LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      Luke Renfro never forgot a face. The blessing and the curse of this peculiar talent defined his days and haunted his nights. The faces of people he knew well and those he had merely passed on the street crowded his mind.

      He sorted through this portrait gallery of strangers and friends as he studied the people who hurried past him on a warm, sunny morning on Denver’s 16th Street Mall, searching for anyone familiar, while at the very back of his mind whispered the question that plagued him most: What if he’d overlooked the one person he most needed to find?

      He shoved aside that familiar anxiety and reviewed the details of his assignment today: young Caucasian male, probably early to midtwenties, slight, athletic build, five-eight or five-nine. He’d been clean shaven in the surveillance photos Scotland Yard had forwarded from London, his brown hair cropped very short. But even if he’d grown out his beard or dyed his hair, Luke would recognize him. It was what he did. It was why the FBI had recruited him and others like him, copying an idea implemented by the Brits—to assemble a group of “super-recognizers” to look for known criminals and stop crime before it happened.

      Also on the list of people he hoped to spot was a fortysomething man with a swarthy complexion and iron-gray curls, and a stocky Asian man with a shaved head and a scar beside one eye. If he spotted any of these people, he was to bring them into headquarters for questioning.

      He crossed the street and strolled past a row of restaurants starting to fill up with the early lunch crowd. A strong breeze made the banners strung overhead pop and snap. Welcome, Racers! declared one. Colorado Cycling Challenge! proclaimed another. The man Luke was searching for wouldn’t miss the race, though Luke hoped to find him before he ever had a chance to attend.

      A flash of honey-blond hair in his peripheral vision sent a jolt of recognition through him, a physical shock, like finding something important he hadn’t even realized he’d lost. He whirled around in time to see the woman step onto one of the shuttle buses that ran up and down the length of the pedestrian mall. Heart pounding, he took off down the sidewalk after the bus, ignoring the annoyed looks from the hipster couple he jostled in his haste.

      He hadn’t expected to see her here today, though logically he shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d been in some of those Scotland Yard videos also, and the image of her heart-shaped face framed by a stylish short haircut, her wide hazel eyes staring into the camera from beneath a fringe of honey-colored bangs, had stayed with him, standing out from the sea of anonymous faces filed away in his memory.

      She stepped off the shuttle four blocks down, in front of a chain drugstore, the breeze blowing her swept-aside bangs into her eyes. She stopped and brushed the stray locks off her face, allowing him time to take in her skinny jeans, athletic shoes, pale green tank top, and a scarf of mingled blue and green knotted at her throat. Then she started walking again, long, confident strides covering ground quickly. Staying back half a block, he followed her as she headed to a boutique hotel and entered the lobby. Luke hurried to catch up, weaving his way through a family unloading luggage at the front door and two men consulting a street map just inside the entrance.

      Soft classical music filled the lobby, which was decorated in Victorian red velvet and gold brocade. Luke scanned the crowd of tourists

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