Free Double Trouble by Susan May Warren Page B

softly spoken, hit Boone like one of her new hammer punches, evidenced by his quick flinch.
    “Why?” he snapped. “Because I wouldn’t win?” His eyes, unmoving, burned into her.
    She saw the hurt in them, and it seared the words from her mouth.
    She tore her gaze away.
    With a muffled curse, Boone got up and left her there with the untouched sandwiches.
    * * *
    Even if she added in Boone’s worst nightmares and compounded them with a killer on the loose, he had nothing to worry about. PJ had to admit to the slightest simmer of frustration as she listened to Jeremy outline their next case. Her so-called undercover case.
    “Let me get this straight   —you want me to house-sit? House-sit? Like dust the furniture? take in the paper? water the plants?”
    “And feed her pet rats, yes.”
    Jeremy had barely looked her in the eye after she returned from lunch, or rather nonlunch, with Boone. She’d taken the liberty of showering at the gym, finishing her sandwich, and scoring a skinny vanilla latte   —after all, her coffee had gone to a very unneedy ficus   —before returning to Jeremy’s office. Hey, it had milk. That counted as protein.
    She found him perched at his window, his shoulders squared, staring blankly into the street.
    And when he started with “Maybe Boone’s right . . . ,” she knew she had some reparations to make on his confidence in her abilities.
    “I promise to be at the top of my game. No jumping to conclusions. No distractions. Wax on, wax off.” She even did the accompanying defensive arm movements.
    “Sure.” Jeremy turned away from the window, wearing indecision in his expression and in the way he coiled a hand behind his neck.
    She held her breath for a long moment   — c’mon, Jeremy, trust me   —and finally he collapsed onto the sofa. He nodded for her to take a seat.
    Yes. Finally, he was going to let her off her leash. Dance solo. Trust her instincts.
    “I wouldn’t let you do this if I didn’t think it was perfectly safe.”
    Oh, shoot. But she nodded even as he leaned forward, braced his hands on his knees, and began to explain.
    Thirty minutes later, she couldn’t believe he’d actually debated her ability to do this job. So much for earning his respect, his admiration.
    Or her own.
    “So let me get this straight. You got a call from a woman who says she’s under FBI protection?”
    “That’s right   —Dally Morrison. Her FBI contact is a guy named Leroy Simmons. Goes by Lee.”
    “Right. And he’s in charge of making sure his star witness for a drug case shows up at court in a week or so.”
    “Ten days from tomorrow.”
    “But said witness   —”
    “Dally Morrison, our client.”
    “Dally, the witness-slash-client, is in danger.”
    “No, not danger. Like I said, if I thought she was in danger, real danger, I’d never let you do this. She’s just . . . let’s say, upset and jumpy because another witness got killed in a drive-by shooting. But I talked with her protection agent. Even though the witness lived in Chicago, Lee thinks it was unconnected to the crime. The defendant is behind bars, cut off from his gang buddies   —”
    “C’mon, Jeremy, I’ve seen enough television to know that gangbangers have long arms.”
    “No, you’ve seen too much television. There’s no evidence to connect the dots here and create a real threat.”
    “Maybe a little bit of a threat? Just an itsy-bitsy threat?”
    Jeremy rolled his eyes.
    “I just don’t want my first undercover operation to be listed as house-sitting. Can’t we say ‘body double’? Or maybe ‘witness protection shield’?”
    He leaned back, his lips tightened in a firm line. But he gave the slightest sad shake of his head.
    “Fine. So I’m supposed to lay low, be a shadow in her house while you . . . what?”
    “I’ll take Dally to a secluded location and babysit her, keep her calm so she can testify.”
    “Why doesn’t the FBI just take her someplace