Kentucky Confidential. Пола Грейвс

briefcase up to the table, unfastened the buckle and pulled a tablet computer from inside. He swiped his finger across the screen, then tapped a couple of times before he handed the tablet to her.

      She looked down and saw a photo of a Free Kaziristan rally that several people in the community had held a couple of weeks earlier. She hadn’t attended the rally herself, not wanting to put herself in the spotlight of refugee politics in any way, but the rally had taken place on the street in front of the restaurant. She’d had to pass through the throngs to get to work.

      She looked lifeless in the photo. Was that how she always looked?

      “I kept telling myself it couldn’t be you.” Connor’s voice rumbled low and soft, like thunder in the distance. “You wouldn’t have let me think you were dead. But there you were.”

      “Connor—”

      A loud trio of raps on the door cut her short, the sound sending a hard jolt of alarm down her spine.

      “Go to the bedroom,” Connor said softly, already on his feet. He pulled a large Ruger pistol from his bag and tucked it in his waistband behind his back, letting his jacket drop to cover it.

      Risa hurried down the hallway into the bedroom, her heart fluttering with fear. If someone from the community had seen her come into this apartment with Connor, everything she’d spent the past few months trying to set up would be destroyed.

      And she and Connor would be in the worst danger of their lives.

      * * *

      CONNOR LOOKED THROUGH the security lens and saw a familiar face staring back at him. He turned the dead bolt and disengaged the security chain, then opened the door to a bearded man wearing a high-collared shirt and plain khaki pants. His visitor’s hazel gaze swept the room quickly.

      “Where is she?” he asked.

      “Nice seeing you, too, Quinn.”

      Alexander Quinn didn’t wait for an invitation, entering and nodding for Connor to close the door behind him. As Connor reengaged the locks, Quinn crossed to both of the street-facing windows and shut the blinds.

      “Heller says it’s her. So I tried her apartment. She wasn’t home. Then I tried her workplace, and she wasn’t there, either.”

      “I told you I’d handle things my own way.” Connor heard the tight annoyance in his own voice but couldn’t seem to care. “So why are you here, anyway?”

      “Because Martin Dalrymple has been murdered.”