The Guardian

by Marliss Melton

  The clerk stared at her for a stunned moment. Then he bent over to feel beneath the counter. “Sure. Here’s an application,” he said sliding it toward her.

  “Great.” She couldn’t have hoped for a more prodigious start.

  “You from the area?” the clerk asked her as she hunted down a pen.

  “No, I’m from D.C, but I just moved here.” She had found a cottage with a short-term lease.

  He handed her the pen from the cash register. “Name’s Bill,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Bill. I’m Maggie Alexandra.” As with other undercover jobs, she used a variant of her first name, Magdalena. Her seven silver bracelets, worn for luck, tinkled as she raised her hand to his.

  “Moving here for good?” Bill asked.

  “Well, I’m going to write a book, and I thought this rural town would be conducive to my writing.”

  “A book, huh? What about?”

  “The long-term effect of religious conversion on prisoners.”

  Bill’s eyes widened. Another customer ambled in, and Lena stepped aside to fill out the application, using her boss, who knew of her scheme, as a character reference.

  When the customer moved off, she handed Bill her application and held her breath while he skimmed through it.

  “Looks good to me,” he declared. “You know, we only pay ten bucks an hour.” He sent her an apologetic look.

  “That’s all I need,” she assured him.

  He still looked skeptical. “Can you work seven days a week until I find another part-timer?”

  “What are the hours?”

  “Six P.M. till close, which is midnight every night, except for Sunday when we close at ten.”

  The thought of locking up at midnight with parolees prowling the area made Lena’s blood thin. “That’s fine,” she said. “Do the men across the street ever come over here often?”

  “Pretty much every day,” he acknowledged. “But if you’re worried about your safety, we do have security cameras.” He pointed up at the black domes on the ceiling.

  “Oh, I’m not worried.” Their visits would make her undertaking that much easier. “When can I start?”

  “Show up tomorrow morning at nine, and I’ll train you for a full day. Starting Friday evening, you can work by yourself. How’s that sound?”

  “Terrific. Thank you, Bill. I’ll see you at nine tomorrow.” Unscrewing the cap to her Gatorade, she backed toward the door, beaming.

  “Bye, now.” He waved in a way that suggested he couldn’t believe his good fortune.

  It never ceased to amaze Lena how susceptible men were to her charms. At least she channeled her power to good use, using it to pry information out of criminals.

  Whirling at the door, she pushed it open with her hip as she tipped the liquid she craved to her lips. The last thing she expected was for the door to give way suddenly causing her to stumble into an unyielding, sun-warmed body.

  Gatorade showered her blouse. “Hey!” she cried, her protest trailing off with a gasp as she found herself face-to-face with the subject of her voyeuristic impulse.

  Oh, my God. He was even more striking up-close. Staring aghast into his gray-green gaze, she found she couldn’t breathe. “Sorry,” she muttered, trying to squeeze past him. But he stepped into her path again, and her wet bosom bounced off his rock-hard chest like rubber balls bouncing off of concrete. A whiff of sweat, soap, and man made her head spin.

  “Excuse me!” She managed to sound indignant when, in fact, she was hoping the sidewalk would just swallow her.

  “Personal or public?” he inquired, coiling a large, surprisingly gentle hand around her elbow and drawing her farther outside. The door bumped shut behind them.

  “I’m sorry?” She could hardly hear him for the blood rushing past her eardrums. An ex-con was holding onto her!

  “Your reason for taking pictures.” His deep voice held a cadence that brought to mind steel drums and fruity rum beverages, suggesting some Caribbean heritage.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tried diving past him a third time, but his grip, however gentle, proved unbreakable.

  “You don’t have my consent to publish those photos,” he stated. Both his warning and his educated-sounding speech astonished her. As Lena gaped at him, his gaze dipped appraisingly toward her soaked blouse. Her nipples responded to his gaze as if he’d stroked them, springing to attention like diligent soldiers.

  “What photos?” Ignoring her body’s response, she sent him a blank look. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

  Her denial wrested his gaze upward. His thick lashes came together as he narrowed his eyes, stepped closer, and enfolded her in his cool shadow. “I know what I saw,” he insisted, his breath warm across her cheek. “Come. We’re going to go delete them.” His grip on her elbow tightened as he drew her in the direction of her vehicle.

  Digging her heels into the sidewalk, Lena resisted. The realization that he could easily overpower her both frightened and enthralled her. If any man was going to have his way with her, she’d want it to be him, but the issue with the pictures was unsettling.

  Suddenly, the door behind her opened. Mocha Man glanced over her shoulder and reluctantly released her.

  “Everything okay here?” Bill asked, dividing an anxious look between them.

  “Fine,” Lena assured him with a bright smile. Taking advantage of the ex-con’s slackened grasp, she broke free. Without a backward glance, she fled for her Jeep, slamming the door shut and locking it. Then she peeled out of the gas station, racing a yellow light at the intersection to distance herself from the man’s blistering regard.

  A glance into her rearview mirror showed him standing at the corner of the building with his arms crossed, his eyes potent and intense, transmuting his will.

  Cristemou! Lena kept a lead foot on the accelerator until Highway 235 curved, blocking the convenience store and Mocha Man from view.

  Two miles later, she turned off the four-lane highway onto the rural route that took her to her rental cottage. Her racing heart slowly subsided. A parolee had seen her taking pictures. So what? He couldn’t prove she’d had a camera, could he? And now that she’d gotten away, he couldn’t stop her from uploading her pictures, either.

  But he might tell Davis what he’d seen and point her out to him. If Davis had any reason to be suspicious of her, she would never gain his confidence and trust. Damn it!

  Who did Mocha Man think he was, telling her about the law? There was nothing remotely illegal about photographing people in a public setting, not unless she used the pictures for commercial gain, which wasn’t her plan at all. She would probably have deleted the man’s pictures if he hadn’t jumped down her throat. But not now. Oh, no, there had to be a reason why the ex-con had treated her like paparazzi.

  Maybe he was a celebrity.

  Nah, if he were famous, she’d have recognized him. More likely he had testified against powerful men, and he was worried about their retribution.

  Whatever his reason and whoever he was, she was likely to run into him again. The prospect turned her mouth dry. As long as she kept her camera out of sight, using her hidden camera, she would be alright, she assured herself.

  She lifted a hand to finger the pendant hanging between her collarbones. Above the interchangeable gemstones, the filigreed bail disguised the tiny camera’s lens. No one looking at it would ever suspect its filming functionality.

  Not even Davis would know, she assured herself, when she befriended him—when she conned the ex-con, luring him into friendship by teasing him with the possibility of getting to know her better.

  The thought alone made her break into a clammy sweat. But what choice did she have? The detectives she had hired over the years had failed to find evidence that would implicate Davis in her sister’s murder. The only witness, a boy named Curtis, could not be found. Davis would never pay for his heinous crime unless he confessed to it.


  If Mocha Man ruined Lena’s golden opportunity to outsmart her sister’s killer, by God, he would regret it. She would take those sexy pictures of him and plaster them on the front cover of Crime and Liberty.

  Lena Alexandra was after justice. And no mere mortal was going to stand in her way.

  Chapter Two

  The bombshell had gotten away, taking her snapshots with her.

  Special Agent Jackson Maddox stalked to the corner of the building to watch her speed away. She appeared to be heading straight toward Washington D.C., where her tags told him she was from. No doubt she intended to publish her photos in some magazine or newspaper headquartered in the capital. Damn it straight to hell.

  Cutting a glance at Gateway, he realized construction was once more underway. Break time was over, and he’d be missed if he didn’t hurry, but he had to make a call first.

  Slipping into the loading area at the back of the store, Jackson wedged himself between the dumpster and a chain link fence. His colleague, Toby, had sabotaged the security camera aimed in his direction. Taking an ear bud equipped with a mike from the hidden pocket in his shorts, Jackson pushed it into his right ear. Feeling inside the same pocket for his sleek, multipurpose cell phone, he speed-dialed headquarters.

  Isaac Calhoun, team lead for the Inter-Agency Counterterrorism Taskforce, answered on the third ring. “What’s up, son?” Communications over an unsecure line, like a cell phone, required both men to encrypt their speech.

  “Not much, Pops, but I just met a hot chick in a Jeep with D.C. plates,” Jackson answered, talking like a college-aged son.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah, I think she digs me ’cause she just took my picture.”

  “That right?” Ike’s tone turned dour.

  “Maybe you could find out who she is for me.” Jackson rattled off the numbers and letters on the tags he’d committed to memory.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks, Dad. Gotta go.” The parolees had been taught from day one to look out for one another. If “Abdul” didn’t return soon, a couple of his brothers would come looking for him. That was one thing you could count on at Gateway; someone always had your back.

  Returning the ear bud to his pocket, he headed back across the highway. As he paused on the grassy median between the double lanes, waiting for a vehicle to pass, an awful thought occurred to him.

  He’d been so distracted by the bombshell’s allure that he’d forgotten to speak and act like Abdul Ibn Wasi, the ex-con he was impersonating. Double damn. All he could do was wait to see what she would do with her pictures. One click of a shutter could thwart an investigation that was three months in the making.

  Was Gateway a breeding ground for terrorists?

  The Taskforce had reason to suspect so. Twice, money had been wired from the reintegration program to Islamic insurgency groups overseas, in Algeria and in South Africa. While the donations themselves were too modest to propagate the overthrow of democratic governments, they raised a legitimate concern: Were the leaders of Gateway, both vetted chaplains of the National Islamic Prison Foundation, brainwashing parolees to believe in the preeminence of Islamic law over Democracy?

  Jackson, the FBI’s contribution to the Taskforce, had been at Gateway for less than a week of the four-week program. In that short time, he had seen nothing but good work being done. The parolees were challenged on a daily basis to see themselves and others as Allah saw them, precious and irreplaceable. Projects like the building of the shed built team cohesion and cooperation. During the second half of the program, each man would be trained in truck driver safety and issued a commercial driver’s license, giving him a means to earn an honest living.

  Choose Allah, and the road will rise up to meet you.

  That was Gateway’s motto and, by every outward sign, the program seemed to live up to it. If the leadership wanted to back insurgents overseas, that was their prerogative. But if they were also secretly advocating the overthrow of the government to whom they pledged their allegiance, then the Taskforce needed to know about it.

  On the other hand, civil libertarians and the Maryland Probation and Parole Association would throw a hissy fit if they caught wind of the investigation. The Taskforce had tried limiting their investigation to just wiretaps but, aside from their televised Friday service, the clergy didn’t appear to communicate with anybody in the outside world.

  The only way to tell what was going on inside the program was to send in an undercover agent to act as a parolee. Jackson, the only dark-skinned agent in the Taskforce was the obvious choice for replacing a black man named Abdul Ibn Wasi. Only, now his cover had been threatened by one hot-as-hell journalist who’d just run off with his photo.

  Not to worry, he assured himself, as he rejoined the others on the job site. Former Navy SEAL Ike Calhoun would do whatever lay within his powers to prevent Jackson’s picture from appearing in the press. Problem solved.

  “Get me a hammer, Abdul,” Jackson’s roommate, Corey requested, pointing him toward two buckets, one full of hammers, the other full of nails.

  As he scooped up two hammers and some nails, Jackson slipped back into the role of a man convicted of animal cruelty for fighting pit bulls.

  Intent on banishing all thoughts of the bombshell, he channeled his energy into securing the framing of the new shed. The memory of the woman’s sherry-colored eyes and her stunning breasts danced before his eyes. He swung the hammer, missed the head of the nail by a mile, and clobbered his thumb.

  **

  Lena cut the engine and stared in dismay at her new rental home. Hidden in the shade of towering pine trees, the clapboard cottage looked diminutive and neglected. In the online advertisement, it had resembled a doll house, complete with a rocking chair on the front porch and ornamental lattice work. She had jumped at the offer of a month-by-month lease and made arrangements over the phone, signing paperwork via fax.

  What she ought to have done was to drive out to the country to see the place for herself. The porch was covered in cobwebs; weeds ran rampant in the flowerbed; and there were shingles missing on the dormered roof.

  Maybe it’s a sign, she considered, worrying her lower lip. Coming on the heels of her encounter with Mocha Man, no one would blame her if she started up the Jeep, pulled a U-turn in the nonexistent driveway, and headed straight for home.

  But with characteristic tenacity, Lena plucked the key from the ignition and stepped out of the car. Moving to the rear hatch, she dragged out her suitcase and rolled it over the carpet of pine needles to the covered porch.

  The landlord had said he would leave the key under a flower vase. She found it under a pot of withered marigolds, inserted the key into the single lock, and pushed the door open.

  A gloomy interior, a deep hush, and the smell of furniture polish greeted her. A flick of the light switch revealed a diminutive living area, table for two, and a kitchen built into a nook at the rear. To her right, a door led to the only bedroom and attached bath.

  Bumping her suitcase across the braided rug, Lena paused at the bedroom door to take in the four-poster bed covered by a patchwork quilt. There was an armoire in lieu of a closet and a vanity with a faded mirror. “Home sweet home,” she murmured, propping her suitcase against the wall.

  A sense of isolation had her reaching for her disposable cell phone. She’d developed a habit of using phones that couldn’t be traced while working undercover. Before she realized what she was doing, she had dialed her boss and long-time friend, Peter. “Hi,” she said, immediately cursing her impulse.

  “Is that you, babe? I didn’t recognize the number.”

  She’d forgotten Peter’s recent habit of calling her babe. Having enjoyed a professional friendship for years; imagining him as anything more repelled her.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” she said, with less warmth.

  “So, you made it. How’s it going?”

  “Good. I found Gateway; took some pictures alread
y.” She considered telling him about her run-in with Mocha Man then changed her mind. “As a matter of fact, I even got a cover job that’ll put me in direct contact with the parolees,” she informed him.

  “Get out! Where?”

  “At the convenience store across the street.”

  “They let the parolees shop there?”

  “They’ve already served their time, Peter. I’m sure they have a curfew, but they have some freedom, too.”

  “So, you’re going to go through with your book story?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, babe. I know you’ve interviewed a lot of sick people over the years, but this time you’re emotionally involved.”

  His words tossed salt on an open wound, but he was just looking out for her. “I’ll be okay,” she assured him. “So, why are you taking time off work?”

  “Heading to Rehoboth to visit my cousins, remember?”

  “That’s right.” He’d invited her to join him at his family’s beach house in Delaware, only Lena hadn’t wanted to cross that line from friendship into to something more.

  “It’s not too late to join me.”

  “That’s okay. But thanks for loaning me your Jeep. The tinted windows came in handy.” Not as much as she’d hoped, though. “I hope you’re not planning to drive my Jaguar out on the beach.” She winced at the idea.

  “Of course not. I’ll take good care of it.”

  “You’d better.”

  “Listen, I gotta run, babe. Call me if anything comes up.”

  Not if he was going to keep calling her babe. “I will. Bye, Peter.” With isolation creeping over her again, Lena thumbed the call to a close.

  Dragging her suitcase closer, she pulled out the framed photo of her sister that she habitually kept beside her bed. As she propped it on the bedside table, she thought of Rupert Davis and how dauntingly powerful he had looked today. Goose bumps sprouted on her arms and prickled down her back. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered to her sister. “We’ll get him this time.”