The Marriage Agenda. Allison Leigh

here. By the door. Don’t get in front of the lamp. The light should draw him, but he shouldn’t be able to see anything, really.”

      “But what are you going to do?”

      Again, he refused to answer. “Wait here. I won’t be long.”

      “But—”

      He touched her mouth for silence. “Just wait.”

      She rolled her eyes at him and shrugged.

      “Is that a yes?”

      So she gave him the nod he seemed to require.

      He went out through the other door—the one that led to the bathroom and Sammy’s room and from there, to the dining room.

      Joleen slid to the floor. She wrapped her arms around her drawn-up legs and propped her chin on her knees.

      Great. Now she got to wait, while Dekker played detective.

      And what was the point, she wanted to know?

      He’d already asked those news people to leave. It hadn’t worked. He’d tried ditching them. Without success.

      What else could he do?

      She realized what and started to stand again.

      But no.

      She sank back down. She had told him she would wait here. Okay, she would wait.

      And if he got himself into a fight tonight, he’d better be prepared to hear a few harsh words from her later. Because she would be sharing with him a large piece of her mind.

      * * *

      Dekker pushed open the door to Sam’s room and froze, listening.

      Once he heard the shallow, even breathing that told him Sam was fast asleep, he moved forward. He stopped at the door to the dining room. The faint sliver of brightness beneath it confirmed what he remembered; there was a light on in the front of the house, the floor lamp Joleen had switched on low when they first came in the front door. Other than that—and the lamp in Jo’s room—the house was dark.

      Good.

      Dekker opened the door and slid through it, pulling it silently closed behind him. Keeping near the wall, he went beneath the arch into the front room, where that single lamp burned. He’d left the guest room door ajar. He ducked through it.

      The shades were up in there. Dekker flattened himself against the wall by the window that opened onto the front porch. He waited.

      Nothing. No sounds or movements beyond the window. He hoped that meant the porch was deserted, that the damn reporter was on the prowl around back, trying to get a look in Joleen’s bedroom window, to steal a shot of the famous Bravo Baby making love to his bride.

      The window creaked a little as Dekker slid it up. He slipped back into the shadows, waited some more. He heard only innocent noises: a horn honking a block or so away; wind chimes on the porch next door; the intermittent bark of a lonely dog in the distance.

      Dekker counted to three hundred. Slowly. Then he moved into the window again, to unhook the screen. It swung out. He held it clear and went through.

      The porch provided no surprises. Keeping as much in the shadows as possible, Dekker moved down to the opposite end, by the front room, and slid over the rail to the ground. The night was clear, bright with stars. The waning moon rode high, and there wasn’t much cover on that side of the house. But he was in luck. No reporters lurked there.

      Maybe they’d given up and gone away.

      Or maybe they had moved around to the back of the house where he had hoped to lure them.

      Swiftly and silently he covered the distance from the front porch to the back. He pressed himself to the wall at the end of the house and stole a look around the corner.

      Yes.

      The soft glow from the lamp in Jo’s room showed him a figure—male—in dark pants and shirt, perched on the side rail of her small back porch, craning to see through the narrow slit between the blind and the window frame.

      Perfect, thought Dekker. Off balance, with his back to me.

      He slid around the corner and made for the porch steps.

      His target barely had time to turn and grunt, “Huh?” before Dekker grabbed his arm, twisted it up behind him and yanked him down from the rail and hard back against his own body, keeping the arm up at an unnatural angle—and getting a nice, tight lock around the neck.

      The camera around that neck swung as Dekker’s captive struggled.

      “Easy,” Dekker whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. We’re just going to have a nice little talk.”

      The body in his grip stopped fighting him. “Whatever you say…”

      Dekker knew that voice. He murmured a low oath. “Pollard.”

      “Got me.”

      “I thought you were a reporter.”

      “’Fraid not.”

      “What the hell are you doing here?”

      “Man’s gotta make a living, Smith.”

      Dekker gave his captive’s arm a slight upward push. Pollard let out a sharp grunt of pain. Dekker whispered, “Who are you working for?” As if he didn’t already know.

      “Look. Could you ease off on the arm a little?”

      “I want some answers.”

      “You’ll get them. Just back the hell off.”