LITMIR.BIZ

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you see me pull up outside, like we agreed.”

      “His cheeseburger’s ready.” Joey sounded as defensive as only a nine-year-old could. “The waitress told the busboy to take out the garbage and see if he was really using the phone or if he’d taken off.”

      “Joey, listen to me.” The last thing he needed was another innocent bystander blundering on to the scene, Connor thought. “Tess isn’t your friend. She’s working with the person who killed Bill, one of the agents guarding you at the safe house, and who nearly killed Paula, the lady agent who was watching over you that night. My guess is she wants to take you to her partner, and when she does, he’s going to kill you.”

      “Rick double-crossed you guys?” Joey’s eyes widened. He met Connor’s swift frown and shrugged. “You said Bill was killed and Paula was hurt. I figured since you never said anything about Rick he prob’ly was the one who sold the Agency out.”

      “Joey, stay out of this. Where’s your car parked, Agent?” Tess—the name she’d given to Joey probably wasn’t her real one, Connor thought, but it would do for now—bit off the question. “I want you to hand over your weapon real carefully, and then you’re going to take us to your vehicle. Mine barely made it off the highway before it died, so we need a ride out of here. Let’s start with the gun.”

      It was his own fault, Connor told himself, carefully pulling aside his jacket with one hand to reveal his shoulder-holstered automatic and even more carefully withdrawing the weapon. He’d let himself be lulled into complacency by windblown hair and exhausted golden-brown eyes, and he’d paid for that mistake by being bushwhacked. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d allowed himself to let down his guard so easily.

      Or could he? A stray memory from his past—his distant past, he thought wryly—drifted into his mind as he deposited his gun into her outstretched palm. A run-in with the law when he hadn’t been much older than Joey had resulted in him being given the choice of juvenile detention or a year-long stay at what was essentially a boot camp for wayward teens. Run by disabled ex-Marine Del Hawkins, the Double B Ranch had taken in an angry sixteen-year-old street fighter and twelve months later had released a tough and capable young man back into the world.

      Del and the Double B had turned his life around. So when the ex-Marine had called on him for his help with a problem the ranch had been facing a month ago, he’d been grateful for the chance to repay even a small part of the debt he owed the man. That time spent on the ranch as a young, reckless teen had taught him a lifetime of lessons.

      Don’t let that hammer-headed Appaloosa gelding fool you, boys. Some days Chorizo looks as harmless as a little lamb. But he’s as tricky as the devil, and the first time you forget that might be your last.

      Del’s drawled warning had been directed at four know-it-all hell-raisers. California golden-boy Tye Adams, banished to the Double B by his wealthy father after nearly killing himself on a stolen motorcycle, had been the first to take on Chorizo. Watching him stumble back behind the safety of the corral bars, bruised and bleeding, the next kid up, Jess Crawford, simply shook his head.

      “I’m just a computer geek sent here for hacking into school records,” Jess countered. “I never said I was the macho type, and I don’t intend to start now. You shouldn’t, either, Virgil.”

      Connor had always suspected it had been Jess’s use of his hated first name that had prompted him to get onto Chorizo’s back, but whatever the reason, seconds later he’d found himself landing on hard-packed dirt, the wind knocked out of him. Even while he’d been trying to drag some much-needed oxygen into his burning lungs he’d seen the gelding’s razor-sharp hooves come down inches from his head. Only the swift intervention of Gabe Riggs, another of the boys, who’d ducked between the corral’s bars and dragged him to safety, had frustrated the Appaloosa’s intentions of making mincemeat out of him.

      His run-in with the hammer-headed gelding should have taught him a lesson, Connor thought now.

      Tess wasn’t much taller than Joey, and even when he’d seen her sitting in the diner he’d known his own solid six-three frame had to top hers by a good twelve inches or so. But her petiteness wasn’t the main reason he’d underestimated the woman now gesturing impatiently at him with his own gun.

      Crazy she might be. Vulnerable she wasn’t. He wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.

      “My car’s over there,” he said tonelessly. “But I’m asking you one last time to give yourself up.”

      “I can’t do that, Agent.” Was he fooling himself again, or was there regret in those husky tones? “I can’t hand Joey back over to the Agency, and that’s final. Now, move.”

      She’d just sealed her own fate, Connor thought. Prompted by the gun at his back, he headed across the parking lot to his car. He might wish this had turned out otherwise, but there was no reason to feel such desolation at her decision.

      He wondered briefly why he did. Then he dismissed the question, knowing he couldn’t afford the distraction.

      Sometime tonight those amber eyes would close forever, Agent Virgil Connor told himself bleakly. And he was probably going to be the one who would have to kill her.

      Chapter Two

      She’d kidnapped a federal agent, Tess Smith thought hollowly a few hours later. He was right—this wasn’t one of the fantastic stories that ran under her byline in the National Eye-Opener. Even if she’d wanted to pretend otherwise, a glance across the motel room at the grim-faced man sitting on a chair and secured by his own handcuffs to the steel bracket bolting down the television set was chilling proof of her actions.

      In the bed a few feet away Joey had finally fallen asleep, his tough little face free of all worry for the moment. Beside him was a bobble-head doll from the diner, bought with the change from the money she’d left him to pay for their meal when she’d slipped from their booth to follow the Fed.

      She hadn’t had the heart to scold him over his unauthorized purchase. The monsters in his young life were all too real. She could understand why a plastic one might bring comfort.

      The same need to believe that monsters weren’t invincible was obviously why Joey was one of the Eye-Opener’s biggest fans. One of her biggest fans, rather, Tess corrected herself. Guilt flickered through her, as it had done more than once in the past two days. She didn’t know why she hadn’t told Joey the truth, since it was something he was going to find out sooner or later, anyway. But maybe it was better that he learn it himself, the way she’d had to.

      Oh, not that monsters don’t exist, Joey, she silently assured the small sleeping figure in the rumpled bed. They do. They’re really real and I really went up against one, just like in those stories I write. Except I didn’t defeat it.

      “It defeated me,” she said under her breath, her vision suddenly blurring. “I was your age, and the monster won. No one believed me, either.”

      “How do you know? I might if you took the trouble to explain, lady.”

      Startled, Tess jerked her attention to the handcuffed man across the room. She’d allowed him to remove his suit jacket before making him manacle his right wrist to the steel bracket, and even as she looked at him she saw the biceps of his secured arm flex. He gave her a thin smile.

      “You want to give it a try?”

      “Give what a try?”

      She didn’t trust him, she thought edgily. She didn’t trust him and she didn’t like him—or, at least, she didn’t like what he represented, and that was close enough. He hadn’t spoken at all during the drive to this run-down motel, but she’d had the unsettling conviction that he’d been watching every move she’d made, hoping her attention would flag for just one second.

      “Try telling me why you’re doing this.” He shrugged. “You seem to think no one would believe you, but you haven’t given me a chance to hear you out. In fact, you haven’t even told me

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