Mistaken Identity

by Merline Lovelace

  “Joe’s Joint,” a nasal-sounding individual answered.

  “Joe’s what?”

  “Who’s this?”

  She threw a look at the bedroom door and lowered her voice. Henderson’s last threat still crawled along her spine. “Who are you?”

  “Whadda you playin’ games or something, lady?”

  “No! No, I…” She stopped, regrouped her thoughts. “Is there a woman named Becky, or Rebecca, Smith there? She’s twenty-six, has shoulder-length red hair.”

  “Becky? Yeah, she’s here. You wanna talk to her?”

  “Yes!”

  Her heart thumping, Lauren kept the cell phone jammed to one ear and the other tuned to the murmur of Henderson’s voice.

  “Hey, Laur,” her sister answered a moment later.

  “Where are you!”

  “At a truck stop outside Gallup.”

  “Gallup, as in New Mexico?”

  “You got it.”

  “What in the world are you doing there?”

  “Well, I was on my way to your place, but I remembered you were in D.C., so I decided to detour by way of Albuquerque to visit Aunt Jane until you got back. Only I’m, uh, in sort of a bind.”

  “No kidding!”

  “I know, I know.” She chuckled into the phone. “I’m always in some kind of a bind.”

  How could she laugh? Lauren wondered in astonishment. Didn’t she know a hard-eyed cop was after her? Maybe the mob?

  Apparently not. As it turned out, Becky’s most pressing concern at that moment was that she’d driven off with only the cash in her pocket—which had now run out.

  “Be a sweetie and wire me a hundred, would you? I’ll pay you back when I get to Denver.”

  “I’m not in Denver. I’m in Phoenix, at your place.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I wish I was. Becky, this David Jannisek. Do you know he’s in trouble?”

  The chipper note in her sister’s voice dimmed. “Yes. That’s why I had to get away for a while. I thought…I thought I knew him. I was sure I could trust him.”

  From her own bitter experience, Lauren could have pointed out that knowing a man and trusting him were two entirely different matters.

  Take this Marsh Henderson, for example. She might have trusted him. She’d wanted to trust him. His blunt admission that he intended to use her sister as bait had nipped that misplaced impulse in the bud. Now that she knew Becky was safe, Lauren’s protective instincts were fast revving up to full power.

  “Beck, listen to me. Forget about going to my apartment. That’s the first place they’ll look for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Jannisek’s gangster friends. The police. They’re both after him. And you.”

  “Me!” she squeaked. “Why me?”

  “They think he might come out of hiding for you.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “Listen, I don’t have time to explain any more right now. I’ll call Josh and have him wire you some money. Go on to Aunt Jane’s and stay there.”

  Their mother’s best friend. The woman the Smith sisters had stayed with that awful summer of their parents’ divorce. Jane wasn’t actually a blood relation. No one would connect her with Becky. Her sister was safe there until Lauren got this mess with the police sorted out.

  She didn’t even stop to consider that it wasn’t her mess to sort out. She’d jumped into every crisis Becky had precipitated over the years without a second thought. She wasn’t about to let anyone use her sister as bait.

  “Stay there, okay?”

  “But…”

  The thud of footsteps sent Lauren’s heartbeat into a spike. “I’ll call you!” she whispered urgently and snapped the phone shut. It slid into the tote just seconds before Henderson loomed in the doorway.

  “Well?” she asked with what she hoped was credible nonchalance.

  “I’ve verified that a Lauren Smith lives at 2205 Crescent Drive,” he growled. “That doesn’t necessarily prove you’re Lauren Smith.”

  She pushed off the bed, her relief at making contact with her sister shoved to the background by this flint-edged cop’s unwillingness to accept the facts in front of his face.

  “If I’m Becky, what am I doing with Lauren’s wallet?”

  “If you’re Lauren,” he fired back, “what are you doing with Becky’s?”

  “She left it here. I just picked it up for safekeeping.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  Totally frustrated, Lauren speared a hand through her hair. Her closest brush with the law was a parking ticket three years ago. She’d paid the fine promptly and always maintained a healthy respect for police officers. But Henderson’s subtly veiled threats and flat refusal to accept her assertion that she wasn’t her sister punched all the wrong buttons. She had rights, didn’t she? So did Becky. Lauren was still formulating those rights in her mind when Henderson blew them away.

  “I’m going with the hard evidence here,” he said on a tight note. “You walked into Becky’s house like it was your own. You’re wearing the pin Becky’s boyfriend shelled out two thousand dollars for. You’re carrying Becky’s ID. You’re Becky Smith, lady, unless or until someone says otherwise.”

  “All right,” she fumed. “What if I am Becky? That still doesn’t mean I have to go anywhere with you.”

  “Guess again.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’d prefer your cooperation,” he said, his voice flat and uncompromising, “but we can do this the hard way if necessary.”

  “What are you going to do?” she scoffed. “Slap on some handcuffs and haul me in?”

  “If I have to.”

  Lauren brought her chin up. “On what charges? Since when is getting involved with the wrong man against the law?”

  A mistake, maybe. A big mistake if you ended up married to the cretin. But against the law? She didn’t think so.

  “Try obstruction of justice,” he shot back. “Hindering a law enforcement officer in the performance of his duty. Being a material witness in an ongoing criminal investigation.”

  That got her attention. So did the acerbic observation he tacked on.

  “You know, you ought to be more careful about who you get ‘involved’ with. You seem to have a propensity for the wrong men.”

  Her chin came up another notch. “Been checking into my sister’s colorful past, have you?”

  “I’ve been checking into Becky Smith’s past,” he countered. “She’s left a string of broken hearts all across the Southwest.”

  As he reeled off a list of her sister’s recent affairs, Lauren’s temper came to a slow boil. She knew how deeply their parents’ acrimonious break up had scarred her sibling, and how gun-shy Becky’d grown about commitment. With the sting of her own divorce fading but not forgotten, Lauren wasn’t exactly anxious to jump off the deep end with another male any time soon, either. Her jaw tightened as Henderson issued another of his brusque orders.

  “Pack enough to get you through the next few days.”

  “Let’s try this again. You’ve got the wrong woman.”

  “Is that so? Then where’s the right one?”

  “She’s…she’s safe.”

  He crossed the room in three swift strides. Lauren felt her heart thud against her ribs as a suddenly, startlingly dangerous man towered over her.

  “Where is she? With Jannisek?”

  “No!”

  “How do you know?”

  Lauren decided not to reveal the fact that she had a phone tucked in her purse. “I just do.”

  “So you’ve been stringing me along here, is that it?”

  He looked so fierce, she almost caved and told him she’d sent Becky to Aunt Jane’s. But Lauren wasn’t going to offer her sister up as anyone’s sacrificial goat. Her mouth clamped shut.

  Another silence stretched between them. Henderson finally broke it, his eyes like chips of ice.

  “P
ack what you’ll need for a few days,” he ordered again.

  “But…!”

  “If you’re Becky Smith, you’re not safe here. If you’re not Becky Smith, you’re still not safe here. We have to assume the guys looking for your boyfriend are looking for her, too. They might make the same mistake in identities you say I did.”

  Lauren was beginning to appreciate how Alice in Wonderland must have felt after tumbling down the rabbit hole. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore—except that the idea of spending the next few days in the protective custody of Special Agent Henderson sent a nervous ripple across her skin.

  “I’ll get my car,” he informed her tersely. “Meet me out back in five minutes.”

  He turned away, took two strides, swung back again.

  “If you’re thinking about trying to run out the front door, don’t. I’d be on you like mud on a mustang before you got a half a block.”

  Lauren’s back teeth ground together. “I’m going to say this one more time. You’re making a mistake.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Still fuming, she listened to his footsteps retreat down the hall. Only after her anger cooled did the awful reality of the situation sink in. The idea that some thugs might be searching for her sister left a sick feeling in Lauren’s stomach.

  Poor Becky! She’d have to stay in hiding indefinitely. Unless…

  Unless someone drew the dogs off her scent. Someone like her sister.

  Lauren gulped. Marsh Henderson had mistaken her for Becky. Others often did, too. Maybe…maybe she could stand in for Becky. Take Henderson up on his offer of protection while his associates hunted down this mobster who was supposedly after her boyfriend.

  Biting on a fingernail, she tried desperately to think of other options. There weren’t any that she could see. With a sigh of resignation, she dug in her purse for her cell phone again. Every beat of her heart sounded like thunder in her ears as she punched in her assistant’s home number. He answered on the third ring.

  “Josh, this is Lauren.”

  “Are you home?”

  “No. I’m in Phoenix.”

  “I take it Becky’s in a jam again.”

  “Sort of. I need you to wire her two hundred dollars. Send it in care of Joe’s Joint, Gallup, New Mexico.”

  “What’s she doing in Gallup? No, let me guess. She’s taken up with a trucker this time.”

  Lauren let the caustic remark pass without comment. Josh still hadn’t recovered from the time Becky had seduced him into a brief affair during one of her intermittent stays with Lauren. Beck had breezed off again a week later with a smile and a wave. Josh hadn’t quite reached the smiling stage yet.

  “Just wire the money, okay?”

  “Okay, okay. Anything else?”

  Lauren clenched the phone. “Yes. Cancel my appointments for the next few days.”

  “What?” His squawk jumped across the air-waves. “You’ve got that meeting with the museum director tomorrow afternoon! You know how important that is. And we promised some prototype note cards to the Breckinridge Group by Friday, remember?”

  “I know.”

  She thought furiously. She’d spent hours on various sketches that incorporated world-famous art with the stag antlers that symbolized the equally world-famous Breckinridge Resort. Josh could start the process that would transform her sketches into polished products.

  “I’ve worked up a dozen or so preliminary designs for the Breckinridge account. Scan them into the computer tomorrow and start working the color screens, will you? I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “As soon as you can?” Disgust rippled through Josh’s voice. “What the heck kind of mess has your twit of a sister left for you to clean up this time?”

  “I can’t explain now. I’ve got to go.”

  He was still grumbling when Lauren flipped the phone shut and dropped it back in her tote.

  Now what?

  She toyed briefly with the idea of calling a lawyer. Unfortunately, she didn’t know an attorney other than the one who’d handled her divorce three years ago.

  She was on her own with Henderson, who still didn’t know whether she was Becky or not. The next few days could prove prickly at best, downright uncomfortable at worst.

  Reluctantly, she crossed the room and pulled some tops, an Arizona Suns T-shirt and another pair of jeans from a jumble of clean laundry. They wouldn’t fit in her tote, so she stuffed them in a canvas bag sporting the logo of the Hard Bodies Gym and Sports Facility she found in Becky’s closet. A foray into her sister’s underwear drawer resulted in a handful of thong panties and matching demi-bras. Grimacing, Lauren dumped them in with the jeans and tops. Luckily, she’d packed a toothbrush and a few toiletries in her tote before she’d left Denver. She was just adding a pair of sneakers to the gym bag when Henderson’s voice rang out.

  “Ready?”

  As ready as she’d ever be, she thought glumly. Hefting the bags, she left the bedroom. At the sight of Marsh Henderson striding toward her, she stopped short.

  He’d pulled on a suede vest lined with curly sheep’s wool. A black Stetson shadowed his eyes and cheeks, already darkened with a day’s growth of beard. He looked big and tough—and a whole lot more like an outlaw than a sheriff.

  “I’ve got someone coming to repair the front door,” he informed her. “We’ll go out the back.”

  When he reached for the gym bag and took it out of Lauren’s hands, she had the uncomfortable feeling she’d just relinquished more than a change of clothes. Nerves prickling, she paced ahead of him into the yard. A million stars spangled the sky, but the black velvet night had a cool desert bite to it that made her shiver under her light linen jacket.

  A mud-splashed sports utility vehicle rumbled like a nervous beast in the driveway separating the two houses. It was one of those big jobs, and obviously more than just a showy gas guzzler. This monster came equipped with a wrap-around bush guard, fog lamps and a high-powered spotlight bolted to the driver’s side.

  Henderson opened the passenger door and tossed the gym bag over the high-backed front seat. Impatience radiated from him in almost palpable waves as he waited for her to climb in.

  She approached the vehicle with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. “Where are we going?”

  “Given your boyfriend’s connections…”

  “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s Becky’s. Or he was, until he got her into this mess.”

  “Given Jannisek’s connections,” Henderson amended without a blink, “I decided it was best to get you out of the area.”

  “How far out of the area?”

  “I’ve arranged a safe house on a ranch up around Flagstaff.”

  As best Lauren remembered, the northern Arizona city was a hundred plus miles north of Phoenix and its surrounding suburbs. That meant two or more hours closed in this vehicle with Marsh Henderson, and who knew how many days with him on some ranch.

  Praying she was doing the right thing, she pulled herself up onto the high step and dropped into the leather seat.

  The passenger door closed with a thud.

  Chapter 4

  Marsh kept a death grip on the leather-wrapped steering wheel as he tooled the Blazer through Scottsdale’s darkened streets. His mind whirled at even faster revolutions than the steel-belted tires.

  Who the hell was sitting next to him? Becky Smith or her sister, Lauren? How long would it take his partner to run down her true identity? Twenty-four hours? Less? Did it matter?

  Marsh’s jaw clenched at the cold-blooded proposition that he could use either sister in the next phase of his plan, but he forced himself to consider it.

  If this was Lauren—and if she could be believed—she knew where her sister was. She’d sworn Becky wasn’t with Jannisek. Marsh had fired that question too fast and her denial had come out too spontaneously to be faked. So there was a chance, a slim chance, that Jannisek had no idea what was going down.

  If, on the other hand, this
woman was lying, and she really was Becky, Marsh could proceed exactly as planned.

  So it boiled down to two choices. He could use this woman, whoever she was, in a desperate attempt to lure Jannisek out of hiding. Or he could accept the Phoenix PD’s decision to put the hunt for Ellen’s killers on the back burner.

  Marsh didn’t even consider the second option. With a flick of a directional signal, he cut off Scottsdale Road onto Camelback. The Blazer whipped past posh condos constructed to look like abode dwellings and the sprawling resorts that made Phoenix the winter escape for millionaires and mobsters.

  It was an area Marsh now knew well. Ellen’s best friend owned a condo in the shadow of the city’s legendary Camelback Mountain. Ellen had been on her way for a visit and a day of shopping with her friend when she’d been gunned down only a few blocks away.

  “Where are we going?”

  The question dragged Marsh’s thoughts from his sister-in-law’s bullet-riddled car and Jake’s frozen face as he watched Ellen’s casket being lowered into the Arizona earth. He speared a glance at the woman beside him.

  “I told you, to a ranch up by Flagstaff.”

  She took her lower lip between her teeth, and then twisted to catch a street sign. The movement brought her rear up hard against his thigh. With some effort, Marsh blanked his mind to the sudden, scorching pressure.

  “We’re heading west, not north.”

  Suspicion rang sharp in her voice. Obviously, she didn’t trust him. Wise woman.

  “We have to make a short stop before we head north.”

  “Where?”

  “At the Valley of the Sun Inn.”

  “That’s where my sister works! They’ll verify that you’ve got the wrong woman.”

  “That’s where Becky Smith works,” he agreed. “Whether or not I have the wrong woman remains to be seen.”

  She folded her arms and stared straight ahead, her mouth set. She had, Marsh conceded with a swift, sideways glance, one helluva mouth. The kind a man could feast on. For hours. The body that went with it wasn’t bad, either.