“Everyone’s luck runs out sometime,” he said as they walked to the elevator.
“I certainly hope you’re right,” she told him with feeling, and then added sincerely, “and that it’s his luck and not mine that’s run out.”
Lowering his voice, he made her a promise. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
For a split second, Krys actually felt safe. But then the feeling faded in the face of reality. He couldn’t really make a promise like that. “Did I miss that big red S on your chest?” she asked him.
The smile he gave her created an unexpected tingle in the pit of her stomach. “As a matter fact, you did. I keep it hidden under my clothes.”
“Good to know.”
The elevator arrived on the first floor and its doors drew open. The moment they did, Morgan escorted Krys off the elevator. The two detectives who were waiting to get on looked at them, each murmuring a greeting just before recognition suddenly set in. The wide, welcoming smiles the two flashed were directed toward the woman beside Morgan.
“I thought you and Finn were going to be gone until next week,” Detective Christian Cavanaugh O’Bannon said.
“I thought it was supposed to be longer,” his brother Luke said, confused as to why something as special as a honeymoon would be cut short. He grinned at her and teased, “Did you get bored?”
Thinking that this could get uncomfortably embarrassing very quickly, Morgan spoke up. “Guys, I think you should know something.”
Christian laughed at his cousin, holding the elevator door open as he looked at the woman beside Morgan. “What could you possibly have to tell us, Morgan?”
“Well, for starters,” Morgan began loftily, nodding at Krys, “I could tell you that this isn’t Finn’s wife, Nikki Cavanaugh.”
“Yeah, right,” Luke responded. And then he waved away the very suggestion. “Of course this is Nikki. We know what she looks like.” But Morgan’s expression never changed. “Who else would it be?” Luke challenged.
The elevator doors kept shuddering, attempting to close as Krys put out her hand to Luke, the detective closest to her. “No, he’s right,” she said. “I’m Krystyna Kowalski, Nikki’s twin sister.”
The brothers exchanged looks, then laughed. “Sure you are,” Luke said, dismissing Krys’s attempt to set them straight.
Rather than spend any more time arguing with the two disbelievers, Krys did what she’d initially done with Morgan. She took out her wallet and held up her driver’s license. “This is me,” she told the detectives. “And this,” she went on as she dug out the photograph depicting both herself and Nik that had been taken several years ago, “is a picture of the two of us.”
Luke took the photograph first, totally stunned by what he was looking at. He raised his eyes from the photograph to look at the woman next to Morgan. And then he looked at the photograph again.
“You’re right,” he declared, stunned as he glanced back at Krys again. “There are two of you.” He handed the photo to his brother. “Does anyone else know?”
“We’re informing the family as we come across them,” Morgan said, thinking that for now that was a simpler explanation than going into why Krys hadn’t been at the wedding and what she was doing at the precinct now.
Christian handed back the photo and then grinned as a thought hit him. “Wait ’til Uncle Andrew finds out. Talk about having an excuse to throw a party. This’ll blow him away.”
“Uncle Andrew?” Krys asked Morgan as the elevator doors finally closed on Christian and Luke, taking them to their destination.
“He’s the former chief of police. Uncle Andrew loves to throw parties. He’s been known to use just about anything for an excuse in order to do it. And having you turn up,” Morgan told her, “could very well be just about the most perfect excuse for throwing a party that he’s ever had.”
Krys supposed that she was going to have to meet the rest of the family sooner or later, but now wasn’t the opportune time.
“Well, any party is going to have to wait until we can catch that stalker,” she told Morgan. She wouldn’t be able to focus on meeting the family members or having a good time while someone was out there, stalking her and attempting to kill her.
“No argument here,” Morgan agreed. “Your safety is of paramount importance. Of course,” he said after a beat, catching her attention, “there is that old adage about there being safety in numbers.”
“That might be true, but I’m not about to take a chance on someone getting hurt because they got in the way of a stray bullet meant for me,” she told him. Krys grew silent for a moment as she looked at Morgan, concerns crowding her head. “For that matter, the idea of you possibly getting hurt because you’re playing my guardian angel doesn’t exactly warm my heart, either.”
Morgan waved away her concern. “Don’t worry about it. That’s what I get paid for,” he reminded her.
“You get paid for being a walking target?” she asked.
His mouth curved in a lopsided smile. “I don’t think of myself in terms like that,” he told her as they hurried down the stairs and returned to his vehicle.
He opened the door on the passenger side and held it for her.
“Exactly what sort of terms do you think of yourself in?”
“I’d like to think that I can deflect those bullets,” Morgan deadpanned.
Like a superhero, she thought. “Oh, so in other words, you suffer from a strong case of delusion.”
“Hey,” he pretended to protest, getting into his car, “I’m dedicated to keeping you safe and breathing. Maybe you should be a little nicer to me.”
“If
