Licensed for Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  “Then who rented the house in Hopkins and threw Max into the lake?”

  “Ratchet—as Lyle Fisher.”

  “Then who’s the Lyle in the picture? That Lyle looks just like Max. Are there two Lyle Fishers?”

  “Okay!” She held up her hand. “Point taken. We’re just missing something.”

  “Yeah, like someone with a memory of who he is. I hate this case.” He reached out a hand and she took it, letting him haul her from the water. “When I got your message to meet me here, I have to admit, I thought maybe you’d decided to live on the edge, attend an aerobics class. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in here doing laps. Have you been following this guy all day?”

  She walked over to her towel and began drying herself off. “Started at his garage, watched him work on high-end imports, then over to his apartment in St. Louis Park, then here. I wanted to see if he had that tattoo and maybe get close enough to ask him a few questions. Pry his past from him.”

  “I don’t even want to know how you planned to do that.”

  PJ gave him a smile, all teeth. His mouth tightened to a disapproving scowl.

  “I’m just trying to get some answers and do my job.”

  “And what job is that?” Jeremy said, purposely running his gaze down her body and her one-piece swimsuit.

  She hooked her finger under his jaw to raise his gaze back to her eyes. “The one that will prove that Max is innocent and figure out who tried to kill me last night. And the person who tried to kill Max and possibly killed Bekka. The someone who is still after Max, I think.”

  “I know. I heard you last night.”

  She didn’t want to ask what else he’d heard. “So have you been out saving the world? You don’t look like you’ve been in a brawl.” She gave him a mock pout. “What? No knock-down-drag-outs for breakfast? You must be heartbroken.”

  “I could work one in now if you’re interested.” He gave her a smirk that suggested he’d like nothing better at the moment.

  “Hah.”

  “I’m a little surprised to see you in a pool today, after what happened yesterday.” He gentled his voice. “You okay?”

  PJ pressed the towel to her face. Yeah, diving into that water had nearly sucked away her breath, made her launch to the surface with a scream.

  But it also made her feel . . . less like a victim. “I’ve decided that swimming is a lot like skydiving.”

  Jeremy sat on the diving board, twirling his glasses between his fingers. “How’s that?”

  “The weightlessness. And diving in is a lot like throwing yourself from an airplane. Breathtaking.”

  Wow, he had beautiful eyes, and they seemed to twinkle now. “Yeah. I guess it is. Breathtaking.”

  The way he said it made her wonder if he wasn’t exactly talking about skydiving or swimming. But she’d just have to learn to be immune to that devastating smile, the way he looked at her as if she might be a mystery he’d like to solve. They had too many empty, black holes between them and a happy ending. Holes in his life that he didn’t want her to see, holes in hers that he could too easily trip in and get hurt.

  She wouldn’t look at his strong hands or remember the way he’d held her last night. Or pay attention to the way that now, even from three feet away, she could smell his skin, his after-workout soap.

  Nope, not a good idea.

  “You left Google open on the computer. I saw that you did a little research on Sierra Leone.”

  Thank you, Jeremy, for always focusing on the job.

  “Oh. Yeah, Sierra Leone happens to be a diamond smuggler’s paradise. They have illegal mines, and they’re smuggling diamonds over the border. And it’s not just Sierra Leone, but Angola and Zambia and Zimbabwe. I don’t know, but it’s possible that Max knew the smuggler.”

  “Or was mixed up in, maybe even the leader of, said smuggling operation, one that Ratchet was also involved in—exactly what Windchill said.”

  PJ said nothing.

  “You know it could be true, PJ. Not everyone is who they seem. You have to stop leading with your instincts.”

  She ran the towel around her waist and hooked it like a wrap skirt.

  “Listen to logic, PJ. Why would Ratchet come after him if he wasn’t involved? My bet is that he had the diamonds, and Ratchet wanted them. Still wants them.”

  “Okay, then how did Max get the diamonds back into the country? He was wounded, right? I still say he didn’t know. Ratchet surprised him.”

  Jeremy held up his hands. “I know; I know. He’s innocent . . . you feel it.”

  “Listen—”

  “Jump ahead with me for a second. Regardless of who is in charge, how would the smuggler get the diamonds home?”

  Beyond the glass, Ratchet finished his squats, wiped his face with a towel, then flung it over his shoulder.

  “I don’t know. But you’d better head into the showers and keep an eye on him,” PJ said, slipping on her flip-flops.

  Jeremy glanced over his shoulder. “Now you need me?”

  She couldn’t help herself. “I always need you.”

  His face lost its smile and left only an enigmatic look before he headed off to the locker room.

  PJ changed quickly, running her hair under the dryer, and shoved her wet towel and suit into a duffel bag. How would Max/Owen/Lyle/Ratchet get diamonds home?

  And could Max really be a smuggler?

  Jeremy leaned against the edge of a giant planter in the brick lobby of the club, arms and ankles crossed. He picked up her stride. “He’s showering.”

  “That’s all I need to know.”

  Jeremy grinned. “I have to admit, I wondered how you would get around today. Since your wheels are at the bottom of Maximilian Bay.”

  “I borrowed the Vic from Boris.”

  “A large vessel which may have come in handy yesterday.”

  Relief flushed through her at his easy humor, the way he obviously tried to push the horror out of his mind. See? Maybe they’d both survive without any long-term injuries.

  “Your place or mine?” Jeremy said, gesturing to the red minibus parked at the other edge of the lot.

  “Yours. Just because I miss my Bug.”

  He put on his sunglasses. “It’s a crying shame how you go through cars, Your Highness.” He unlocked her door, and wasn’t it sweet the way he held her elbow, helping her into the creamy white vinyl seat? “Have you eaten today?”

  “Are you thinking of cooking up a pizza in your camper oven?”

  “I keep a ready supply just in case you need immediate pizza therapy.”

  Oh, she’d miss his teasing. Because in the back of her mind, she’d already packed the Vic. Already laid out her journey to the next stop. This time she’d head east, to Chicago. Maybe find another PI. An overweight gumshoe without dark, steamy eyes and the ability to make her see more of herself than was good for her.

  Yes, she’d be a PI. Because, really, why waste all these superb troublemaking skills?

  “Here he comes.”

  “He’s not driving a white Pontiac,” Jeremy said as Ratchet walked down the sidewalk, wearing a baseball hat and a black mechanic’s jacket, a duffel bag over his shoulder. He passed a Silverado pickup and went straight for the older model black-and-white restored job in the corner of the lot.

  “Chevy El Camino. I should have guessed.”

  “It’s a pretty ride, I have to agree,” PJ said. It sort of reminded her of Boone and his ’67 Mustang. And the hours he spent under the hood. Strange, but the memory didn’t pinch quite so much.

  Ratchet opened the back door and tossed his duffel inside. Then shut it and got in the driver’s seat.

  “I’m hoping he goes to a sports bar or something. I could use a basket of chili fries.”

  “PJ, I think maybe I should take it from—”

  The explosion rocked the bus. PJ held her head as Jeremy leaped toward her, knocking her down into the seat. Another rolling explosion. He tightened his hold
on her, pulling her head to his chest. He had one hand braced over her, on the door, the other around her back, tucking her into himself.

  She stayed in that cocoon, listening to metal fly off the El Camino, slam into nearby cars.

  And, okay, she dug her fingers into his shirt. Reflex, that’s all.

  When Jeremy lifted his head, he scoured her face with his eyes. “You okay?”

  She nodded. Looked past him, shaking. “Ratchet.”

  Jeremy eased away from her, his hand tight on hers as he stared at the flaming wreckage of Ratchet and his car and the three cars around it.

  He reached for the door handle.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Maybe he’s—”

  Another explosion. PJ ducked, Jeremy’s body shielding hers.

  Ratchet’s car flipped, landing upside down.

  Jeremy’s face tightened, his jaw stiff as he pulled out his cell phone.

  He didn’t let go of her hand while he called 911.

  The flames curled around the top of the car, a plume of black, toxic smoke billowing into the sky. Crazy tears escaped her eyes. “He seemed like an okay guy. Worked on cars all day. Laughed with the other guys working out in the gym. Not like a guy who would kill people, despite what Windchill said.”

  Jeremy turned to her, his eyes narrowing for a second. “Did you see Max today?”

  “What? No. Did you?”

  Jeremy shook his head. “But if anyone would know how to plant a car bomb in a jiffy, it would be an ex–special operations soldier.”

  PJ opened her mouth. Closed it. Then, “Max doesn’t even remember his own name! How on earth could he remember how to do that?”

  Although picking a lock had come right back to him, almost on reflex, hadn’t it? And he said he somehow knew Arabic. She pushed away the thought.

  Jeremy had his eyes on her. “Maybe Max isn’t exactly what he seems. What if he’s been using you this entire time to flush out Ratchet and throw suspicion off himself?”

  “Then he’s doing a terrible job, because guess what—it’s not working!” The screaming probably didn’t help, but she added an emphatic get-your-hands-off-me gesture as she tore her hand from his grip.

  Jeremy held his hands up in surrender, but he wore nothing less than a lethal expression. “Okay, we’re going to solve this once and for all.” He climbed into the driver’s seat and fired up the bus.

  “Let me out!”

  “Not on your life—what if your car is rigged?”

  “Oh, sure, Max is going to take out the one person who believes in him? who is on his side?” She reached for the handle. “No wonder I can’t get trouble out of my head—you see it even when it’s not there!”

  Jeremy put a hand on her arm. “Stop. Please.”

  It was the please that stilled her.

  “I admit that perhaps I’m reading into things here, but there is a car on fire on the other side of the lot, with a dead man in it. A man connected to Max. Like you are connected to Max. And you nearly died last night. Am I getting through?”

  As if directed by his words, PJ looked at the burning car. Sirens whined in the distance. For a second, she tasted the freezing water, pulling her under, stealing her breath, gulp by burning gulp.

  “Maybe Max isn’t the connection. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the one who brought this on Max, on Ratchet—”

  “What?”

  “Maybe it’s not even related to Max. What if it’s . . . I dunno, Bix?”

  Jeremy’s mouth opened a moment before he repeated her name.

  “Yes—she knows I’m after her, knows that I’m going to bring her in.”

  “Bix is trying to kill you?” The way he said it, it did sound ridiculous. But he didn’t appear to be humored.

  “Okay, you’re right. That’s silly.” She rubbed her arms. “Let’s go over to Ratchet’s place before the cops can figure it out, see if we can track down a connection to him and Max and maybe someone else who might want both of them—and me—out of the picture.”

  Jeremy closed his hands over the steering wheel and stared ahead. “Everything inside me says I should drive to Kellogg, call Boone, and have him put you in protective custody.”

  “I can still get out of the car.”

  “I can still stop you.”

  So rarely did he use his SEAL tone, it sent a tremor through her.

  He pulled the bus out of the lot as the fire trucks pulled in.

  Ratchet lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in St. Louis Park, on the second story. PJ played cable girl until someone buzzed her in.

  Jeremy picked the lock, and before slipping into the apartment, he handed her a pair of purple rubber gloves.

  “We’re getting very CSI.”

  “The guy is toast. The cops won’t take long getting over here.”

  PJ put on her gloves.

  They could conduct surgery inside his small apartment. A lemony disinfectant odor permeated the clean counters, the round pine table, the dustless end table that flanked a crisp black sofa. It all pointed toward a wall-size flat screen with a slew of electronics stacked beneath.

  “It looks like a safe house. Not a picture on the wall,” PJ said.

  “You watch too much television. A safe house would never have a sliding-glass door this size,” Jeremy said, pulling the drapes and hitting the lights.

  “He’s gotta have something.” PJ went into the bedroom, staring for a moment at the frameless double bed, the secondhand dresser drawers. “Doesn’t the Army pay people?”

  “Special forces get paid by rank, just like everyone else. People don’t go into it for the cash.”

  Jeremy pushed past her, opened a dresser drawer, another. “He still folds his underwear; Army training runs deep.”

  PJ moved over to the night table. A Robert Ludlum book lay dog-eared and worn next to a glass of water. He’d even made his bed.

  “This is depressing me. He had no one—no girlfriend pictures, no little black book—”

  “Keep looking for the little black book. Nobody is this clean without having something to hide.” Jeremy had his hand under the bed, searching.

  PJ turned on the bedside light, then followed the cord to the socket, three feet from the table. “Maybe he put it between the box spring and the mattress.”

  She moved the mattress. Nothing. Except . . . “There’s another socket here, hidden behind the bed.”

  “So?”

  “Why would he plug his lamp into that one if this one is closer?”

  Jeremy came over, pushed the mattress away. “Because it’s not real.” He knelt on the bed, pulled out his knife, and screwed the cover off the outlet.

  And voilà, a compartment behind it revealed Ratchet’s equivalent of a little black book—a notebook, passports, and an envelope rubber-banded together.

  “Good job, PI,” Jeremy said, flashing her a look of approval.

  “How’d you know he even had a book?”

  “It pays to remember names, dates, and phone numbers of the people in your life that share your secrets.”

  Okay, she sorta wanted a look at his little black book. In the hope that her name might be in it. In ink.

  He replaced the outlet cover and pushed the mattress against the wall. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They closed the door behind them, left the apartment, and were in the bus by the time a cruiser pulled into the lot.

  “I feel like I did in high school, hiding from the cops in the back of the parking lot.”

  “I don’t want to know what you were doing.”

  A blush burned PJ’s cheeks. “What’s in the book?”

  “Names, dates, phone numbers, e-mail addresses.” He flipped through the passports. “He had a few different identities.”

  She watched Jeremy process the information as though none of it came as a surprise. “How many identities did you have?”

  He looked at her. Considered her for a moment. “Four.”

&nbs
p; Oh.

  “At least, the ones that I maintained. I had others, but only short-term.”

  “How many languages do you speak?”

  “Just three, fluently.”

  Oh. Just three. Fluently.

  He gave her a little smile, then handed her the envelope. “See if you get any hits off that.”

  Receipts, a boarding pass. A newspaper article. She unfolded it—a cutout from the Star Tribune. Two Minnesotans Survive POW Camp. And next to the story, a picture of Ratchet and a man named . . . Lyle Fisher.

  A man who looked painfully like Max Smith, who also seemed to be Owen McMann.

  PJ handed Jeremy the article. “I’m so confused.”

  “Me too.”

  She put the newspaper clipping back in the envelope, then reached for the stack of passports. Ratchet’s face on an American passport, an Israeli passport, a French passport, and—

  She put her hand on Jeremy’s arm. “Look at this.” She held out the British passport. Pointed at the name. “Lyle Fisher.”

  “Lyle Fisher. With Ratchet’s face.”

  “If Ratchet is Lyle, then why did Bekka’s mother say that Max was Lyle?”

  Jeremy was shaking his head, a wince forming on his face. “Oh . . . I can’t believe I didn’t see this. When I was a . . . working in my former profession, a bunch of us used a similar cover when we were on leave. It sort of confused our trail and kept anyone who was following us off track. If Max was involved in anything black-ops related, he would have had numerous aliases. He may have used one for this newspaper report . . . and even to come home, under the radar, to see his baby son and his wife.”

  “Then why tell Bekka’s mother—”

  “Maybe they were trying to protect her.” Jeremy closed the passport. “What if Lyle Fisher was a . . . community alias? We sometimes did that—traded names so we were harder to track. So people who might want to hurt our families couldn’t find them.”

  “So . . . Owen was Lyle. And Ratchet was Lyle,” PJ said slowly. “The Lyle Fisher who took Bekka to Valleyfair—that was Owen. And the Lyle Fisher who rented the house in Hopkins and threw Max from the bridge . . . was Ratchet?”