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“I’ve been shot, and there’s nothing anyone can do for me now. I’m not going to make it.”
She could staunch the flow, adding to his efforts, but he’d already lost so much blood. Now she understood better his deathly appearance...except for one thing.
“Why, Dad? Why did someone shoot you?”
“Someone put a contract out on me. Probably because of a past operation. And that’s why I’m here. To warn you. You have to get out, Hadley. You have to hide.”
“Me? What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re my family. They have targeted you for elimination, too.”
“But...why?”
“I don’t have all the answers. My best guess? Revenge. I’ve done terrible things, Hadley, but sometimes the ends justifies the means, or at least I used to believe. But nothing is worth you getting hurt.” He pointed to a backpack on the table. “That’s for you.”
Hadley pulled away from him and glanced at the pack, then back at her father. She was losing him.
God, help him. Help me!
“I don’t care about the backpack, Dad. Let’s get you out of here and somewhere safe—like the hospital.”
Her mind was going in traitorous circles. She couldn’t think clearly or straight. She was going into shock, herself. All Hadley knew was she must do something to save her father. She eyed her cell on the counter and started for it but he held her in place with a death grip, his expression painfully desperate.
“Listen,” he hissed.
She didn’t recognize her father. Who was this man?
“Pay attention. Your life depends on it. The pack contains everything you’ll need to disappear. Cash and a passport. A new identity. Don’t use credit cards. Too easy to track. Grab your weapon. Take it with you...” Coughs spasmed from him, preventing him from saying more.
“What? I can’t leave now! What about the gallery? Friday is my national debut.” But as she said the words, she realized how shallow they sounded with what she was facing—her father’s death. And the chance that his killer might come after her next.
“I know it’s hard to take in all at once. I wanted to protect you. To keep you safe, but my world is...my world’s colliding with yours. Lose your identity. Disappear. Hide and...”
Now her childhood was all making so much more sense. The Krav Maga weekends. The firing ranges. Oh. My...
Her father’s head tilted forward. Hadley wanted to hug him, to keep him with her. “Daddy! Please, don’t leave me. I love you.”
His eyes were closed. Was he gone? Had she lost him? His lids fluttered, then he opened them again. “Leave now before he finds you and kills you. Trust no one. In the backpack—”
His eyes shut again and his head lobbed forward. Hadley sensed that he was gone. That her father no longer resided in this body. The thought overwhelmed her. She couldn’t comprehend it all.
Gone.
Just like that.
He’s gone.
Hadley dropped to her knees, pressed her face into her father’s jacket and sobbed. “No, Daddy, no!”
His words echoed through her mind. Leave now before he finds you and kills you.
Was this real? Was any of this real? Hadley wiped her eyes and nose and tore herself away. She stood to her feet and grabbed her cell from the counter, then called 911. No matter what he said, she was calling the police. If she could even believe someone was after her, why couldn’t the police help? Or the CIA, the people he worked for? The reason he was dead and she was in this predicament.
“What is your emergency?” the dispatcher answered.
“My father, he’s been shot. He’s...he’s dead. And he says someone is trying to kill me, too.”
The dispatcher asked for pertinent information that Hadley gave her. Afterward, she hung up and stared at her father’s body, still in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. She paced the apartment, everything he’d just told her swirling through her mind in a vortex of confusion. Bile rose in her throat, moisture dampened her palms. She glanced at the backpack.
Leave now.
Trust no one.
Hadley snatched the bag and unzipped it. Shock rippled through her. Cash. There was so much cash. She’d never seen that much money in her life. Where had he gotten it? She glanced at him, then averted her gaze. She didn’t want to think about her father as he was now in the chair. She didn’t want that to be the prevailing memory of him. She tugged out the passport and saw her alias.
Megan Spears from Iowa?
Sirens rang out in the distance.
Panic cranked tighter around her throat. What would the police think when they found her with a bag of cash and a fake passport? Found her father dead? She glanced at her hands and her blouse. She was covered in his blood!
What do I do? What do I do?
Her entire life had just been ripped from under her. Her father’s, too. She’d lost her father and possibly her identity. Add to that, if the police would suspect her of his murder first and if they found this bag of cash and a fake passport, they would have a lot of questions for her. She would have no answers. Would they even believe her?
Think. You have to think.
She had to hide the bag. But where?
Teresa’s apartment.
Her friend wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.
But if Hadley hid it and the police found it, then what would she say? She shook off the thought, refusing to let doubts freeze her into inaction.
She was running out of time and didn’t have many choices.
Hadley snatched the bag and ran across the hallway. She unlocked the door, urged Butterfinger out of the way, and stashed the backpack at the top of the coat closet behind some boxes.
Oh, Daddy...
He could have gone to the hospital instead of coming to her apartment. If he had, he might have lived since the shot hadn’t instantly killed him. He might have survived! But he chose to come here and warn her instead of getting treatment. He’d sacrificed his life to give her everything she would need to survive.
Hadley was the reason he was dead.
Just like she was the reason her mother had died.
But she couldn’t think about that now. She had to focus on her father’s purpose for coming here—to warn her. She had to think about his instructions.
Why didn’t she leave, as he’d said? She knew she should, but she couldn’t bring herself to give up everything she’d worked for and just walk away.
She glanced through the peephole just as a man in a suit, wielding a weapon, burst through the door of her apartment. Her heart jumped up her throat. Hadley gasped for breath and pressed her back against the door.
He was not a police officer. Who was he? The man who killed her father? And now wanted to kill her?
She peered through the peephole again, fear and adrenaline rushing through her veins. She could see very little through the hole, but the man exited her apartment and closed the door. Holding a cell to his ear, he mumbled curses and other words she couldn’t understand.
But she caught the last thing before he disappeared from view.
“...retaliation, payback. I have to clean up loose ends.”
The words gripped her throat and squeezed. Hadley couldn’t breathe.
Her father had been right. She couldn’t trust anyone. Quickly Hadley went through Teresa’s closet to find old clothes she could wear. She and Teresa were about the same size, and no way would she go back into her own apartment. After donning an old blue jean jacket over a fresh T-shirt and tugging a cap over her strawberry-blond hair, she crammed the bloody clothes she’d worn into a plastic garbage sack and then into the receptacle. Hadley didn’t have time to properly dispose of the clothes. She wasn’t even sure how.
After changing, she grabbed the backpack from the closet and climbed through the window and down the fire escape, grateful for old buildings.
In the alley, she had to hurry before the police arrived and cordoned off the space. The sirens grew louder. At the corner she caught a cab and asked the driver to take her to the airport. As it drove away from the curb, two police cruisers pulled up to the building.
An ambulance, too.
Took them long enough.
She sank into the seat of the cab, but she risked one more backward glance. The man who’d broken into her apartment spoke with the police. Hadley stared out the passenger window thinking about her father’s instructions.
Trust no one.
Who was the man who’d come to her apartment? Was he acting alone, or were there other people after her? How could she protect herself if she didn’t even know who she was up against? There had to be someone who could help her but her father hadn’t given her names.
Whenever she was dealing with a problem, her first instinct was always to call her father. Not that she expected him to fix everything for her—she just always felt better about things when she’d gotten his calm perspective and useful advice. Her heart clenched at the thought that she’d never be able to call him again. Tears spilled over her cheeks again. All these years, working as a struggling artist, and finally her work would debut on the national scene in a few days and what did any of it matter? Her father wouldn’t be there at the opening reception.
If she didn’t clear things up before the reception, neither would she be there. At the moment, she didn’t even care.
She sniffled and turned her attention to the cabdriver who eyed her through the mirror. The windshield cracked and spidered at the same instant the driver’s head jerked back, blood splattering the seat.
Tires screech and the cab accelerated, swerving precariously back and forth on the road. Everything happened too fast. Hadley’s mind couldn’t wrap around what was happening. The driver had been shot in the head. No one controlled the vehicle now.
She screamed and gripped the seat.
God help me!
Horns honked and metal crunched as vehicles crashed and twisted together.
The cab flipped two times and finally came to a crunching stop against a concrete divider.
Hadley groaned. It hurt to move, to breathe. She dragged in oxygen.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head, wanting to wake up from the worst dream of her life.
Leave now before he finds you and kills you.
He might have found her, but Hadley had to do what her father had instructed her to do and disappear. Lose the killer again before he killed her. Or her father’s warning and his death would be for nothing.
But it was too late for the cabdriver.
He was gone. Hadley knew it.
Oh, God, help me. He has already killed someone else because of me.
Body aching and mind in shock, she grabbed the backpack and rolled out of her seat onto the concrete, hiding behind the cab as she carefully avoided the glass and twisted metal littering the road. Her pulse roared in her ears.
The cabdriver...dead... She could be next. And if she didn’t get away from the people gathering to help, anyone near her could be killed.
Because of her.
Based on the trajectory of the bullet that killed the cabdriver, she figured the killer had shot from building on the southeast corner. Hadley used the wrecked cab as cover, she crawled over and into a narrow alley littered with garbage and smelling the same, then stood and ran the length of it until she came to another building. Hadley slipped around the corner. Leaning against the brick wall, she caught her breath as she listened. She dusted off the broken glass that clung to her clothes and tried to look normal so she could melt into the crowd. Not draw any attention.
Ignoring the pain and grief, she ran a few blocks and slipped down yet another alley and caught another cab.
“Take me to the airport.” She didn’t know where she would go, but she had to get out of town and fast.
Maybe she would simply ask for the next flight out.
Her father was dead. A cabdriver was dead because someone had put out a contract to kill her father, and now her.
Forget her national debut.
Forget her life. Her only focus should be on how to survive. Her father had given her the tools he believed she would need. A passport for one, but she couldn’t imagine going overseas without a plan. She didn’t know enough about international travel.
The spy world wasn’t her world.
Until today, she’d had no idea it had been her father’s.
Maybe she could hide in a city somewhere. Get lost in the crowd, except she would be terrified of every single person who stood within an inch of her.
Her father might have made sure she could protect herself. But she couldn’t protect herself against an unseen villain. Until she identified the man who would come to kill her...
Everyone was an assassin.
Southwest Oregon
4:00 p.m. Saturday
Cooper Wilde checked his footing on the rock that hung hundreds of feet above the Rogue River, then raised his binoculars. As he breathed in the scent of the old-growth forest and took in the vivid evergreens and rocky canyon, the tension in his neck drained away.
He loved it here.
A scream echoed from somewhere to his west. Cooper’s gut tensed.
