Secure Location - By Beverly Long Page 0,20

Can you work with him on that?”

“Of course. Anything to keep Meg safe.”

“Great. Here’s my cell number in case you need to reach me.” He reached for a yellow sticky pad on Charlotte’s desk and scribbled down the number. He turned to leave and Meg followed him. Tim Burtiss stood up again.

Cruz nodded at him. “Charlotte will touch base with you on who is expected today. Nobody else gets past you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t let her leave. If she tries to, tackle her,” Cruz added.

The young officer looked at Meg and the tips of his ears got pink.

“He’s kidding,” she said.

“Only a little,” Cruz responded. He turned toward her. “Be smart, Meg. Please.”

She was going to be in her office with a guard. Cruz was the one who was going to be out, asking questions, maybe making people uncomfortable. He was the one who needed to be careful. She put her arm out, touched his shoulder.

He jerked back.

Had he felt the heat? The spark of connection? “Right back at ya,” she said, knowing it was lame. But the need to touch, the need to hold him tight, was almost overbearing.

He nodded. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She watched him walk away.

“Promise?” she whispered so quietly that even Officer Burtiss couldn’t have heard her.

Chapter Five

Cruz ate an egg-and-potato burrito and used his smart phone to research A Hand Up. Meg might be convinced that the jailbirds had no reason to harm her but Cruz had been putting scum away for enough years that he didn’t have as much faith.

He found a contact number, made the call, and worked his way up the chain of command until he was talking to the head honcho, Beatrice Classen. He introduced himself as Meg’s husband.

“I didn’t realize that Meg was married,” she said.

He thought about correcting her but decided it might work against him. “I need to talk with you about some problems that Meg has been having.”

He went on to explain about her car and apartment and the recent incident at the River Walk. When he suggested that he was concerned about former prisoners working at the hotel, Beatrice did two things in quick succession. She expressed her concern over Meg’s safety and vehemently denied that her clients had anything to do with it.

He hadn’t expected her to do anything else. She’d probably worked hard to get businesses to sign on to employing those recently released from jail. A business might be willing to write a check to support the program but to actually get them to agree to offering up a job, that was probably a tougher sell. Beatrice no doubt didn’t want some husband coming along and spoiling things.

“Mr. Montoya, I’d be happy to assist in any way that I could,” she said.

“I’d like to review their files,” Cruz said. “And see a photo ID.”

“It’s sort of a bad day. We’re getting ready for our banquet. I need to be at the LaMadra Hotel most of the day. I was just getting ready to leave my office.”

He wasn’t waiting. “I’ll meet you at LaMadra in a half hour,” he said.

The woman paused. “I suppose I can bring the files with me,” she said finally, clearly resigned to the fact that this was one more thing she was going to have to squeeze into her day.

Cruz finished his breakfast, had another cup of coffee, and headed for the hotel.

The place was even bigger than the BJM, with more glass and shiny steel. He asked a woman at the front desk where the A Hand Up banquet was being held that night and she pointed him toward the elevators. “Fourth floor,” she said.

He walked into the ballroom. Employees were setting up tables, arranging chairs, testing a sound system. Everybody ignored him, which really pissed him off. Not only because it was wasting his time but more important, it meant that any weirdo could come in and nobody would notice.

Cruz watched to see who might be in charge. There was a guy with a clipboard who seemed pretty intent upon barking out orders. Cruz tapped him on the shoulder. “Beatrice Classen?” he asked.

The guy pointed to the head table, where a woman wearing a bright pink sweat suit was jawing on some poor guy about the fact that the head table needed a skirt. As he got closer, it became apparent that the problem was that it needed to be ivory, not white.

“Ms. Classen?” he inquired.

“Yes.”

“Cruz Montoya,” he said.

Her hair was thin and had lots of static electricity, making