The Protector

2

The Warwick Hotel had recently been renovated, but its marble and dark wood lobby still evoked the tradition and character of a Manhattan landmark. Cavanaugh turned left and entered the hotel's quiet bar, where an attractive woman with green eyes and an intriguing expression sat at a corner table. He approved of her choice of location-her back to an inside wall, away from the bar's numerous windows-although if he'd believed she was in any danger, he wouldn't have let her appear in public in the first place.

Her name was Jamie Travers, and until recently, she had lived in seclusion with him at his ranch in the mountains near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, from where he had periodically set out on security assignments, taking care that her weapons training was up-to-date and that colleagues in need of R and R were there to watch over her when he had to go away. Two years earlier, she had testified about a gangland killing she'd witnessed. The mob boss who'd gone to prison had put out a contract against her. Twice, despite police protection, she'd nearly been killed, prompting Cavanaugh, who admired her determination, to step in and arrange for her to disappear. The contract had finally ended when the man who'd ordered it choked to death while eating spaghetti and meatballs in a federal prison. Despite the seeming innocence of the mob boss's death, Jamie had been convinced that Cavanaugh had had something to do with it, but he continued to deny any involvement, even though he had once told her that the only way to stop the mob boss from being a threat was to kill him. "Kismet" was all Cavanaugh would say about the supposed accident. Shortly afterward, they had married. Now they continued to base their lives in Wyoming, but for its beauty, not its seclusion.

Shoulder-long glossy brunette hair made the beige pantsuit and the emerald blouse she wore perfect choices. Admiring his wife, he moved a chair so that he could sit in the corner with her. The location allowed him to survey both entrances to the room as well as the pedestrians passing the windows along Fifty-fourth Street and the Avenue of the Americas.

"What are you drinking?" he asked.

'Perrier and lime."

He tasted it, savoring the lime. "How was your afternoon? Enjoying being a tourist?"

"Love it. I haven't been to the Museum of Modern Art in so long. It was like seeing an old friend. And how was your afternoon?"

He told her.

"You accepted another assignment?" Jamie looked surprised.

"We planned to fly home the day after tomorrow, so this won't interfere with much, especially since you're seeing your mother again tomorrow. I didn't think you'd mind going home ahead of me. I'll join you in a week."

"But you're barely healed from the last job you did."

"This one's easy."

"That's what you said the last time."

"And the money's good."

"I've got more than enough money for both of us," Jamie said.

Cavanaugh nodded. His protective agent's income allowed them to stay at the Warwick, which was comfortable without being palatial. But if they'd used Jamie's money, which came from the sale of a promising dot-corn company she'd founded during the Internet frenzy of the 1990s, they'd have stayed in a master suite at the Plaza or, at the very least, the St. Regis.

"Why don't you let me take care of you?" she asked.

"Foolish male pride."

"You said it. I didn't."

He shrugged. "People need protecting."

"And that's what you do. I shouldn't have bothered asking." She hooked an arm around one of his. "So what makes this job easy?"

"The client doesn't want anybody to shield him."

"Oh?" Jamie looked surprised again. "What does he want?"

"The same as you did. To disappear."