Classified Baby. Jessica Andersen

Olivia, and Robert’s estranged son, Kyle, working high up in the company, the ties between the conglomerate and Robert—who’d been presumed dead at the time—had seemed too strong for coincidence.

      Still, it hadn’t really been Ethan’s problem. He worked for PPS because Evangeline had recruited him and the lifestyle was a good fit, but he was more of an independent contractor than part of the team. He’d stayed on the edges of the investigation, moving even further into the background when veteran PPS agent John Pinto and rookie Lily Clark brought Robert back from Cuerva Island, where he’d been hiding out and investigating his own death.

      Robert returned with solid evidence that his ex-mentor and former business partner, Clive Fuentes, had tried to kill him because he’d gotten too close to one of the lucrative but highly illegal schemes Clive was running under the legitimate business operations at PPS. Robert’s investigation had also uncovered a link between Clive and the shell company used to broker the TCM oil-rights-leasing scheme that had led to the murders being investigated at PPS. Clive, however, had disappeared, leaving them unsure of whether he was involved in the attacks, or whether he’d been killed along with a half-dozen of the original oil-rights investors and Lenny, a PPS computer tech.

      Lenny’s death had hit close to home, but even then Ethan had held himself apart, thinking it wasn’t his fight. Rationally, he knew it still wasn’t his fight, except that Nicole had been coming to see him when she’d gotten caught up in the danger. That made him responsible.

      The child she carried made him doubly responsible, whether he liked it or not.

      “Thanks,” Detective Riske said, warning him that he’d missed most of Nicole’s report. “I think we have what we need.” She saved her notes on her handheld and stood. “We’ll be in touch to schedule you with our sketch artist, and I’ll match your description to some head shots we’ve got on file. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

      Judging from her tone, she wasn’t holding out too much hope on that, which Ethan had to second. So far, the PPS investigators hadn’t gotten any lucky breaks on this investigation. Each time it seemed like they were starting to make headway, things took a turn for the worse.

      Detectives Riske and Montenegro exited, talking in the clipped shorthand of longtime partners. That left Ethan, Robert and Evangeline, along with the question of how to keep Nicole safe when every last PPS operative was needed in the field.

      “We have a safe house,” Robert said, his thoughts clearly paralleling Ethan’s. “You can take Miss Benedict there for a few days. Maybe she’ll remember something we can use.”

      “Call me Nicole, please,” Nicole said from the hospital bed. With deep purple shadows beneath her eyes and the faint smudge of a bruise on one cheek, she looked too lovely, too vulnerable to be caught up in something as ugly as the TCM mess.

      Ethan was tempted to agree to the plan, tempted to hide her away in the safe house and stand guard. But that was emotion talking, not logic.

      “You need me on the investigation, not holed up in the safe house,” he said flatly. He turned to Evangeline. “Take Nicole to the Vault with you. That way she’s safe, and you can run things underground while Robert and I—”

      “Don’t even finish that statement,” Evangeline interrupted, eyes blazing. “And don’t think for one second that I’m staying in the Vault while you big, strong men fix everything. Two years ago, Clive Fuentes took the man I loved. I didn’t go after him then because I didn’t know who was behind it, since somebody—” her eyes flicked to Robert “—wanted to protect me by keeping me in the dark like some idiot child. But not this time. Not ever again. I’m going to be on the front lines of this one, and you two can go to hell.”