LITMIR.BIZ

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the first time, prompting the deployment of his team. She’d deserved his irritation and annoyance then. This time... She gasped, guilt burning in her stomach. “Deputy, is all of this happening because of me? Because you had to hunt me down the last time?”

      “Call me Sam. We’re about to spend a lot of time together, and it will make things easier.” Before she could ask what he meant, Sam shook his head. “None of this is your fault. Despite how foolish your actions were a few months ago, no one tracked you then. To be honest, we’re not certain what’s happening now or how you were found. Our cyber expert was trolling the dark web and found a hit out on you placed only a few hours ago.”

      “A hit?” It wasn’t possible. This was the stuff of action movies and TV shows. How had she landed here? Three years ago, she’d been a normal person working for a living after the loss of her husband, whose insurance money had gone to his mother. She’d wrapped up her degree in sports medicine and was interviewing for full-time jobs in her field. While working on her college job as a personal trainer and part-time receptionist at a day spa, she’d discovered an ugly truth straight out of her worst nightmares.

      Her boss, Grant Meyer, had been using New Horizons Day Spa’s multiple locations in Texas to traffic human beings. Worse, his partner was a man she’d trusted enough to introduce to her twin sister. Logan Cutter had manipulated Eve until she’d pulled away from everyone in her life, including Amy. When Amy had notified the authorities about the evidence she’d found at the day spa, she never dreamed her life would end up jumping the tracks so completely. She’d been forced to leave everything behind and to become an entirely new person. Certainly, she’d never imagined she’d be the target of real-life hit men, something she’d foolishly thought only happened in the movies.

      “Why now?” It had been more than three years since she’d stepped into her life as Amy Naylor. Three years in which, while she never stopped looking over her shoulder, she’d at least grown slightly more comfortable in her skin teaching underclassmen biology at the community college. It was the closest she could come to using her real degree without giving away who she used to be.

      “The prosecution is close to securing a trial date. It’s possible Grant Meyer was able to make contact with the outside and have you targeted. It seems unlikely, since his organization fell apart after he was jailed and agents rounded up most of his men. Still, if he has any sort of reach, he’ll use it to get to you. You’re the biggest thing the prosecution has against him. Even though he knows the evidence you turned over is enough to take him down without you ever taking the stand, revenge would be a pretty sweet dish to him. Our big concern is how he was able to tell others where to look for you. And why he’d put out a blanket call for a hit on the dark web where authorities could be tipped off, instead of having someone he trusted come after you. At this moment, none of it makes sense.”

      The more he talked, the more Amy tensed. Nothing he said made this better. Everything was only getting worse and the crushing weight of it threatened to suffocate her.

      Sam glanced in her direction and seemed to notice his words were having the opposite effect of his intentions. “Amy, you’re safe with me. I promise. That’s why they sent me and why they put my team on the job. No one is going to hurt you as long as you’re doing as we—” He tipped his head away from her, to the left where his earpiece was. The lines around his mouth and above his eyes drew tighter and he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, gaze roaming from mirror to mirror.

      Amy pressed deeper into the seat, panic threatening to overwhelm her. Whatever he was hearing, nothing good was going to come of it.

      * * *

      Sam eyed the rearview and immediately spotted the vehicle that had sparked Wainwright’s concern. The gray full-size pickup had slipped in behind them shortly after Sam merged onto the highway headed toward Atlanta and his team’s base of operations three hours and some change to the northwest. The truck hadn’t raised too much concern as it had stayed a few cars back and seemed to be running with the ever-increasing Friday afternoon traffic. He kept his voice low, knowing he couldn’t avoid Amy hearing him but hoping against hope she wouldn’t understand. “You’re sure?”

      “I’m sure.” Wainwright’s voice was serious and certain.

      Moments like this reinforced the reason Sam liked to travel in pairs and to have someone watching his back during witness transport. There was a reason he liked to have the younger deputy back him up on days like this. Wainwright was competent and quick, with a gift for seeing what Sam couldn’t because his focus had to be out the front windshield. “When you hit the highway, the pickup crossed two lanes of traffic and cut me off to stay with you. I don’t think he realizes I’m back here, so we have the advantage on him there, but he’s definitely latched on to you.”

      Sam locked his back teeth and scanned the road signs ahead, looking for an exit that wouldn’t leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere. They were rapidly heading out of town and would soon be in a broad stretch of pecan groves and onion fields, leaving few places to pull off and hide. “Run the plates and get back to me. I’m going to pull off at the next exit. Sign says there’s a shopping mall there. I can make a broad circle in the lot and see if he sticks with me. If he does, there’s a better chance of losing him on a side street than there is on the highway.”

      Beside him, Amy stiffened. Sam wished there was a way to have this conversation out of her earshot, a way to keep her ignorant to the danger, but until someone invented silent speech, that was impossible.

      His earpiece hummed as Wainwright spoke. “He’ll figure you out the minute you leave the highway. It might make him desperate.”

      “I know.” It was a chance Sam had to take. The guy might spook and back off if he thought he’d been tagged, but it might also make him desperate enough to risk an impulsive move. “Back off enough to keep him from being suspicious of you but stay close enough to keep an eye on him.”

      “Got it.”

      Sam checked his mirrors to make sure he was clear, then slipped from the left lane without signaling, abruptly crossing the right lane and taking the exit at the last second.

      The truck followed.

      “Someone’s behind us, aren’t they?” Amy had one hand on the grab handle above her head and the other holding tight to the seat beside her. She was even more ashen than she had been before. If Sam weren’t already familiar with Amy and her hard-set determination, he’d think she was about to pass out on him. It was a good thing he’d run up against her stubbornness before. She wasn’t one to knuckle under easily.

      But she was also prone to panic attacks, and Sam couldn’t risk one now. From personal experience, he knew they could bring everything to a full stop.

      He could skirt the truth to protect her, but in the months he’d known Amy, he’d learned she wasn’t one who would believe an easy story. Edgecombe had always spoken plainly to her when she demanded the truth, and Sam would do no differently. When he’d caught up to her in Virginia the first time he met her, she’d smoked him out immediately and demanded he give her the whole truth about her situation. He had. With both barrels. At the time, she’d deserved to hear how foolish she’d been to run off alone.

      This time, the fault was not her own so she deserved none of his righteous anger.

      But she still deserved the truth.

      “It looks like we’ve picked up a tail, but Wainwright is behind him and our new friend doesn’t seem to know it. We’re fine. We’ll either slip him or we’ll call in local law enforcement to keep him busy and shake him off our scent. We’re fine.” Boy, that had better project more calm than he felt. Adrenaline zipped through his veins. The truth was, the situation could get a lot more complicated. With civilians around and with the driver of the truck being a complete unknown, there were a whole lot of what-ifs that could come to fruition in the next few minutes. More of those scenarios worked against them than for them.

      Wainwright’s voice buzzed in his ear. “Just got word on the license plate and you really aren’t going to like it.”

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