Love Overboard - By Janet Evanovich Page 0,49

the middle of the transaction, the man turned to me, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ It was the first time I’d ever known absolute, total terror. I heard an overcoat rustle open, and the guy behind me put a gun to my head… right here.”

She pointed to a spot just to the side of her temple and realized her hand was shaking and thought it would probably shake for the rest of her life, every time she told this story. “I swear, my heart was pounding so loud it drowned out all other sounds. I was so scared, I was dizzy, and the next thing I knew, I was flying through the air and sinking like a stone in the river. I came up next to the cement pilings, and by the time I got myself to shore, there must have been forty agents on the pier.

“Thank heaven Amos had been smart enough to pre-position backups. When everything started going wrong, he managed to knock the gun away from my head. People tell me he picked me up and threw me into the river like a Frisbee. I’d be dead if he hadn’t.”

“How’d they find out you were a cop?”

“One of the other women working under-cover was setting up her own retirement plan, compliments of the mob. She’d provided them with photographs of all the narcs and all the undercover people, and this guy suddenly recognized me.”

She was amazed at how easy it had been to retell the story. A few weeks ago she could hardly bear to think about it. She’d crammed a lot of personal growth into a few weeks. Because of Ivan, she thought. It seemed as if she’d known him all her life. He’d given her other things to think about besides death and stupidity.

“I stayed with the case until we wrapped it up, but I’d changed. Somewhere between the pier and the river, my love affair with law enforcement died a quick death. I asked myself, did I want to spend the rest of my life getting tossed into the Hudson River? And the answer was no.

“Looking back, I think I was just burned out. I was tired of being submerged in an adolescent world. I was becoming jaded by the easy access and the acceptance of drugs. It was starting to seem too normal to me. When I was standing on that pier with a gun at my head, I should have been outraged, but I wasn’t. I was just plain scared. Somewhere along the line I’d stopped being a tough idealist.”

Ivan took the empty cup from her and screwed it back onto the thermos. “I don’t think so. If you’d really stopped being a tough idealist, you wouldn’t care that you’d stopped. You just needed a vacation. Maybe your views on life were adjusting to meet more realistic expectations. That happens as we get older,” he said, smiling.

“Did that happen to you?”

“To some extent. I have a better sense of my limitations. That doesn’t mean I always live within them,” he added ruefully.

Stephanie caught a flash of movement at the top of the house and put a silencing hand on Ivan’s arm. “The cupola,” she whispered. Someone was up there, moving onto the widow’s walk. No moon. No stars. Nature wasn’t helping out, Stephanie thought, straining to see. A second form appeared. It stood ramrod straight, and Stephanie shivered. “Tell me that’s not a body bag.”

Ivan only grunted. It was obviously a body bag, and it was filled with a body. A big, stiff, dead body.

The black plastic body bag was lowered by rope down the sloping roof and dangled at the second-story level for a minute before being cut loose. It hit the ground with a sickening thud that made Stephanie and Ivan recoil in horror. They waited a moment while the person on the widow’s walk retreated, then they ran to the inert form lying on the ground. Ivan partially unzipped the bag.

“It’s the old guy in the gray suit.” He zipped the bag back up and pulled Stephanie across the lawn, back to the spruce tree, where they flopped on the ground, panting.

Stephanie gasped for air. “Do you think anyone saw us?”

“Only the guy in the body bag, and he looked as though he could keep a secret.”

The back door opened and a dark figure emerged. It went directly to the bag, covered it with leaves, and scuttled back into the house.

“That’s why