Protecting His Witness Page 3

  Turning off the set with her remote control, Kasey turned toward the man she'd helped.

  Logically, she should be ushering him on his way. She'd taken out his bullet, sewed him up and let him sleep on her floor. It was time for him to go.

  And yet, caring for him had awakened the person she'd once been. The person she liked. It prompted her to take another step into the world of kindness. A few more minutes wouldn't hurt, she silently argued. "Would you like something to eat?"

  The moment she asked, Zack became aware of the gnawing pain in his belly. It wasn't giving him discomfort because he'd been shot. He was hungry. He tried to remember the last time he'd eaten. Was it yesterday morning? The night before that? Zack couldn't recall. His line of work didn't encourage sticking to any sort of a reliable schedule.

  He nodded in response to her question. "Yeah. If you don't mind."

  She moved toward the kitchen. "If I'd minded," she informed him, "then I wouldn't have offered."

  The lady sounded tough as nails—or was that only the impression she wanted to give? His job had taught him to look beneath the surface and read between the lines. Something had struck him as off right from the moment he opened his eyes.

  "Aren't you going to ask me any questions?" he asked, rising to his feet. He was less steady than he would have liked and it hurt like hell to walk, but he figured each step would get easier.

  Kasey stood before the pantry. "Do you want eggs or cereal?"

  "Eggs." That wasn't the question he had in mind. "No, I mean about why I got shot."

  She spared him a quick glance just before she opened the refrigerator. She might have questions, but she wasn't about to ask them.

  "No," she told him, taking out the egg carton. "The less I know, the less anyone else can ask me."

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  Gingerly, bracing his hands on the small kitchen table, Zack lowered himself into the chair closest to him.

  Maybe it was his police background, but he sensed she'd had experience with interrogation. She certainly piqued his curiosity, even if he did feel as if he'd been run over several times by a semi. Who was she? And was it chance, or fate, that had brought him literally to her doorstep?

  "A woman with no curiosity," he marveled in awe. "I didn't think such a thing existed."

  She set the carton of eggs on the counter. "I'm glad I could contribute to furthering your education."

  No curiosity and a flippant response. An interesting combination. So was her long, curly light hair and her golden complexion. He watched the woman move gracefully around the small kitchen. No unnecessary movements. Everything seemed within reach. In moments, she had everything out and ready to prepare the breakfast she'd mentioned.

  As he drew in the welcoming scent of coffee, she turned suddenly toward him. "How do you like your eggs?"

  "Cooked."

  His mouth quirked in a quick grin. It transformed a scruffy-looking possible criminal into an adolescent boy who knew his way around charming the opposite sex.

  Wasted on me, hotshot, she thought. I don't charm anymore. But if she did, she added silently, that grin would have been an excellent start.

  She waited for him to be more specific about his choice. When he wasn't, she pressed, "Any other requirements?"

  Zack shook his head. "Nope, I'm easy. I'll have them whatever way you're having them. Fried, poached, scrambled..." His voice trailed off, leaving the rest up to her to fill in.

  "Scrambled it is," she answered, turning back toward the counter and stove. Breaking four eggs, she dropped them directly into the frying pan rather than into a bowl. To her, it was just an unnecessary step, generating more dishes to wash. She took the spatula and broke apart the pattern the eggs began to form. The yolks and whites flowed into each other until they began to solidify in fluffy tufts. "Toast?"

  Something he quite possibly would have been had she not been his Good Samaritan, Zack thought. He started to nod in response to her question, then realized that she wasn't looking at him. "If you don't mind."

  This time she did spare him a glance over her shoulder. Her expression seemed to repeat her previous statement that if she'd minded, she wouldn't have asked him.

  As she dropped two slices into the toaster, the silver appliance only held two slices. She was single, he decided. And had taken quite a chance with him.

  "What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

  Instead of answering, she looked over her shoulder at him again and asked, "Why?"

  She might be short on curiosity, but she was long on suspicion, he thought. Was that inherent or something she'd learned? And if it was the latter, what had made her this way?

  None of his thoughts were evident in his voice or on his face as he said glibly, "So that when I tell people the story of how an angel came to my rescue, I'll be able to refer to you by name."

  Uh-huh, she thought. Right. She turned back to her cooking. "Rumplestiltskin."

  Zack laughed. "Not hardly. You don't look like any ugly little fairy-tale creature that I ever saw in my sisters' storybooks."

  So, he had sisters. Or was that just what he wanted her to think? God, but she missed the days when a duck was just a duck and not a camouflaged cheetah.

  "That's just to give you a false sense of security," she told him.

  Done, Kasey divided the eggs that were in the pan between two plates. Just as she finished, the toast popped. After setting the frying pan down on a dormant burner, she took the toast and applied a light layer of margarine to both slices. She cut them in half at an angle and placed both onto the stranger's plate, framing the eggs. If she'd had bacon, she could have made a smiley face, like her mother used to a million years ago when both she and the world were innocent.

  Kasey slid the plate in front of the dark-haired stranger. 'There." She placed her own plate opposite his on the kitchen table. But instead of sitting down, she asked, "Coffee?"

  He thought she'd never offer. His eyes darted toward the coffeemaker. "Just bring the pot."

  She went to the cupboard and took out one cup, one mug. It was all she had. "Oh, you're one of those."

  Watching her stretch to reach the top shelf made him momentarily forget about all the little devils beating on his body with pointy silver hammers. She had one hell of a graceful body, he couldn't help thinking.

  "Those?" he queried when she turned around again.

  Taking a little for herself—she only liked a small taste to get her going—she poured the rest into the large mug she ordinarily used when she sipped soup. "People who claim they can't wake up until they've had their morning coffee."

  There were days when he felt as if he ran on coffee. "Guilty as charged."

  Leaving her cup on the counter, she brought his mug over to him. "Milk, sugar?"

  Zack shook his head, taking the mug from her and holding it with both hands, like someone receiving long-awaited sustenance.

  "Only gets in the way," he told her. Zack took a deep drink and she could have sworn he sighed with contentment. Glancing up at her again, he said, "Good coffee."

  "Grew the beans myself," she deadpanned, taking her seat. She saw his eyebrows knit themselves together in a bemused line. "The coffee comes from a can," she told him, erasing any misconceptions.

  Obviously the man thought she had no sense of humor. Ordinarily, he would have been right. She had no idea what had possessed her to make the quip. Things like humor and kidding around had long since ceased being part of her daily life. She couldn't even begin to remember the last time she'd laughed. Running left no time for laughter, left nothing to even smile about.

  With coffee in his veins and his belly, he felt almost human again. And ready to pick up where he'd left off. Trying to find out who she was. "You're really not going to tell me your name?"

  She didn't look up from her plate. "Kasey," she answered. "Kasey Madigan."

  "Well, Kasey, Kasey Madigan, it's an honor and a privilege t
o make your acquaintance." He put out his hand as if to shake hers.

  Kasey kept her hand where it was. She nodded at his plate. "Just finish your breakfast. I have to leave soon and I can't have you here when I'm gone."

  He could see her point. Nodding, Zack applied his fork to the fare before him.

  He ate like a man who had only faint memories of his last meal. Quick and with gusto. Was he homeless? she wondered, going back to her initial impression of him. He was scruffy, but not that scruffy. The stubble on his face couldn't have been more than a couple of days old. If he was homeless, it couldn't have been for that long. But then, she supposed that even homeless people had a first week of homelessness in their past.

  "Where do you work?"

  He asked pleasantly enough, but she didn't like dealing with questions. Any kind of questions. "In a bookstore." She'd already told him that.

  Zack nodded. "I know, but where is the bookstore located?"

  "Why, are you looking to expand your library?" she asked.

  She was reluctant to give out any information, he thought. And yet, she'd taken him in and seen to his wound, something a lot of other people wouldn't have done. Especially if they lived alone.

  The woman seemed like a walking contradiction.

  "You never know," he answered, going with her last comment. "I like reading."

  She merely nodded, as if she expected everyone to feel that way about books. Zack let the topic drop. He noticed her plate was empty. The next second, she was getting up, taking it to the sink. He quickly polished off the last of his eggs and toast. He could have eaten more.

  "This was good," he told her.

  "It was simple," she replied, ignoring the compliment he had given her.

  Leaning his palms against the table top, Zack slowly pushed himself up to his feet. Damn, he still felt wobbly. He had no patience with infirmity when he was the one who was infirm. This was going to be a problem, he thought.

  Approaching her, he asked suddenly, "Do you have a car?"

  She turned around from the sink and looked at him for a second, trying to read his expression before she answered. Did he want to take her car? If so, he was in no shape to drive.

  "Yes." She let the single word hang in the air for a minute before asking, "Why?"

  He didn't like asking for favors, especially from people he didn't know, but he needed to get back and Aurora's public transportation left a great deal to be desired.

  "Look, you've already gone more than out of your way for me—"

  She saw no reason to dispute that. "Yes."

  He couldn't tell if she was agreeing with him, or tossing out the word just to make him get to the point faster. "I need a ride," he told her bluntly. "Someone slashed the tires on my car."

  She wondered if it was actually his car, or if he'd stolen it. "Before or after they shot you?"

  "Probably before." He stopped himself, his words replaying themselves in his head. "This sounds like some kind of melodrama, doesn't it?"

  Her mouth curved slightly. "One that went straight to video," she agreed.

  For a moment, Zack wrestled with his thoughts. He'd been undercover for several months now and things were obviously coming to a head. But his gut told him that this woman had no connections to the identity-theft ring he and his team were trying to break up. Wounded, bleeding and disoriented, he had come to her, she hadn't sought him out. That made her an outsider.

  He didn't want to repay her act of kindness by telling her a lie. He really didn't have to tell her very much at all beyond a few nebulous pieces of information. At the very least, she deserved to know who she'd gone out of her way for.

  "My name's Zack McIntyre."

  "Okay," she said gamely. "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

  She really didn't want to know anything, did she? That either made her incredibly unique, or afraid of something. "No, but you didn't ask me what my name was after you told me yours."

  Slender shoulders rose and fell in a careless shrug. "I figured if you wanted me to know, you'd tell me." She looked at him as if her point was made. "And you did."

  Zack shook his head. His sisters could certainly take a few pointers from her. They acted as if they had the right to know every single detail of his life.

  "You don't have any curiosity, do you?" he marveled.

  "I know all I need to know to get me through the day," she replied complacently.

  He didn't have to be a mind reader to know that as far as she was concerned, that was enough.

  Zack watched her as she got ready to leave. "I'd be careful if I were you," he told her.

  He was kidding, she told herself. But she still couldn't bank down the fear that suddenly spiked through her. Was he giving her a veiled warning? She succeeded in keeping her voice cool as she asked him, "And why's that?"

  He watched as she slipped on her high heels. They gave her an extra four inches. "Well, a woman with no curiosity is a rare creature. Someone might be tempted to kidnap you and put you in a museum dedicated to rare and mythical creatures—like the unicorn."

  Kasey slipped her purse straps onto her shoulder. "There are no such things as unicorns."

  He winked at her as she crossed to the door. "Or so they'd like us to think."

  It was just a simple little movement, a flutter of an eyelid. Why did that feel so unsettling? She hadn't even looked at another man since Jim had died. Hadn't even thought about anyone else. Where was this coming from?

  It didn't matter where it was coming from, she upbraided herself sternly. What mattered was sending this man on his way, out of her life.

  "Where do you want me to drop you off?" she asked as she opened the front door.

  Home, Zack thought. Either the bachelor digs where he kept most of his clothes, or better yet, his mother's house where he and his brother and sisters had grown up. Just the sight of his mother would make him feel that God was in His heaven and all was right with the world. Especially now that Lila McIntyre was finally going to be marrying the man she should have been married to all along, her former partner and the current chief of detectives, Brian Cavanaugh. She would have had a much more peaceful life had she been Brian's wife and not his father's. They would all have had more peaceful lives if she'd married Brian instead.

  Zack locked away the thought. No point in going there. And physically, he couldn't go to his mother's house anyway, not right now. Until he was told otherwise, until his captain pulled him off the case, he was still Danny Masters, a hacking genius with a talent for resurrecting information on so-called reformatted hard drives and with an unending need for other people's money.

  So for now, he would return to the run-down motel room where he'd been staying for the duration of this charade. Because Danny Masters couldn't afford any better digs. Master computer wizard though he was and blessed with a silver tongue, he had one very bad fatal flaw. He gambled. On anything and anyone. Which made him the ideal employee for an unscrupulous employer. His addiction made him easier to control, easier to have power over. In essence, "Danny Masters" owed his soul to the company store.

  He leaned against the whitewashed brick as he waited for her to lock the front door. "I'll give you the address," he promised, "once we get into your car."

  The look in her eyes was wary, as if she was debating whether or not to believe him. And then she seemed to make up her mind and nodded, tucking her purse under her arm.

  "All right," she announced briskly, turning away from the house, "let's go."

  Zack caught his lower lip between his teeth to suppress any sound of discomfort that might escape. His side really hurt. He fell into place beside his solemn angel of mercy, moving not nearly as quickly as he would have liked to.

  But he was making progress, which was all that counted to him. His life and his job had taught him how to be a patient man.

  * * *

  Andrew Cavanaugh threw open the front door before his younger brother even took his finger off the doo
rbell. Brian had the keys to his house, as he had to Brian's, but an inherent respect for each other's privacy kept those keys in his pocket.

  "We need to talk," Andrew declared, doing his best to harness the emotions that had prompted him to call and ask Brian to come over as quickly as possible.

  "As I recall, you do that far better than me, big brother." Chief of Detectives Brian Cavanaugh braced himself as walked into his older brother's house.

  The former chief of police had summoned him via a voice message that he'd left on his answering machine. Andrew's message, unlike his normal, friendly fare, was very somber. He hadn't a clue as to why.

  Considering the fact that he and Lila McIntyre had given Andrew carte blanche to do whatever he wanted for their wedding reception, he would have expected his brother to be in fantastic spirits. Since leaving the force to care for his then-motherless brood of five, Andrew had turned his attention toward his second passion: cooking. Cooking was his way of keeping not just his immediate family but his entire family together. With one hand tied behind his back, the man could create huge, sumptuous meals for an amazing amount of people. No one who ever went to Andrew's house remained hungry once they crossed his threshold.

  But one look at Andrew's face told Brian that this wasn't about food. Still, trying to keep the mood light and far too happy to allow himself to be brought down, Brian cracked, "What's the matter, the man doing the ice sculpture decide to back out?"

  Andrew didn't even attempt to smile. Instead, he led the way to the kitchen and nodded toward a chair. "Sit down, Brian."

  Something in Andrew's tone undercut any further attempt at humor. Andrew sounded just the way he had when he'd broken the news to him that their middle brother, Mike, had been killed in the line of duty.

  They'd all followed in their father's footsteps and joined the force in their early twenties. Of the three of them, Mike had been the black sheep, the one who grew more and more resentful of the rut he found himself in. Andrew had done his best to keep Mike in line, to make him see and appreciate just how rich his life actually was. But Mike would have none of it, becoming envious as both his brothers received accolades and promotions while he remained a beat cop. Toward the end, there'd been hatred in Mike's eyes when he looked at them. Hatred because he felt he could never "measure up." Hatred mingled with self-loathing he'd tried to anesthetize with progressively more alcohol. All that did was generate even more problems.