sure you know them—Robert and Selena Mission? They work here.”
The guard pulled his cap down over his eyes, the furry earflaps doing little to keep him warm. In the distance, Alexis’s headlights shone on a fifteen-foot-high barbed wire fence, a low office building barely visible in the empty stretch of loneliness before her. Piñon trees with low twisted branches added their shadows to the scene. She stared at the facility in amazement. When had think tanks become equipped with security like this? The other places where her parents had worked had looked like college campuses.
The guard leaned down. “We’re closed. No one’s working here tonight.”
“But do you know them? Have you seen them?”
He shook his head, his gloved fingers going to his jacket and pulling it closer. “I don’t know anyone who works here. I man the gate when everyone else is off. I’m sorry I can’t help you, but I have my instructions. You’ll have to move along.”
Alexis rolled up her window. There was nothing she could do but turn around and head back into town, her fear and frustration growing. She drove slower than before, the roads slicker and more dangerous than they’d been earlier, a thin layer of ice covering the highway. By the time she reached the house, she was a nervous wreck, her stomach in knots, her hands cramping against the steering wheel. She turned the corner, praying she’d see lights, but the house was as dark as she had left it. A wash of unbelievable disappointment came over her. Where in the world had they gone?
She angled the car carefully into the driveway and shut off the engine, sleet now pinging against the metal roof in an uneasy rhythm. She didn’t know what to do other than try the police department again. She should have filed a report earlier, but she hadn’t wanted to seem foolish. Looking silly was the last thing she cared about now.
She gathered her purse, then opened the car door and dashed to the front porch in the freezing night. Fumbling with the keys she’d grabbed on the way out, she found the right one, unlocked the dead bolt and walked quickly into the entry.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, the shadows inside seemed thicker than they had before, closer somehow, pressing down against her and making it tough to breathe. She wanted to call out but she knew no one would answer, so she didn’t bother. Her fingers found the light switch a second later and she flipped it up. But nothing happened. Her mouth went dry as she tried once more. The darkness remained, indeed, seemed to increase.
She took a step into the living room then stopped abruptly.
A man dressed completely in black sat in her father’s chair. Alexis stared at him in shock, a sense of dread coming over her with such intensity, she felt her entire body go hot, her blood turning to needles as it coursed through her veins. In the space of a heartbeat she was more scared than she’d ever been in her life. She couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything but stare at the stranger. An aura of foreboding hung above him like a hangman’s noose.
He looked at her through the gloom and spoke in a low voice. “You’re Alexis.”
Wishing she could answer another way, she nodded slowly.
“I’m Gabriel O’Rourke. I’m here to explain.”
CHAPTER TWO
FROZEN IN PLACE, Alexis Mission stared at him, her eyes filling with fright. She was, he realized, trying to decide if she should scream, run or sit down and listen.
While she made up her mind, he took his own measure of her.
She wasn’t at all what he’d expected.
The obstinacy and intelligence the Missions had told him about shone in the girl’s eyes but they had said nothing about her appearance. She was beautiful…or was she? The shining brunette hair hung around a face with features that didn’t mesh. The eyes were too big, the nose too straight. Her lips were too full as well. Taken one at a time, each component was attractive but she needed to age, he realized, for everything to fit.
Because she was young. Oh, God, she was so young…
Without any warning, she darted toward the phone. He jumped up but she punched two numbers before he could stop her, his fingers around her wrist, his face inches from hers.
She held on to the receiver and looked at him defiantly. Her attitude made him think of her mother. Selena had never let fear stop her, either.
“Take your hands off me and let go of the telephone,” the girl said with determination.
He didn’t answer—or release her.
They were standing close in the darkness, the skin beneath his fingers warm and smooth, her wrist bones fragile in his grip. He could have snapped them without any effort.
“What do you want?” she whispered. “Who are you?”
“I work for the government.” He rattled off an acronym, but he knew it meant nothing to her. Robert and Selena wouldn’t have told their daughter about him because that would have meant telling her about themselves. And they would never have done that.
Taking the phone away from her, he put it back in the cradle and dropped her arm. But he didn’t step away.
She rubbed her wrist. “I want to see some ID.”
“We don’t have time for a dog and pony show. I have to get you out of here.”
“Get me out of here… What on earth are you talking about?” She started shaking her head. “I’m not going anywhere with you—”
He reached inside the pocket of his jacket, pulled out a leather wallet and flipped it open, handing it to her. She studied the card and the authentic-looking seal, comparing the photo to his face. The documentation meant nothing, but he carried it for people like her, people who kept their wits about them when he showed up. The Agency he worked for didn’t hand out IDs or have a fancy office. It didn’t even exist—at least not in a way that meant anything to others.
Looking unconvinced, she returned the credentials. “Where’s my family? What have you done to them?”
The lie tasted bad and he cursed himself for what he was about to do. The girl’s future held nothing but trouble, thanks to him. Along with confusion and anger. Grief and loneliness. He told himself again he didn’t have a choice, but that knowledge didn’t make the task any easier.
Plan your work and work your plan… His da would of been proud of him, he thought bitterly. Never give up, never say die. The old man had been full of useless clichés and he’d drilled every one of them into his sons—usually with a hard fist for punctuation—thinking they’d bring them the success that had always eluded him. His theory hadn’t worked.
The girl made a sound of distress, breaking his thoughts.
“Relax,” he said. “I haven’t done anything to them and I’m not going to do anything to you, either. If I’d wanted to, I would have done it by now.”
She moved back a step, away from him as much as possible, her eyes wary, her body still poised to flee. “Where are they?”
“There’s been a problem.”
Her expression shifted. “Are they okay? What’s happened? Where are—”
He interrupted her. “Your father saw something he shouldn’t have this morning. He saw someone get killed. And the murderer saw your father…”
“A murder… Oh my God!” She lifted her fingers to her neck. At the base of her throat, a slim gold chain glistened. His eyes went to the tiny heart it held. All at once, in spite of her bravado, she seemed too vulnerable to Gabriel, too defenseless to handle what was coming next. “But Dad’s okay, right? My family’s—”
Before she could finish her sentence, she halfway turned to the door, then stopped in confusion and looked at him again, her eyes filled with worry. Cold had seeped into the house since