I'm not a bad guy. Really, I'm not. I'm a decent guy stuck in a bad set of circumstances. Well, maybe I used to be a decent guy. Unless you've gone undercover, you don't know what it's like. It changes a person in some very fundamental ways. I have to pretend to be someone else, to actually BE someone else, sometimes two people, for so long that I forget who I really am. I have to. If I remember the real me, he might slip out at the wrong time. It's made me slightly schizophrenic. Is it Dave Burns who was in the military or is it Marcos? I was in New York last month, was Dave Burns? To be a convincing liar, you have to believe what you're putting out, and I've perfected it.

When on a job, I avoid entanglements. I don't even want the guy I buy coffee from in the morning to know my name, because it's too much to keep track of. Once a job is over, I just leave. Usually with no notice and no explanation. No one can find me because the man they think they know doesn't really exist. Poof, he's gone in an instant. Gone to Kansas City or Chicago or San Diego. The coffee guy doesn't give a shit, since I don't tip him too much or too little so he doesn't really remember me anyway, but a woman does.

Usually I avoid any sort of relationship other than a one night stand, but sometimes that's not enough. I get lonely. Like anyone else, I need someone who wants to know me, who actually likes me. I've been undercover for so long that I'm cut off from the real world, where a man can meet a woman, ask her out and then things can progress naturally without some artificial deadline. When I started this job in DC, I was living with someone in LA. She couldn't deal with the 18 month separation and moved on. I miss her sometimes, but I don't blame her.

I wasn't looking for anyone when I met Gillian Foster, but she basically bowled me over immediately and temporarily made me forget everything about not blowing my cover. Dazzlingly gorgeous, she was a bit patronizing, then embarrassed about it, then pissed at me because I wasn't willing to cross an ethical line to help find a girl's killer. How could I have resisted her?

Gillian is no one night stand that was obvious from the first minute. She is intelligent and soft hearted and optimistic, the kind of woman whose eyes glow at a puppy or a gooey dessert or a shooting star. And on top of that, she's funny and smart and caring. So, I got sucked in despite my better judgment. What began as a simple need to connect with someone quickly has become a relationship. Well, it has the trappings of a relationship. We go out, we talk on the phone, and we have astoundingly passionate sex for two people who don't really know each other, which makes me think that her passion isn't really for me, that she's as cut off as I am.

Warily, I anticipated an invitation to dinner at her sister's or her best friend's house, and I was prepared to deliver the "just got out of a long term relationship, not ready for something serious" speech, but I've never had to. Surprisingly, Gillian, while warm and affectionate, keeps me separate from the rest of her life. I've never met her family or friends except for the people she works with, which is odd, but it makes it much easier for me to have to keep up my story.

I thought Gillian would be a tougher sell, being a deception expert besides being a shrink, but she wants to believe me, even my lame excuse about Marcos. That woman is so starved for love and for sex—did I mention how incredible the sex is?—that she wouldn't even look for a lie while I was shoveling a pile of bullshit at her. I do feel kind of guilty about that, but the job has to come first.

Because of our "relationship" being kept a secret, I wasn't expecting Gillian to be so grounded, so normal. I've had a lot of experience with the shrink types, and they have one thing in common: they're almost all completely screwed up and don't know it, which makes them easy to manipulate. Actually, most people are. You just need to know what they want to hear, to know how they want you to see them. How do you do that? You listen. You can find out a lot about a person just by the topics they speak about, the words they choose. Oh, and by checking out their space.

Gillian's house is comfortable, done mostly in restful blues and greens. Tastefully decorated, not cluttered. I scanned her movies, books and music, which is the quickest way to find out about someone, and discovered that she's not that easy to pin down. Not at all like one woman I was with (briefly) who had only self help books and fashion magazines. Or another who had no reading material at all.

Gillian's movies mostly were the happy ending types, but there were enough documentaries, adventure, mob and sci fi movies thrown in to be paradoxical. Gillian had the predictable Sarah McLachlin, Loreena McKennitt and Enya types in her CD collection, which made her girly and romantic, but also a lot of jazz, which is cerebral and complicated. Lots of blues, too, which are raw passion. A couple of whimsical Jimmy Buffett.

Same broad range with the books. Lots of psych stuff, naturally, but also some weighty philosophy, a wide range of history & sociology, murder mysteries and conspiracies as well as an entire shelf of classical literature and romance novels. A tasteless joke book with an inscription from Lightman. All of her published works and Lightman's, front and center, so I knew that these were the most important to her.

I found the same diversity in the kitchen. Loads of spices and specialty ingredients. Tons of cookbooks, all different kinds, but heavy on desserts, one specifically a dessert lover's gourmet chocolate cookbook. I flipped through it and found Lightman's scrawl again in the front piece, as well as several other pages with his remarks.

Basically, Lightman was all though her house. I found a birthday card from him tucked away in her night table drawer. Stuck in the card were ticket stubs to a basketball game (really good seats), and he had written, "Not that I'm hinting or anything, but if you take me maybe I can finally understand the fascination you have with watching grown men bounce a large ball all over a gym floor and toss it through a bloody hoop." He was even in the bathroom, in the form of a toothbrush and a Speedstick. Naturally, I asked her about that, and she ducked her head, a little embarrassed.

"It's not what you think. I, uh, Cal stays over sometimes, you know, if we're working really late on a weekend, or if we've had a particularly bad case." At my somewhat skeptical look, she shook her head, "He's protective."

Protective. Yeah, I could see that immediately.

Lightman was definitely on to me. He was probably suspicious as far back as when he was taunting me with "You've got the hots for Foster." Then, when Gillian and I met him in the hallway of the Lightman Group offices, he could see that Gillian and I were both stumbling over my name, and he started screwing with me, using what I refer to as Interrogation Routine Number 2.

Routine Number 1 is a fake sincerity to find the truth, like "Hey, buddy, we're all on the same side, trying to figure out what happened, and no, I don't suspect you, but maybe you know something that can help." Number 2 was related to Number 1. Same idea but performed as more of a buffoon, Barney Fife questioning a bank robber, lulling you into a false sense of security until you said something incriminating. Number 3 was the hardass, the guy who would throw you across the interrogation room or pull a weapon on you, even lie, to get you to confess.

Whatever. I could see that this guy would be like a terrier after a rat. Lightman wouldn't give up until he knew what the hell was going on. That was extremely dangerous. And the fact that he was ridiculously in love with Gillian could only complicate things.

Oh, yeah, I saw that. After Lightman's faux awkwardness, during which he invaded her personal space and touched her possessively twice, Gillian sent me off so that she could talk to him privately. I couldn't hear what she said to him, but I didn't need to. It looked like she was gently chastising and reassuring him at the same time, while he just looked defensive and hurt. A little destroyed, even. And then she winked at him and he gave a genuine smile and checked her out as she was walking back to me.

I have to be careful, just a little while longer before I move on, and try to avoid this guy as much as possible, but the clock is ticking fast. Lightman will do everything he can to find out who I really am. I'm not worried about that; I'm buried deeply enough that Obama couldn't find my real identity. My only regret is that I couldn't meet Gillian as myself or explain everything to her, but then, it's easier to leave someone who only thinks she's in love, and with your alter ego, besides. I'll disappear, like I always do, and Gillian will be hurt, like women always are, but she'll be all right. Lightman will be there.