sagged against the small white tiles of the counter and let the receiver drop from her hands. She couldn’t make the call, couldn’t take the risk.
The contact came thirty-three minutes later. She was staring at the phone, waiting for it to ring, but the noise resonated from the foyer. A knock. At the door.
She stood there a minute, stunned, before her training kicked in and she calmly dragged a chair to the cabinet and removed a lock box from the top shelf. Inside, the trusty Derringer awaited her. By rote, blindly, she retrieved the clip from a second box and slid it into place, all the while the knocking continued. Louder. Harder.
Sliding the gun into the waistband at the small of her back, she walked to the front door and pulled it open.
Nothing prepared her. Nothing could have. He stood against a wash of late-afternoon sun, the play of shadows and light stealing the details of his face, but not the force of his presence.
Danielle saw what the shadows stole. She saw the aura of danger, the hard, dark eyes, the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the square jaw. And she knew. Instinct urged her to draw the gun, cram it against his jugular and curl her finger around the trigger, while demanding he lead her to her son. But something else, sanity—caution—prompted her to stand very still, with the air-conditioning slapping her back and the hot summer sun blasting her face, not moving other than a slight tilt to her chin.
“You’re awfully bold, aren’t you?” she asked.
The big, tall man who wore confidence like body armor blinked. “Excuse me?”
Her fingers itched for the cool steel of the Derringer she’d received in honor of her sixteenth birthday. “It’s daylight,” she pointed out, glancing beyond his wide shoulders to the quiet suburban street, where Jonah Johnson raced by on his dirt bike. “Someone might see you.”
His lips, ridiculously full and soft for such a grim, hard man, twitched. “And would that be such a bad thing?”
“Not for me,” she said with a cold smile. “You’re the one taking the risk.”
“I see.” Slowly, very slowly, never taking his eyes from hers, he slid a hand into his pocket.
Danielle’s breath slowed to the slide of his fingers. Adrenaline ebbed, flowed, guided her own hand behind her back, to the waistband of her tailored black skirt. She’d stood face-to-face with monsters before. Talked with them. Pretended. Played their game.
“It’s a good thing I like risks, then, isn’t it?” His question was casual, as unexpected as the dimple that flashed with his smile. He stepped closer, lowered his voice. “I have to say, though, this is hardly the greeting I expected.”
“No?” Her fingers curled around the cool metal. “Did you expect to find me quivering in the dark? On my knees? In a puddle waiting to be mopped up and pushed aside?” If so, the man was sadly mistaken. Danielle had learned at an obscenely early age that the best defense was a strong offense. If she let this man see the stark fear slicing her to thin painful ribbons, gave him one clue how hard it was to stand there and face him, to keep her voice calm, then his power over her would grow.
“Look,” he said, “I’m afraid—”
“You should be.” Slowly, calmly, she pulled the gun and pointed it at his chest. “Very, very afraid.”
The man went still. She saw his eyes flare in surprise, then narrow in confusion. His mouth thinned to a flat line. His body, straining against the dark-gray of his wrinkled button-down and black jeans, froze.
“Doesn’t feel very good, does it?” she asked, enjoying the brief upper hand. Pray God she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life. “Now get inside and tell me what the hell is going on.”
In another lifetime Liam might have laughed. In another lifetime he might have quickly and efficiently knocked the gun from her shaking hands, jammed her arm up behind her back and shoved her against the faded siding of her little house. In another lifetime he might have felt a flicker of fear or compassion or…or something.
But he felt nothing now, only the cold certainty that, once again, his informant had been right.
She was the one.
He saw it in the stark fear in her eyes, a fear she tried hard not to show behind the defiance and bravado, but which glimmered bright like the fire of highly polished opals. He saw it in the red rim around her eyes, the tracks of the tears down her pale face, a face that had been lively and vibrant only hours before, when he’d watched her at the hotel. He saw it in the mouth he was quite sure she didn’t realize trembled.
A trickle of admiration leaked through, but he quickly stanched the flow. He was not here to admire this woman, no matter how appealing she’d looked earlier in the day, all snug and tidy in her chic little crimson jacket and tight-fitting black skirt. He’d watched her for the better part of an hour, observing her mannerisms, her movements, watching the way she artfully arranged the roses and lilies, learning all that he could before making his move.
A man in his line of work could never be too prepared, and this woman did not fit the profile. She worked an average job and lived in an average house. She had no visible ties to anyone in the spotlight. According to the assistant manager, she didn’t even date.
But she didn’t hesitate to pull again, when she felt threatened.
Slowly, he lifted his hands. “Whoa,” he said in a low, soothing voice, one that was rusty and scraped his throat on the way out. How long since he’d last soothed someone? How long since he’d last cared?
Not cared, he amended. He didn’t care about her, only about the hunt.
“Do you have a permit for that?” Liam asked.
“You really think a permit matters?”
“Yeah,” he said slowly, confidently. “I do.”
She angled her chin, jabbed the gun closer. “You don’t need a permit where you’re going.”
No, he didn’t. That much was true. But he didn’t need a bullet hole through his heart, either. He looked at her standing there and wondered if she had any idea how provocative she looked, a tall, beautiful woman with streaks of dark hair slipping from her barrette and falling against her tear-streaked face, her pale lips trembling, a damn fine gun in her shaking hands. Her body screamed fear, but her eyes glittered with a fierce determination he recognized too well.
Deep in his gut, the truth sunk like a deadweight. “Jesus, I’m too late.”
She blinked. It was the first chink in her armor. But then she rallied, narrowed her eyes. “That depends upon what you have in mind.”
The words were tough, gutsy, but they hid a pain he didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to know about. He was too late. Again.
Frustration lashed at him. He’d left New York the second he’d received the scribbled note, used all his resources to find her. But just as he’d been for the past three years, he was one step behind.
The senator lying cold and dead in a New York morgue bore silent testimony to that.
“Look, Danielle.” It was his voice that wanted to shake now, his hands that wanted to tremble, his past that wanted to leak through. “You don’t need to be afraid,” he said, and for a change, he didn’t strip away the emotion. He changed it. Glossed over the hard edges, sanded down the splinters. “I’m here to help.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I suppose that’s why you were asking questions about me this afternoon at work? Watching me? Because you want to help?”
“That’s right.” Slowly, he released the edge of the black wallet he’d been holding in his hand, allowing one side to fall open and reveal the tarnished badge. “Special Agent Liam Brooks,” he said very slowly, very deliberately. “FBI.” He paused, watched the shock, the disbelief, the horror, wash over her face. “Now lower