LITMIR.BIZ

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besides me?”

      “Do we have to talk about this?”

      “No, we don’t. We don’t have to say another word.” She got up, went into the living room and sat on the floor next to Milo.

      Feeling like a total shit, he went to sit beside her. He thought about asking her to join him on the couch, but this would be fine. “Sorry.”

      “You have nothing to apologize for. You put your life at risk for me, and you don’t even know me. I’m sure I’m keeping you from your regular work, so you’re not even making any money.”

      “That doesn’t matter.”

      “Of course it matters.” She turned to face him. “How much would you charge for this if I wasn’t Nate’s sister?”

      “Nothing.”

      “Liar. Don’t do that to me. Someday, in theory, I’ll have my life back. I’ll have a job. I want to pay you.”

      That bothered him more than he understood. It wasn’t an outrageous thing to offer. He was, in fact, losing money on the deal. “Can’t you just accept that this is something I want to do?”

      “Yes. Which doesn’t negate my need to pay you. I’m pretty damn helpless, in case you haven’t noticed. Paying you, even if it is in the future, will at least let me feel like I have something to contribute. Some tiny bit of control.”

      “Fair enough.”

      “So?”

      He took a deep breath as he looked at her. She was a beautiful woman. Strong, sensible and full of courage. He admired her, and he’d always remember making love with her, even if the ending wasn’t the warm cuddle it should have been. He wouldn’t forget what a horrible mistake it was, either. He could have gotten them both killed. It wouldn’t happen again.

      “Hello? You still here?”

      “Sorry. I got lost for a minute.”

      “I could see that.” She touched his cheek. “Where were you?”

      “I didn’t have a chance to tell you before. You were amazing.”

      She smiled. “We were. Despite the worst ending ever.”

      “It could have been worse.”

      She shuddered, and the smile disappeared. “So what do I owe you?”

      “Two thousand.”

      “If that’s all you charge, no wonder you have no good furniture.”

      “The job’s not over. Let’s start with two and go from there.”

      “Fair enough.” She leaned in just enough to let him know she’d welcome a kiss to seal the deal.

      It couldn’t happen. Not tonight. Not ever again. He got up and went to get them coffee.

       12

      CHRISTIE SAT WITH HER FEET pulled up on the chair and her arms around her knees as she waited for Seth and Boone to put the groceries away.

      She should help, but she didn’t want to. Mostly, she wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

      “I didn’t know which cheesecake to get,” Seth said, “so I got a couple.”

      That made her look. He’d picked up plain and strawberry, which perked her up a little. So did the big box of Lucky Charms he pulled out of the bag.

      Boone had remembered. A really considerate, sweet thing to do. Now that things were a little calmer, she’d thought about before the gunshot. The sex.

      She tried to remember when she’d made love like that. She’d actually come with no extra help. Usually—no, always—she couldn’t. She either asked her companion to give her some specialized attention, or she brought out the vibrator. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just the way she was built. Or so she’d thought.

      Maybe it was how he was built, or how he’d lifted her legs. Or maybe it was because he was Boone.

      No. She wasn’t going there. Boone wasn’t the magic one, he was the temporary hero, which was different. This was a traumatic time, and she was clinging to him for dear life. It would be a terrible mistake to romanticize things. He certainly wasn’t.

      A knock at the door brought two weapons into play. It was totally automatic, like covering her mouth when she sneezed. Both Boone and Seth were ready to react in a heartbeat, ready to kill, if necessary. Professional soldiers without a war. Which begged the question, how could the military let these particular soldiers go?

      She knew something about their training. It was the most vigorous, brutal routine there was. Delta Force was focused on terrorism, and these men knew how to handle situations from stopping a sniper to foiling an airplane hijacking. They knew how to use every kind of weapon from knives to high explosives. CIA operatives had nothing on Delta Force when it came to surveillance and tracking. If anything, the army should be begging them to come back, not making them hide.

      Nate had refused to talk about it. Even when she’d used her sister card, he kept his mouth shut. She knew, though, that whatever had gone down in the Balkans had been seriously bad. Afterward, Nate, who’d always been meticulous about his appearance, had become sloppy about his clothes. He hadn’t had a haircut, which was totally bizarre, because he thought the ladies loved his cut. The last time they’d talked, he’d been sullen and nervous, and he’d barely eaten, even though he was as thin as she’d ever seen him.

      Kate walked in, and she nodded at Christie before she got a cup of coffee. The three of them sat down at the table, Boone to her left. Seth and Kate had notebooks and pens.

      “So what the hell happened?” Kate asked.

      “Wait,” Boone said. “Christie, why don’t you get something to eat. Refill your coffee.”

      She nodded. “Anyone else want cheesecake?”

      Seth did, so she served up a couple of slices before she sat down.

      By that time, Kate had pulled out a spreadsheet. On it was everything she’d found out about every man Christie had dated.

      But before they got to that, Seth wanted to know what had happened at the house.

      “The geek knew we were in the living room. He had a scoped rifle, I’m thinking an M24. Laser scope. He had a bead right on my chest, so he wasn’t aiming blind.”

      “He had a camera.”

      Boone nodded as Seth cursed. He’d eaten half his dessert, but now he pushed it away as if he didn’t deserve it.

      “I don’t know how I could have missed it. I went through that house with a fine-tooth comb.”

      Boone sighed. “I’m pretty sure he drilled, sent in a pinhole on a fiber-optic cable. I don’t think it was there until after you left.”

      Seth crossed his arms. “Then we shouldn’t have left.”

      “The point is, we have to find this guy. Now. Not later. He’s accelerating, but he’s not entering. What does that tell us?”

      “He’s a coward,” Kate said.

      “True. What else?”

      “His objective is to terrify and control.”

      Boone nodded. “He wants me, us, out of the way. So he can have her to himself.”

      “To do what? Own her?” Kate asked. “Or is this revenge?”

      Now it was Christie’s turn to push away her cheesecake. It turned her stomach, how they were talking about her, but she knew it was necessary. If they wanted to stop the bastard,

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