LITMIR.BIZ

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Sonoma?

      He scrubbed his face with one hand as he guided his beat-up pickup truck down the country road. He was exhausted—the nightmares had been especially bad last night. His tiredness was probably making him paranoid. As a skip tracer, tracking down people who didn’t want to be found or helping people disappear, he had his share of enemies, but he’d been monitoring the cars behind him and hadn’t noticed any obvious tail.

      Moments later, the Mercedes turned off onto a side road. Clearly he needed more sleep. He was starting to imagine things.

      It had been almost eighteen months since a medical discharge had sent him home from Afghanistan. His shoulder now only had crisscrossing pink scars, but the nightmares and occasional hallucinations hadn’t faded as quickly.

      His cell phone rang, and he hit the button on his Bluetooth headset to answer it. “Liam.”

      “It’s Shaun.”

      “Hey, how’s Dad?” Liam’s brother had taken their father to the hospital that morning.

      “Tired. He’s home now. But the doctor says he’s doing fine. Only a couple more chemo treatments to go. He should be feeling well enough for Christmas in a few weeks.”

      Liam couldn’t share Shaun’s optimism. Dad’s diagnosis of leukemia a few months ago had rocked him as violently as the mine that had injured his shoulder. The worst part was, cancer wasn’t an enemy he could shoot at. He couldn’t defend his father the way he defended his unit.

      So he did the only thing he could—he tried to burden his family as little as possible while this was going on.

      Shaun said, “Monica asked me to call you. Instead of seeing Dad this afternoon, my lovely wife wants to know if you can come tomorrow.”

      Liam’s shoulders tensed. “Is he okay?”

      “Yeah. Monica just wants him to nap.”

      “No problem.”

      Liam’s GPS unit on his dashboard began telling him to turn. “Gotta go,” he said to Shaun.

      “See you later.” His brother hung up just as Liam turned into a long driveway that wound up to a large, rambling farmhouse. The only indications that it was a battered women’s shelter were the three security cameras.

      He walked up the steps to the front porch and peeked into the window to see what looked like a security room with video monitors, computers and two husky men watching Liam’s approach.

      There was a security intercom and he pressed the button. “I’m Liam O’Neill, here to see Elisabeth Aday.”

      “I don’t have you on the visitor’s list for today, sir,” a guard replied.

      “I don’t have an appointment. I need to ask Ms. Aday a few questions about one of her clients. I don’t even need to come inside, if she wants to meet me out here on the porch.”

      There were heavy footsteps, then the dead bolt drew back and the door opened to reveal a man with a weathered face and jet-black hair. His wary eyes pierced through Liam, but he stepped back to let Liam enter.

      He stepped into a short entry hall with a door on either side, one to the security room and another to what looked like a small conference room. The entry hall ended with a stout-looking door, obviously made with reinforced steel. Liam guessed that was the door into the shelter itself.

      The security guard said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to search you, sir.”

      Liam submitted readily. He had a permit to carry a concealed weapon, but he’d left his gun locked in his truck. When he had given Liam a pat down and a thorough sweep with a metal-detector wand, the security guard gestured to the conference room. “I’ll call Ms. Aday to let her know you’re here.”

      Liam scanned the small room, sparsely decorated with only a large table and chairs surrounding it, and a smaller table in the corner with paper cups and napkins. This must be a place where the women in the shelter could meet with outsiders—close to the security guards and separated from the rest of the house.

      Within minutes, he heard the heavy reinforced door open and then close before light footsteps approached. Liam had been expecting the young woman who entered, but he hadn’t expected the gut-punch reaction to how beautiful she was.

      She wasn’t model gorgeous, but there was something about the dark hazel eyes that spoke of courage, pain and compassion. Her skin seemed to glow like gold in the morning sunlight, and her dark straight hair, pulled back into a ponytail, glinted with reddish strands. But her mouth was serious, almost frowning as she looked at him. She studied him for a moment before closing the door and turning to face him.

      Her self-composure and the way she waited for him to speak first was what Liam would have expected of a private investigator of her caliber. He found himself wanting to make her trust him as quickly as possible.

      “I’m Liam O’Neill.”

      She nodded but didn’t answer.

      “I wanted to ask you a few questions about one of your clients.”

      “I don’t speak to anyone about my clients,” she said crisply. Her voice was low, husky.

      Liam opened his mouth to reply, but he was interrupted by a loud knocking at the front door. They both turned toward the noise, but at the rumbling sound of the security guard’s voice, speaking to whoever was outside, Elisabeth turned back to Liam.

      “I’m a skip tracer,” Liam told her. “A woman named Patricia hired me to find her sister, Joslyn, who disappeared a few weeks ago from San Francisco.”

      Elisabeth hadn’t moved a muscle, but Liam could tell that she had tensed and was trying not to show it.

      “Patricia said that Joslyn might be escaping her abusive boyfriend and using a different name,” Liam continued. “I found out that a woman named Joslyn came here and that you helped her.”

      “How do you know it’s the same Joslyn?”

      “I’ve been tracking a woman who matches Joslyn Bautista’s description.” He held up his phone with a photo that Patricia had given to him. “I just want to find out if she’s safe. Her sister is worried.”

      Elisabeth’s mouth tightened. Then she said in a strangled voice, “Joslyn doesn’t have a sister.”

      Liam’s breath caught in his throat.

      At that moment, they could hear a man’s voice speaking loudly through the intercom. “I told you, I’m with Liam O’Neill. I know he’s here already.” The voice had a faint Filipino accent.

      Liam reacted instinctively. He moved toward the conference room door and tried to reach for his concealed gun before remembering he’d left it in the truck. “Get under the table,” he ordered Elisabeth before he yanked open the door.

      The security guard replied to the man through the intercom, “Sir, Mr. O’Neill is in a conference with Ms. Aday. I’ll have to ask him first before I let you inside.” The guard turned his head and caught sight of Liam.

      “He’s not with me,” Liam said urgently. “Don’t let him—”

      There was the deafening blast of a shotgun as the wooden front door exploded into splinters. Liam leaped backward and fell against Elisabeth, who had come up behind him.

      The man’s voice shouted, “You send Joslyn out here now or we’ll blow this place apart!”

      * * *

      Elisabeth stumbled backward into the conference room, landing hard against a chair, as Liam backed into her. The sound of the gunshot still rang in her ears.

      She shoved away from Liam. “What did you do? Who are you?”

      But Liam’s entire body had tensed. There was a haunted look in his dark blue eyes, and though he stared at the open doorway, he

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