THE GUARDIAN (Taskforce Series) by Marliss Melton Page A

so close that he could see rivulets of his own sweat rolling from his temple to his jaw.
    “Woman has the hots for you, Jack.” 
    Toby’s assertion made Jackson break out in goose bumps. “You think this is funny?” He leveled a glare at his colleague. “I am undercover, Burke,” he reminded him, pitching his voice low so his daughter wouldn’t overhear. “No one is supposed to take pictures of me, let alone a journalist. She knows who I am.”
    “Nah, I don’t think so,” Toby refuted, unfazed by Jackson ’s vehemence. “She took these pictures before she looked you up.”
    “She looked up me up on NCIC?” Jackson guessed, his stomach tightening .
    “Relax. We erased the real Abdul’s history, remember? She didn’t find a thing.”
    “But that in itself looks suspicious.”
    Toby shrugged as he clicked through a series of action shots. The photos were taken in such quick succession that they formed a kind of motion picture.
    Jackson ’ face grew hot. “Please tell me she took pictures of the other guys.”
    “Just this one,” Toby returned to the main screen and scrolled up to a couple facial shots of Rupert Davis.
    “That’s the former cop,” Jackson stated, his disquiet growing. He remembered Davis asking Maggie to meet him after midnight. She’d brushed him off. Some other time .
    “She looked him up, too,” Toby disclosed. “The man served eight of fifteen years at Arlington County Correctional facility. I think he’s the reason she’s here.” Toby sat back and folded his arms across his chest.
    Jackson thought about the two times the parolees had interacted with Lena Alexandra. The first day, she’d seemed intent on getting Sulayman to interview for her book, but not so eager that she was willing to spend time alone with him the other night. “What makes you so sure?” 
    “I saw his name on her email calendar. See?” He opened her Outlook calendar . On July 27 th , Lena had written, Rupert Davis gets out of jail . “She obviously knows his real name,” Toby stated. “He’s the one she’s hunting.”
    “No kidding,” Jackson said, experiencing little relief in the knowledge that it wasn’t him. “I wonder why”    
    “No idea. I put their names together in a search, but nothing came up. Davis is mentioned in a news article called Dirty D.C. Cops , but she didn’t write it. But his getting out of jail obviously meant something to her.” 
    “Maybe our analysts can find out,” Jackson suggested .
    “I’ll request that right now.” Toby sat forward to compose an email.
    Ike had scheduled a 5 P.M. teleconference, after which time Toby would deliver Jackson back to Gateway. Jackson heaved a sigh. The weekend was getting away from him.
    Toby glanced up at him. “Have a beer,” he recommended. “Have two beers. Play a board game with your kid. Relax, Stonewall.” 
    “I’m trying,” Jackson muttered. It wasn’t in his nature to relax, a fact that had driven Colleen absolutely crazy. Nor had he touched liquor since his wife drove headlong into an eighteen wheeler with a blood alcohol level of .18. Leaping to his feet, he went out into the living room and called up to the loft, “Hey, Gnomy.” 
    “Yeah, Dad?”
    “Do you still remember how to play chess?” He’d taught her several years ago while on leave from one of his deployments.
    “Of course.” Her eager face popped over the railing.
    “Is there a chess board here?” 
    “Sure there is.” She darted out of sight then appeared again, coming down the spiral staircase with the board game under one arm and a grin on her face.
    You’d have thought he’d just offered to send her to Disney World. Oh, wait, he did that last year. She had gone with her grandmother and a friend while he worked.
    Colleen’s plaintiff voice railed in his head. Do you want to give up your life for your country, Jackson ?
    No, he had resigned his commission from the Marine Corps to keep that from happening. Working