LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      SUZANNE MCMINN

      Suzanne McMinn is an award-winning author of two dozen novels, including contemporary paranormal romance, romantic suspense and contemporary romantic comedy as well as a medieval trilogy. She lives on a farm in the mountains of West Virginia, where she is plotting her next book and enjoying the simple life with her family, friends and many, many cats. Check out her upcoming books and blog at www.suzannemcminn.com.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 1

      Step down from the bench in seventy-two hours or the little girl dies.

      U.S. Marshal Gideon Brand ran his hands over the rough stubble of his face. It had already been twelve hours since a federal judge’s six-year-old granddaughter had been discovered missing. She’d disappeared on Gideon’s watch.

      The threatening message had arrived in the judge’s inbox an hour later, time stamped 7:21 a.m. Eastern Standard, and all the forces of federal law enforcement were hard at work attempting to unscramble its path. They would fail. The nascent technology of the heavily encrypted e-mail bypassed central servers and would automatically erase itself in a matter of hours—destroying along with it all evidence of its origin. It was as close to foolproof as had ever been seen.

      “You’re supposed to be out of here already.”

      Gideon pivoted in his seat to find the head of the West Virginia judicial security division watching him with expressionless eyes honed from his military special ops background. A look that caused Gideon to believe, far too often, that he was still in special ops.

      “Go home,” Darren Tucker said. “Some rest will do you a world of good.”

      “I’m not tired.”

      “This isn’t your case anymore. I know that’s hard to accept, but that’s the way it is.”

      Tucker was now assuming direct supervision of the operation.

      Gideon was tempted to tell him where he could stick his case, and his pseudosympathy. Molly was more than a case. She was a human being and he had come to care for her more than he’d ever expected. Maybe she reminded him too much of what he’d lost, but this wasn’t about him. It was about Molly.

      Unleashing his anger on Tucker for his insensitivity and authoritarianism would do nothing to save her life. But the statement Judge Alcee Reinhold was in the process of preparing likely wouldn’t save her either. Kidnappers rarely returned their victims, and the judge had a recent history of deadly intimidations against him that was believed to include the bombing of a small plane and the death of a federal agent.

      “Go home,” Tucker repeated.

      “Seventy-two hours,” Gideon said harshly as he stood. His chest hurt and his hands fisted at his sides.

      Go home? Do nothing?

      On any given day, he was responsible for investigating, analyzing and assessing threats and other inappropriate communications to sitting judges, as well as supervising protective detail, round the clock if necessary. He had a record of apprehensions and successful cases longer than his arm and he was being dismissed like a child who needed a nap.

      Did they actually think he could just go home and suck his thumb while Molly’s life hung in the balance?

      “And there are only sixty of them left,” Gideon added pointedly.

      Darren Tucker knew when to keep his mouth shut. There were no platitudes to ease the awful fact that a man who may have killed a planeload of thirty-four innocent people in one fell swoop wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter one more.

      “We’re doing everything we can,” Gideon said, speaking the platitude for the commander. He heard the emotion he’d sworn to control come out in his voice. “Except not.”

      Bitterness stung deeply. He didn’t agree with the media blackout on information regarding Molly’s kidnapping.

      “Go home and go to bed,” Tucker said flatly. “You have five minutes, then I’ll have you escorted from the building.”

      The commander left the room. Tough love, that’s what he’d said to Gideon when he told him he was dismissed from the case. More than dismissed from the case. Sent on forced leave. He’d taken the case too personally, become too emotionally involved. According to Tucker, this made him a danger to himself, other agents, even to Molly. He didn’t agree, but he didn’t get to choose.

      Gideon left the building with nothing. The truth was he had no personal belongings at the office.

      And the same was true of his apartment, he thought wryly as he parked his car and got out. His apartment was cold, with an overhanging sense of emptiness despite being marginally furnished. He looked at a photo of a smiling, bubble-blowing five-year-old Lizzie on the mantel over the fireplace where he’d never burned a log. Frozen in time, weeks before his

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