Flirting with Disaster (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 2)

His hand fell to his side. He watched her. He watched for so long that she was afraid her mask would crack and she’d lose it and let out all the tears inside her. But she held tight to her control, and he finally gave up.

“Goodbye, Isabelle,” he said.

He walked out, but he didn’t leave. He sat outside in his truck for nearly thirty minutes, making phone call after phone call. Finally, a marked sheriff’s truck pulled up next to him. They spoke for a long moment while Isabelle watched through the window, afraid she’d made Tom so angry that he’d changed his mind and was going to have her taken to jail after all.

But then the sheriff’s vehicle pulled away and parked on the road just below her driveway, and Tom finally drove off. He’d left someone to watch over her.

Her throat thickened, but she didn’t have time to cry.

An hour later, she drove from her home with all her paintings boxed for shipping, one angry Bear hiding under her seat, enough clothes to get her through a week away and $20,000 in cash. Just in case.

She stopped next to the sheriff’s truck just as fat, sullen snowflakes began to fall from the sky. The deputy rolled down his window, and she was surprised to realize she recognized him as the boyfriend of Jenny, one of her favorite bartenders in town.

“Ms. West,” he said politely.

“Hi. Are you here to follow me?”

He frowned. “Ma’am, I’m here to be sure no one bothers you for the next little while, so yes, I’m afraid I’ll be following you to wherever you want to go.”

“But that’s all? Really?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, thanks. It’s Nate, right?”

He relaxed and winked. “Yes. Known as Jenny’s boyfriend when I’m not on official business.”

“All right.” She started to roll up her window then rolled it back down. “I’m sorry if this is weird.”

“I’m sorry if it’s weird for you,” he responded.

She drove away, off to explain to her girlfriends that Isabelle West was actually a fugitive of justice who’d likely committed several felonies on her long run from the law. Shit. They’d probably love it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

TOM LEFT HIS disciplinary hearing and walked straight out of the US Marshals Service building and down the front steps. It was spring, finally—for a couple of days, at least—and he needed a walk.

A week’s suspension without pay, which he’d start serving tomorrow, and a demotion that had more meaning on paper than it did in reality. Tom had been lucky. Really lucky. He could have been fired, could have lost his pension, but in the end, his “temporary lapse in judgment” had been outweighed by the corruption he’d helped expose in a case that had left a good police officer dead.

The gun hadn’t been registered, of course. It had disappeared from the evidence room in a Chicago police precinct over twenty years before, and it hadn’t shown up since then. But the fingerprints on it...those had been on file. And they’d belonged to Captain Kerrigan.

Fingerprints were only a small piece of evidence, of course, and the man hadn’t yet been charged with any crime, much less murder, but the wheels were turning. Kerrigan had stepped down from his new position as deputy superintendent of the police department, and a special prosecutor had been brought in from Washington, DC, to head up the corruption case. This time, it wouldn’t be only small-time cops going down.

Tom was relieved with how his own disciplinary hearing had turned out. He’d been on desk duty since January, and he was ready to get back to work after the suspension. But he’d do the same thing all over again, given the choice, even the parts that had left him hollowed out and yearning inside. He’d do it for her.

Tom tipped his head up to the sun, feeling the heat on his face and trying not to think about Isabelle. An impossibility considering where he was going.

The Cheyenne office of the FBI was even less impressive than the Cheyenne marshal’s office. The place looked like an accounting firm, and not a successful one, but the metal detector inside the building’s entry gave away that it wasn’t just another door.

Tom showed his badge and told the guard he didn’t have his service revolver on him, and he was escorted to a tiny seating area while a receptionist made a call. It seemed unnecessary. Tom could hear the phone ringing in a room just a few feet away.

“Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan to see you,” she said about five seconds before a young agent stepped out of that open doorway.

“Deputy,” the guy said, holding out a hand. “I’m Special Agent Browning.”

Man, they made Special Agents younger every year. “Nice to meet you. I hope I’m welcome here.”

Browning laughed. “More than welcome. From what I hear, Chicago’s pretty pleased to be rid of that Gates guy. Nobody liked him.”