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A block away, she could see the convoy of flashing lights outside the bank. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll take your statement at the office.”
She shook her head as panic ran through her. “I can’t remember his face or what happened. I’m sorry. I—” Her voice broke off. “I bumped into him earlier and I saw his face unmasked.”
“Unmasked?” the deputy repeated.
“Yes.” She nodded. “But now it’s just too much. Would it be all right to do this tomorrow? Everything is a blur.”
“No. We’d like to interview you when it’s fresh.”
But an hour later in the sheriff’s office, the deputy looked at her in frustration. She was blanking out on every question. She couldn’t help it. Only once before had she ever been this shaken and not even then. She’d been too young.
“I’m sorry, I’m just...” She paused, not sure what she was. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Traumatized,” he finished for her. “The morning will have to do.” He looked at his watch. “Let’s say eight o’clock. I’ll bring a sketch artist to your house and we’ll do a complete interview then.”
After that, he drove her home. It all seemed anticlimactic, yet more than a little frightening. Was she safe here? Was she safe anywhere? Her world had blown apart. She wrapped an afghan around herself and collapsed on her couch. She was a wreck. The fact that her usually organized mind couldn’t connect the dots of what had just happened terrified her.
An hour later, she was terrified all over again. She’d calmed down, realized that she was safe exactly as the deputy had said. And then she’d double-checked the contents of her purse and discovered that her artists’ guild card with her picture, name and address was gone.
She’d had it when she’d left home. She’d intended to go to a local art gallery and discuss some of her latest works with them. For that, she needed the card. She usually had it in her wallet but today she’d been in a rush, known she’d be pulling it out shortly and had slipped the card into her purse and not into the wallet. Had it fallen out? Had the man who knocked her to the ground also picked up her artists’ guild card? There’d been nothing on the sidewalk when she left. She’d double-checked. She could think of no other reason for its absence. Fear ran through her as she thought of the information he’d glean from the card.
She thought of calling the sheriff’s office and asking for protection. But she knew what happened to people who witnessed a crime. And the law could only do so much. Now that the men who had robbed the bank knew who she was and where she lived, she wasn’t safe. She couldn’t wait for someone else to give lip service to the fact that they might help her.
Witnesses died. That was a fact. She’d lived her whole life knowing that terrible outcome. She couldn’t wait. She couldn’t depend on anyone else to protect her. She needed to get away until things cooled down.
Within an hour, she had a flight booked and was packing her things for the drive to Denver International Airport.
“I’ll be back, and I’ll give my testimony,” she promised grimly as she locked the door of her house. And, she vowed as she gripped the wheel of her small pickup truck, not only would she live, but she’d make sure the jerk and his gang were put behind bars for the rest of their lives.
“YOU SCREWED THIS UP, you fix it!” snarled the man who liked to be called Evan. “Damn it, Luc, she saw you!”
Lucas Cruz held back the urge to slam his fist into Evan’s taunting mouth. Evan had been the last to join the gang and even before this, he had been the proverbial thorn in Lucas’s side. But there was no getting around it. Evan had seen the entire incident and he’d put the dots together. Because of that, he not only had to resolve a major screwup but he was being judged by the very men he’d led for the last few years.
“Not a problem,” he snarled. “I’ll fix it. Now, get out of my face before I—”
“Yeah, I’ll get out of your face,” Evan bristled. “When—”
“Shut the hell up,” Rico broke in with a look of disdain at them both. “Lucas knows what has to be done. And we all know that the last thing we need is the cops on our tail. We’re good now. But she opens her trap and it’s all done.” He glared at Lucas despite his words of support only seconds earlier. “I hope you have a plan.”
“I’ll deal with her. Meantime, carry on as planned,” Lucas said with steel in his voice. He’d had enough. One more challenge from Rico and he’d take him out. That was what he’d thought only yesterday but now everything had changed and Rico knew it. “Get out of state. Go to Albuquerque and I’ll meet you there. At the usual place. I know it’s not ideal—”
“Hell,” Rico snarled. “We could be caught because of your stupidity. She knows what you look like.”
He was on Rico, his hands around his throat threatening to choke the life out of him. Someone had him from behind and pulled him off.
“It’s over, Lucas, you don’t call the shots on this one,” Rico said with a knife’s edge to his voice. “Take Chen.” He gave the young man a shove.
Lucas had to fight to cool the anger that ran hot and blistering through his veins. He had to fight not to kill Rico here and now. But those feelings would only get in the way of what he needed to do. Rico was right about one thing: he’d screwed up royally. It was him the witness had seen—no one else. This was the first time there’d been a witness who had seen one of their faces. His face.
He couldn’t believe he’d screwed up so royally. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking, or more accurately, not thinking. He’d thought nothing of it when he’d bumped into her on the street. She was a passerby, nothing more. She didn’t know who he was or what he’d done or what he planned to do. Instead of on her, his mind had been on the heist.
The last place he had expected her to go was the same bank he was in the process of robbing. She’d been on the wrong side of the street for that. So was he, but that was part of how he entered any bank, from the opposite side. That upped the chances that anyone who might see him wouldn’t connect him with the bank. He was also superstitious. He considered an approach from the opposite side to be lucky.
Their encounter had been an inconvenience—that was it. They’d bumped into each other and gone their separate ways. And now, she had to die for what she’d seen.
He grimaced. Bad luck had tailed him since the beginning of this robbery. To have the woman who’d gotten a clear view of him enter the bank in the midst of the robbery was the height of bad luck, or so he’d thought. But it got worse. The interruption allowed one of the tellers to set off the alarm. There’d been no time to do anything but get the hell out.
As a result, they’d run down a back alley, jumping into the nondescript SUV that had brought them there. By the time they were in motion, the sirens were shrill. The call had been too close, and it had all been downhill from there. They’d gotten away with a few thousand dollars, and only one step ahead of law enforcement. That was way too narrow of a getaway and too little of a take. The whole thing had been a fiasco from beginning to end.
She had no idea who he was, but she knew what he looked like. The authorities would soon have his face on file. Everything had looked grim until he’d remembered the card he’d picked up when her belongings had scattered on the sidewalk. He wasn’t sure why he had done it—it might have been instinct. What it turned out was to be a bit of good luck. He had the witness’s identity and her address. He’d had to wait until dark and even beyond that. It was around eleven, late enough that if the neighborhood wasn’t asleep, it had mostly settled in for the night.
“Slow,” he hissed in Spanish to the driver of the vehicle as they took the turn into the crescent where she lived.
“Here,” he said a minute later. “Stop.” They were half a block from her house.
He paused on the sidewalk. The few streetlights left the street shadowy and the houses in darkness. Despite that, he knew what the area was—he’d learned that immediately after finding her identity. It consisted of a middle-class group of mixed ethnicities, he thought with disdain. Some day he would buy and sell an area like this. Small cozy houses and neatly kept lawns as if the residents had nothing better to do than to monitor grass.
His hand dropped to his gun. It was there and ready. He hated being in this position. The only good thing was that they’d waited until dark. Most people had settled down for the night. No one would get a good look at them and if they did, they’d see Chen. Lucas was sending him in first.
He felt good about none of this. The only thing that was going to make him feel better was a bullet between the witness’s pretty brown eyes. With that thought leading the way, he followed Chen. They’d go in through the back door. The alarm-warning sticker on her door meant nothing. The cheap door frame cracked when Chen shouldered it the first time and broke after the second. Nothing worried Lucas, not even the lights that he flicked recklessly on. They were masked and, as far as the alarm, by the time any monitoring agency reacted, they would be long gone.
But within minutes he knew one thing—she wasn’t there. There was no vehicle in the driveway and the toiletries in her bathroom—the essentials anyway, like toothpaste and toothbrush—were missing.
He spewed a string of curses in Spanish. He always resorted to his native tongue when his emotions got the best of him. Time was running short. He sent his accomplice to check the living area while he moved to the kitchen. There, he saw his first sign of hope, a notepad on her kitchen counter. He went over and couldn’t believe his luck. She’d written down flight information and it told him exactly what he needed to know. Two minutes later they’d left her neighborhood behind. Ten minutes after that, he was on the phone to his brother.
He explained the situation to him. “Are you in?” he asked and knew what the answer would be. His brother would do anything for money. That was why he was involved in one of the smaller Mexican drug cartels. He was counting on Yago’s ties and his greed. He needed someone on her tail immediately. He needed someone in charge of catching her in Mexico and that someone was his brother, Yago.
“She won’t get far. I know people who know people, if you know what I mean.”
He did. He knew how the cartels worked and how they could find anyone. Or at least the bigger ones could. He had his doubts about the men his brother was linked with. They were brutal, but he wasn’t too sure about their intel. What he did know was that right now, his brother and his connections were all he had. One way or another, she’d be found. He rolled the beads he always carried between the fingers of his right hand. They were lucky beads stolen from the hand of a dying woman.
He dropped the beads into his pocket. He hoped she’d savor her freedom, or for that matter, her life. Soon, all that would end.
Chapter Two (#u388377d3-3ca0-5b18-b6f8-a1aeabbd1628)
“What do you mean, you’ve lost her?” United States Marshal Trent Nielsen couldn’t contain his frustration. Despite the fact that there’d been some interesting and complicated cases in his career that spanned a decade, this case was different. He knew the witness. It mattered like no case had mattered before. And he’d admit that to no one, not even to Jackson, a man he called friend. Going in, he’d been anxious to keep her safe—now it appeared she was far from that.
“Damn it, I should have been notified sooner.” His impatience wasn’t so much for the obvious reasons but something far more personal. Something that had had him volunteering for this assignment.
“Or what, this wouldn’t have happened?” asked Jackson Vidal, federal agent. “No one could have predicted this.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or is it something else that has your back up?”
“Having witness protection in place would have stopped her. You know it. This one’s on you,” Trent said. He took a breath. Anger couldn’t change any of what had happened. He needed info and he needed to get on the road after her. What was done couldn’t be undone.
Jackson leaned forward, his look dark, his eyebrows drawn together. “She disappeared before we could get her properly interviewed. At the time of the incident, she was in a state of panic and could remember little. If I’d been asked, I wouldn’t have disagreed with the course of action. In hindsight, you’re right, it was a screwup.”
“More than a screwup. We have a witness who actually saw one of the thieves’ faces unmasked.” Trent shook his head. “What’s the body count now for this gang?”
“Ten,” Jackson said grimly. “Across two states and over as many months as there are bodies. But initially, the witness couldn’t remember squat, she was so scared. That was the reason we put off getting her report until this morning. But when the deputy arrived with the sketch artist, the house had been broken into. Further investigation determined that she’d been gone before the break-in. She literally packed her bag and fled.” He eyed Trent. “But you, you’ve got an inside scoop on the witness.”
“Do I?” Trent asked but he knew exactly what Jackson meant. Still, he didn’t want to reveal his true connection to Tara. He wanted Jackson to know as little as possible. The fact that they’d once been a couple might have him punted from the case as quickly as a slight connection had given him his in. His slight connection to the witness—they’d gone to the same high school. It was enough to give him an edge and be considered advantageous. Any more, and it might be considered trouble. Clearly, the fact that he’d once dated her had not come to light, for if it had, he would never have been assigned the case. And if it came to light, it would be considered detrimental and he could be pulled from the case. He hoped that never happened.
“You can’t put much past me, Nielsen.”
Trent met his dark gaze with one of his own. He wasn’t sure how much Jackson knew.
“You went to high school together in Pueblo. At least for a year. And I’m guessing that’s why you volunteered. You don’t do much witness protection anymore. I was under the impression you dodged it when you could. So why this case over any other?” Jackson frowned and looked closely at Trent. “Is it all because you know her?”
“Partly,” Trent agreed. It was true, he knew Tara or at least he’d known her as a girl. One thing was certain, he’d never forgotten her.
“Is she a friend?” Jackson asked.
“No,” Trent said, knowing that kind of relationship could have him pulled from the case. But they weren’t friends. They hadn’t been in touch for years. “It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate me,” Jackson said.
“I took her out a few times and then it fizzled,” he admitted, knowing it was safer to reveal a scaled-down version of their relationship rather than try to get it all past Jackson.
“But you dated her?”
“Like I said, a few dates in high school.” Tara. She’d caught his eye from the beginning. She’d been more mature for her years, at least to his seventeen-year-old self, she’d seemed so. Now he had nothing left but memories. Regrets that never left him.
He needed this assignment. He needed to find her and keep her safe like he hadn’t all those years ago.
He met Jackson’s doubting gaze. He hoped the truth didn’t show in his face. That it had been more than a few dates, that he’d never forgotten her. Not that he held a torch for her; it was nothing like that. He’d gone on with his life, dated other women and was currently solidly single and happy.
But Jackson wouldn’t believe that Trent’s volunteering for this assignment didn’t mean something else. Jackson was cynical that way, which might be why he was still a bachelor. He didn’t understand that you could care for someone without being in a relationship.
Trent pushed the thoughts from his mind. None of that mattered. What mattered was Tara and keeping her safe.
While they hadn’t spoken in the years since she left Pueblo, he knew where she’d been and much of what had happened to her. He knew that she’d returned to Pueblo after taking classes toward a general arts degree with a minor in admin from a state university. He knew, too, that she’d never finished that degree. He knew a lot more than he wanted to admit.
“Unfortunately, none of that is relevant. Due to the fact that she’s on the run, we need a change in protocol. What we need,” Jackson said, staring Trent down, “is someone who can get inside her head. Fortunately, she didn’t cover her tracks well. We were able to learn where she was headed from the note left by her phone. She took a flight from Denver to Mexico City.” He looked at his smartwatch. “She should have landed over six hours ago.”
“I don’t like the sound of any of this. Old-school as a bank robbery is, these people have proved to be vicious. They’ve left a trail of bodies across two states in the last year. And there’s nothing to say they weren’t the ones who broke in looking for her.”
“Exactly. And they’re still on the loose. As far as Tara goes, we’re finalizing the setup of a safe house,” Jackson said. “I will send you the details once it’s complete. Unfortunately, we have no witness to put there.”
“I’ll rectify that,” Trent said with determination. But fear rode in his gut. She was alone and in Mexico with a killer who could be hot on her trail. And if he wasn’t, there could be contacts, people deployed—unknowns. He was in a race to find Tara.
“Let’s get you on a flight out. Your history may make it easier to establish trust with her,” Jackson said. “That is, once you locate her.”
“I’ll find her,” Trent said as if to reinforce the confidence Jackson had in him.
“I’m counting on it. I’ve a moratorium on body bags. This gang has to be shut down—fast. This has been a bad year for murders. I don’t need these yahoos carrying on and making it worse than it already is.”
Trent nodded but he was buried in his thoughts about how effective he was going to be. The wild card was Tara. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been in tears. Then he’d considered it unnecessary drama. He’d acted like a typical teenage boy—without empathy, without much feeling of any kind. He’d turned his back on her tears but not before telling her that she was acting like a baby.
Despite his youth at the time, the memory still disturbed him. It was his one regret in life. Her tears were ones that he had caused. On hearing that her family was moving, instead of comforting her and offering ways that they could remain in touch, he’d broken up with her. It had been a completely defensive reaction. Walking away, acting macho had somehow cloaked his own hurt.
He wished he could go back and tell that self that he needed to grow up. He wished that he could have prevented the whole scene. Prevented everything that happened to her immediately after.
But at the time, he had been too busy hiding his feelings when he’d heard that she was moving. Too busy trying to be tough to realize the pain he had caused her. He hadn’t understood what he was losing when he’d thought it wise to break up rather than go long-distance. And then it had all gotten worse when her father had been shot by someone assumed to be criminally involved with the very suspect he was to testify against.
But that was the past. He could see why Tara had run. She had a bad history with authorities. She was walking proof that the law couldn’t always do what it promised. Her father was promised protection, and he’d believed. Now he was dead.
She’d not be happy to see Trent. The last thing she’d said to him was that she’d never forgive him. They’d been young then but the words haunted him even now. They were words that told him she’d have none of his presence shadowing her and that she wouldn’t be apt to take his counsel.
What she’d need to know was that there was no choice. He was her shadow until this was over. He’d keep her safe. He could only hope to hell that she stayed safe until he found her.
His thoughts flipped to the threat. This group was as yesteryear as it was violent. Bank robberies were passé. It was only the number and violence associated with their crimes that was taking them up the ladder of Most Wanted. The fact that there’d not only been a witness in their latest robbery, but they’d gone after her changed everything. The break-in at her house, combined with the fact that the witness had disappeared, had turned the case on its head.
He thought of how gutsy she was, returning to live alone in Pueblo, forging ahead with her life. Not only that, but she’d come face-to-face with a bank robber. Now she was alone and confronting a danger no civilian should have to. He had to find her and quickly.
“By the way, if you hadn’t volunteered, I would have asked for you,” Jackson said. “You might not like witness protection, but you haven’t failed once. We’ve lost no witnesses under your watch. And this—I admit, I hesitated because of the personal connection. I’d hate to see—”
“Like you said,” Trent interrupted. “I haven’t lost a witness yet and I won’t start now.”
“The file is fairly concise right up until she boarded that damn plane,” Jackson said.
Trent nodded. He’d read it. She’d driven to Denver, and from there she’d boarded a flight to Mexico City. That was where her trail dead-ended.
“You had her in the palm of your hand. Now she could be anywhere,” he said, annoyed that she hadn’t been stopped, that this hadn’t been foreseen. “Why wasn’t she offered witness protection immediately?”
“There was no indication that she would run. She was in her own community, her own house. The thought was that she was safe, that we had time—if needed—to get witness protection in place. The perps were believed to have left town, as they always do. And there’s no evidence that didn’t happen.”
“Except in the case where they hunted down two witnesses before ever leaving the area.” He referenced a robbery that had occurred recently in Fort Collins, Colorado.
“That was within minutes of the robbery and just outside the bank.”
“But it happened,” Trent said darkly, not liking any part of what he was hearing. “And this time, they were after her. Damn it!”
“There’s no proof of that,” Jackson said.
“That was what frightened her.”
“That was our initial thought but that wasn’t the case. She was gone long before the break-in. Her flight reservation was made in the early hours of the afternoon. Unfortunately, that information was on her kitchen counter. It was fair game for anyone in her house.”
“Unbelievable,” Trent said.
“We’ve got what little we could gather from the neighbors,” Jackson continued. “A dog was barking around eleven o’clock last night. A neighbor looked out and saw a strange car cruising the area. She thought she saw two men but no description.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t enough to put in an emergency call and she let the incident go unreported.”
“You’re thinking the guy Tara can identify came after her?”
“Possibly, but that’s only speculation.” Jackson pushed the file aside. “Something else. Years ago, her father was killed while in witness protection. He witnessed a notorious drug dealer shoot a rival gang member. We had him in witness protection. It was to no avail. Two months later he was shot crossing a street and pronounced dead at the scene.”
“Doesn’t give her much trust that the system will be there for her,” Trent said.
