LITMIR.BIZ

       FOUR

      Back in her room, Jonna grabbed Chop Suey to snuggle beneath her comforter. The beast of a cat squirmed out of the covers and found a spot on the bed—his choice. When she’d first gotten him as a kitten, he’d jumped into her plate of Chop Suey, hence the name.

      “It always has to be your idea, doesn’t it?” She tucked the comforter under her chin. “Suit yourself.”

      For the first time she could remember, Jonna wished for a storm to end. The unceasing cacophony of crashing waves only stirred up the images from today like a reel-by-reel play. Vivid cinematography played across her mind.

      A man pointed a gun at her, intending to kill her.

      Add to that, that scenario had happened twice in her life. She wanted to know who that man was on the beach today.

      She tossed and turned for what felt like hours. She even kept the cat awake. Eventually, Chop Suey jumped off the bed and found somewhere else to sleep. When Jonna woke up, it surprised her that she’d finally fallen asleep, but something had woken her.

      What was it?

      She remained still and listened.

      It was quieter outside now.

      The wailing gusts had moved on to torment another innkeeper up the coast. Another storm would replace it within the next few hours. Still, even now, sporadic gusts buffeted the cabin. The door creaked.

      Probably nothing. Chop Suey didn’t stir.

      If she had known she would have to worry about the past, she might have gotten a dog. As it was, if she tried that now then Chop Suey would probably chase away any canine Jonna brought home.

      Jonna grabbed her trusty Sig. She crept to the door and peeked through the peephole. She had a front entrance that didn’t connect to the lodge to give her more privacy in case she ever went on, say, a date. Right. Through the hole, she saw nothing but darkness. She switched on the porch light. No one suspicious lurked near the door. She flipped the light back off.

      Another creak.

      This had to be the logs of the cabin shifting, but Jonna would take no chances after today.

       Scritch, scritch, scritch.

      The window this time. She rolled her shoulders and approached the window that faced the ocean. Now she wished she had closed the mini blinds and curtains.

      Standing against the wall, she peered out and gasped, nearly screaming. She stepped back and pressed herself against the wall. She’d seen a shadow, the silhouette of a man. Hadn’t she? Heart palpitating, she lifted her weapon and peered out again.

      A tree branch morphed into the shape she thought she saw, then scratched the window. She was becoming entirely too paranoid. She couldn’t function if she couldn’t get any sleep.

      In the meantime, she shut the mini blinds and tugged the curtains closed. Set the Sig aside and rubbed her arms. Pulling on a hoodie, she sat at her desk. It was much too late to call her old boss Gil, and besides, she dreaded that call with everything in her. But she had to find out if there had been more chatter.

      What specifically had the chatter been when her name had come up? So she opened up her laptop, found his old email address—the one she hadn’t used in three years—and typed up her question.

      But she didn’t send it.

      This couldn’t be about Florida. The guy thought he’d killed her—just a cop snooping around in a warehouse. She hadn’t been targeted specifically.

      Or had she?

      She didn’t know anything that would make her, personally, a target. There was no reason for anyone to think about her, much less say her name.

      Jonna folded her arms on the desk and pressed her head into them. She was lying to herself. She tried to forget what she knew, which was very little. She suspected that not everyone involved in the human-trafficking ring had been taken down.

      The mayor had wanted the case closed quickly. So the powers that be had conducted the raids and arrested the people involved. But not everyone had been caught in the net. Jonna had suspected someone higher up had been pulling the strings and had managed to avoid capture.

      She was looking into that when someone had shot her and left her for dead.

      Why would someone want to target her again? If they did, that would only bring attention to the earlier attempt to murder her and the motive behind it. No, this simply couldn’t be about Miami. She willed it to be so. Another lie. When had her will had anything to do with it? Jonna sent the email to Gil. She could trust him to be honest with her. He’d been good to her. Let her slip into obscurity quietly, the way she wanted.

      If she learned one thing from today—it was that she was out of practice. At least she’d been jogging every day, but she was getting rusty to let that man pacing her get the upper hand.

      She probably needed to hit the shooting range again, a place she’d avoided for much too long. She’d been foolish to think she could just walk away, start a new life. But it had been so very tempting, and Jonna hadn’t wanted to work in law enforcement anymore. She wanted to live a

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