photographs, he had to stay away from her. No more excuses. No more playing hero just to insinuate himself in her life. He had to get out before his thoughts got any crazier, before he was in so deep, there was no way out for him. Before he did something desperate and gave up his life to be with her. Before he changed who he was to fit into her world. Before he changed so completely he didn’t know who he was anymore. Before he was nothing.
Yeah, once he put her on a plane back to Durham, he’d get back to his own life.
Chapter 14
The hard beat of rock and roll poured through the Foggy Bottom, thumped against the walls, and pounded like a heartbeat through the soles of Lola’s lavender python sandals. The air inside the Alexandria bar was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of beer. In the back room, the lamp above the pool table shone down on the green felt like a tent of light as Lola slowly leaned over and hooked a finger over her cue stick. She glanced at the man at the opposite end, awash in smoke and shadow, light bathing the bottom half of him. His arms were folded across the front of his navy polo, muscles bulging. He held his own stick in one hand. The lamp provided just enough light to see that his brows were lowered in a scowl over his blue eyes.
Lola bit the corner of her mouth as butterflies fluttered about in her stomach. She lined up her shot and tried not to think of what she and Max had planned for later that night. Even though she would love to zap Sam with a stun gun, the last thing she needed or wanted was to get caught breaking into his house. Her nerves were frazzled, and Max’s black mood made everything worse.
“Six ball in the corner pocket,” she said, even though she doubted anyone could hear her. The balls smacked together, and the six rolled neatly into the pocket by Max’s right thigh. Lola rose, pursed her lips as if she were striking a pose for a lipstick ad, and blew across the end of her stick. Just as she’d suspected it would, Max’s scowl turned a bit more grim. She picked up her chalk and moved toward him, peanut shells crunching beneath her four- inch heels. “I told you I’m a shark,” she said as she came to stand beside him. “Might as well pay up right
