"Thank you." Lara squeezed her friend's hand, then picked up her fork. "I have to be very careful talking to the shrink. I don't want him thinking that I'm still suffering from my brain injury."

"You're not. That was six years ago. You're over it."

"How can you be so sure? No one remembers seeing Jack but me. What if he's a figment of my imagination?"

"Then who knocked down Mr. Trent? And what about that business card he gave you? His phone number worked."

"That's true." She hadn't imagined the business card.

"You saw him at Ian MacPhie's wedding," LaToya continued. "And I know Ian MacPhie is real. I called him when he was on that dating website."

"You didn't."

"I sure did." LaToya took her plate into the kitchen. "Some lady took my message, then Ian called back really late, about midnight. I was kinda pissed, especially when he said he was already taken, but his accent was really cute."

Lara shook her head. "I can't believe you called him."

"I can't believe you didn't take me to his wedding." LaToya planted her fists on her hips. "I would have loved to see him. Is he as good-looking as his photo?"

"I didn't actually see him."

"Are you crazy? The guy is hot!"

"And taken, remember?"

LaToya sighed. "Yeah, I know. So how does this Jack look? Is he anywhere as cute as Ian?"

Lara couldn't quite recall how Ian had looked. It didn't matter. There was no way he could look better than Jack. She brought her dishes into the kitchen. "Jack is the most gorgeous man I have ever set eyes on."

"Really?"

"Which probably means that I am imagining him." Lara wrenched open the refrigerator door. "How about dessert? I made a Mississippi mud pie."

"Damn, girl, you went all out."

Lara set the pie on the counter. "I wanted him to answer my questions."

"Fine food, candlelight-sounds to me like you wanted to do more than just talk."

Lara shot her friend an annoyed look, then sliced two pieces of pie. "I was merely trying to set the mood so he'd be comfortable enough to spill all his secrets."

"Right." LaToya grabbed a fork and a saucer of pie, then headed back to the table. "Where I come from, Mississippi mud pie means let's get down and dirty, honey."

With a snort, Lara set her plate of pie on the table. She went back to the kitchen for a glass of water. "I'm afraid he's avoiding me 'cause he doesn't want to divulge his secrets."

"Hmmm." LaToya considered with a mouth full of pie. "We want to be detectives, right? We'll just figure out his deep dark secrets on our own."

"I've been trying to do that for a week." Lara sipped water on her way back to the table. "All I can figure out for certain is that he's psychic."

" 'Cause he messes with people's minds?"

"Yep." Lara sat. "But he's got other powers, too, that I can't explain. Like super speed."

"Then he's a superhero. You know, faster than a speeding bullet." LaToya shoved some pie in her mouth.

"This is the real world, not a comic book. How could a normal guy suddenly become a superhero?"

LaToya's eyes twinkled with humor. "Maybe he got zapped by lightning or fell into a vat of acid." _

Lara laughed. "He might look delicious, but he doesn't look deep-fat fried."

"Then he's got to be an alien. That's how Superman got his powers."

Lara ate some pie while she mentally pictured Jack in a latex costume with a cape fluttering in the wind. Damn, he looked good. "I wouldn't be entirely opposed to a superhero if he looks like Jack. But it doesn't explain how he can appear and disappear at will."

"That's a tough one." LaToya stuffed more pie in her mouth, then her eyes lit up. "I got it! Astral projection."

"What?"

"It means he stayed in one spot while his spirit-"

"I know what it means, but Jack wasn't a spirit. He slammed Charlie Trent onto the floor and cuffed him."

"Okay." LaToya frowned. "Then he can't be a ghost."

"No." Lara recalled the way she'd rubbed against him in the church closet. "He is totally solid."

"You've touched him?"

Lara shrugged. "In the process of interrogating him."

LaToya snorted. "I bet. So the only explanation for the disappearing act is the guy knows how to teleport. Like on Star Trek."

"It would appear so, but teleportation hasn't been invented yet."

LaToya pointed her fork at Lara and gave her a knowing look. "That's what they want us to believe."

Lara grinned. "You think NASA or some secret branch of the government has discovered how to teleport?"

"Yeah. And this Jack is one of their secret agents."

"Hard to believe," Lara mumbled with her mouth full.

"I've got it!" LaToya's face beamed with excitement. "He's a secret agent from the future."

"Right. Teleportation and time travel together. That makes it much more believable."

LaToya glared at her. "Hey, it makes sense. People don't know how to teleport now, but they will in the future. Ipso facto, he's from the future."

"And he traveled back in time to throw a bachelor party at the Plaza hotel."

"All right, mock me all you like." LaToya took her empty plate to the kitchen. "But you won't like the alternative. Since humans don't know how to teleport, then your Jack has to be an alien."

"You can't be serious."

LaToya pointed a finger at Lara. "This is the second train of thought that's ended up with him being an alien. A coincidence?" She wagged her finger and her head. "I don't think so. Does he spell his name with an apostrophe? Like J'Ack instead of... Jack?"

"Why would he do that? It sounds exactly the same."

"All the aliens do it. It's part of their code."

Lara snorted. "He seemed awfully human to me."

"He wants you to think he's human, but it's all a fa?ade. He's playing with your mind, making you see him as a human, when he's really a slimy creature with tentacles. And then, he'll impregnate you with his alien baby, and it'll rip right through your stomach-"

"Enough!" Lara took the rest of her pie to the kitchen and dumped it in the trash. "I just lost my appetite."

"Has he made a move on you? Has he tried to kiss you?"

"Not really. Well, sorta. But I asked him to." Lara chafed under the look of horror LaToya was giving her. "I didn't mean it. It was an interrogation technique."

LaToya scoffed. "I must have missed that lesson at the academy. But now that I think about it, you do need to make a move on him. Get him to take his clothes off."

"Why would I do that?" Although the prospect did sound rather appealing. "I have no interest in him that way."

LaToya gave her a skeptical look. "Are you going to tell me you never thought about jumping his bones?"

Lara's face grew hot. "Fine. But if he's really an alien, then we're probably not biologically compatible."

"Oh good Lord, you're right. He might not even be a mammal. He could be a reptile and have two... hearts."

Lara grimaced. "You've been watching too much science fiction. Just because Jack can teleport, that doesn't make him some kind of lizard."

The phone rang.

Lara jumped. Was Jack finally returning her call?

"It's the lizard," LaToya whispered.

"Don't be silly. He's as human as you and me." Lara hurried to the phone, then hesitated. "No, you answer it."

LaToya lifted both hands in the air. "I ain't talking to no alien."

"He's not an alien." The phone rang again. "I need someone else to hear him, so I'll know I'm not crazy."

LaToya heaved a sigh. "Okay. I'll do it for you." The phone rang again, and she grabbed the receiver. "Hello? You have reached the Boucher and Lafayette terrestrial home."

Lara groaned.

"You want to talk to Lara?" LaToya spoke with a high-pitched sweet voice. "May I ask who's calling? Why yes, Jack, I'll fetch her right away. Just a moment, please." She covered the receiver with her hand. "It's the talking lizard. And honey, he ain't selling insurance."

CHAPTER 6

Sometimes Jack wished he didn't have superior hearing.

"He's not a lizard," Lara whispered.

"Then he's another kind of alien," the other woman muttered. "And this Jack is jacking with your mind to make you see him as human."

He shook his head as the two women continued to discuss him in urgent whispers. Obviously, Lara had told her roommate about him. Now there were two mortals who knew too much. He could erase the roommate's memory, but Lara would probably resent his jacking with her friend's mind. And she'd simply tell her friend everything again.

He retrieved a bottle of synthetic blood from the mini-fridge and popped it into the microwave. Whenever he was in New York, he resided at Roman's townhouse on the Upper East Side. The Russian-American Malcontents were headquartered in Brooklyn, not far away, but luckily, they were laying low at this time. And the security system at Roman's townhouse had been improved to make it safe.

Jack usually stayed in a guest room on the fourth floor so he could use Roman's office and mini-fridge on the fifth. The microwave dinged, announcing his breakfast was ready. He poured the blood into a wineglass, then sauntered to the desk with his cell phone by his ear.

"Hello, Jack?" Lara finally answered. "Sorry you had to wait. I was... in the shower."

She was a lousy liar, but he considered that a virtue. "I hope you put something on, bellissima. Otherwise, my imagination will run wild." As if it wasn't already.

"I-I'm dressed. I'm glad you called. I left some messages on your phone this afternoon."

"I just heard them a minute ago." He sat behind the desk and booted up the computer. "I work at night, so I'm... asleep during the day."

"Me, too, but I had trouble sleeping today. So I decided to cook you dinner, but when you didn't call back, we... uh, we ate it. Sorry."

"That's all right." Jack sipped from his wineglass. He figured the dinner invitation was part of a plan to confront him with all her questions. Unfortunately, he couldn't give her any answers. "I'm sorry I missed it."

"That's okay. Maybe you could drop by for dessert?"

Merda. He wasn't sure how to handle this. Maybe he could put her off for a few months. Then Ian would be back from his honeymoon, and Jack could return to Europe. Lara would never be able to track him down.

He grimaced. Avoiding her till he could run away seemed cowardly. And the thought of never seeing her again was downright depressing. "I-I have to go to work soon."

"But I really wanted to see you tonight." Lara's voice sounded strained. "I can meet you somewhere when you go on break."

She wasn't going to give up. Normally Jack admired a person who stuck to a project till it was done, but when the project was him, he was beginning to feel as desperate as Lara sounded.

He didn't want to tell her where he was staying or where he was currently working. "I'll drop by your place for a few minutes." He typed in her address on MapQuest.

"Thank you! Do you need directions? Or does 'dropping by' mean you're going to magically appear in front of me?"

Jack winced. How could he deny his ability to teleport when she'd seen it? He studied the map to her apartment. "I'll drive. I should be there in thirty to forty minutes."

"You know where I live?"

"Yes." He would ask Phineas and Connor to cover for him at Romatech for an hour or so. He heard Lara whispering again to her roommate.

"I doubt he's driving a space shuttle," Lara muttered.

Nine circles of hell. Lara was going to be really angry when she realized he couldn't tell her anything.

"So, uh, I guess you have an Italian car?" Lara asked.

"Not here in America. I'll borrow a car from a friend." Roman always kept one at the townhouse.

"What kind of car?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason. But if it's really big, you might have trouble parking."

He couldn't resist. "Bellissima, it is big, but I've never had trouble parking it." He smiled as a period of silence stretched between them.

"O-kay," she finally said. "I'll see you soon." She rang off.

Jack finished his breakfast while he pondered her request for a description of his car. She was up to something. If she were a Malcontent, he'd suspect her of wanting to set a car bomb, but he didn't think Lara wanted to kill him.

Of course that could change if she learned the truth about him. He knew from experience that women didn't react well to the truth. He'd have to be a fool to repeat the same mistake and expect a different outcome.

"Hey, someone's parking down the street," LaToya reported on her cell phone. "Oh, I forgot. This is a stakeout." She switched to a low, urgent voice. "Possible sighting of male subject, driving a red Toyota."

"A Toyota? That doesn't sound very Jack-ish," Lara said. Thirty minutes had passed, and she was waiting anxiously in the apartment on the third floor, while LaToya was stationed on the street below. Their plan was for LaToya to spot Jack arriving so she could write down his license plate number. Then, while Lara interrogated Jack in the apartment, LaToya could run his plates.