Suspect Witness - Ryshia Kennie Mills & Boon Intrigue

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at least the woman currently calling herself that. The woman who had so recently been Erin Kelley Argon before she’d changed her passport and her last name. A twist of fate twenty-nine years ago had her parents on a business trip in Canada where her mother went into early labor. As a result, Erin qualified for citizenship in that country and when she’d run, she’d taken advantage of it. He took both pieces of evidence, folded them one-handed and slipped them into his pocket. He closed the drawer and opened the middle drawer and retraced the fine line he’d felt earlier. He pushed and something gave. He pulled open the drawer farther to reveal a hidden compartment.

      “What do you have?” Victor was beside him. “The authorities only did a cursory look before they took the body away. And I just got here. So anything you can do to make our job easier.” He pulled the thin edge of his moustache with a troubled look. “Although, really, I shouldn’t be letting you do this.”

      Josh ignored the man as he took out an American driver’s license and a passport. He flipped open the passport and it only confirmed what the first piece of ID had already told him. “Here’s your identification. Emma Whyte. She had it well hidden against thieves.”

      “By jove. Good work, old chap.”

      Josh grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “Since when did you become a Brit, Vic?”

      Victor scowled and glanced at his watch.

      “What time is it?”

      “Seven o’clock.”

      “It’s been a long day. I’ll leave you to it,” Josh said. “She’s obviously not the woman I was looking for.”

      “Good luck!” Victor told him genially.

      Josh stepped over the threshold, seemingly empty-handed. Once outside, he dialed the number that would be in service for only a few more hours.

      “It’s not her,” he said. “But she was here. Whoever the bastard is that they have on her tail, he now knows her last location.”

      “What’s the matter? You sound off.”

      “Could be the last two years have been pretty much on the road.”

      “What, you’re telling me you don’t love it?”

      “Not that much. After this, Vern, I need a vacation. I need to go home.”

      “To the RV? Josh you’re not a family man and you live in a trailer.”

      His hand went into his pocket, his thumb smoothing the worn bead of a dime-store earring. “It’s home, Vern. And family or not, it’s time for me to take a break.”

      “Okay, fine.”

      He dropped the earring back into his pocket as a door slammed across the street. He walked away from the apartment building and around the corner to where an alley gave him a discreet view of the comings and goings around the apartment. “What gives with this case, Vern? There’s another body. A woman. Every bloody assignment... I’m so damned sick of seeing women dead. At least this time she wasn’t raped. Not that that is any better. Dead is dead.”

      “You’re taking it personally,” Vern Ferguson, the director of Josh’s branch in the CIA said.

      He turned away from the street and looked down the tight, concrete-bordered alley. Sometimes it was hard not to take it personally. He drew in a breath, held it a few seconds longer than necessary. “You said you have something new? What is it, Vern?” His gaze roamed the area—the overflowing garbage bin, the tiger-striped dog snuffling through the refuse. “I don’t think there’s much time. We could be talking hours, minutes... Who knows?”

      “Intelligence has her in Georgetown, Malaysia.”

      “Georgetown. Damn it, Vern. Too bad you didn’t have that for me sooner. You know the Anarchists don’t waste time. They’re not just any biker gang. As it is she’s been running for five months.”

      “Yeah, I know,” Vern said with a hitch in his voice that was part wheeze, part cough. “She’s tired and with the trial going forward, they won’t stop.”

      “Right, and they want her dead, and odds are they’re on their way. Fortunately, no one knows where in Georgetown yet.”

      “Then quit wasting time on the damn phone.”

      Josh grimaced as he clicked off and tossed the phone into a nearby garbage can.

       Chapter Two

      Georgetown, Malaysia—Monday, October 12

      “Give Respect, Get Respect.” Erin Kelley repeated the words as she wrote the phrase on the chalkboard and ended with a sweeping flourish. Her fingers shook and she had to stop. She ran her tongue along her lower lip, her back to the class. But even writing the word respect sent a slight tremor through her. The chalk dust clung uncomfortably to her sweaty palm.

      The temperature was unseasonably warm and this early in the morning the heat was already unbearable in the small, cramped room. A finger of light skittered across the blackboard, briefly illuminating the words. She mentally shrank from the light as if under a searchlight, as if they’d found her after all these months. Impossible, she reminded herself as the chalk sweated in her hand, and the children shifted anxiously behind her. And as she had done so many times before, she reminded herself that she was safe, that her trail was cold. Enough time had elapsed. They’d never find her. They were no longer interested. And as she did at odd times throughout any given day, she considered the truth of those beliefs and whether she was really safe, whether these children were safe. One day, she knew, despite her hopes, the answer would have her on the run again but that wasn’t today.

      She put down the chalk and turned to face the class.

      “Today, we’re going to learn about respect,” she said in English. The school’s curriculum was taught in English to children who were already bilingual, fluent in both Malay and English, and who, in many cases, if they hadn’t already, would master a third or even fourth language in their lifetime.

      At the back of the room a heavyset boy shifted in his seat. Beside him, a sullen-faced classmate shuffled papers across his desk. And at the front one boy whispered furtively to another. The rest of the boys eyed her uneasily. They knew what was coming. There wasn’t a boy who had missed the taunting in the schoolyard and not one who didn’t know what was going to happen as a result. She had made it all perfectly clear from her first day.

      She fixed her gaze on the targets of this lecture. The two culprits dressed in crisply pressed navy pants with matching jackets, white shirts and sleek haircuts stared back without a flicker of emotion. They were both the sons of successful Malaysian businessmen, and neither lacked for pride or esteem. They were children of wealth and privilege with attitudes she had struggled to control since her arrival. Yesterday, their attitudes had threatened to harm another student. It was a scenario that played out in schoolyards across the globe and through the decades. They had taunted a slight, studious boy on the playground. She bit back the scathing words she wanted to say. Bullying aside, they were still only children. But for a second she saw another classroom a world away, and another child and a small girl pummeling another.

      Leave my sister alone!

      The skinny, carrot-haired girl stuck in her mind, running through reel after reel. The knobby knees, the brilliant hair, the circle of taunting children. And always she stood screaming those words, running intervention as she grabbed and punched and pulled hair, freeing her sister from the circle of tormentors—over and over again.

      Her gaze went to the thin boy in the front of the class. He wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was fumbling through his backpack, which was emblazoned with a variety of action figures.

      “Before we begin today’s lesson, who would like to volunteer to go tell Mr. Daniel that the air conditioner isn’t working?”

      “They’ve

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