LITMIR.BIZ

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      Jake felt as if he’d been punched. “Rasmussen?”

      “I don’t know, but the timing of it points to him. He certainly has the resources.”

      He stared at his superior, his mind reeling as the repercussions of what he was being told hit home. “Where’s Kelsey James?”

      Cutter looked away.

      “For God’s sake, you don’t know, do you?”

      “I had an agent check her apartment as soon as we heard. CNN just broke the news. She must have heard about Rasmussen and left before we could make contact.”

      Jake swore. That sounded like Kelsey. Head-strong. Stubborn. Willing to take on the world all by herself if she had to. But she had to be running scared, and with good reason. If Rasmussen got his hands on her…

      The thought made Jake break into a cold sweat. His protective instincts kicked in with a vengeance. “At this point it’s probably safe to assume he has her name and address.”

      “This is not your case, Jake. I need you here. There are administrative—”

      “Screw administrative!” Another curse burned through the air. “I’m not going to let him get her, Sean.”

      “I’ve got another agent en route.”

      “Come on! You’ve got two hundred federal witnesses to protect and twenty agents! Do the math!”

      “We’re working with the U.S. Marshals Service to contain all the witnesses.”

      Jake cursed.

      “I need you here, Jake. But I need your head screwed on straight. If you can’t keep it together you need to walk away.”

      “I’m not going to let him kill that young woman,” Jake ground out.

      “She knew what she was getting into six years ago.”

      “She knew. But so did we, didn’t we, Sean?”

      “Don’t go there, Jake. You did your job, and so did I.”

      “Yeah. Maybe a little too well.” Jake scrubbed a hand over his face, a harsh sound breaking from his throat. “Where is she?”

      Cutter stared at him, his face as hard as a piece of granite. “Don’t make the wrong decision, Vanderpol. I covered for you last time this woman got under your skin. I won’t do it again.”

      “Is that the way this is going to go down?” Jake asked.

      “That’s the only way this can go down.”

      Never taking his eyes from the other man’s, Jake removed his MIDNIGHT identification from his wallet and laid it on the conference table. Reaching beneath his jacket, he withdrew his government-issue service revolver and laid it next to the badge.

      “Now you don’t have to cover for me,” he said, and then walked out the door.

      A SLATE-GRAY PREDAWN SKY spat sleet as Leigh Michaels lugged her suitcase into the second-floor motel room and locked the door behind her. Fear had been her constant companion since fleeing her apartment in Denver.

      She’d always known this terrible moment would come. Rasmussen was too powerful a man, his resources too far-reaching for any prison to contain him permanently.

      Shaking, Leigh pulled the sleek H&K semiautomatic pistol from her waistband and set it on the night table, within easy reach. She didn’t bother unpacking, because there was always the chance she would be leaving quickly. She didn’t want to have to leave behind what few clothes and toiletries she owned.

      She walked to the television and turned it to a cable news channel, hoping to hear that Rasmussen had been captured. The anchor immediately dashed her hopes. “An unidentified source has informed us that the database of the Witness Security Program was hacked into over the weekend. Over two hundred names of high-level federal witnesses have been stolen….”

      Leigh felt each word like a vicious punch. For an instant she couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t think. She could feel the terror building inside her.

      Ian Rasmussen had to be behind the theft of the database records. Even if the television wasn’t reporting the connection.

      “Oh, God.” Standing abruptly, she put her hand to her stomach and choked back a sound of pure terror.

      Ian Rasmussen knew her new identity. He knew her name. Her address.

      For an instant she considered calling her old contact at the U.S. Marshals Service office in Boulder. Then she remembered what had happened the last time she’d put her trust in a government agency and nixed the idea.

      The image of Jake Vanderpol flashed in her mind. She saw dark, intelligent eyes. Military-short hair. A lean face and chiseled mouth. A body as hard and breathtaking as the Rocky Mountains themselves.

      She’d trusted him with her life. She’d given him her heart. Her body. A piece of her soul. He’d taken all of those things with a ravenousness that had left her half-crazy with the need for more. She’d fallen hard for the brooding agent. But the intimacies they’d shared hadn’t been enough to keep him from using her as a means to an end.

      Shoving the memory back into its deep, dark hole, Leigh sat down hard on the bed and put her face in her hands. “Calm down,” she whispered into the silence of the room.

      There was no way Rasmussen could have tracked her here. She’d been too cautious, watching out for cars traveling too close. She would have remembered seeing the same vehicle twice. No one had followed her.

      Still, she knew it was best if she didn’t stay too long. She needed to keep moving. Once she’d put enough distance between her and Denver, she would stop in a new city, create a new identity, start a new life. It was her only hope of staying alive.

      All she had to do was stay one step ahead of Rasmussen.

      Glancing at the alarm clock on the night table next to the bed, she sighed. It was almost 7:00 a.m. She’d been driving most of the night. She needed a shower. Food. A few hours of sleep. Then she would hit the road again. If all went as planned, by tomorrow she would be in Kansas City. A place where she had no ties. No one had any reason to look for her there. All she had to do was stay alert and be cautious.

      Feeling the hard tug of exhaustion, Leigh lay back on the bed, not bothering to take off her clothes or boots. The H&K was within easy reach, and she had a knife in her boot as backup in case she was caught unaware. But she didn’t think anything would happen. No one knew she was here.

      But as sleep overtook her, it occurred to her that she’d underestimated Ian Rasmussen once before, and it had cost her more than she ever could have imagined.

      LEIGH JOLTED AWAKE. Lying on her side, she remained perfectly still, listening, her heart pounding. The room around her was cold and silent and dimly lit. The clock on the night table told her she’d been asleep just over an hour. What the hell had wakened her?

      In the past six years Leigh had learned to trust her instincts. Right now those instincts were telling her something was wrong. She could feel gooseflesh racing along her arms.

      The doorknob squeaked. She sat up, her heart hammering like a piston in her chest.

      A second later the door flew open and banged against the wall. A man looking to be as large as a mountain in the semidarkness of the room rushed in. She scrambled across the bed, her hand groping for the H&K on the night table. A dozen scenarios rushed through her mind as her hand closed around the grip. No time to think. Aim and fire, just like at the shooting range where she’d practiced so many hours in preparation of this terrible moment.

      She brought up the gun, swung the weapon around. An instant later, a strong hand clamped around her wrist. “Drop it,” came a growled command.

      But Leigh knew if she let go of the gun she was as good as dead. She

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