LITMIR.BIZ

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for now, they were.

      Angela was a small woman; unlike the massive handguns that the men carried, she preferred a Glock 43 - 9mm. Though she’d been an agent for seven years, she’d never fired her gun in the field. She was terrified that those days were at an end. She also knew that in the trunk of this rental car were several long guns in their hard shell cases, as well as a bag containing items she didn’t even want to think about. On the private jet, they had been able to transport quite an arsenal.

      Angela knew that the next time the car stopped, she could put a bullet in both of the men’s brains before either could turn his head halfway back to look at her. But what good would that do? The call that Saldata had promised her had to be made at regular intervals would not be, and she would be signing a death warrant. She might live, but her family would not. Saldata’s threat was not a bluff.

      Considering her options, she looked at the stack of papers and folders next to her on the back seat, and wearily she picked up the top folder, wanting to review her notes again about Bowenville, Montana and the home where they all assumed Lori would be staying with her sister and brother-in-law. She’d reviewed the information about the town while on the plane, and she had to say it didn’t look good. Although the town was isolated and rural, the actual house was in a very standard neighborhood. No forest cover to hide behind, and the town small enough that a car parked randomly on a street for hours was sure to be noticed. Parking on the street and waiting for Dovner to show her face was not a very smart option. Unfortunately, she didn’t see what other choices they had.

      Flipping through the stack, she saw Lori Dovner’s face staring out at her on one page, then another and another. They had many photos of her; she’d been photographed extensively through the years at many parties, as well as featured in local magazines that covered local food and lifestyle stories, but the one in the stack Angela paused on was Dovner’s simple driver’s license photo, provided to Saldata by Rossi who of course had access to her DMV files. Most license pictures were horrible, but Dovner’s was actually quite good, clear, her attractive face staring directly at the camera. In most of her photos, her red blond hair flowed loose around her face, but in her license photo it was tied back in a ponytail, almost hidden, and, her eyes…

      Angela paused. Dovner’s eyes. They were so familiar. Those eyes in a face with no hair…

      Before she could stop or control her reaction in any way, she gasped loudly enough for the men in the front seat to hear her. Raoul Saldata turned sharply and looked at Angela. “What?”

      Angela realized in a heartbeat that she had made a terrible mistake, but it was too late to try to cover it. Saldata would know she was lying and if he even suspected she was not being completely truthful with him, they’d stop the car and Garth would start cutting her fingers off until she talked. And talk she would. Everyone did eventually, so in the millisecond after she realized her mistake, she also realized that there was no point in trying to hide anything.

      “I saw her.” She raised her face and looked him confidently in the eye. “She was there.” Hopefully her utterly calm demeanor would fool him far more than any attempt at prevarication would.

      It seemed to. “Who?”

      Tentatively, her hand shaking, she held up the printout of Dovner’s license photo. “Dovner. She was there at the rest stop. I saw her in the ladies room. She looks totally different. Her hair is very short and black and I would never have realized it except she took her sunglasses off.”

      Her stomach churned with nausea, but she prayed nothing showed in her face. Her plan - that if she could just find and warn Dovner somehow - had been handed to her. Dovner had been there, in front of her, in the one place Saldata was not watching her, and she’d not seen it.

      “Go back,” Saldata hissed to Garth. “Now.”

      Garth, behind the wheel, stepped on the gas, accelerating to nearly a hundred miles an hour, before de-accelerating almost as sharply to near zero. With wheels squealing, they turned into a “Authorized Vehicles Only” crossover in the interstate’s median. The eastbound lanes were clear, Garth jerked the wheel to enter the road and…

      …the car slowed, then rolled to a silent stop.

      And in one instant, the world changed forever.

      Part II

One Week Earlier

      Chapter 4

      Lori

      Monday

      8AM Eastern Time

      Miami Florida

      How was it, Lori Dovner asked herself, that the most popular, trendy, sought-after young caterer in Miami, Florida couldn’t manage to get breakfast on the table for a six year old and a nine year old? How was that even possible?

      She’d served sitting senators and congressmen, the CEOs of some of the biggest corporations in America, one ex-president and the Dalai Lama, but she couldn’t seem to make a frozen waffle that a six year old would eat.

      “Brandon, you liked these last week.”

      Brandon shoved the pieces of cut waffle around on his plate. “No I didn’t.”

      “Pretty sure you did.”

      “He only likes the Mickey Mouse ones,” Grace offered helpfully. Thanks Grace, Lori muttered to herself.

      Brandon started to cry. Big fat tears ran down his chubby cheeks. Lori knew the real problem, and it wasn’t waffles: on a fundamental level, Brandon hated school. He’d been deliriously happy in the pre-K day care he’d attended four mornings a week for two years, but this year, in full day Kindergarten, he’d been miserable from day one. Nearly two months into the school year it was getting worse by the day.

      Lori had tried more than once to talk to him, to figure out what was causing this change in her formerly cheerful little boy. Was someone being mean to him? Did the teacher yell? Was the work too hard? Not hard enough? Was he bored? Overstimulated? Just last Thursday, when he’d tried to plead a stomachache for the third day in a row, she’d gone in and talked to the teacher, Joy Brinkley. Ms. Brinkley, who seemed as nice and sweet as could be, had professed herself equally confused. But when she described Brandon as “quiet and withdrawn,” Lori knew it was worse than she thought.

      Last weekend, Lori had had an event Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night, leaving her no time to puzzle over the problem. But this coming week was much slower - only a dinner party for eight on Saturday night - and she was going to give Brandon’s unhappiness her top priority.

      However, right this second, she did not need this, not on a Monday morning, when she hadn’t gotten in until after eleven p.m. and - she took a quick look at her phone calendar app - she had a vet appointment with Sasha at nine and then two home visits scheduled. “Brandon, it’s a waffle. You don’t have to cry about it.”

      Simone, Lori’s French au pair, breezed into the room. “He likes the big breakfast at McDonald’s.” She shrugged, typically French. “I have time to take him before school.”

      “I appreciate the suggestion, but no.” Frozen waffles were bad enough, but the idea that she’d send her six year old off to fast-food as a better alternative was horrifying. “Brandon, what if I made you…?”

      Lori froze. As she’d been bustling around the kitchen getting the food out for Brandon and Grace, she’d been simultaneously organizing her own day. Suddenly she realized she didn’t see her catch-all hobo bag. She looked at Simone. “Have you seen my bag?” Even as she said it though, she knew the question was absurd. Simone had been asleep when Lori came in last night, and this was the first time the au pair had been downstairs.

      “No.”

      Her laptop computer, her wallet with her license and all her credit cards, everything was in that catch-all. “Oh crap.” Lori slumped.

      She

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