Operation Nanny

Until she realized the lights belonged to a familiar blue pickup truck.

She froze, her breath caught in her throat.

She must have made some sort of noise, for Jim’s voice rose on the other end of the line. “What’s happening?”

“The blue pickup truck is in front of my building,” she answered, slowly retreating from the door until her back flattened against the wall.

“Is it stopping?”

The pickup slowed almost to a halt, then began to move again, moving out of sight. Lacey released a soft hiss of breath. “No. It almost did, then it drove on.”

“Lacey, you can’t go meet your friend out there tonight. You need to get in your car and come home.” Jim’s tone rang with authority, reminding her that he’d spent a lot of years in the Marine Corps. She could almost picture him in fatigues, his hair cut high and tight, his voice barking instructions in the same “don’t mess with me” tone he was using now. “Call him and cancel.”

She wanted to argue, but he was right. Whatever Ken Calvert wanted to tell her could wait for another night. “Okay. I’ll call him right now. I’ll call you back when I’m on the road.”

She hung up and dialed the cab company first, canceling the cab. “I have an account,” she told the dispatcher when he balked at canceling the cab when it was nearly to her apartment. “Bill me for it.”

Then she phoned Ken Calvert on her way back to the elevators. After four rings, his voice mail picked up.

“Ken, it’s Lacey. I can’t make it tonight. Call me tomorrow and we’ll reschedule.” She hung up the phone and entered the elevator, trying to calm her rattling nerves.

The walk from the elevator to the Impala was a nightmare, as she found herself spooked by the normal noises of cooling engines and the muted traffic sounds from outside the garage. She didn’t start to relax until she was safely back on the road out of town.

Settling her phone in the hands-free cradle, she called Jim. “I’m on my way home.”

“Stay on the line,” he said.

“I’m feeling like an idiot right about now,” she admitted. “Jumping at shadows.”

“You’re being safe,” he corrected her firmly. “It’s not like the danger isn’t real, right?”

“Can we talk about something else?” she asked, trying to control a sudden case of the shivers. She turned the heat up to high, wishing she’d donned one of the heavy coats she’d packed before she got behind the wheel of the car.

“Sure. I could read to you. After all, I know where to find a copy of Goodnight Moon.”

“That’ll put me to sleep.” She didn’t know if it was the blast of heat coming from the vents or Jim Mercer’s warm, comforting voice doing the job, but the shivers had already begun to subside. In their place, a creeping lethargy was starting to take hold, making her limbs feel heavy. “Don’t you have any salty tales from your time in the military? Tell me one.”

He told her several, with the seductive cadence and natural delivery of a born storyteller. Katie was going to love him, Lacey thought. Her little niece was a sucker for a well-told story.

The drive home seemed to pass in no time, unmarred by any further sightings of the blue pickup. As she drove through the tiny town of Cherry Grove, the snow that had been threatening all day finally started to fall, first in a mixture with tiny pebbles of sleet, then as fat, wet clumps as she turned into the long driveway to the farmhouse. “I’m here,” she said into the phone.

“I know. See you in a minute.” Jim hung up the phone.

The outside lights were on, casting brightness across the gravel drive. The front door opened as she walked around to the Impala’s trunk to retrieve her suitcase. By the time she hauled it out, Jim Mercer stood beside her, tall and broad shouldered, a wall of heat in the frigid night air.

He took the suitcase from her numb fingers. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she answered, almost believing it.

He followed her inside, waiting next to her while she engaged the dead bolt on the front door. “I heated up the potpie. I thought you might be hungry.”

She was, she realized. “Starving.”

He set the suitcase on the floor in the living room and led her into the kitchen, where a warm, savory aroma set her stomach rumbling. “It’s not much,” he warned. “Canned vegetables, canned chicken and canned cream-of-mushroom soup.”

“Beats ramen.” She shot him a quick grin as he waved her into one of the seats at the kitchen table and retrieved a plate of casserole from the microwave. It was warm and surprisingly tasty for something straight out of a can. “Not bad.”

“I’m glad you’re home safe,” Jim said. The warmth in his voice and the intense focus of his gaze sent a ripple of pleasure skating along her spine. She quelled the sensation with ruthless determination.

He was Katie’s nanny. Nothing more.

“Why don’t you try to relax?” he suggested when she started to carry her empty plate to the dishwasher. “I’ll clean up.”

“That’s not your job, you know—” The ring of her cell phone interrupted. With a grimace, she checked the number, frowning at the display. It had a DC area code, but there was no name attached. She briefly considered letting it go to voice mail before curiosity made her pick up. “Hello?”

“Lacey Miles?” the voice on the other end asked. It was a male voice, deep and no-nonsense.

“This is Lacey,” she answered, troubled by something she heard in the man’s voice.

“This is Detective Miller with the Metropolitan Police Department. Did you place a phone call to a Ken Calvert earlier this evening, telling him you couldn’t meet him?”

She tightened her grip on the phone and dropped into the chair she’d just vacated. Jim paused on his way to the sink, turning to give her a worried look. “How did you know that?” she asked Detective Miller.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “We found the message on Mr. Calvert’s phone. I regret to inform you that Mr. Calvert died earlier tonight.”

Chapter Five

Lacey’s face had gone pale, and her gray eyes flicked up to meet Jim’s. Whatever she’d just heard over the phone had been a gut punch. “What happened?”

Jim eased quietly away from the sink and sat in the chair across the table from her, trying to guess the other end of the phone conversation by reading Lacey’s expression. But she had recovered quickly from the shock of whatever she’d just been told over the phone and now sat composed and quiet, only a faint flicker of emotion in her eyes betraying her inner turmoil.

“I see,” she said a moment later. “Of course. You want to see me tonight?”

Jim glanced at the clock on the wall over the table. It was eight-thirty. If someone was planning to meet with Lacey this late in the evening, something pretty significant must have happened.

But what?

“I’ll be here,” Lacey said finally before she ended the call and set her cell phone on the table in front of her, looking at it for a moment as if it was a dangerous beast she expected to strike.

“Are you okay?” Jim asked.

She looked up at him. “The man I was supposed to meet tonight was murdered.”

Jim’s gut tightened. “My God.”

“He was found at a parking deck on Virginia Avenue, near the memorial, shortly after seven.” She passed a hand over her eyes. “The police didn’t give me any details, really. But a detective wants to talk to me tonight. Since I was the last person to call Ken on his cell phone.”

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

She shook her head as if to ward off his sympathy. “It wasn’t like we were close. He was a source for some stories I did in the past.”

“He had a new tip or something? Is that why he wanted to meet you tonight?” Jim tried not to sound too eager for her answer.

“Something like that,” she answered vaguely, sounding distracted.

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