Double Jeopardy (Entangled Select) (8 page)

“The southbound traffic’s going to be a bitch for the next couple hours. Why don’t we look for someplace to have dinner before we battle the freeway?”

Lauren thought for a moment and checked her watch. “There’s a pretty good place about four blocks from here where Dana and I used to meet for dinner. It shouldn’t be too busy at this hour. We can discuss what Dana told us while it’s still fresh in our minds without having to worry about being overheard.”

“Sounds fine.”

“Shit.” Josh pulled at a slip of paper tucked under the windshield wiper on the driver’s side. “I can’t believe they thought they could issue a parking ticket. There are no signs posted in this lot.”

“Mark must have gotten one of the patrolmen to do this.” Lauren took the parking ticket out of his hand and crumpled it into a ball. “His nasty idea of a joke.” She clearly didn’t find it funny.

He suddenly grinned as he took the ticket back and pocketed it. “Then it’s a good thing I have connections at the courthouse.”

Her laughter didn’t hold any humor. “Around here, you’ll need more than that.”

Ironically, as they got into Josh’s car, they couldn’t stop themselves from covertly glancing around as if expecting to find themselves under observation. And not necessarily by the police.

Chapter Seven

“I can’t believe what crazy turns this situation has taken in the past few months. I’m beginning to think I’m living in a nightmare.” Josh had waited to speak until they’d given their order to the waitress and she’d left them alone. He picked up his coffee cup she had just filled and drank deeply of the much-needed caffeine. If he wasn’t driving, he would have asked for a double scotch.

“Is it so crazy?” Lauren countered, wrapping her hands around her cup to warm her fingers. “How many stories about stalkers do we read in the news almost every day? They’ve practically become a regular feature on television talk shows. Your own lady love would probably make the front page in town if you hadn’t used your connections to keep it quiet. Although I’d think it would be to your advantage to bring it out in the open. For all we know, someone could have information about her. Maybe she’s done it before with another man who didn’t want to say anything, but who might be willing to come forward if he discovers he’s not the only one.”

“There might not be anyone else.”

“There’s an old saying about never knowing until you try. What would it hurt to announce to the press there’s a woman out there who’s fixated on the assistant DA?”

He shook his head. “We had our reasons for keeping the reports unofficial. Kevin has had to do some pretty fast tap dancing to keep his activities out of the eyes of the press. When it looked as if this woman was more than just the shy type who refused to sign her name on the cards, the DA, the police chief, Kevin, and myself discussed the case at length. We took into account that with the town growing the way it was, we couldn’t afford this kind of negative publicity. Industry is starting to move out of the big city and into outlying areas. Several large manufacturing firms are looking at property on the city outskirts. We knew we had to keep it as quiet as possible.”

Lauren could understand his reasoning, even if she didn’t completely agree with it.

“And if she becomes dangerous? What then? What if she finally loses her hold on reality and goes after you or the woman you’re seeing, this time with the intent to kill?”

Josh reared back from her low-voiced fury. He didn’t think twice in retaliating. “Since we’re talking about my neck here, I don’t see why you should worry.”

She shook her head. “Since I happen to be with you at the moment and since it was my house that was broken into, I believe I have a great deal to worry about. Now I begin to wonder if she wasn’t the one who keyed my car that night at the retirement party.”

Even as the anger flared between them, so did something more elemental. Josh stared at Lauren and wondered if she felt the same sparks he did. For a moment, he wasn’t sure whether to strangle her for forcing the issue, or kiss her. The latter seemed a lot more pleasant.

“Let me tell you something. I’d like nothing more than to know who to look out for.” He automatically lowered his voice as he leaned across the table. “You have no idea what it’s like to wonder if the woman who’s been making your life hell is one of the secretaries, paralegals, or clerks working in your office, or if you should worry she’s the receptionist at your dentist’s office or someone you just happened to pass on the street one day and all you did was pick up a dropped package for her and she took it the wrong way.” Angry frustration at the situation ran through his words. “I ask myself if she’s someone I’ve known for a long time or someone I might have only said a few words to at some point. I go home from work wondering if I’ll walk in to find she’s washed all the dishes, waxed the furniture, and changed the sheets, or if she’s torn up the room,” he muttered.

“She does your housework and laundry while she ruins the surface of my dresser top with my most expensive perfume,” Lauren murmured on a wry note. “How unfair!”

He didn’t waste any time in shooting back at her. “This is not a joking matter.”

“You’re right, it’s not. You should hear some of the estimates I received to refinish the dresser.” She held up her hands in surrender. “All right, I’ll stop. But the stories I’ve read and heard about stalkers say that if they break in, they take something personal. They don’t clean the house. This woman has a very strong fixation about you, and it seems conceivable. I bet if you took a very careful inventory of your house you’d find something missing. Probably a piece of clothing.”

Josh eyed her. “You seem to know a lot about investigative procedures.”

“I was married to a cop. You hear so much that it’s natural to learn all sorts of things.”

He didn’t miss her bitterness. “Bad?”

She raised her head so he couldn’t miss the “back off” written in her expression. “Bad enough.”

He leaned back in his chair. “You know, Lauren, I’d like to get to know you better, but you seem to keep putting up walls if I ask a question that might be considered the least bit personal.”

“I didn’t realize wanting to keep my private life private was a crime. What part of ‘none of your business’ didn’t you understand?”

“Lauren, I’m not the enemy here. Obviously, running into that friend of your ex-husband’s upset you, but why take it out on me?”

“Running into Mark has nothing to do with it, although my day would have been considerably brighter if I could have run over him while driving a tank.” She toyed with her fork so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “Let me make this clear. We got married for all the wrong reasons and divorced for all the right ones. It was a time I don’t care to discuss. Especially when the man asking doesn’t seem to like to talk about himself almost as much as I don’t like talking about myself.”

“I’ve told you before, there’s not much to say.”

“That’s not what the gossips say.”

His dark eyes turned cold. “I’ve never believed in gossip, since it’s a proven fact gossip isn’t all that reliable. It is bad enough we haven’t been able to contain the talk about my secret admirer, what with her sending me flowers every week. Since it began, I’ve tended to keep things to myself even more than usual,” he said finally. “I only hope it hasn’t been too noticeable. Rumors are pretty typical around there. I’m surprised I didn’t find out about you sooner. I was involved in an important case at the time, but I usually hear what’s going on.”

“If you’d read your office memos you would have known about me before you met me at the retirement party. The local paper even wrote up a brief article about my taking over as county coroner. All about a woman working in a man’s world, and so on.”

“I barely have time to do more than keep up with my caseload, and there are times I feel as if I need more hours in a day just for that.” He automatically glanced over his shoulder as if sensing something was wrong.

“I doubt she’s followed us here.” She still kept her voice low. “We both were very careful in keeping today’s appointment quiet.”

He still couldn’t stop glancing quickly over his other shoulder. None of the other patrons in the restaurant looked familiar, but he knew that didn’t mean anything. “You never said how you got out of the office without them wondering.”

“I told them I was meeting with a colleague in San Diego. Personally, I didn’t think it was any of their business where I was going and what I was doing, but Pete kept demanding to know about calling me if a problem came up. I told him I’d probably have my cell turned off.” She shook her head in disgust. “He’s not into taking any responsibility.”

“It’s probably because Harvey refused to give him any. Harvey had a habit of treating him like an idiot. I always had the feeling that Pete’s lack of self-esteem was due to that more than anything else.”

Lauren shook her head. “And, unfortunately, I probably treat him the same way. I’m surprised he’s remained in the field with that kind of negative supervision.”

“Harvey just refused to give him a chance. I think he hoped for a promotion when Harvey’s health forced him to retire. And then you came along. Although it wouldn’t matter, because everyone knew Pete wasn’t ready to take over. Top professionals are hard to lure out here, since most people prefer the bigger cities. The trouble is, the salaries, naturally, aren’t as high and advancement isn’t as fast or as satisfying as what they can get in the city.”

“It doesn’t seem to have bothered you.” Lauren glanced up as the waitress set down her plate.

“I like out-of-the-way places where I can do my own thing. A judge in LA would slap me with a contempt charge if I showed up in jeans and not wearing a tie. Instead, it’s considered part of my boyish charm.” He leaned back as the waitress moved to his side of the table to set his plate in front of him. “Besides, I don’t need the high-profile cases to make a name for myself. I’m happy just being a small-town country lawyer making sure the bad guys stay in jail for a long time.”

She hid her smile as she concentrated on cutting up her steak. “Why do you think this woman has chosen a small-town country lawyer?”

Josh shook his head, showing the frustration he’d been feeling all along. “Beats the hell out of me. Dana’s suggestion that it has to do with my involvement with battered women sounds pretty logical, since I give a lot of talks and conduct seminars on how to protect yourself in the courts and what to expect when dealing with the police. Nowadays, the abusive spouse is automatically locked up if the cops are called, but that still doesn’t mean the other party is safe when their abuser is released.” He studied her bent head. “Lauren, did he ever abuse you?”

Her head shot up. “Abuse me? Ron knew if he ever tried it he’d find himself turned into filets. Besides, physical punishment wasn’t his style. He enjoyed women too much to beat them up.”

He didn’t need to meet her level gaze to know what he’d read there.

“Did he like to flaunt them?”

She took several deep breaths to rid herself of the roaring in her ears. “Not now, please?” she barely whispered, as she picked up her utensils with extra care and looked at the food she no longer had an appetite for.

“It seems we all have our own little form of hell, doesn’t it?”

…

An hour later, Lauren stared out the car window at the landscape speeding past them but didn’t bother looking to find anything beyond the darkness. She was relieved Josh had finally dropped the subject about her marriage and divorce. The last thing she wanted to do was reveal a piece of her past she preferred no one know. She already knew that part of her life wasn’t something Ron wanted to get around, and all documentation had been destroyed. Not exactly a legal procedure, but something Ron had insisted on doing. More for his benefit than hers, she’d always thought. The only gossip known about her was that she was divorced from a cop, which was nothing new, since the divorce rate among law enforcement was high.

As cars flashed past them, she couldn’t help but wonder if one of them held Josh’s unwelcome admirer. Could she have seen Josh leave the building and decided to follow him? How difficult would it have been for her to keep up with them on the freeway? Traffic hadn’t been heavy until they’d reached the outskirts of Los Angeles. Traffic was always heavy around the courthouse. Had she come into the restaurant when they had dinner and sat at a table nearby, watching them? Had she noticed the electricity that sparked between them? Even Lauren was stunned by the attraction they generated and feelings that shook-up. As a few more erotic pictures started to enter her mind, she quickly banished them by mentally reciting the names of the bones in the foot. Since there were so many, she knew it would take a while.

“What did you say?” His question brought her back to the present.

“Nothing important,” she lied. Few people would understand how relaxing it was to recite the names of the bones in the foot. “I’m just figuring out my shopping list. I tend to stay out of grocery stores until there’s nothing in the cupboards and I’ll starve unless I refill them.”

“You always speak Latin when you make up your list?”

“It makes it more interesting.” She turned and leaned over to turn on the radio, fiddling with the dial until she found a golden oldies station.

“No good ole shit-kickin’, boot-stompin’ country western music?”

“Not if you want to keep me as a passenger.”

“Oh, I think I want to keep you.”

That was when Lauren decided staying one step ahead of Josh might not be so easy after all.

…

As the day wore on she grew more impatient. She knew they were together. She could feel it. That story about his deciding to take the rest of the day off and her telling her staff she was going to San Diego to see a friend was all bullshit. She knew it was!

She went to Josh’s house first, but couldn’t find any clues to tell her where he might have gone. She only prayed she was wrong for once and he was alone.

Her house was a little more difficult to get into because of the alarm system, but not impossible. All she learned there was that the boxes were now emptied and the rooms looked more lived in. The gun was in the same place, the
Cosmo
magazine a recent issue, and she took the time to study the files on Lauren’s computer. Articles for medical and forensic journals, household records that were so complete she couldn’t resist running them off on the laser printer to see what else she could learn about her. There were even a few games on it. She looked over the online calendar and swore because nothing was written down for that day.
Wouldn’t meeting
a friend benefit a notation?

In the end, she flipped a mental coin and decided to stake out Lauren’s house. She felt more comfortable hiding out because Lauren’s house was set well back from the road and on high ground. The only entrance was a winding driveway. It gave the occupant a great deal of privacy because of trees planted along the road,
which provided a form of protection. She parked her car along a side road up from Lauren’s house and settled back to wait. They would have to show up sooner or later. She wasn’t even going to think how she would feel if they decided to spend the night at his house. She was growing much too tired of his seeing all these other women, and if he didn’t stop soon, she knew she would have to do something about it. It had worked with Celia, years ago. It would work this time, too.