Bullseye: Seal. Carol Ericson

his hand on her shoulder.

      She twisted away from him and that’s all Josh had to see.

      He stepped out from behind the Dumpster and startled a cat who’d been crouching and watching, too. The cat yowled in protest at being outed from his hiding place, and two white ovals in the night turned toward Josh.

      Josh took one step forward and that was enough for Gina’s pal. He shoved Gina against the door where she stumbled and went to her knees.

      “Hey!” Josh took off, but the man was anticipating his move.

      He spun around and sprinted down the alley.

      Josh ran up to Gina. “Are you all right?”

      “What are you doing here?”

      “I’m going after him.”

      “No!” She grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, but he slipped away and chased after the man who’d reached the end of the alley and a cross street.

      Josh pumped his legs to catch up, but a white sedan squealed to a stop and the man jumped into the back seat. Josh sprinted to the end of the alley and tried to get the license plate of the car, but it had already woven into traffic and all he could see was a white blur sandwiched between two other cars and a bus.

      Josh spit out an expletive and dived back into the alley. When he reached Gina, she’d pulled herself up and was brushing dirt from her white jeans.

      “What the hell are you doing here? Did you follow me?”

      “It’s a good thing I did.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “What was that all about? Did you know that guy?”

      She backed up against the door, pinning her shoulders against it. “Are you some kind of creepy stalker? Was it you who closed the blinds and the door of the condo yesterday? I should’ve shot you when I had the chance.” She patted her purse. “And I still might.”

      “Me?” He jabbed an index finger into his chest. “What about that guy? Was he, or was he not trying to get you to go somewhere with him.”

      She blinked and brushed some hair from her eyes. “I suppose so, but he was trying to take me to someone I know...knew.”

      “Don’t you think that’s suspicious? Why didn’t the person just come to you?”

      “That’s what I was telling him when you appeared out of the shadows like some kind of night crawler.”

      “Thanks for that visual.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “And you weren’t telling him that. You’d already told him and it didn’t look like he was taking no for an answer, and then when I showed up like a night crawler, the dude pushed you and I’m the creep?”

      “I didn’t say he wasn’t a creep, too.”

      Josh closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

      “Why should I?” She jutted her chin forward in a manner that told him she was ready for a long siege.

      “Oh, I don’t know, because we were on a date and you lied to me to get away and meet some creep in an alley. I figure you owe me an explanation. I even bought the drinks.”

      She sagged against the door, her once-proud shoulders slumped forward. “He said he could take me to my husband.”

      Josh’s mouth dropped open. If she really thought Ricky Rojas was alive and well and living in Miami, he had some really bad news for her.

      * * *

      GINA FLINCHED AT Josh’s expression of shock. If they did have any chance at a normal, dating kind of relationship, she’d have to open up to him about her life at some point. She just didn’t expect it to be in a dark alley with her hands stinging from a fall and this suspicion between them.

      Josh cleared his throat. “You’re married?”

      “I—I don’t know.” She rubbed at a smudge of dirt on the thigh of her jeans. “It’s a long story.”

      Josh reached across her and opened the metal door of the bar. “Let’s have another drink and you can tell me all about it.”

      She poked her head into the bright hallway that led to the noise and conviviality of the bar, and it all seemed so normal. She’d never told anyone her story and it bubbled and hissed inside her like some malignant concoction. She might not want to tell Josh Edwards the whole sordid tale but eking out a little at a time just might ease the pressure.

      “Why the hell not?” She swept past him into the bar and the door slammed behind him as he followed her.

      They couldn’t find a table, but two stools beckoned at the end of the curved mahogany bar and they claimed them.

      Josh rapped his knuckles against the wood. “Beer, please, whatever’s on draft. Do you want one of those minty things again?”

      “I’ll have what he’s having.” She planted her elbows on the bar, hooking her feet around the legs of the stool.

      Josh didn’t waste any time. He spun around on his stool, bumping her knees with his, and leaned toward her. “Let’s start with the basics. Are you married or not?”

      “I was married to RJ’s father, but I thought he died over a year ago.”

      Josh’s dark brows collided over his nose. “You thought he died?”

      “Yes, but the scene was kind of chaotic at the time, and I never actually saw his dead body. I mean, I saw his body, but for all I know he could’ve been faking it. I was told he’d died.”

      “Why would someone tell you that if it weren’t true?”

      “There are reasons, and I can’t get into those.”

      The bartender placed their beers in front of them and Josh absently clinked his mug against hers. “What makes you think he’s alive now? Just because that violent individual in the alley told you so?”

      “That’s not all. There have been a couple of other signs...messages.”

      “From him?”

      Her hand jerked at Josh’s harsh tone, and the beer sloshed over the side of the glass and ran down her hand. She plucked a cocktail napkin from the artfully arranged stack and dabbed her knuckles.

      “A couple of texts using a...nickname that nobody else would know.”

      Josh leaned back and took a gulp of beer. “Why would your husband text you? Why not call you or better yet, walk up to your mother’s place and knock on the door?”

      She flicked the beer mug with her fingernail. How much should she reveal to this man she’d just met yesterday? Telling him the whole truth, that her husband and father had been involved in the drug trade and both had been killed at the same time in a planned assassination—would make anyone run for the exit.

      That’s not something you just blurted out on a first date.

      “It’s complicated, Josh. He wouldn’t be in a position to just come to me freely.”

      “Sounds...dangerous.”

      “It is.” She twisted her hair around one hand and then dropped it as the strands abraded the scrapes on her palm. “That’s why I don’t want to drag you into it from your safe and sane world of software development.”

      “Yeah, safe and sane.” His lips quirked. “Sounds pretty far-fetched to me. Would you really go off with a stranger in search of your husband? Or did you know that man in the alley?”

      “Never saw him before in my life.”

      Josh shook his head. “I can’t believe a savvy woman like you, a cautious woman like you, one who carries a .22 in her handbag on a date...”

      She