Dangerous Waters by Janice Kay Johnson Page A

give you a hand. I can give you some time once you have a list of people you want to know more about. Half our customers I've known for years. There aren't too many strangers in Devil's Lake."
    Mac offered Kellerman one of his rare smiles as he stood. "Thanks."
    The balding man rose, too. When he came around the desk, he clapped Mac on the back. "You were a hell of a worker. You want to give up that FBI stuff, you know where to come for a job."
    Mac's laugh was rueful. "You never know. I might be ready for something a little more restful one of these days."
     
    *****
     
    He'd known it wouldn't be easy, but the next few days were among the most frustrating of his life. Devil's Lake was a small community; there had to be some bad apples. Mac just couldn't find them. Yeah, Edith Whitney was a classic old maid who liked vicious gossip; her curtains twitched whenever anyone went by her small frame house. Chuck Lowe beat his wife; everybody knew it. The school board was starting to have their suspicions that a high school English teacher hired the year before was sleeping with a student.
    But that was it. Mac couldn't find a damn thing on anybody he'd worked for. Or anybody else, for that matter. He retraced the steps he'd taken that summer, stopped by houses where he'd remodeled and chatted with their owners. Between Megan and Jim Kellerman, he'd heard more about the residents of Devil's Lake than he really wanted to know. That, and he watched for strangers—or for that one face that wouldn't be strange to him.
    He found strangers, all right, but they tended to be families renting summer cottages, or dedicated fishermen who were out on the lake at the crack of dawn and then back out again before dusk. Hell, none of them would have been willing to miss the prime hour for fishing just to attack him. They would have aimed for noon or midnight instead.
    Anyway, what were the odds of him having encountered an old enemy? He had worked in the Pacific Northwest, but years ago. Back then he had been younger, thinner, his hair regulation length, his clothes dark-gray suits instead of jeans and sweats. Somebody might have recognized him this summer, but it would have taken the devil's own luck. The thought brought an ironic smile to his hard mouth.
    Over and over, he came back to the part that stuck in his craw. How likely was it that two enemies hunted him at the same time?
    The days of deceptive calm weren't helping his cause with Megan, either, he thought in frustration. They were driving home from the beach, Mac behind the wheel. Megan was frowning as she stared ahead through the windshield, somehow removed from him. She was becoming more restive in his presence, more confident by the day that the bogeyman was his fantasy. She'd be ready to kick him out any day, he knew.
    Only, he wasn't going anywhere.
    Mac didn't trust the quiet any more than he did most people. Having come up empty-handed locally, he was becoming reluctantly convinced that Saldivar had indeed found him. If so, his old enemy was keeping it very quiet. But then, Saldivar wouldn't like admitting to failure. This time he'd want to see Mac's body before he'd celebrate.
    But how had he been found? Mac squeezed his fingers so tightly on the steering wheel that they hurt. Damn it, how? He had traced enough people on the run to know how to disappear himself. He hadn't made any of the usual mistakes: he'd never used real ID or credit and bank cards, he hadn't taken up the same kind of work here or joined a favorite national organization under his new name. If he'd made a mistake at all, it had been going to ground in a place he had been before. But how in God's name would Saldivar know where Mac had gone fishing once ten years before?
    For what good it did, once they were home he called his partner, Norm Eaton, for the tenth time. Megan had disappeared into the kitchen, making noises about dinner.
    When he answered, Norm sounded as edgy as Mac was beginning to feel.
    "Damn