Assumed Identity(59)
Jake heard the words coming out of his own mouth even before he’d fully thought them through. “If you get a bottle ready for her and trust me to change a diaper, I’ll feed Emma breakfast while you take a bath or whatever you need to do.”
“Really?” Robin had sat right up, clutching the sheet to her naked breasts. “A long, hot, private shower where I don’t have to have Emma in her carrier in the bathroom with me? You’d do that?”
“If you trust me with her.”
“Always.” Robin had gathered the sheet around her like a sarong, stretched up to kiss him and run down the hallway to the nursery before he fully comprehended what his offer might mean to the woman.
“Take your time,” he’d called after her. A man couldn’t turn down a response like that any more than he’d been able to turn down Robin’s whispered request a couple hours earlier. She’d rolled over on the sofa just before sunrise and asked if he had another condom in his bag. Making love that second time had been slower, sweeter, saner, yet no less earthshaking than that first wild ride on the sofa had been.
For a man who didn’t want to care about anything or have any connections to anyone, he was already in pretty deep with these two.
The phone in Robin’s kitchen rang before he got the first sock on. With a quick glance down the hallway to verify that the water was still running in the shower, he got up and went to the kitchen to answer it. “Yeah?”
“Is this the Carter residence?” The man’s voice sounded familiar, but Jake wasn’t taking any chances that this was one of those harassing phone calls like Robin had received at her shop.
“Who’s asking?”
“Spencer Montgomery, KCPD.” Jake carried the cordless receiver back to the family room so he could keep an eye on Emma. “I take it this is Mr. Lonergan?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t bother explaining why he was at Robin’s home this early in the morning. Nor was he going to tell the detective that she’d been soaking in the shower for the past twenty minutes. “She isn’t available right now. Can I take a message?”
“Actually, I’m looking for you.”
Spencer Montgomery didn’t strike Jake as a man who did polite chitchat, either. “What do you need, detective?”
“I just got a call from the DEA asking about you. The database search I ran on you flagged in their system.” Jake pulled out his beat-up black satchel and unzipped the pocket that held the badge with J. Lonergan emblazoned on it. “Your picture in the morning paper put you on somebody’s desk.”
“Morning paper?” Jake slipped the badge into his jeans pocket and opened the Kansas City Journal that he’d pulled from Robin’s mailbox during his early morning reconnaissance of the place.
“Check page three. You’re getting to be a regular legend in the city.” Yeah, like a Bigfoot sighting.
Jake tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and spread the paper open on the coffee table. “Ah, hell.”
There he was, in black and white. The bastard who’d taken his picture from the speeding car must have been Gabriel Knight. Or someone who’d sold the picture to the reporter. Is this the city’s unsung hero?
The detective gave him a few seconds to let the image and caption below it sink in. “Looks like the Ghost Rescuer has finally been unmasked. Although it doesn’t look like Gabe Knight got a very flattering picture of you.”
There were no flattering pictures of him. Jake quickly skimmed the article. Still no name listed, but if a blurry, nighttime photograph was enough for Spencer Montgomery to recognize him, then it wasn’t unreasonable to suspect that someone who knew him well would recognize him, too. It wasn’t exactly a forgettable face. Worse yet, with Robin’s Nest Floral Shop painted on the awning behind him, they’d know exactly where to come find him.
Or who they could use to get to him.
Jake closed the paper and pushed to his feet again. “Who called from the DEA?”
“A Charlie Nash. You know him?”
Jake tried to envision a name and a face. But all he came up with were blanks. “No.”
The running water at the back of the house finally stopped. He could imagine Robin’s sleek, wet body stepping out of the shower. He could see her pale skin blushing pink as she toweled herself dry from head to toe. She was a practical, cotton pajama kind of woman, but he couldn’t imagine anything sexier than Robin Carter naked.