Mistaken Identity. Merline Lovelace

      Poor Becky! She’d have to stay in hiding indefinitely. Unless…

      Unless someone drew the dogs off her scent. Someone like her sister.

      Lauren gulped. Marsh Henderson had mistaken her for Becky. Others often did, too. Maybe…maybe she could stand in for Becky. Take Henderson up on his offer of protection while his associates hunted down this mobster who was supposedly after her boyfriend.

      Biting on a fingernail, she tried desperately to think of other options. There weren’t any that she could see. With a sigh of resignation, she dug in her purse for her cell phone again. Every beat of her heart sounded like thunder in her ears as she punched in her assistant’s home number. He answered on the third ring.

      “Josh, this is Lauren.”

      “Are you home?”

      “No. I’m in Phoenix.”

      “I take it Becky’s in a jam again.”

      “Sort of. I need you to wire her two hundred dollars. Send it in care of Joe’s Joint, Gallup, New Mexico.”

      “What’s she doing in Gallup? No, let me guess. She’s taken up with a trucker this time.”

      Lauren let the caustic remark pass without comment. Josh still hadn’t recovered from the time Becky had seduced him into a brief affair during one of her intermittent stays with Lauren. Beck had breezed off again a week later with a smile and a wave. Josh hadn’t quite reached the smiling stage yet.

      “Just wire the money, okay?”

      “Okay, okay. Anything else?”

      Lauren clenched the phone. “Yes. Cancel my appointments for the next few days.”

      “What?” His squawk jumped across the air-waves. “You’ve got that meeting with the museum director tomorrow afternoon! You know how important that is. And we promised some prototype note cards to the Breckinridge Group by Friday, remember?”

      “I know.”

      She thought furiously. She’d spent hours on various sketches that incorporated world-famous art with the stag antlers that symbolized the equally world-famous Breckinridge Resort. Josh could start the process that would transform her sketches into polished products.

      “I’ve worked up a dozen or so preliminary designs for the Breckinridge account. Scan them into the computer tomorrow and start working the color screens, will you? I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

      “As soon as you can?” Disgust rippled through Josh’s voice. “What the heck kind of mess has your twit of a sister left for you to clean up this time?”

      “I can’t explain now. I’ve got to go.”

      He was still grumbling when Lauren flipped the phone shut and dropped it back in her tote.

      Now what?

      She toyed briefly with the idea of calling a lawyer. Unfortunately, she didn’t know an attorney other than the one who’d handled her divorce three years ago.

      She was on her own with Henderson, who still didn’t know whether she was Becky or not. The next few days could prove prickly at best, downright uncomfortable at worst.

      Reluctantly, she crossed the room and pulled some tops, an Arizona Suns T-shirt and another pair of jeans from a jumble of clean laundry. They wouldn’t fit in her tote, so she stuffed them in a canvas bag sporting the logo of the Hard Bodies Gym and Sports Facility she found in Becky’s closet. A foray into her sister’s underwear drawer resulted in a handful of thong panties and matching demi-bras. Grimacing, Lauren dumped them in with the jeans and tops. Luckily, she’d packed a toothbrush and a few toiletries in her tote before she’d left Denver. She was just adding a pair of sneakers to the gym bag when Henderson’s voice rang out.

      “Ready?”

      As ready as she’d ever be, she thought glumly. Hefting the bags, she left the bedroom. At the sight of Marsh Henderson striding toward her, she stopped short.

      He’d pulled on a suede vest lined with curly sheep’s wool. A black Stetson shadowed his eyes and cheeks, already darkened with a day’s growth of beard. He looked big and tough—and a whole lot more like an outlaw than a sheriff.

      “I’ve got someone coming to repair the front door,” he informed her. “We’ll go out the back.”

      When he reached for the gym bag and took it out of Lauren’s hands, she had the uncomfortable feeling she’d just relinquished more than a change of clothes. Nerves prickling, she paced ahead of him into the yard. A million stars spangled the sky, but the black velvet night had a cool desert bite to it that made her shiver under her light linen jacket.

      A mud-splashed sports utility vehicle rumbled like a nervous beast in the driveway separating the two houses. It was one of those big jobs, and obviously more than just a showy gas guzzler. This monster came equipped with a wrap-around bush guard, fog lamps and a high-powered spotlight bolted to the driver’s side.

      Henderson opened the passenger door and tossed the gym bag over the high-backed front seat. Impatience radiated from him in almost palpable waves as he waited for her to climb in.

      She approached the vehicle with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. “Where are we going?”

      “Given your boyfriend’s connections…”

      “He’s not my boyfriend. He’s Becky’s. Or he was, until he got her into this mess.”

      “Given Jannisek’s connections,” Henderson amended without a blink, “I decided it was best to get you out of the area.”

      “How far out of the area?”

      “I’ve arranged a safe house on a ranch up around Flagstaff.”

      As best Lauren remembered, the northern Arizona city was a hundred plus miles north of Phoenix and its surrounding suburbs. That meant two or more hours closed in this vehicle with Marsh Henderson, and who knew how many days with him on some ranch.

      Praying she was doing the right thing, she pulled herself up onto the high step and dropped into the leather seat.

      The passenger door closed with a thud.

      Chapter 4

      Marsh kept a death grip on the leather-wrapped steering wheel as he tooled the Blazer through Scottsdale’s darkened streets. His mind whirled at even faster revolutions than the steel-belted tires.

      Who the hell was sitting next to him? Becky Smith or her sister, Lauren? How long would it take his partner to run down her true identity? Twenty-four hours? Less? Did it matter?

      Marsh’s jaw clenched at the cold-blooded proposition that he could use either sister in the next phase of his plan, but he forced himself to consider it.

      If this was Lauren—and if she could be believed—she knew where her sister was. She’d sworn Becky wasn’t with Jannisek. Marsh had fired that question too fast and her denial had come out too spontaneously to be faked. So there was a chance, a slim chance, that Jannisek had no idea what was going down.

      If, on the other hand, this woman was lying, and she really was Becky, Marsh could proceed exactly as planned.

      So it boiled down to two choices. He could use this woman, whoever she was, in a desperate attempt to lure Jannisek out of hiding. Or he could accept the Phoenix PD’s decision to put the hunt for Ellen’s killers on the back burner.

      Marsh didn’t even consider the second option. With a flick of a directional signal, he cut off Scottsdale Road onto Camelback. The Blazer whipped past posh condos constructed to look like abode dwellings and the sprawling resorts that made Phoenix the winter escape for millionaires and mobsters.

      It was an area Marsh now knew well. Ellen’s best friend owned a condo in the shadow of the city’s legendary Camelback Mountain. Ellen