Authors: Lisa Childs
As he leaned down to pick up the stuffed animal, he noticed something else: a photograph lay beneath the bear. He scraped up the picture from the hardwood floor. A woman and child cuddled together on a couch—the very one in the room behind him. Her head bent close to his, the two looked at a book together. His breath caught, burning in his lungs, as he recognized them—the woman and the child he’d never thought he would see again. They didn’t look the same. Her hair was different—brown instead of shiny red, and it wasn’t as long and wavy. Her eyes looked dark, too.
Even the boy’s hair looked darker. But his eyes were still the same pale gray as Milek’s. He was too young for contacts, so his disguise wasn’t as complete as hers.
Was that what had happened?
Had someone recognized them?
That photo had been taken through her front window. He flipped it over and read the message scrawled across the back:
I know who you really are...
He passed the picture over to Agent Rus. “This is why she left in such a hurry.”
Rus cursed. “How the hell did someone find her?”
Milek had begun to consider the FBI agent a friend—especially since he’d admitted the truth to him, since he’d reassured Milek that the woman he had always loved and his son had not died. But now he regarded the man with suspicion.
Could he trust him?
Should Amber have trusted him?
* * *
Frank Campanelli shook his head as he followed the minivan back toward the neighborhood he’d thought Amber Talsma had left for good. Earlier he had watched her load the back of the van with boxes and suitcases before she’d gone to the elementary school to pick up her son.
“Why the hell are you coming back here?” he asked aloud.
He’d sent the photographs to give her a chance to escape him. Just as he’d fired those warning shots into her house last time.
He was a professional and had no guilt over killing for money. But it was different with women and kids. Their deaths haunted him.
That was why he’d been glad when Amber Talsma had heeded his last warning and staged her death. He’d claimed responsibility for that and had still collected his payment from his client.
He would have left her “dead”—if not for that damn FBI agent cleaning up River City. Frank had lost another client when Viktor Chekov had gone to prison—to join so many other clients of Frank’s.
He needed money. So he would set aside his guilt and finish the job he should have completed a year ago. It had taken the photos and digging up those damn graves in order to convince his client to pay him again.
So this time he would have to produce bodies. He would have to prove he had actually completed the job. That Amber Talsma was really dead.
He slowed as he turned onto the street behind her. With one hand on the steering wheel, he leaned across the passenger’s seat and popped open the glove compartment with his other hand.
Then he reached inside and pulled out the gun he kept there. The Glock had a silencer on the barrel, just like the one he’d fired at Amber Talsma’s house a year ago. That was why no one had reported hearing gunfire. Despite the suburban neighborhood and all the little houses sitting closely on small lots, nobody would hear anything this time, either.
The only thing that would be different this time was that he would not miss. He would make sure every bullet fired struck its target: Amber Talsma.
Chapter 3
“W
here the hell is he?” Garek Kozminski asked as he pushed open the door to FBI Special Agent Nicholas Rus’s office at the River City Police Department. His hands were already curled into fists—ready to swing. He was angry. Not as angry as he’d been when someone had been trying to kill the woman who was now his wife, but he was beyond irritated. And the damn agent wasn’t even in his office...
A hand touched his arm, long fingers wrapping around it. Even through his coat and sweater, his skin tingled at her touch. He turned back toward her, and as always, his breath caught at her beauty. With her black hair, silky skin and thickly lashed blue eyes, she was stunning.
She looked at him with concern and love. “You don’t know for sure Milek is working for him.”
He knew. “Milek has been refusing to take any bodyguard assignments,” he said. “He’s preoccupied. Rus roped him into something.”
“Are you sure that’s a bad thing?” Candace asked.
Garek lost his breath again—for another reason than his wife’s beauty. “What?”
“He seems to be doing better than he’s been since...”
Since he’d lost the woman he loved and his child. Garek didn’t know how Milek had survived the loss—the grief. If Garek ever lost Candace...
He shuddered at the horrific thought.
Candace continued, “He’s less despondent.”
That was a good thing. For the past year Garek had lost his brother to his grief—to the point that Milek had had him move out of the condo they’d shared. But working for Rus was not a good thing. Garek worried he might lose his brother to more than grief—to death.
“I’ve done a special assignment for Rus,” Garek said, although he didn’t need to remind her. “And all of us—you and I and Milek—nearly got killed.”
She squeezed his arm in reassurance. “Nearly,” she said. “We all survived.”
Maybe Milek wasn’t happy he had. Maybe working for Rus again was some kind of death wish for him—a wish to join the woman and the child he’d lost.
“Hey, Candace!” A man stopped in the doorway to Rus’s office. He was a big, barrel-chested man with a scruffy beard and long, stringy hair.
Although his wife needed no protection, Garek pulled her against his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“Bruce,” Candace greeted the guy with a smile. So Garek doubted the man was a criminal. She hadn’t always had the most affection for them—until she’d fallen for him.
“You’re looking great,” Bruce said with an appreciative grin as he checked out her lean, sexy body. “We could really use you back in Vice.”
She laughed, but not with her usual self-deprecating humor. She wasn’t refusing the man’s compliment—the way she used to Garek’s. Now she saw herself as he saw her—as the true beauty she was.
Garek glared at the interloper, but the guy paid him no attention.
“Is that why you’re here?” Bruce asked. “Giving up the bodyguard business?”
She laughed again. “Not at all. My husband and I are looking for Agent Rus.”
Bruce glanced at him then. “You look like the guy who was with him right before they tore out of here.”
“Why’d they tear out of here?” Garek asked.
“Did something come through Dispatch?” Candace asked.
“Something always comes through Dispatch,” Bruce said. “But Rus usually doesn’t go out on calls.”
Unless it involved something he was already working on—like when he’d been trying to take down Chekov with Garek’s help.
“Was anything patched through to him?” Candace clarified her question.
Bruce shrugged. “I don’t know. If he was called out because of some kind of incident, he didn’t ask for backup. It was just the two of them. Before they ran out of here, they were at Rus’s computer.”
“Thanks,” Candace told the man. And he must have picked up from her tone that she was dismissing him. The moment he turned away, she closed the office door. Then she slipped from Garek’s grasp and moved around Rus’s desk. She tapped on his keyboard.
“Isn’t it password protected?” he asked. He could break into any building or safe, but computers were beyond his area of expertise.
“It was,” she said as she continued tapping on the keys.
“You broke in?” he asked and whistled in appreciation and pride.
She nodded. “Nikki’s been teaching me about computers,” she said. “And I’ve been teaching her about self-defense and weapons.”
Candace was a good teacher. Logan Payne would soon have no more excuses to keep denying his sister fieldwork.
A soft gasp slipped through Candace’s red lips.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know...” she murmured. But her blue eyes were wide as she stared at the monitor.
Garek moved around the desk to lean over his wife’s shoulder. “What the hell...”
“Why would someone have dug up Amber’s and Michael’s graves?” Candace asked.
Garek could think of a reason, but it was too far-fetched to contemplate. Or was it?
He grasped his wife’s hand and tugged her toward the door. “Let’s find out.”
Maybe that was where Rus and Milek had raced off to, but he suspected they’d gone someplace else entirely. Amber and Michael were already dead, so desecrating their graves wouldn’t have harmed them.
Unless...
* * *
This is a mistake.
Amber knew it the moment she turned onto the street. She shouldn’t have come back here. “Sweetheart,” she murmured. “Maybe we’ll have to get Jewel another time.” Like never. Maybe it was good to have no reminders of the life they’d had to give up, because she had a feeling they would never be safe to return to it.
“No, Mommy!” Michael burst out. “I want Jewel!” Then sobs broke up his little voice.
And broke her heart.
He was too young to understand. And she couldn’t explain. She couldn’t tell a child that someone wanted them dead. It was too much for him to handle.
It was too much for her to handle alone. But she had no choice now. She could trust no one. Apparently she shouldn’t have trusted Agent Rus.
“Okay, okay, we’ll get Jewel,” she assured him. It was broad daylight. Surely no one would try to kill her now—with so many possible witnesses.
An older couple walked hand in hand along the sidewalk. A garbage truck picked up bins from the ends of driveways. A mailman cut across yards as he made his deliveries.
And in front of her house, a black SUV idled at the curb—a thin stream of exhaust emanating from its tailpipe. Her blood chilled. Someone was here. The SUV belonged to no one she knew now—not that she’d made many friends in their new town. She hadn’t wanted to get close to anyone and risk their discovering her secret.
I know who you really are...
Despite all of her precautions, someone had learned the truth. Someone knew who and where she was. She shouldn’t have come back.
“Mommy!” Michael exclaimed. “That man has Jewel.”
She saw him then—standing on her front porch—with the small bear clutched in his big hand. Sunlight reflected off his blond hair. And his eyes...
He stared right at her—as if he recognized her despite the dyed hair, despite the contacts. But then she didn’t look different enough. If Rus hadn’t betrayed her, then that must have been how someone had found her—by recognizing her.
And now so had Milek Kozminski. Or was he the one who’d sent the photos? Was he the one who’d warned her?
Another man stepped out of the house and joined him on the porch. Special Agent Rus. Of course he was who had led Milek to her. Was Milek the only one he’d told about her? Or had he told the man who’d fired the shots that night?
Despite her legs shaking as she trembled with fear, she pressed hard on the accelerator, and the minivan jumped forward.
“Mommy!” Michael cried out in protest. “I want Jewel!”
It wouldn’t matter whether or not he had the bear if they didn’t survive. She couldn’t trust Agent Rus—couldn’t trust he didn’t pose a threat to her. She knew Milek was dangerous; he’d already hurt her more than anyone else ever could have.
“We have to leave,” she told her son. “Now!”
His tears broke her heart, but she was too scared to cave—too scared to do anything but run. She pressed harder on the accelerator and sped away.
* * *
Milek watched her drive off, and once again he was paralyzed. Not with fear this time. But with shock. “She’s alive...”
The back windows of her vehicle were tinted, so he hadn’t been able to peer through the dark glass to clearly see his son. But there had been a shadow back there. Michael had to be with her.
They were both alive—just as Rus had claimed. But Milek hadn’t allowed himself to believe him—to hope. He’d needed to see for himself.
“Son of a bitch!” Nicholas Rus cursed and gestured at the vehicle following the minivan down the street. “That’s the Ghost.”
“Ghost?” Amber wasn’t dead; Milek had just seen her.
“Campanelli!”
“No!” The paralysis ended as he ran toward the running SUV. He pulled open the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. He was already steering away from the curb when Rus jumped into the passenger’s side.
“Damn it!” the FBI agent cursed.
Milek didn’t know and didn’t care if he was cursing him. He had to catch up to Amber before Campanelli did. “How the hell did he find her?”
Rus cursed again. “I don’t know. I don’t know...”
At the moment it didn’t matter how, though—it only mattered that he had.
Milek sped up to close the distance between his SUV and the rental sedan ahead of them. “Is this it?”
The car’s windows weren’t tinted. He could see clearly inside—could see a big man was in the driver’s seat. But he must have had only one hand on the wheel, because he lifted a gun with his other hand and pointed it toward the minivan in front of him.
“That’s him!” Rus shouted. He lifted his gun as Campanelli had. But then he shook his head. “I can’t shoot—I can’t risk it. The bullet could go through the car and into the van.”
Milek didn’t need a gun; he had the SUV. He stomped on the accelerator, propelling the vehicle forward so its front bumper rammed the rear bumper of the sedan.
Metal crunched and tires squealed.
Was there a shot?
Had the man fired the gun?
Milek peered through the car to the van ahead of it. The rear window was shattered, glass raining down from it onto the street and into the back of the van. His heart constricted; fear squeezing it.
He cursed. “The son of a bitch...”
Campanelli had fired the gun. Had a bullet struck Amber or the little boy? Milek was certain his son had been in the backseat.
Anger joined his fear. He pressed harder on the accelerator and struck the sedan again. But as he struck it, the car catapulted forward and hit the van. Maybe that was why the minivan swerved—or maybe it was because Amber had been shot.