Slow Heat (30 page)

“She approached me after being questioned by the police.”

“We already know about her and Club Paradise,” Uncle Joe said, returning to his seat at the laptop.

“We want to know why you’re spending so much time with her,” his father concluded, finishing Uncle Joe’s thought. He remained standing behind his brother and stared at Micah with that hard look that used to scare the crap out of him as a kid. He wasn’t a kid anymore.

“Because I want to,” he told both of them, not caring if his tone was a bit harsh.

“What are you going to do once you solve her problems?” Uncle Joe asked.

Micah refused to sigh. He’d already accepted the truth and knew what his father and uncle needed to hear. “I already know I need to relocate again once this is all over with Maggie.”

“Good.” His father walked around Uncle Joe and slapped his hand on his thigh. “Good enough,” he added, nodding once. “As long as you don’t let her get under your skin. Fuck her all you want, boy. But remember who you are, and what your real intentions are while you’re here.”

“I’ve never forgotten who I am,” Micah told his father, meeting his hard gaze. His dad didn’t intimidate him anymore. He respected the hell out of him, and gave him credit for everything Micah knew today. But he had no problem facing him, man-to-man, and letting him know exactly how things were. “I will help Maggie. And I’m going to enjoy the time I’m with her. But if you think for a second that I would reveal to her anything more than what she believes I am right now, then you underestimate me.”

Micah raised his hand, stopping any reprimand his father might have given. “Not for one minute have I ever let my guard down. I won’t give in during pillow talk and reveal to anyone who, or what, I really am.”

Micah would have loved to have had that pillow talk. His phone beeped, and he looked away from his father. Grabbing his phone, he stared at the screen for only a moment. He’d received the text message telling him someone had just left his house. Micah closed down the emotions that might have stirred thinking about Maggie. His uncle and father were on his ass, already thinking Maggie might compromise all of them. Micah didn’t want to think about what either of them might do if they debriefed him and found her to be a liability.

“What are you doing?” his father asked, coming closer and staring at the phone.

Micah pulled up the particular app he’d installed and activated his alarm system. He glanced at his father, who was still staring at his phone.

“I’m activating the alarm system at my house.”

“Why didn’t you do that before you left?”

Micah told them what they wanted to hear. “Because I needed to wait for my house to be empty before doing it.”

“That beep we just heard told you that your house was now empty?”

“Yup.”

His father sighed and walked away from him. Micah finished what he was doing and looked up as his dad rubbed the back of his head.

“I want to show you something,” Uncle Joe said, and reached for the chair next to him at the table. “Come over here, boy.”

Micah would be fifty and his father and uncle would still be calling him boy. Micah took the chair his uncle offered.

“Look at this.”

Micah stared at the screen. “What am I seeing?”

Uncle Joe had been the one who was quick with the computers. Micah tended to be more like his old man. He got the basics, but computers had never been his specialty. Micah worked better face-to-face with people. Chatting on computers took away the ability to read the face and emotion behind the words spoken.

“This is Micah Jones’s background history. There isn’t much there.”

“I didn’t think an elaborate background was necessary.”

“No. I agree.” His uncle glanced over at him and smiled. “Keep it simple. Nothing wrong with that.” He nodded at the screen. “This is a simple people search program. It’s pretty much idiot-proof. But look at this.” He tapped the screen.

“What?” Micah leaned closer.

“This is a special program I have running on the side.” He smiled as he explained. Uncle Joe loved manipulating any program and was always proud of himself when he managed to gather inside information the three of them wouldn’t have had otherwise. He had that look on his face now. “It’s showing me who has checked out your background.”

“It is?”

“And it shows where they were when they were checking you out,” his father announced.

Micah looked over his shoulder at his dad. He didn’t have the same satisfied grin Micah’s uncle did. Micah looked back at the computer screen.

“Who checked me out?” he asked.

“It appears your girl did some investigating.”

Micah looked closer. Uncle Joe’s program was pulled up in a small box next to the people search website. It displayed an address and then offered a street view of where this address was.

So, Maggie was more than a bit curious about him. She’d done a search and had come up with nothing. Micah’s background was a lot more blank than most people’s, but that was explainable. He leaned back, laced his fingers behind his head, and looked from his uncle to his father.

“This isn’t something to be concerned about.”

“Finish up your job with her,” his father instructed. “There is a town up in Utah. Logden is a good, quiet community. I can get you a job up there without any problem. There are several houses that rent by the month outside the city. It’s quiet, uneventful. We’ll shack up together for a while. I think that will be best for all of us.”

Micah understood he was the bread and butter for his dad and uncle. It made sense they would keep a close eye on him wherever he went. And he’d planned on heading out once everything was resolved with Maggie. For some reason, hearing how his father already had it set up for him to leave didn’t sit well with him.

He looked at both of them again. “Is that where the two of you have been this whole time?”

“Nope. I found you and sought out your dad,” Uncle Joe said.

“I thought we were going to stay separated for a year,” Micah said.

“All of that changed when the announcement came out about Sylvester Neice.”

Micah’s attention shot to his uncle at the mention of the CIA agent Micah had killed. “What announcement?” he demanded.

His father smiled for the first time since Micah had entered the room. “It appears our year has been cut short.”

Chapter Twelve

“Why are you following me around the house? Just leave me alone, Aiden.” Maggie tried closing her bedroom door in her brother’s face.

He proved the stronger. “You’re going to listen to me. It’s for your own good,” he insisted, entering her room and following her across it to her bathroom. “He has a prepaid cell phone.”

“So…”

“So, it’s a TracFone. Which means,” he continued, raising his voice as if anticipating her interruption, “no one can track his cell phone records. No one, not the police or anyone.”

Maggie sighed. Her brother had become obsessed by this. “I’m going to take a shower, Aiden. Go spend your time doing something productive for a change.”

“Protecting my little sister is productive,” he roared.

Maggie almost jumped from his sudden explosive anger. She wanted to say she had Micah to protect her. That wouldn’t have gone over well at the moment. She leaned against her bathroom door, took a deep breath and counted to three.

It didn’t work. Aiden still had her pissed off. She tried to sound cool when she made one last effort to get him off the Micah subject.

“Aiden,” she began. “Has it ever occurred to you that Micah may live the way he lives for a reason?”

“Yes, because he’s a bad person,” he barked.

“Only bad people try to stay off the government’s radar? And that of every other snoopy person on the planet?” she added, and gave him a look that let him know he was at the top of the snoop list.

“What are you saying? What do you know about him that you aren’t telling me?”

“A lot,” she snapped. “All of which is none of your business. Now back off and let me shower.”

This time she did manage to shut the door in her brother’s face. For good measure she locked it, then sagged against it. She pressed her back against the door and let her feet slide forward.

“Shit,” she hissed, not sure how much longer she’d be able to hold together.

It was going on day two since she’d seen Micah. There were guys she’d dated in the past that she would see one, maybe two nights a week. They would talk over the phone occasionally, usually to set up the next date. The rest of the time she lived her own life. Maybe it was different this time because she had no life.

Or maybe it was different this time because she and Micah weren’t dating.

“I’m going to go nuts,” she wailed, although she kept her voice down in case Aiden hadn’t left her room. Just to be sure, she yanked open her bathroom door. Aiden had gone so far off the deep end on this Micah thing that she wouldn’t have put it past him to try snooping around her bedroom. He wasn’t there.

“Yup, definitely going nuts.” She walked over to close and lock her bedroom door then returned to her bathroom for a shower.

*   *   *

By early evening, Maggie had her parents fed and was cleaning up the dishes when her phone rang. She all but yanked it out of her pocket with damp, sudsy hands. It wasn’t Micah. He was at work. She had no pride. She’d driven by earlier that day and his motorcycle had been parked alongside the Kings’ house, next to the KFA office. After waking up alone at his house and waiting a couple of hours for him to come home, she’d finally left; she hadn’t heard from him since.

“Hello,” Annalisa said. “What are you doing?”

Maggie stared at bubbles of soap popping in the kitchen sink. “Getting dishpan hands,” she grumbled.

Annalisa laughed. She definitely seemed a lot happier than she had the first day Maggie had talked to her. Either talking to her mom for the first time in two years had really helped bring some peace to her, or Annalisa had been happy all along with her girlfriend and tried sorting things out with Mom out of family loyalty.

“I thought I’d give you a call and see if you’d like to go see a movie with us. We’re in town tonight seeing friends, and—well…” She hesitated. “I thought I’d see if you wanted to go with us.”

“You thought you’d check in on the family loon.”

“It’s not like that.”

She held her phone between her shoulder and ear as she dried her hands. Maggie really should buy her mother a dishwasher, especially since she would be the one using it.

“You went to bat for me, big sis,” Annalisa said, her soft relaxed tone sounding as if she didn’t have a worry in the world. “And Goddamn, with all the issues going on in your life, you were there to help me out? All I want to do is take you to a movie and say thank you.”

Maggie wasn’t convinced Aiden didn’t put their younger sister up to this. Thank God he’d finally left, since he had used up what vacation time he had and needed to be at work the next day. Deidre would still drop in when she felt like it but otherwise the O’Malley home was back to normal, an empty nest shy of Maggie. And since she’d opened her big mouth after slamming shots and announced how persecuted she was to have to stay home and care for her parents, both her mom and dad now wanted her to move out.

“I’m not sure I’m up to a movie, but thanks,” Maggie said, pulling her thoughts together. Lately she’d drifted from thought to thought with no apparent ground to hold her mind on any one topic for too long. Unless of course it was Micah; then she’d be lost in thought on him all day. “I’ll probably call it an early night.”

“Do you want us to come hang out with you for a bit?”

Now she knew Aiden had put Annalisa up to this.

“I’ll be fine,” she insisted.

“Okay,” Annalisa said in a more determined voice. “It’s just that I’m worried about you, Mags. So sue me.”

Maggie blinked at Annalisa’s outburst.

“You’ve always been the rock, the stable one. You always have your act together, and if any of us ever fall apart—and with this family it’s always one of us, if not all of us—you are always there to calmly help us out. So who is helping you out, huh? That is all I’m trying to do.”

Maybe Maggie had been a bit premature in guessing Aiden had put Annalisa up to calling her. “I’m sorry, Annalisa. I really am.”

“Forget it. I just wanted to help take your mind off things.”

“No. I was wrong. I’m sorry,” she mumbled again. “And you’re right. Lately my mind is off the charts thinking about too many things. I honestly couldn’t concentrate on a movie, or company. But soon, okay? Love you, little sis.”

“Love you, too,” Annalisa mumbled. “And apology accepted.”

Maggie smiled and hung up. That had been a close call. She was getting paranoid over her brother hounding her about Micah. And she had to admit, some of it was because she didn’t want to think he might be right, even about some of it. Maggie knew in her heart Micah was a good man. That wasn’t open to discussion. She wanted Micah to be on her shit list since he hadn’t talked to her in—she looked at the clock on the microwave—over forty-eight hours. It sucked that she couldn’t add him to that list since he was under no obligation to call her, even if she had given him her ass virginity.

Maggie finished up the dishes and pouted. Annalisa was right. She was going nuts and needed time away from it all. But until her life was in order, she couldn’t escape from any of it. Maybe another person could, but Maggie didn’t leave without her affairs in order. Still, once they were, she had half a mind to get the hell away from her family.

By eight her mother was sleeping and her father was sitting in bed next to his wife reading. Maggie checked on them one last time then wished them good night. Her mother looked so small cuddled under her blankets. And her father looked old when he glanced at her over his reading glasses and whispered good night to her. How would they make it without her?

Maggie pulled her phone out the moment she was in her car. She called Micah’s phone. It went straight to voicemail. She hung up. Aiden had told her that Micah had a prepaid cell phone. Maybe he’d run out of minutes. Maybe that was why he wasn’t calling her.