Page 56 of Smoky Lake

He paid with cash, since he’d never actually intended to use a credit card anyway. She shot him an irritated look and waved him through.

Just to be thorough, he drove to Victor’s house a few blocks off the main road.

As he cruised down his street, he noticed a black sedan with tinted windows parked a few houses away, a man sitting low in the driver’s seat.

Seriously?

Gil was careful not to look directly at the car as he passed by, but was able to give it a comprehensive peripheral vision scan. Alaska plates. Could be a government vehicle, but there was no overt sign that it was. The driver watched him cruise past, so Gil kept his gaze straight ahead, not looking toward Victor’s place either.

He got a quick impression of an olive-sided one-story building with bright yellow trim. An overgrown vegetable garden filled the front yard, as if Victor had planted a bunch of things early in the season and hadn’t weeded since then. All the mustard greens had bolted, and the kale was reaching elephant ears proportions.

Then he turned the corner and headed back to the main road, monitoring his rearview mirror almost more than the road ahead.

They should ditch the Chevy pickup, just in case. Luckily, Fairbanks seemed to be blessed with an inordinate number of old junkers taking up space on people’s property. It shouldn’t be hard to either make a trade or leave this one at the hotel and buy a different one.

He relaxed when he reached the main road—College Avenue, which would take him to the university—with no sign of the sedan following him. But he kept watch nonetheless. That guy could have flagged him as suspicious and someone else might pick up his trail. Just to be extra safe, he took a meandering route through town, stopped for gas, pretended to use the bathroom.

His move would have been to plant a tracker on his truck, so disappearing into the restroom would give any potential pursuer the perfect opportunity to do so.

When he was finally satisfied that his cruise past Victor’s house hadn’t set off any alarms, he headed back to the hotel.

Sweet anticipation flooded his veins as he climbed the stairs to the second floor. He couldn’t wait to see Ani snuggled up in bed, maybe still asleep, her lush thick hair spread across the pillow, her brown skin glowing against the white sheets. Coming home to a woman…no, to Ani…he liked it. It felt right.

But something didn’t feel right when he pushed open the stairwell door at the end of the second-floor hallway.

The door to room 224 was slightly ajar. And behind that door, he heard Ani’s raised voice.

He raced down the hallway, still clutching the bag of groceries, and shoved the door open with his foot. A man swung around to face him, blocking his view of Ani, so he couldn’t even see if she was okay. On the man’s face, Gil saw raw, hot anger—but a quick scan told him he wasn’t wielding a weapon. “Who the fuck are you?” he yelled as he stalked toward Gil.

Gil wasn’t usually the act-first, think-later type. But in security, sometimes you had to react quickly. He dropped the bag of groceries and ducked under the approaching man’s arm. One quick move and he was on the floor, face-down, with his arm wrenched behind him. If Gil had had zip ties with him, he would have used them. Instead, he kneeled on the man’s back, lightly enough not to crack his spine, heavily enough so he was immobilized.

“Who sent you? What do you want?” he demanded.

The man coughed and said in a quavering voice, “Ani? Can you get him off me?”

26

One minute Ani had been telling John off—he’d promised to delete her from his “find my friends” app—the next she was staring down at him on the floor, pinned under Gil’s knee like a squished cockroach.

And God help her, it felt good to see him in that humiliating position. It probably wasn’t as humiliating as catching your husband cheating on you with your fertility doctor. And yet, it satisfied some primal part of her she’d barely known existed.

But she’d have to address that part later.

“Gil, this is my ex-husband, John Walsh. You can let him up.”

Before Gil’s face shut down into blankness, she caught shock, embarrassment, and fear in quick succession. Fear? Why would he be afraid of John? Ani had never seen anyone move so quickly. Gil had been a blur of quiet, efficient movement as he’d burst into the room and disabled John. It was…well, quite frankly, it was hot.

Gil eased his knee off John’s back and allowed him to sit up. He did so, rubbing his shoulder. “I should sue,” he grumbled.

“This is my hotel room, and I didn’t invite you in here.” Gil straightened up and offered John a hand to do the same.

Although it must have galled John, he grudgingly accepted the help. “Who are you?” he asked as he climbed back to his feet.

Ani decided it was time to assert some control over the situation. “This is Gil McGowan. We’re…working together.” She couldn’t quite come up with the right way to describe their current situation. And she didn’t want John knowing anything about their personal relationship.

“In a hotel room?” John surveyed their surroundings. “You could at least hook up with someone who can afford a better hotel than this.”

Ani set her teeth, determined not to let John goad her. “It’s not your business where I stay and you can keep your comments to yourself.”

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