She still couldn't make herself believe it, but it didn't matter. The detective was due in her store in less than twenty minutes, and she had to make Kevin believe she'd hired him to do odd jobs over the next few days. She stuck the lighter into the pocket of her gauze skirt and walked past the front counter, cluttered with impulse items, to the office. She glanced at Kevin's blond head bent over some papers on his desk, and she took a deep breath. "I hired someone to move those shelves from the side of the store to the back wall," she said, forcing the lie past her lips. "Remember we talked about it before?"
Kevin looked up, and a frown creased his brow. "I remember we decided to wait until next year."
No, he'd decided that for them. "I don't think it can wait that long, so I've hired someone. Mara can help him," she said, referring to the young college student who worked part time in the afternoons. "Joe will be here in a few minutes." Forcing her guilty gaze to remain on Kevin was one of the hardest things she'd ever done.
Silence filled the room for several excruciating moments as he frowned at her. "This Joe's a member of your family, isn't he?"
Just the thought of Detective Shanahan swimming in the same gene pool disturbed her almost as much as posing as his girlfriend. "No." Gabrielle straightened a stack of invoices. "I assure you Joe isn't family." She pretended an interest in the paper before her. Then she choked out the most difficult lie of all. "He's my boyfriend."
His frown disappeared, and he just looked puzzled. "I didn't even know you had a boyfriend. Why haven't you ever mentioned him before?"
"I didn't want to talk about it until I was sure of my feelings," she said, piling one lie on top of another. "I didn't want to create bad juju."
"Oh. Well, how long have you known him?"
"Not long." That much was the truth, she supposed.
"How did you meet him?"
She thought of Joe's hands on her hips, thighs, and between her breasts. Of his groin pressed into hers, and heat rose up her neck to her cheeks. "Jogging in the park," she said, knowing she sounded as guilty as she felt.
"I don't think we can afford it this month. We have to pay for that shipment of Baccarat. Next month would be better for us."
Next month might be better for them, but not the Boise P.D. "It has to be done this week. I'll pay for it myself. You can't object to that."
Kevin sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. "You want it done pretty badly. Why now? What's up?"
"Nothing," was the best answer she could think up.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Gabrielle looked into Kevin's speculative blue eyes and not for the first time she thought about just coming clean. Then the two of them could secretly work together to clear Kevin's name. She thought of the confidential informant's agreement she'd signed. The consequences of breaking that agreement were very serious, but damn the consequences. Her first loyalty was to Kevin, and he deserved her honesty. He was her business partner, and more importantly, her friend.
"You look all flushed and bothered."
"Hot flash."
"You're not old enough for a hot flash. There's got to be more to this than you're letting on. This isn't like you. Are you in love with your handyman?"
Gabrielle barely contained a horrified gasp. "No."
"Must be lust."
"No!"
A knock shook the back door. "There's your boyfriend," Kevin said.
She could tell by the look on his face that he really did believe she had the hots for her handyman. Sometimes Kevin thought he knew everything, when he was mostly clueless. But what she knew of men told her that was generally the case with all of them. She set the invoices on her desk and walked from the room. The thought of posing as Joe's girlfriend was disturbing. She moved through the back storage area, which doubled as a small kitchen. She opened the heavy wood door.
And there he stood in worn Levi's, white T-shirt, and black aura. He'd had his dark hair trimmed, and a pair of aviator sunglasses covered his eyes. His features were unreadable.
"You've come on time," she spoke to her reflection in his glasses.
One dark brow lifted. "I always do." He reached for her arm with one hand and shut the door behind her with the other. "Is Carter here?"
A thin slice of air separated the front of her peasant blouse from his chest, and her head was enveloped with the scent of sandlewood and cedar and something so intriguing that she wished she could name so she could bottle it.
"Yes," she said and removed his grasp from her bare arm. She slid past him and down the alley to the far side of the Dumpster. She could still feel the impression of his fingers on her skin.
He moved with her. "What have you told him?" he asked in a low-pitched voice.
"What I was told to tell him." Her own voice was barely above a whisper when she contin-ued, "I told him I hired my boyfriend to move some shelves."
"And he believed you?"
Talking to her own reflection unnerved her, and she lowered her gaze from his sunglasses to the dip of his top lip. "Of course. He knows I never lie."
"Uh-huh. Anything I should know before you introduce me to your business partner?"
"Well, kind of."
His lips compressed slightly. "What?"
She really didn't want to admit that Kevin thought she was in love with him, so she prevaricated just a little bit. "He thinks you're madly in love with me."
"Now why would he think that?"
"Because I told him you were," she said, and wondered when lying had become so fun. "So you better be extra nice."
His lips remained in a flat line. He wasn't amused.
"Maybe you should bring me roses tomorrow."
"Yeah, and maybe you should start holding your breath."
Joe scribbled down a fake address and Social Security number on a W2 form and soaked up his surroundings, noticing everything without looking at anything. He hadn't worked undercover for almost a year, but working under-cover was like riding a bike. He hadn't forgotten how to con a con.
He listened to the soft tap of Gabrielle's retreating sandals as she walked from the room, and the annoying click-click-clicking of Kevin Carter's pen as his thumb pumped the end of his Montblanc. When Joe had first walked in, he'd noticed two tall file cabinets, two narrow floor-to-ceiling windows on Gabrielle's side of the room, and a stack of assorted junk on her desk. On Kevin's desk sat a computer, wire in basket, and a payroll book. Everything on Kevin's side of the room looked like it had been strategically measured, then placed with a ruler. A real uptight control freak.
When he finished with the W2, Joe handed it to the man sitting directly across the desk. "I don't usually fill one of these out," he told Kevin. "I usually get paid in cash, and the government never has to know."
Kevin glanced over the form. "We do everything nice and legal around here," he said without looking up.
Joe leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. What a lying little shit. It had taken him about two seconds to determine that Kevin Carter was guilty as hell. He'd arrested too many felons not to know the signs.
Kevin lived way beyond his means, even for the got-to-have-it-now nineties. He drove a Porsche and wore designer everything, from his shirts to his Italian loafers. Two Nagel prints hung on the wall behind his desk, and he wrote with a two-hundred-dollar pen. In addition to Anomaly and his appraisal business, he had several enterprises around town. He lived in a chunk of the foothills where a man's value was judged on the view of the city through his living room window. Last year he'd reported a combined income of fifty thousand to the IRS. Not hardly enough to sustain his lifestyle.
If there was one common thread that pointed to criminal behavior, it was excess. Sooner or later all crooks get cocky enough, doped up enough, or in debt enough to ignore moderation.