LITMIR.BIZ

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But he didn’t just order it. This time he snared her gaze, and there was trouble in his eyes. Trouble that dared her to defy him.

      Mattie stayed put. Besides, it was possible that whoever was in that van would want to shoot her on sight. She didn’t want to die, and she didn’t want bullets coming anywhere near the children.

      Much to her surprise, the driver of the van didn’t slam on the accelerator and speed away. She watched as the person inside rolled down the window. Bo approached, his gun aimed and ready. The two uniformed officers who got out of the cruiser had their weapons trained on the van, as well.

      When the window was completely lowered, she spotted the man inside. Scraggly salt-and-pepper hair. Long, thin face.

      He was a stranger.

      That didn’t mean he wasn’t a gun hired by someone who didn’t qualify as a stranger. It wouldn’t be the first time a gunman had been paid to come after her.

      “Is everything okay?” she heard someone ask.

      She looked over her shoulder and spotted Rosalie. The sixty-something-year-old nanny with the sugar-white hair was in the doorway of one of the rooms down the corridor. She had the little boy in her arms, his legs straddled around her thin hip.

      Mattie’s heart lurched, and she waited. Breath held. Hoping to see the other child. And then hoping that she didn’t. Not at this moment with the van out there.

      “The police are here,” Mattie relayed. “Bo should be back soon.”

      Rosalie nodded and disappeared into the room, where she’d hopefully be safe with the children if bullets started flying.

      Mattie forced her attention back on the van. The driver was smiling. His demeanor was almost apologetic. He even laughed about something one of the officers said. Bo didn’t share the laugh, but he did lower his weapon, and then he said something to the uniformed officers before turning to walk toward the house.

      Mattie opened the door for him but stood to the side so that neither the officers nor the van driver could see her.

      “The guy says he’s interested in buying the house across the street,” Bo announced. “That seems to be the lie of the day, huh?”

      “You think he’s lying?”

      “Maybe. But even if he’s not, those are fake plates on his vehicle. He’ll need to explain that to the officers.” He re-holstered his gun. “And speaking of explaining, let me check on Rosalie, and then I can call someone to stay with her while I take you down to headquarters.”

      “No.” She grabbed his arm to stop him from heading to the nursery. “If you take me there, you’ll be signing my death warrant.”

      He couldn’t have possibly managed a more skeptical look. “I’m a cop, not a killer.”

      “There are others, though, who would love to pull the trigger.” Mattie wished she’d rehearsed this or at least figured out the best way to approach what she had to say. Of course, maybe there was no best way.

      He shook off her grip and turned, practically trapping her against the wall. “Did you have something to do with the men who took the hostages at the hospital?”

      “No. I told you that I was one of the hostages.”

      “Madeline Cooper,” he said as a challenge.

      “Mattie,” she offered, though she knew this wasn’t going to turn into a friendly visit.

      “Mattie,” he repeated. “Your name wasn’t on the list of patients who were in the ward during the hostage standoff.”

      “Because I left before the police arrived.”

      “Yeah. I know.” His eyes narrowed. “And why would you do something like that?”

      Mattie answered his question with one of her own. “Can I trust you?”

      “As much as I can trust you,” he warned, his eyes narrowing even more.

      If she’d had a choice, she would have backed off then and there. But she didn’t have a choice. “I was in the Witness Protection Program.”

      He hesitated only a heartbeat. “I want your case number so I can verify it.”

      “The number doesn’t mean anything anymore. There was some kind of leak, and someone found out my new identity and location. Right before the hostage situation, that someone tried to kill me. I escaped and went to the hospital. The trauma must have triggered my labor. When I checked in, I used a fake name, obviously, and I said I didn’t have my insurance card with me.”

      “You think the ski-mask-wearing SOBs were really after you?”

      She shook her head. “No. At least I don’t think so.” From what she’d read about the case in the past thirteen months, the gunmen had been there to break into the lab and tamper with some DNA evidence. Nothing related to her.

      “I couldn’t just let the cops find me there at the hospital that day,” she explained. “My former boss believes I’m dead, and if they’d learned differently—”

      “Who’s your former boss?”

      She decided to tell him the truth, because maybe this would help her cause. “Kendall Collier.”

      Those cop’s eyes darkened. He obviously recognized the name. “You’re not Madeline Cooper. You’re Mattie Collier. And two years ago you testified against Kendall Collier.”

      “Yes.” Her boss, her uncle. And also someone who’d gotten involved with an illegal arms dealer and gotten off scot-free because of a technicality. “I have reason to believe that Kendall, or someone else, will kill me if anyone learns I’m alive. That’s why I left the hospital.”

      He made a sound deep within his chest to indicate he was thinking about what she’d said. Processing it. She could see the moment that the question came to him. It didn’t take long.

      “On the video, you didn’t have a baby with you. You were alone. What happened to your child? ”

      Mattie considered several ways she could go about this, but those ways all led to the same inevitable end. It was an end that Bo Duggan was not going to like.

      She pointed to the picture on the wall. “My daughter is here with you. You’ve been raising her. But I’ve waited long enough, and I want her back.”

       Chapter Three

      Bo hadn’t thought there could be too many more surprises today, but he was wrong. He was also obviously dealing with a liar or someone in need of medication.

      But Mattie Collier seemed to be lucid.

      Well, except for that part about him having her child. There wasn’t a chance that was true. No lucid woman would be saying that.

      “Nadine had twins,” he spelled out for her. “A boy and a girl.”

      Mattie shook her head. “No. Nadine had a son that I helped deliver. I had a daughter. And when I realized that I had to get out of that hospital or be killed, I knew I couldn’t risk taking my child with me.”

      “So you put your newborn baby in the arms of my unconscious wife?” Bo didn’t even try to take the sarcasm and skepticism out of his voice.

      “She wasn’t unconscious when I left. Tired and sleepy, yes. But conscious. We talked.” Mattie huffed and pushed her hair away from her face. “Nadine agreed—she was to tell you about what I was doing. But only you. And then I told her when it was safe, I’d come for the baby.”

      Bo couldn’t even let himself fathom that this might be true. It wasn’t. Jacob and Holly were his. They were his life. And he’d already ascertained that Mattie Collier was a liar. The trouble was, he couldn’t quite figure out why she’d come up with this particular

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