I tip my head at her and she shakes her hair down her back as she continues on across the street. Actually, I love lasagna. And this one smells delicious. Tommi, with the body of a porn star and the name of a tomboy, just might be the perfect woman.

If only she wasn’t dating a damn criminal.

Starting up the truck, I drive the two minute trek to my new home. It’s a shoebox of a house, kinda shitty, but not as bad after I hired a maid service to come and clean it. Now it’s just full of boxes, like it would be if I recently moved across the country.

I grab a beer from the fridge and plunk down at the small table in the kitchen. After grabbing a plastic fork from the box of utensils I bought, I dig in, looking around the barren living room as I think about my new life.

My undercover identity includes a fake name, of course, with an alias of just Sig. Since I’d already introduced myself to Tommi, I had to work that in somehow. The truck, too, since she’d seen it. The department reassigned the VIN number and the license plates in the DMV database. While they were at it, they gave me a nice long history of traffic violations as well as a couple of minor arrests tied to my fingerprint. Mostly for violent crimes, as one would expect of a cartel fist.

I could unpack a few things tonight, but I’m much more interested in going back to Tommi’s to see if she really is in for the night or if she’s up to something else. I can’t really get anyone from the station to find out what she was looking at online. Since she was at a public hotspot, it would be impossible to tell, which is probably exactly why she did it. The question is: Why? Why go to so much trouble? What is she hiding?

After I dump the paper plate and empty Heineken bottle in the trash, I lock up. As I walk through the neighborhood, I remind myself that while she is my way in, my source for information, she isn’t my priority. I can’t let my curiosity cloud my purpose. I can’t let Tommi cloud my purpose. But still, I go to her house. Because it’s my job.

Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

********

For two weeks, I shadow Tommi. Sometimes she knows I’m close. Other times she doesn’t. I follow her to drop her brother off at school. I follow her to Tonin’s. Sometimes she comes back out and runs a few errands, sometimes she doesn’t come out for hours. I can only imagine what they’re doing in there those days. Actually, I can imagine quite well. Parts of those mental pictures are delicious as hell. Parts of them are downright slimy. Always, though, I’m left with the same kinds of wonderings–what the hell is a girl like her doing with a guy like him?

Day after day, I watch them together. She never looks happy or engaged. At least not beyond this superficial smile that she wears. If I hadn’t met her that one time before, I might not know the difference. But I can tell. And I remember how nervous she was about being late and showing up in her “street” clothes. It’s little things like that, things I’m starting to see more of, that make me wonder what he’s doing to keep her. And why she goes to such lengths to stay.

He hasn’t totally possessed her, though. At least three days a week, I follow Tommi to some location that she says would make me uncomfortable to go into or to a building that’s locked for one reason or another. It’s always near a public place, one that’s fairly easy to hide and remain anonymous in, and one that has Wi-Fi. On each of those days, she carries a snazzy purse that will allow for her iPad, to hide whatever it is that she’s doing.

Beyond the scope of my real job and my Tonin job, sometimes I wait outside, watching her place on nights when she doesn’t have plans with her disgusting boyfriend. Her brother goes out on those nights and she stays inside doing…whatever. I’ve thought several times of going to the door, of knocking and giving some excuse to be here or to stop by, but she’s not to a place where she’s open to trusting me yet. And I can’t afford to lose her this early on. So I wait. And I watch.

On nights that she’s with Lance, I watch her climb into his car, I watch her look stunning for him, I watch him parade her around like a prize bull. That shit’s getting harder and harder to see. She’s better than that. Better than him. I’m just not sure she knows it. But I do. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that this woman is something special. And that she’s withering away here with Tonin.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN- TOMMI

As they do every morning after I lock my front door and turn toward the driveway, my eyes go straight to the spot across the street from my house. Sig is there, in his truck, window rolled down, waiting for me as he always is. I smile at him, a natural, truly pleased gesture that’s getting easier and easier to conjure. Alarmingly so, even. He gives me a salute with the fingers of one hand. I shake my head wryly. He grins at me mischievously.

As promised, he keeps his distance, never interfering, never becoming a burden or a bother. I find myself wishing that he would have to drive me again, rather than just follow me. I watch him in my rearview mirror for hours each day and, more and more lately, I find that I think of him the rest of the time, wondering what we might talk about if we spent those hours together again.

I can’t ask that he drive me, of course. I think that would seem too suspicious. However, as the person in charge of my security, if he suggested it, that would be a different animal altogether. He hasn’t, and I wonder if he ever will. At present, he seems content only to watch. And wait. And drive me mad.

I wonder if he feels the same way I do. I can actually feel his eyes on me sometimes. I mean, he watches me often, as his job suggests that he might. But there are times when his gaze is different. Hungry. Wanting. Or maybe that’s just me, coloring it with my own increasing feelings of restlessness and unmet needs.

He intrigues me on many levels. He’s so strong and capable-looking, yet he’s so willing to smile and flirt. He doesn’t seem to fear Lance like the others do, which makes me curious about him, about who he is and what he’s been through. Possibly the most worrisome thing of all is how much I want to know him. He occupies far too many of my thoughts and if I knew more about him, it would probably only get worse. Besides, there are other issues to consider.

No matter how much I’d like to have him around, though, there are things I have to hide from him. Will always have to hide from him. There are boundaries that he cannot cross which makes our current arrangement ideal. The more familiar we become, the more risk there is to me, to my plan. So really, as much as parts of me are dying to know more, aching to feel more, this is for the best.