Clandestine Christmas. Elle James

from life—and she’d expected everything from him. Only she hadn’t known that he no longer had everything to give.

      The way he saw it, their breakup had been inevitable. It had never been a question of “if” but of “when” and “how.” He knew from the outset that Hannah would one day finger him for the fraud he was. Would notice his shortcomings and boot him out of her life. What he hadn’t banked on was that her rejection would cut so deep. Or that his hurting her would hurt him so much it was painful sometimes to breathe.

      During his self-exile in Florida he had hoped his absence would help heal Hannah’s wounds. He had also sought forgiveness for having hurt her. From the sea where the Gulf met the Atlantic in the Keys, and from the vodka bottles that never had anything to give beyond illusionary escape. Each and every day he pushed himself to the limit in his two-bit assignments in order to feed his untouched savings account, and each and every morning when he awakened, he found himself more restless than before. He had moved his secondhand trailer from seacoast town to town, concentrating on local skip-traces and collecting license plates from uninsured vehicles for twenty bucks a pop. He had searched for a peace that proved as elusive as the answer to why his wife and son had been torn from his life four years ago, before he even met Hannah.

      No, he had nothing left to give Hannah…except his apology. And he’d been offered the perfect opportunity to give it to her when Elliott called him that morning.

      Hannah pulled into the no-parking zone outside the central Queens police station and turned off the ignition. Chad knew it was where she had served five years as a NYC police officer.

      “I thought we were going to pick up the Alfa,” he said.

      Hannah let herself out of the car and Chad followed. He tried not to watch her, appreciate the way she moved, the way she walked. He tried harder still to ignore the fear she tried to hide. He’d expected several reactions from her, but fear wasn’t one of them. Hannah had never been afraid of anything. Was it fear of him? Possible, but not probable. All he knew was he didn’t like to see the emotion coloring her eyes when she looked at him, which wasn’t often.

      “We are,” she replied. “Right after I find out what the police have on these bail-jumpers.”

      “Hey, McGee!” the uniformed officer at the front desk greeted Hannah as they entered. “What brings you back to this part of town?”

      Hannah stepped up to the desk and smiled. “Slumming it, I guess, Smitty.”

      The fifty-some-odd-year-old officer eyed her. “Slumming it! You’re a real barrel of laughs, McGee.”

      Chad noticed the way Hannah relaxed, appearing comfortable with the precinct banter she must have mastered during her stint as a police officer. Much more comfortable than she was with him.

      “Is Schindler around?” she asked.

      The officer moved a hand to his right. “Just where he always is. Guy should have gone home hours ago. I think he’d die without those blasted files.”

      She moved through the throng of people toward the records room, barely noticing that Chad had a difficult time following. Hannah greeted a few detectives as they slid through yet another room.

      “Here we are.” Hannah stopped outside a plain wood and smoked glass door marked Records—Do Not Enter and knocked.

      “Can you get into hot water for this?” Chad asked as she opened the door.

      “Don’t let the sign scare you. I think more people enter because of it.”

      She peered around a series of metal shelves. “Schindler?”

      There was a long silence, then a short, brawny man stepped from between two of the metal monsters over-burdened with worn manila folders.

      “Hannah, is that you?” She leaned closer to Chad. “The running guess around the precinct is Danny Schindler lifts file folders in lieu of weights in his spare time.”

      Chad got a whiff of her skin. She never had idea one how much her nearness affected him while they were together. The passage of time told him she still didn’t have a clue. It was the innocent smiles, the innocuous comments, the spontaneous touches that always got to him more than any obvious overtures. Then again, Hannah was obvious about nothing but her opinion. And she’d welcome his reaction—innocent or otherwise—as much as she’d welcome a bad sunburn on her fair skin.

      “Hey, Danny, I see you’re still buried up to your neck in files,” she said, oblivious to Chad’s thoughts. Which was just as well. If she caught a hint of what was going on in his mind, she’d likely push him into a taxi the instant they hit the street again.

      “Yeah, well, you remember how it is. A crime a second and all that. Someone has to keep track of them all.”

      Schindler scrutinized Chad as Hannah introduced him.

      Chad crunched the clerk’s hand in his, giving the muscle-bound geek a once-over before Schindler turned back to Hannah.

      “Tell me you’re not still living the life of a bounty hunter.”

      “Bail enforcer,” Hannah corrected.

      “Then this is more than a I-was-in-the-neighborhood-and-thought-I’d-stop-by visit, isn’t it?”

      She appeared slighted. “Now, would I be so crude as to use our friendship for my own professional gain?”

      The smile never wavered from Schindler’s face. “Every chance you get.” He dropped the files he held to his overloaded desk. Chad watched one slip toward the edge then fall to the floor. He didn’t move to stop it. “What can I do for you, Hannah?”

      “What have you heard on the two arrested at PlayCo?”

      “The team that unofficially skipped bail from Lower East?”

      “That’s them. I need whatever L.E. has on them. Can you handle it?”

      “There is nothing I can’t handle, you know that.”

      Schindler picked up the telephone and called what Chad guessed was his fellow records clerk at the Manhattan precinct.

      “Danny and I go back a ways,” Hannah quietly explained.

      “So it seems.” Chad settled his weight more evenly as he listened to Schindler persuade the person on the other end of the line to fax him the information.

      “What are the odds on them having something we can use?” Chad asked, shifting through the files strewn across the desk.

      Hannah closed a file he had opened. “Better than average. I’m sure PlayCo kept files on them. Whatever was in them was no doubt turned over to the police.” She tried to take another folder from him but he refused to let it go. She sighed. “Would you quit? We could get in enough trouble as it is.”

      Chad opened the file and scanned the contents. “You didn’t seem too concerned before.”

      “That’s because I’m used to being in trouble with the hierarchy of this precinct.” She pressed her index finger into his chest. “You, on the other hand, could very well be arrested for just being in this room.”

      Chad gazed at her finger, then slowly followed it up to her face. The finger against his chest grew suddenly hot. She quickly removed her hand.

      “It might be an enjoyable experience. Provided you’re in the cell with me,” he said.

      “It took a little doing, but Janice promised to fax the records right over,” Schindler said, hanging up the receiver. As he spoke, a telephone rang in the corner and the fax machine sprang to life. “And here they are now.”

      The three of them watched the information roll in. The physical data sheets listed Lisa Furgeson as a thirty-five-year-old female with blond hair and blue eyes, five feet, six inches tall, one hundred and thirty pounds. Eric Persky was a thirty-eight-year-old male with light brown hair and green eyes, six