Книга - Warrior Without A Cause

Warrior Without A Cause
Nancy Gideon


Tessa D'Angelo was tougher than she looked. She survived her beloved D.A.dad being linked to a drug scandal, and his unexplained "suicide." But what she couldn't survive was the stalker who wanted to silence her questions. Enter Jack Chaney, a brooding special agent, who spirited Tessa away to a self-defense boot camp. What single woman wouldn't want to be stuck in the wilderness with a paramilitary George Clooney look-alike who could get the job done without breaking a sweat? But for their mission to work, Jack would have to see past Tessa's Gucci bags and size-four frame, while headstrong Tessa would have to surrender her body and soul to the one man who could help her clear her father's name….









“It’s all right. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you,” he murmured.


He wore a black T-shirt, heated by the filtered sun and by the skin beneath it. He smelled of the woods, fresh laundry soap and some deeply masculine aftershave. For a time she was oddly content to ride the comforting rise and fall of his breaths. He held her carefully, as if he feared she might break, or as if he was afraid too tight an embrace would serve to frighten her more. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt safe and protected.

Here was a man she wouldn’t have thought had any soft edges, soothing her hair and quieting her hitching sobs.

Her hands opened, spreading wide and not coming close to encompassing the breadth of his shoulder. Soft edges? Hardly. He might well have been hewn of warm granite under the snug pull of cotton.

Her thumbs shifted, tracing the swell of muscle, and in one breath, her sob dissolved into something suspiciously like a sigh….




Warrior Without a Cause

Nancy Gideon







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




NANCY GIDEON


attributes her output of over twenty-six novels to a background in journalism and to the discipline of writing with two grade school-aged boys in the house. She begins her day at 5:00 a.m., when the rest of the family is still sleeping. While the writing pace is often hectic, this Southwestern Michigan author enjoys working on diverse projects. She’s vice president of her local Romance Writers of America chapter and a member of a number of other groups. And somehow she always finds the time to stay active in her son’s Cub Scout pack. Fans may know her under the pseudonyms Dana Ransom and Lauren Giddings.


For Laurie Kuna, Dana Nussio, Connie Smith, Loralee Lillibridge and Victoria Schab, critique group extraordinaire.

Your friendship and support mean everything!




Contents


Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18




Prologue


Glass.

Shards glittered like scattered gems upon the hardwood floor as dim light from the hallway shifted across them. Closing her apartment door behind her, a puzzled Tessa D’Angelo reached for the wall switch. When the impotent click yielded no welcome home glow, she put it together. Exasperation made a bleak addition to her already heavy mood.

“Tinker, doggone it. I’m going to line a pair of gloves with you.”

Taking a cautious step into the darkness, she heard crunching beneath the low heels of her sedate black pumps. She bent to assess the damage, half hoping for the best but discovering the worst. The heirloom lamp meant to light the way into her apartment with its warm rainbow glow lay on its side, the Tiffany shade in pieces atop the littering of her mail.

Sighing wearily, she pictured the scenario: Tinker, her battle-scarred rescue cat, jumping up onto the table by the door as he heard her come down the hall, eager to greet her as he did each evening. She could envision the hefty feline losing his declawed footing on the forgotten bills Tessa had stacked there awaiting a trip to the mailbox. Tinker’s scrambling leap had sent the lamp crashing to the floor. What a fitting end to her melancholy day. She closed her eyes against the sudden swell of anguish. A dark apartment with only a stray cat to miss her. Her treasured link to family in pieces just like her well planned future.

Tears that had crowded for release all afternoon burned against the backs of her eyes. For a moment she let her shoulders hunch beneath the weight of her grief as a tremor shook them. It wasn’t about the lamp or the dreams now denied her. She’d just buried her father and she’d never heard him say he loved her.

A deafening silence filled her apartment. The same stillness had followed the thud of that first clod of dirt atop her father’s coffin.

In that void of sound, in the part of her mind not shut down by loss, she acknowledged the stir of seemingly trivial questions. Why hadn’t she heard the lamp fall as she approached her door? Why wasn’t a recalcitrant Tinker here to weave through her legs in a purring demand for attention and supper.

Odd…

From the back rooms of her apartment, she heard a soft scuffling. Probably Tinker scooting under the bed in hopes of escaping her wrath. Tessa dragged in a cleansing breath. Life goes on. So she’d been told by the faceless mourners who’d squeezed her hand in sympathy even as they feasted on the tease of scandal surrounding the day’s solemn circumstances. Hypocrites in friends’ clothing. But they were right. Time to carry on with what still needed to be done. And the first thing was to clean up the mess on her floor. She righted the lamp and reached to check the bulb. It was gone.

Not broken. Gone.

She frowned over the puzzle, then understanding clicked on like that proverbial missing light bulb.

Someone had removed it.

Out of the corner of her eye, Tessa caught a flash of movement, too large to be the approach of her forgiveness-seeking cat. She raised her head, noting the sight of creased trousers before her world exploded in pain.

She hit the floor hard, registering only darkness and a paralyzing swell of panic. The tinny taste of blood filled her mouth as she cried out, hoping to touch some chord of mercy in her unseen assailant.

“Take whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me.”

Fingers fisted cruelly in her hair, twisting to wring a whimper from her.

And then she heard that voice.

“You should have thought of that before you started poking around where you don’t belong. You won’t like what you find. Stop now or your pretty momma will be crying over you, too.”

He cracked her head against the hardwood to punctuate his point. Blackness welled but didn’t take her completely under. Not then.

Not until much later.




Chapter 1


“I hear you’re the man to see if you want someone killed.”

That’s how she introduced herself on the phone. It took him by surprise and not much did anymore. He didn’t like surprises.

Ordinarily, Jack would have ended the conversation right then with a dial tone, but there was something in her voice. A soft tug of reluctant vulnerability beneath the tough fabric of her words. It made him pause when he should have relied on self-preserving instinct. A dangerous error in judgment.

But there was something about her voice.

Instead of severing the connection, he leaned back in his age-worn leather chair and shifted his feet to his cleared desktop. Maybe it was an unexpected empty calendar that had him willing to waste a few minutes baiting his uninvited caller. He only visited this shabby little office in the city about once a month to collect bills and to check the answering machine. He kept it for a mailing address and the air of permanence as a business entity. After the first thirty minutes surrounded by traffic and chaotic noise, he was always ready to head back to the proverbial hills. That she’d managed to catch him during that slim window of opportunity was reason enough to give her a few more minutes of his time. His curiosity peaked. He wanted to know how she’d found him and why she’d begun with that eye-popping statement.

“I’m flattered,” he drawled, reaching out of habit to switch on the small recorder that would preserve their dialogue. “And just where did you hear that?”

“I know a lot of people in your business, Mr. Chaney.”

Evasion wasn’t the best way to get on his good side. His tone sharpened. “And what business is that? The killing business? If that’s true, why do you need me?”

“The law and order business, Mr. Chaney.” Her words picked up an interesting bite, too. Interesting enough for him to smile as he began to doodle lightning bolts and rain clouds on the blank calendar page.

“Ah, correct me if I’m wrong but law and order isn’t about killing and it isn’t what I do.”

“That’s why I need you. This isn’t about law. It’s about justice and your special talents. Can you help me?”

“I don’t know you, Miss—”

There was silence, then she supplied, “D’Angelo.” Why was that so familiar to him? Another warning he decided to ignore for the moment.

“Like I said, I don’t know you, Miss D’Angelo, and I don’t do business with people I don’t know.”

“I can pay you.” How suddenly desperate she sounded as that persuasion rushed out. “The money doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter to me, either.”

“What does, Mr. Chaney? What will make you agree to meet with me? If you’d just listen to what I have to say—”

“Lady,” he interrupted smoothly, “everybody’s got a story to tell. I’m not a priest or a four-year-old, so why should I want to listen to your story?”

She cursed in a low aside, passionately, using words that made his brows arch and his lips purse. She continued with a rough rumble of anger that he found…well, he found it sexy as hell.

“I was told you were a professional, a man who could get things done. I see I was misled, Mr. Chaney. I’m sorry for wasting your time and mine when it’s clear you’re not interested.”

“Did I say that?”

His quiet interjection had her hauling in her temper. He could hear it in the sudden silence and the quick pace of her breathing that followed. Finally she asked for clarification in a husky whisper.

“What are you saying? That you’ll help me?”

He closed his eyes. The ripple of raw silk being drawn over the head of a bed partner in the night incited the same kind of urgent response as the whiskey-edged melody of her voice. Like soft blues music and slow, wet kisses. Exciting enough to make him linger in the exhaust-laced and crime-infested hell of Detroit. This was a woman he had to meet face-to-face.

“No promises. I’m not big on premature commitments.” He wasn’t big on commitments of any kind. Caution was his middle name. “We’ll share a cup of coffee in some very public place and look each other over first.”

“And then?”

“Then, if I like what I see, you can tell me your story. But first—” his tone toughened, getting back to the important point “—I have to know how you got my name and this number. I’m not listed in Killers-R-Us.”

She hesitated, but only for a moment. “I got it from Stan Kovacs.”

Of all the references she could have given, she picked the one he couldn’t toss off with a shrug. And that made him all the more suspicious, and uncomfortable, as though some trap was about to be sprung now that he’d been suckered in with the right bait. But he wasn’t sticking his neck out just yet.

“Ah, good old Stan. He still into fitness and jogging to work every day?”

Humor brushed like a warming breeze against the chill of her anxiety. “I don’t know which Stan Kovacs you know, but this one would have a coronary going up the steps of a bus too fast.”

Tension eased from his shoulders as that picture came to mind. Good old soft-on-the-outside, sharp-as-a-razor inside Stan. Jack chuckled softly. “Yeah, that’s Stan. How do you know him?”

“He was a friend of my father’s. And mine. He told me to mention his name if you got…difficult.”

Yes, that’s how Stan would describe him. She was obviously in the old P.I.’s small inner circle of friends. But she hadn’t played that trump card right off the bat to smooth her way into his good graces. She’d held it back until he’d given her no choice but to lay it down. Perhaps Ms. D’Angelo preferred difficult to trading on favors.

And damned if he didn’t like that about her.

On the blank desktop calendar, Jack wrote, “Call Stan/D’Angelo.” To his husky-voiced wannabe client, he added, “All right, Miss D’Angelo, do you know where Cuppa Jo’s is on Woodward?”

“I’ll find it.” The steely determination was back, fortified by his momentary lapse in sanity. He hoped his libido wasn’t leading him into more trouble than he wanted but he seemed to have forgotten his middle name. Oh, yeah. Caution.

“Seven o’clock.” That would give him time to do the necessary background checks so he wouldn’t feel so off balance.

“How will I know you?”

He smiled into the receiver. “Well, it won’t be by the violin case and red carnation. I’ll find you.”

By seven o’clock, he’d know everything there was to know about Miss Smoky Voice D’Angelo.

And then he’d listen to her story.



Cuppa Jo’s was one of those dingy inner-city dives that served a questionable round-the-clock clientele. Jack liked it because the coffee was always hot and because he could collapse into one of the mended vinyl booths at 4:00 a.m. and not have to explain anything to anybody. Not even about the occasional contusions on his face. At Jo’s, everyone kept their troubles to themselves. And Tessa D’Angelo could mean the capital-T kind.

He’d read her file. Smart mind, good family, loyal to the bone when it came to her up-and-coming D.A.-turned-hopeful politician father. The glossy photos he’d flipped through showed her at her father’s right hand, smiling, poised, beautiful, an asset in any public circle, while her equally gracious and gorgeous mother stood at his left. She’d given up the promise of her own law career to support her father in his. She was supposed to have seen him on to bigger and better things. Not see his reputation go down in a blaze of rumors not even the grave could extinguish.

She sat in the rear of the hazy diner, her back to the wall leading to the rest rooms he wouldn’t use on a dare. The fact that she was out of place was as glaringly apparent as the cost of her tailored business suit. Classy clothes, classy lady. The dusky-colored plum wool suit, creamy silk blouse opened in a modest vee, tasteful pearls and gravity-defying heels belonged in the business district not in the back booth of a greasy spoon. Even though the sun had all but disappeared, she still wore trendy wraparound dark glasses. But if it hadn’t been for a pair of the most luscious lips this side of an adolescent boy’s dreams, Jack wouldn’t have recognized her from the society page photos he’d studied. This woman had none of the healthy sorority girl sparkle and confidence that had beamed out at him from the newspaper file he’d sneaked a peek at. This dangerously fragile Tessa D’Angelo looked as though she’d gone several brutal rounds with the reigning middleweight champ and lost. Badly.

The Veronica Lake spill of her sleek blond hair couldn’t quite cover the stitching that ran from delicately arched eyebrow to temple. The shades couldn’t conceal the telltale bruising of two spectacular shiners. Slender fingers clasped the chipped coffee mug before her in a two-fisted death grip that betrayed a near-the-edge tremor. Her shoulders hunched protectively. At first glance, she looked like a poster child for domestic battering, but Jack knew better. He’d seen her police file, too.

A robbery, they’d called it.

Unsolved.

An unfortunate coincidence in light of her recent tragedies.

“Miss D’Angelo?”

Her head jerked up and he was sure her eyes behind the opaque lenses had that deer-in-the-headlights glaze of alarm. He fought against the want to soften his tone with an apology for startling her. But she was expecting a kick-butt assassin not a Boy Scout, and he didn’t want to disappoint her illusions. At least, not yet.

“I’m Jack Chaney.”

She was motionless for a long moment. Not with fright, as he at first assumed, but to look him over as thoroughly as he’d done her. He fought against the impulse to stand just a little bit straighter and finger-comb the wind damage to his usually immaculate hair. He didn’t care if his chin was a bit burly, if his clothing was rumpled or if the truck outside sported more rust than attitude. If he surrendered to the gods of arrogance, it was in that one small spot of vanity. He had great hair and preferred none of it out of place. But then he wasn’t here to be interviewed. Tessa D’Angelo was the one on the hot seat. She nodded toward the opposite bench. “You’re late.” It wasn’t an accusation but rather a relieved observation, as if she’d feared he wouldn’t show.

“Traffic,” was his casual excuse. He couldn’t very well tell her that it had taken some time and some big promises to get a look into the official records, not until he’d at least had a cup of coffee for his trouble. “You need a refill there?” He gestured toward the half-full cup. She took a sip from it and grimaced.

“I guess I do. This is cold.”

He held up a hand and a curvy brunette with a scarred name tag proclaiming “JoBeth” bumped an ample hip against his shoulder. That she was the “Jo” in “Cuppa Jo’s,” a grandmother who spent all of her free time clucking over the much younger kitchen and wait staff and would do the same to him if he’d allowed it, didn’t keep her from the expected flirtation. Though she glanced at his stylish companion, she was careful to keep any hint of questions out of her gaze.

“Hiya, Chaney. Long time. The usual? High octane chased with a Sweet’n Low?”

“Sounds good. And a warm-up for the lady.”

“Got peach pie hot out of the oven. Marcy’ll take it as an insult if you don’t let her trot a piece out to you.”

Jack grinned. “I’ll pass for now but have her save a slice for the road.”

“Gotcha, doll.”

After she sashayed back to the counter, Jack faced his would-be client and got right to business.

“I’m sorry about your father.”

Tessa D’Angelo inhaled a sudden breath as if his condolences struck like another unfair punch. She let it out slow and shaky, then, in her throaty rumble, said, “Thank you.”

“I didn’t know him but he had a reputation for being a straight-up kinda guy.”

“And look where that reputation got him.”

Her flat summation puzzled him until she reached up with an elegant sweep of her hand to remove the dark glasses. The baby blues they revealed were anything but sweet. They were bright with angry, unshed tears.

“My father was a good man, Mr. Chaney. He was honest and decent and stood for justice all the way. Where was the justice in what happened to him?”

Casually he brought out the bulky tabloid he’d purchased on his way to the meeting. He laid it on the Formica-topped table where it covered the cup rings with words much more staining. She glanced at the glaring headlines and what little color her chiseled cheekbones retained all but drained away. She swayed slightly then gripped the edge of the table to regain her balance. Her delicate jaw worked a moment before she asked quietly, “If you believe that, why are you here?”

“I needed a cup of coffee. And I owe Stan. He asked me to take you seriously. This is pretty damned serious.” His finger tapped the tabloid’s banner: D.A.’s Suicide Tied To Drug Scandal.

“It’s a lie.”

“Most of the stuff you find in here is. But this sterling publication isn’t the only one saying it.”

“I don’t care who is saying what. My father isn’t guilty of anything. He wasn’t making money off drug trafficking or by looking the other way. I’d think his death would be proof of that.”

That was what Tessa had been trying to convince the police, according to her numerous calls, complaints and eventual condemnations.

Playing a calm devil’s advocate, Jack murmured, “Or unfortunate proof that he got in over his head and couldn’t face the consequences.”

She was off her seat so fast he barely had time to catch her wrist before she bolted. Such fine, easily broken bones. He restrained her carefully but refused to go easy on her. After all, even though she was the one who’d placed the call, they were on his dime now.

“Sit down, Miss D’Angelo. Those opinions can’t be news to you. They’ve been in every headline for weeks now. If you had thicker skin, you wouldn’t bruise so easily.” He felt a shiver go through her in reaction to her pain and rage.

“Hardly an amusing observation, considering,” came her wry retort.

“Sit,” he said again, and this time she did.

“It’s not my place to make judgments, Miss D’Angelo. That’s not what I do. I wasn’t aware that my opinions were why you sought me out. So I guess it’s time to ask, just why have you called me?”

“Justice, Mr. Chaney. For my father and me.”

“Vigilante style?”

“Would it matter to you?”

Her sharp tone was a quick barb to a conscience he wasn’t sure up until that very moment could be reached by mere words. His features stiffened.

“Obviously you think it shouldn’t.” She thought she was looking at a gun-for-hire, a quick, violent solution to her problems. What had Stan told her to give her that erroneous impression? Why come to him when the streets of the inner city were most likely teeming with guys who would kill for a quarter? That wasn’t what he did and it was about time she found that out. “What do you want from me, Miss D’Angelo? You want to put a contract out on whomever you think is responsible for putting your father in the ground? You want me to pull the trigger, is that it?”

She never so much as twitched. “I plan to pull my own trigger, Mr. Chaney. That’s not why I need you.”

He blinked.

“I need you to teach me how to stay alive long enough to pull it.”



She was blowing it.

Tessa could tell by the sudden blanking of his dark eyes. Gorgeous dark eyes that she bet could beg for forgiveness while making a woman forget what he had done wrong. Eyes that saw right through her tough outer shell to the marshmallow filling. It didn’t help that with his smoldering George-Clooney-like sex appeal, he looked more like a romantic leading man than the Rambo she’d been expecting. She had maybe a minute to plead her case or he was going to be gone. And with him, her last chance at finding out the truth.

“Stan said you could help me.”

It was an emotional ploy but she could tell it was effective by the way his sensuously shaped mouth thinned into a disagreeable line.

“Stan told you I could make you into a killer?”

Now, she was surprised. “N-no. No, of course not.”

Chaney relaxed ever so slightly. “Then I’m to assume we are speaking of a symbolic trigger.”

“Yes. Oh, you thought—that I—No.” Indignation stained her cheeks in hot points. “Mr. Chaney, my father gave his life to defend a system I will not abuse, even if it failed him. This isn’t about vigilante justice, it’s about truth. A truth someone doesn’t want me to find.”

“Isn’t that what the police are for, Miss D’Angelo?”

It was hard to hang on to her patience. Just what did he think she’d been doing since the official report and its damning summation had been released to the press? But no one wanted to listen to a distraught daughter anxious to save her father’s reputation with unsubstantiated tales right out of high-tech spy fiction.

“They don’t want to look beyond the truth they think they’ve already found. Someone framed my father and now he can’t defend himself against their lies. But I can and I will. But I can’t do it…the way things stand now.”

The coffee arrived and gave the tension between them time to ease to a manageable level. Tessa sipped her coffee, not caring that it burned her tongue and brought a swimming dampness to her eyes. She wasn’t a stranger to pain or tears these days, but she wouldn’t give in to either. Not any longer.

“Okay, I’ve heard your story. Now tell me how I fit into the next few chapters.”

She took a shallow breath and made herself meet his steady stare. She couldn’t let his sullen silent-screen-star looks distract her from what he was. He was a killer. A man who trained assassins for the government. A man so dangerous and beyond the laws she revered that she felt soiled just speaking to him. He had no respect for her cause or for honor; men like him never did. They had their own agendas, outside the rules that governed her world. But he was just the kind of man she needed to see those rules bent to her advantage.

“I’ve been threatened.”

Her simple statement had the impact of a ten-pound sledge. The evasive glassy look was gone from his keen gaze, replaced by a sharp understanding. “Is that verbal or physical?” He was studying her battered features, betraying no reaction to the sight. She forced herself not to cover the ugly reminders. Better he look and judge for himself.

“Both.” She didn’t care to go into more details with a stranger. He didn’t need to know that she lay awake at night listening for a telltale footstep, that if she was lucky enough to fall into a restless sleep, she always woke from it screaming and drenched in a sweat of dread. But he did need to know that the stakes were, as he’d said, serious.

“Just phone calls, lately. And I’ve been followed. Someone’s been in my apartment. More than once. The second time I walked in on them. A robbery gone bad, the police called it.” Her chin trembled slightly until she clenched her teeth. She could hear the voice whispering in the back of her mind and shook her head slightly to chase it away. Easy to do here in the light with noise and the companionable smells of coffee, grease and cigarette smoke to surround her. She fought to keep her own tone level.

“So far, it’s just a game of intimidation but I don’t like games with no rules, Mr. Chaney. I play to win. I always have. And to have any chance at all in this game, I have to be able to compete on their level.”

He made no comment on that, no judgment. “Do you have a gun?”

“No.”

“Get one.”

“I will. But when I do, I need to know that no one is going to take it away from me. I’ve been a victim once and I didn’t like it much. Next time they come for me, I want to be prepared. They hurt me and they scared me. And they killed my father. But they don’t know me. I’m not going to run and hide, Mr. Chaney. And I’m not going to give up. That’s why Stan sent me to you. I’m a sitting duck and I don’t want to be. Teach me how to protect myself so that I can see justice done for my father and see those who killed him brought to trial.”

Teach me how not to be afraid.

She didn’t have to say that. She knew he saw it in her face, in the shaky hands that nested the bottom of her coffee cup seeking the warmth she lacked inside. But would he do something about it?

Would he make it his fight?

“You’re wasting your time, Miss D’Angelo.”

His crisply spoken summation struck the wind from her lungs, the hope from her heart. For a moment she couldn’t respond, so he continued with that same detached calm.

“Go to the police. This is their job, not mine. I won’t give you any false confidence so you can go out and get yourself killed. I train professionals who are already without fear to do a job they have no illusions about coming home from. I don’t do Girl Scout camp. I’m sorry if Stan misled you.”

He didn’t look sorry.

He placed his hands on the table and started to rise. With nothing left to lose, she pulled out all stops.

“I don’t suppose it would do any good to speak to your innate sense of decency. Men like you can’t afford any, can they?”

A thin smile warped his lips. “No, ma’am. We’re not do-gooders like your father. We’re not flag wavers who think justice will always triumph. We know better. That’s why people like you always come to people like me. I have no illusions left.”

“I feel sorry for you, Mr. Chaney. How sad not to believe in anything worthwhile.”

“I believe Detroit will have another crappy year despite a new billion-dollar home field. I believe the new fall season on television will end up in early midyear replacements. I believe a man can spit in the wind and have a better chance of not getting wet than you’ll have in proving your father is innocent of the nasty things this paper says about him.”

“I believe you’re a coward, Mr. Chaney.”

“Then you would be right, Miss D’Angelo, if being a coward means never taking on a fight you know you can’t win.”

He gathered up his heavy coat and laid two wadded bills on the tabletop. He no longer bothered with eye contact. He obviously didn’t want to see her disgust.

“With or without you, I’m not giving up.”

“Good luck, Miss D’Angelo.”

And he was gone, just like that.

Tessa sat for a moment, struggling to take a decent breath. Now what was she going to do? All her bold statements blew apart like smoke in a sudden breeze when she thought of the darkened corners of her parking garage and the 2:00 a.m. ringing of the phone. There would be shadows and threatening silences. And she would experience, all over again, the crippling panic of being helpless.

To hell with Jack Chaney. He was about as useful as the Metro police. Both wanted to take the easy way out in spite of the very real danger she was in. So be it. Tomorrow she would buy a gun. And she would keep right on digging for the truth until someone stopped her with something more than whispers over the phone and footsteps in the dark.

With something more than a beating disguised to be a robbery.

It was cold outside. October bit with the force of January but she’d been cold even before she’d left the diner to traverse the near empty streets. When she’d arrived, the only space available had been three blocks away. Now, with the curbs abandoned and the sidewalks a wasteland of tumbling wind-tossed litter, it seemed like three miles.

Gripping her keys, she started down the walk, hurrying between the weak pools of light spilling out from liquor stores and places of dubious entertainment value. She didn’t look around but stayed focused on her goal: a lone silver Lexus promising warmth and protection with the turn of a key and click of a latch.

Footsteps.

Her own quickened in pace with her heart. She fought the fatalistic desire to turn around, to confront the skulking threat head-on. What kind of weapon was a car key gripped in a sweaty palm against the fear that banged within her breast?

The footsteps grew bolder, closer, more determined in their cadence. The urge to run the length of that last block twisted within Tessa’s belly and trembled down her legs. If she ran, there was a chance she would be pursued. Could she outrun whatever followed? Her breathing shivered noisily as she bunched her calves and cursed the heels she’d worn to impress Jack Chaney. Three inches of fashionable thinness. She might as well be on stilts.

Anxiety knotting through her, she held her coat together and readied to bolt for safety.

And just then, safety in the person of Jack Chaney separated itself from the shadow of her car ahead. A true professional, he’d checked her background to learn what she drove. He’d been leaning there, waiting for her. She didn’t have to listen to know there were no longer footsteps behind her. Intimidation was a solitary business, not one meant for an audience.

“This is a dangerous neighborhood for a lady alone at night.”

She smiled crookedly at his generic observation. “You have no idea.” She came to a stop in front of him and was momentarily surprised. She thought he’d be taller. He’d seemed like a veritable giant seconds ago. Nervously she risked a look over her shoulder.

“He’s gone.”

Her gaze jumped back to him. “Who?”

“We didn’t exchange names. I noticed him outside Jo’s and wondered who he was waiting for while trying so hard not to be seen. Shall I try to catch up to him?”

“No.” Her hand flashed out to fasten upon his coat sleeve just in case he might be serious about leaving her alone on the barren sidewalk. “It doesn’t matter who he was. I know what he was.”

Jack took the keys from her cold, cramped fingers and unlatched her door. He opened it for her and stepped aside as she slid in behind the wheel.

“Would you like me to follow you home?”

Yes!

She bit back that frantic cry and forced a competent smile. “I don’t think I’ll have any more problems tonight.” At least not until she closed her eyes. But what could she do? Ask him to sleep at the foot of her bed like a faithful watchdog? He’d already said in so many words that her problems were her own. “Thank you, Mr. Chaney, but I’ve taken up enough of your time.”

He didn’t shut the door on their conversation. He draped his forearms over it and gave her a long, assessing look before asking, “And how much of your time are you willing to spend to see this thing through?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A day, a week, until the thrill rubs off and the work gets too hard?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I don’t think you have what it takes to take what I dish out.”

She stared up at him, hope crowding into her throat. She forced a steady stare so he wouldn’t know how close she was to believing what he said. Her words were heroic even though she quivered in frail doubt inside.

“I can take it.”

“Really? Day in, day out, until I think you’re ready? Not until you think you are? Do you have that kind of commitment, Miss D’Angelo? I run a boot camp, not a Club Med. What I do isn’t a trendy gym class in pseudo-self-defense for bored housewives. I’ll work you until you drop and push you until you beg for mercy.”

“I won’t beg, Mr. Chaney.”

Begging hadn’t helped her before.

Her fierce statement gave him pause. “Maybe, maybe not. But I guarantee it’ll be on your mind every minute. You’ll either cry uncle or I’ll shape you into something that will make them think twice before sneaking up on you in the night.”

“I want them to think twice, Mr. Chaney.”

“Then you think twice, right now, while you can. If you come with me, I’ll show you no mercy.”

“I’m in your hands, Mr. Chaney.”

His features tightened into a sudden impenetrable mask. “I don’t want you in my hands. I’ve got enough on my hands to last a lifetime. I’ll train you to survive, but no more than that. Don’t expect me to get involved in your cause.”

Tessa’s elation took a grounding nosedive. Jack Chaney was no hero come to rescue her. He was a tool for her to use in her own rescue.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Chaney, I know exactly what I can expect from you.”

He nodded once. “Good. Pack a bag. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at three. You’re going to camp.”




Chapter 2


Stan Kovacs looked worried.

As he watched Tessa pull the zippers up on her suitcase, his expression had all the forlorn characteristics of a droopy-faced basset hound.

“Stan, it was your idea,” she reminded him as she set the case by the door of her apartment. She tried not to notice the significance of the chains and new dead bolt locks. “If you didn’t trust him, why did you insist I call him?”

“Oh, I do trust him. With my ex-wife, my money, my life. But not necessarily with my best friend’s daughter. Chaney can be…”

“Difficult,” she supplied. “Yes, I know. But we’re not dating, Stan. I don’t care if he’s difficult. Just as long as he’s as good as you say he is.”

Stan’s features didn’t alter at his mournful reply. “Oh, he is. No doubt about that.”

She fussed with the tags on her luggage, trying to think of how best to broach the subject. “I know in your business you’ve met all sorts of rather unsavory people.”

“The dregs in the cup, so to speak,” Stan agreed.

“How did you meet Jack Chaney?”

He smiled thinly. “Long story.”

“The Cliff’s Notes version. How did you get tight with a mercenary?”

That did manage to rearrange Kovacs’s dour look. “What? Where did you get the idea that Chaney was a merc?”

“You.”

“Oh.” He glanced away sheepishly. “Guess I was trying to impress you or maybe scare you off from taking this particular path. Jack’s a lot of things but he’s not an indiscriminate killer.”

“So he’s the discriminating kind.”

“He’s the military kind. The Black Ops covert, no-record-of-his-name, disavow-all-knowledge-if-caught-or-killed kind. He’s worked in a lot of places I’d never want to visit. His call sign was Lone Wolf. That’ll tell you all you need to know about Jack Chaney.”

“CIA?”

“I’m sure there are some initials involved but I don’t want to know what they are. He’s no angel but he’s not the devil I obviously let you think he was, either. Sorry.”

“For letting me think that or because he isn’t?”

They shared smiles and a long silence. Realizing Stan had never exactly answered her question, which meant he had no intention of doing so, Tessa sighed.

“No matter his initials, I need him. And, Stan, I need you to keep on top of things while I’m gone. I can’t let the trail to the real killers grow even colder.”

“I plan to. I’m not giving up on your dad. He didn’t give up on me when he had every reason to.”

She touched his arm, eager to defuse his umbrage. “I never thought you would, Stan. Not for a second. I just want you to be extra, extra careful.”

His face relaxed into a grin. “Yeah, like a fat, ex-alcoholic is going to put the fear of God into Martinez’s men.”

“I’m just a girl and I worried them plenty.”

They both sobered. Stan nodded.

“I’ll be quiet as a mouse. They won’t even hear me scratching around.”

She squeezed his beefy forearm through the truly ugly sport coat. “Good. Keep me posted. See if you can find out what Martinez had on Johnnie O’ that was so bad he took jail time just to set up my father.” That was the part of the case that had convinced the police to look hard at Robert D’Angelo. Johnnie O’Casey, three-time loser and small-time drug pusher, hadn’t tried very hard to barter his way out of prison. He’d accepted the sentence and still named the district attorney as his accomplice. If saving his own worthless hide hadn’t been the motive, something else had triggered his sudden desire to name names.

The wrong names.

But for what price and who had paid the bill?

“I’ll look in on your mom, too.”

“Oh. Thanks, Stan. I’m sure Dad would want you to.” Her lack of enthusiasm implied that it wasn’t her priority. Stan simply nodded. He never intruded on their family dynamics even though Tessa could tell by the pursing of his lips that he wanted to.

A knock at the door had Tessa taking a quick, involuntary breath as Stan reached for the knob. A silly reaction. Did she really expect one of Martinez’s hired hit men to knock?

“Hey, Jack,” Stan greeted jovially. “How’s your dad?”

“Wondering when you’re going to stop over for a little five-card.” Jack Chaney stood in the hall looking dark and sleek and dangerous. Just the man she needed to see. Tessa released her breath in a relieved gust. She hadn’t been sure he’d go through with it. Take nothing for granted, her father had always told her.

Stan laughed. “I haven’t recovered from the last fleecing he gave me.”

“It’s your face, Stan. Your secrets are written all over it.”

Pleasantries exchanged, Chaney looked down at Tessa’s three-piece set of matched Gucci luggage without a blink. But he frowned at the sight of the cat carrier and the pair of glittering yellow eyes glaring out at him through the mesh door. Noting his disapproval, Tessa hoisted up the carrier, giving a defiant lift of one brow.

“Tinker goes with me. Love me, love my cat.”

A dark brow arched. “An interesting but unlikely suggestion.”

Wondering which part he found the most distasteful, Tessa stated, “I’m ready, Mr. Chaney.” She picked up the medium-size suitcase. “Can you get the other two?”

“Yes, ma’am. Your chariot is out front. It’s the Dodge Ram. Just toss your stuff in the back.”

Frowning to think he meant Tinker, as well, she was distracted by Stan’s quick hug and peck on her cheek.

“Behave,” he warned in a whisper.

“I will if he will.”



After Tessa started toward the stairwell, Stan confronted the younger man candidly.

“She’s tougher than she looks.”

“I hope so, for her sake.”

“You behave, too.”

Jack offered a lopsided smile. “Don’t I always.”

Stan rolled his eyes. Then the merriment was gone. “Watch over her, Jack. Keep her under wraps until I can find out if there’s any truth to what she’s saying.”

Jack gave a snort. “Or to what she wants to believe.”

“Somebody beat the hell out of her. I’m not willing to take any chances that it wasn’t just a coincidence.”

“You think her father is innocent, Stan?”

The P.I. frowned a minute then answered. “Right now, I don’t care. Rob D’Angelo is beyond their reach, but she isn’t. I don’t want anything else to hurt her, Jack.”

“What about the truth?”

“By the time I find it, she’ll be ready to hear it. Like I said, she’s tougher than she looks.”

Jack shrugged noncommittally. “If you say so.”

“What shall I tell anyone who asks about her?”

“Tell them she’s going to camp.”



“Saying your goodbyes to the old homestead?”

Tessa, who’d been staring up at the curtain-covered windows of her apartment, gave a start then a rueful smile. Saying goodbye to the sleepless nights, to the insidious terror that had her checking behind doors and under the bed in a manic cycle of fear? Good riddance was more like it. Whatever she was heading toward had to be better than that.

She suddenly realized that she didn’t want to return to the rooms with the upscale address she’d so proudly decorated with trendy furnishings that toted her independence. She now saw the shadowed corners of the second-floor rooms as a prison when they’d once represented her freedom. She couldn’t open the front door without seeing the glass glittering on the floor, without hearing the sinister whisper of her attacker’s voice.

No, she would never put her belongings back in that place where she no longer belonged.

For now, she was making her home with Jack Chaney. And after that…Well, she’d just have to improvise.

“Let’s go, Mr. Chaney.”

“Before you change your mind?”

She met his smug assertion with a cool glance. “Or you change yours.”

He opened the door for her to climb up into the four-wheel-drive vehicle, then scowled at the sight of the cat carrier on the floor of the passenger side.

“Not an animal lover, I take it.”

“Sure. I love them with gravy and potatoes on the side.” He shut her inside the truck before she could manage a curt reply.

Sticking her fingers through the wire grid, Tessa murmured, “Don’t mind him, Tinker. He’s just being…difficult.” A wet nose touched her fingertips in seeming agreement.

Chaney dropped behind the wheel and started the vehicle, provoking the engine into a series of coughs and grumbles. The smell of something scorching filled the cab.

“We could have taken my car,” she posed diplomatically.

“Your car is easily traced to you. Just swallow your pride and enjoy the ride.” He shifted and the beater shuddered away from the curb with a roar. “From now on, you’re officially undercover.”

And off the face of the known world, she mused, staring out the window as familiar scenery whizzed by. She let it go without regret.

“You never asked where we were headed,” her driver observed as he checked the crooked rearview before blending into freeway traffic.

“It doesn’t matter,” was her philosophical reply. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Where are we headed?”

“No place you could ever find on your own, even if a map existed. No man’s land.”

No woman’s land, she’d be willing to bet as she studied his profile. A nice profile. Clean, strong, good bones, firm chin. Handsome in a dark, effortless way. Like a pirate.

He was the kind of guy who would have had girls lining the street in front of his house when he was a teen. With his easy confidence and dark, melting eyes, he could have been anything from class president to class clown, star quarterback to under-the-bleachers bad boy. But studying him more closely, she figured him for the cool, sardonic loner who could have had anything he wanted and shunned all of it. She’d hated guys like that, the ones who never lived up to their potential. Had Jack Chaney grown up knowing he wanted to be a government hit man? Had he planned from an early age to skirt the fringe of acceptability with a wry, indifferent scorn?

She could see ex-military in him. In the way he carried himself, erect, alert, even when he seemed relaxed behind the wheel. She saw it in the crisp cut of his glossy black hair and squared-away look of his clothing. Efficient, without an extra inch or ounce on him. His dark eyes were always on the move, cutting between the mirrors in a precise circuit that allowed for no surprises.

And it disturbed her to find that he made her feel safe.

Suddenly uncomfortable with the turn of her thoughts, she tried distracting them with conversation.

“So how do you know Stan?”

“What did he tell you?”

“He did a lot of talking but never really answered my question.”

Jack nodded his approval and for a minute Tessa didn’t think he would answer. Then, with a casual shrug, he said, “He and my father were partners on the force a lot of years ago.”

“The police force?” Why did the notion of Jack coming from a law enforcement family surprise her so? Because usually law and order was passed on as a tradition. Apparently not in his family.

“You said you owed him.”

“I said too much,” he muttered, but he didn’t withhold the information. “About twenty years ago they got caught in a cross fire. My dad was hit. Bad. Stan could have left him and gotten to safety but he didn’t. He stayed at my dad’s side, keeping him from bleeding to death, keeping the scumbags off until reinforcements showed up. He rode with him to the hospital and later broke the news to us that Dad had been shot and would never walk again. Stan stayed with my dad through therapy and bankruptcy—with a whole lot more loyalty than my mom who figured the going wasn’t going to get any better so she got going and never looked back. They don’t come any better than Stan Kovacs in my book. That answer your question?”

And then some.

“Stan said your call sign was Lone Wolf. That sounds a little…”

“Unfriendly? Aboriginal?” he finished for her. His tone hadn’t changed but a certain tightness sharpened the edges of his swarthy features until she could see the hint of American Indian in the sculpted highs and lows. “On my mother’s side, way back. Just enough so I could run a casino if I wanted to. But that’s not where I got the moniker. Lone Wolf isn’t my Indian name, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From my enemies, because I prefer to hunt alone. And I prefer my own company to those who never seem to run out of nosy questions that are none of their business.”

Well, he didn’t need to put a finer point on it than that.

The rest of their drive passed in a taut silence.



In the lull, it was easy for Tessa to drift into a sleep-deprived REM state. She’d only meant to close her eyes for a moment but when she blinked them open, it was to find that man-made structures had given way to soaring examples of nature’s architecture. Spreading oaks ablaze with color, ramrod-straight pines standing at attention and ghostly poplars with their pale white trunks and flutter of graceful yellow leaves lined a two-lane highway upon which they were the only travelers. She’d fallen asleep in the inner city and had awakened to a deeply forested Oz.

Tessa leaned away from the window where her cheek had left a circular print and immediately checked for any trace of embarrassing drool. Chaney caught the movement and quirked a smile in her direction.

“You snore.”

Great. Just the kind of intimate details she wanted known from the maddeningly enigmatic man beside her.

“Not usually.”

“You should never let your guard down so completely, even around those you think you can trust.”

His remark needled more than it instructed. Her reply was curt.

“I’ll keep one eye open from now on.”

“I always do.” Then he added ominously, “I would if I were in your position.”

All sense of security fell away at that cool observation. She wasn’t safe. Not even here with this man she’d hired to protect her and to teach her to protect herself.

He was right. She trusted too easily, in unfamiliar situations, with unknown strangers. She’d grown up to privilege, private schools, safe streets and a good job. The closest she ever came to the seamier side of life was in the courtroom. She’d never had reason to check her back seat before getting in or to glance into shadowed alleyways anticipating a threat.

Until now.

Sitting stiff and duly chastised, she looked around, observing her surroundings. She was Little Red Riding Hood to his huntsman and there was no grandmother’s house in sight.

“Are we—”

“There yet?” he finished for her. “Almost. It takes about fifteen minutes to the front door once we leave the highway.”

Fifteen minutes to reach what? Exactly where was he taking her? Her lack of preparatory knowledge came back to haunt her. She’d been in such a hurry to leave her fears behind, she’d forgotten to ask what she’d be walking into. Or driving into. And since she’d seen fit to naively snooze the better part of the drive away, she had no idea where “there” might be. North, he’d said. There was a lot of North in Michigan.

When Chaney finally left the highway for the fifteen-minute last leg of the journey, it wasn’t to pull onto a paved street. At first glance she hadn’t even seen a break in the trees to indicate there was a road. Two-track, she believed best described the spine-jarring roller coaster of dust and sudden dips. Stray branches scraped against the sides of the vehicle as they bounced along the twin ruts cut deeply into uneven ground. It wasn’t an obstacle course her Lexus would have appreciated.

Tessa clung to the door handle with one hand and braced her other palm against the dash as Tinker’s carrier slid back and forth between her firmly planted feet. She locked her ankles tight on either side of the case hoping the suspiciously silent tabby hadn’t already had the stuffings shaken out of him.

Then the Ram made a sudden turn and Chaney’s compound appeared as if hewn out of the forest. Her mouth dropped open in helpless awe.

North woods had conjured up the image of rustic in her mind’s eye. A log cabin, hopefully with indoor plumbing. But Jack Chaney’s retreat was a veritable fortress in the wilderness. Squares and turrets of stone and log collided with huge ultramodern walls of glass and steel in what should have been a jarring juxtaposition. It wasn’t. Pulled together under long sloping roofs of rough-hewn wood shingles, the massive structure seemed to blend with the rugged surroundings, easing the stark modernistic elements back to the basics of quarried rock and peeled timber. Only the high-tech satellite dish broke the harmony of new age and natural beauty. Tessa perked up. Not Club Med, perhaps, but certainly a far cry from the dour cabins she remembered from camp. Chaney’s dwelling was huge, impressive, and as Jack wheeled the vehicle to the left, obviously not her destination.

They jounced down another dirt-and-gravel track until they reached a footbridge that spanned a winding stream. On the other side squatted a single-story barracks of log and stone. No soaring vistas, no dish TV. Just the raw basics of survival.

Welcome back, Camp Minnetonka.

Prepared to grin and bear it, Tessa climbed out of the truck and took a minute to twist and stretch her back. There was a brief stab of discomfort where a rib was still healing. She made the movements easier, babying the hurt. As she glanced to the right, through a parting of the trees, she could just make out one of the massive stone porches running along the side of the main house. She blinked and began to frown in uncertainty of what she was seeing.

There on the porch, just on the edge of the shadows, stood a small, slender girl of about twelve years old. In the muting tones of near twilight, all she could make out was the fact that the girl was Hispanic. As Tessa stared in surprise at finding a child in Jack Chaney’s home, her astonishment doubled as a woman appeared to place her hands on the girl’s shoulders to steer her back inside.

Just as it had never occurred to Tessa that Jack might live in a forest paradise, she’d never once considered that he might not live alone.




Chapter 3


Stark and utilitarian. Scout camp revisited.

Tessa tried to keep the dismay from her features as she surveyed her new home away from home.

There was a main room furnished with mission-style chairs around a slab-topped table. One wall held a projection screen, the opposite a large dry-erase board and cork wall studded with idle pushpins. Obviously a com center for covert planning. She could see Chaney heading up a briefing session while equally hard-eyed operatives sat attentively around the table. She couldn’t see herself curled up comfortably with a novel and there was no television in sight. On the rear wall, a countertop housed a microwave, minifridge and small sink. So much for luxuries.

While watching her for any telltale misgivings, Jack gestured to the right and left. “Take any room. They’re all the same. Connie will bring you some dinner. Until then, make yourself at home.”

Her home was here. His home was there. With the woman and child.

“I will,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. She said it to deaf ears because Jack Chaney was already gone. And she was alone.

Setting the carrier next to her luggage on the floor, Tessa sighed. “Just you and me, Tinker. Like always.”

The big tabby came out of the carrier hissing and puffed up in an affronted bristle. After sniffing the air, he immediately began yowling. Tessa wasted no time setting up his litter box in the spartan bathroom. With his business tidily covered, Tinker plopped beneath the table to groom and calm his distressed nerves. Tessa picked up a bag and went to pick a room.

It really didn’t matter which one she picked. All were equally unwelcoming. Half a dozen on one side of the war room and half a dozen on the other. For its convenience to the bathroom, she took the first door on the right.

Now she understood Chaney’s amusement over her baggage.

The room contained a twin-size bed covered with a brown chenille spread. There was a drawerless night table hosting a homemade lamp with a glass base filled with beer bottle caps. A nice decorative touch. The only one. The small single window was covered by heavy brown curtains. There was one chair, as ugly and uninviting as the rest of the room, and a closet. The closet was a recessed hole in the wall featuring a clothes bar with a baker’s dozen wire hangers and two plank shelves, one above and one a foot off the plain brown rug. She could envision steel-toed boots lined up neatly beneath a stack of olive drab chinos, a line of T-shirts on the hangers and who knows what on the top shelf. Certainly not her designer exercise wear and brand new Nikes.

She was in the wrong place. Chaney had tried to tell her. Stan had tried to tell her. Maybe she should have listened to one or both of them.

Too late now. Too late to do anything but make the best of it. And make herself at home.

She unpacked one bag. There didn’t seem to be any point in emptying the others. She’d obviously have no use for the more civilized outfits she’d packed. She set her toiletries on the baseless sink in the bathroom and after checking for hot water and towels, returned to her cubicle.

Tinker had deposited himself on the foot of the bed to finish up the meticulous currying of his tail. He paused to eye her irritably then continued the task, not breaking the rhythm as she sat beside him on the bed. The mattress gave slightly, promising unexpected comfort. She lay back, only meaning to test the springs. Her exhausted body and soul had other ideas.

The soft sound of a door closing woke her to complete blackness. Two things about the north woods became abundantly clear. It was quiet and it was dark. Not the need-to-adjust-the-eyes-to-get-around kind of darkness that one had in the city but the pitch, unadulterated inkiness of nothing but stars and a sliver of a moon. No neons, no street-lights, no glancing headlights from passing cars, no glow from the telephone number pad or TV remote. Nothing. Nada. Darkness.

She crept from the room, her hand on the wall to guide her. And then the smell of something absolutely delectable provided a beacon into the main living area. After fumbling around, she located a light switch to illuminate the big, empty room. A casserole dish sat next to the microwave on the counter. Her stomach rumbled in encouragement. She and Tinker sat to a hearty beef and rice mixture washed down with several glasses of the milk she found in the minifridge.

Fed, rested, and with dishes rinsed, Tessa allowed herself to be drawn back to the puzzle of the main house. Shutting a disgruntled Tinker inside, Tessa slipped out onto the narrow front porch. Immediately taken by the chill and the isolation, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked toward the only light in the vast black backdrop surrounding her.

She’d never spent any quality time with nature. Her short jaunt at camp when she was nine had ended when a chicken pox epidemic sent all the girls scurrying home in their anxious parents’ Mercedes after just one afternoon. What she knew of trees and other woodland fauna, she’d discovered at carefully arranged gardens under protective domes or in sculpted backyards for the occasional summer party. She’d had one plant, a dieffenbachia she’d been assured could endure any hardship or neglect. It had lasted a month under her care. Cut flowers in a vase was as close as she got to appreciating the great outdoors. And now she was wondering if she should have kept it that way.

Warmth and welcome, however, glowed behind the massive walls of glass and steel. But not a welcome for her. She wasn’t sure why the idea of Jack Chaney having a family unsettled her so. Perhaps because she was uncomfortable with bringing possible danger to their door. Possibly because of the more basic things that had stirred her when she’d looked at her teacher and protector. Things one shouldn’t admit to when the man had a family.

A wife and child threw all her conceptions about Chaney off balance. Lone Wolf. Stan had summed him up with that moniker and she’d liked the deadly and fiercely independent image it evoked. That was the image she’d bought into when she’d hired him: the skilled assassin, capable of slipping in anywhere to get the most unpleasant of jobs done. Just because he moved with government approval didn’t change the basic makeup of the man. He was a killer. The kind of man her father made a career of putting away for as long as legally possible as a danger to society. The kind of man she now turned to to preserve all that her father had stood for. She smiled grimly at the irony, not sure straight-arrow Robert D’Angelo would have appreciated it.

A brief movement behind the backlit vista of glass caught her notice. A single figure stopped and stood in bold silhouette, staring—if the creepy sensation along the hairs on her arms was correct—right at her.

Jack.

He was watching her watching him. And he probably wasn’t liking it.

Abruptly the shadow was gone and Tessa was alone once more. At least she felt alone. As alone and abandoned as she’d felt at her father’s graveside. Without direction. Without purpose—except for one driving goal. To prove that everything her father embodied wasn’t a lie.

“You shouldn’t be outside. It makes you a target.”

A squeak of surprise escaped her as Chaney’s voice sounded practically at her elbow. After a few panicked blinks of her eyes, she could make out his shape in the darkness on the other side of the porch rail. She’d never heard his approach. It infused her with the debilitating sense of vulnerability again.

“I thought you said I’d be safe here.”

“Safe implies a certain amount of common sense. You don’t stand out in the open unless you want to draw attention to yourself.”

Then what had he been doing up at the main house in front of the window? But of course he’d wanted her to see him then. Just as he hadn’t wanted her to see him until his disembodied voice nearly scared the beef-and-rice casserole out of her. He was making a point.

Point taken. She wouldn’t be safe anywhere until her father’s murderer was caught. And the only one who could protect her was herself. Those were the skills Chaney was going to teach her.

“When do we get started tomorrow?”

“So early you’ll still think it’s today so I’d suggest you get some shut-eye. I guarantee, tomorrow night you’ll hurt too bad to sleep.”

She thought he was kidding.

He wasn’t.



His voice came out of the darkness.

“If you have comfortable shoes, get them on.”

Tessa dragged herself up out of the bed where it felt as though she’d only laid her head minutes ago. She’d left the door to her room ajar so Tinker could use his box and it was from the other side of the door that Chaney issued his orders.

“We do five miles every morning at sunup, rain or shine. Get ready.”

“Before coffee?” she muttered, shoving her fingers through tangled hair. “How uncivilized.”

“If you were waiting for breakfast in bed, you should have checked into a hotel. Let’s go.”

Fifteen minutes later she was yawning her way out onto the front porch where Jack’s stern gaze was as bracing as the chill morning air.

“Tomorrow you get five minutes. No more. You don’t need to put on makeup for a run. No one you’re going to meet out here cares how you look.”

She looked as though she’d been hauled out of the sheets and stuffed into the first piece of clothing available.

Jack thought she made breakfast in bed too damned inviting. And that made him testy.

She wore a black warm-up suit with pink racing stripes and some high-dollar name brand embroidered on the back. Her blond hair was swept back from the delicate bones of her face and secured in a no-nonsense plastic clip. Her shoes were expensive and made to take the abuse he planned to put her through. By the next morning she’d meet him with a belligerent hostility instead of bleary-eyed confusion…or she’d be begging him to take her home.

She’s tougher than she looks, Stan had said.

Well, they’d soon find out.



The sun slanted through the trees, irregularly illuminating the winding path through the woods and, often as not, failing to warn of hazards until she’d stumbled over them. Twisting roots, loose stone, unexpected holes. This was no nature hike. It was her first exercise in survival. And she wasn’t sure she was going to make it.

Tessa believed herself to be in shape. She’d played volleyball and tennis in high school and competitive tennis in college. She had a gym membership that garnered less and less of her time as her work took up more of it. She religiously used the stationary bike in the bedroom of her apartment. But she’d never punished her body the way this morning run behind Jack Chaney was meant to.

The first mile had gone fairly well. She’d kept up a decent pace that didn’t embarrass her too badly. The air was crisp and the cool temperature made the vigorous exercise bearable. Somewhere between the second and third mile, her calves had started to burn in anticipation of things to come. By the time she plodded toward mile four, a stitch in her side made taking each breath a near sob for mercy.

But no mercy came from the man trotting in front of her with his long relentless strides. He never once looked back to see if she followed. He could probably hear her floundering and gasping and groaning as she staggered in his wake. By the approach of mile five, she was in a hazy fugue state fueled by pain and caffeine deprivation. The only thing that kept her going was the notion that Chaney was smiling at the thought of her distress. That, and the sight of his tight butt creating a visual carrot dangling in front of her.

He wore a black hooded sweatshirt and nylon running shorts. The kind designed to breathe and follow each movement. And following the movement of the skimpy fabric as it pulled and sighed over the bunch and stretch of his rump did funny things to Tessa’s breathing, too. If she could manage to take a breath. Her cracked rib was screaming obscenities but she refused to listen. The man truly had buns of steel, while hers felt more like jelly-filled doughnuts. All her focus funneled into the mesmerizing flex of that amazing rear end until he abruptly stopped. She staggered into the back of him, wheezing, blinded by sweat. When she realized they stood outside her cabin door, she just wanted to crawl inside, feeling as though she’d completed a Boston marathon.

Holding her aching side, she gasped, “Can I have my cup of coffee now?”

“Water,” he offered stingily. “While you’re moving. As the song goes, we’ve only just begun.”



By nightfall Tessa was sure she’d been plunged into a vicious hell devised by Jack Chaney to break her will. And he’d come perilously close to doing his job.

They’d spent the day on his homemade fitness course where he pushed her until her muscles screamed and her lungs cried for a moment’s rest all in the name of evaluating her level of fitness. By the time she dragged herself to her single bunk to flop down still fully dressed, she knew he’d branded her with a big F.

Chin-ups, push-ups, rope climb, hand-over-hand ladder crossing. She was surprised he hadn’t had her down on her belly wriggling under barbed wire as live rounds burst overhead. Live rounds felt like they were bursting inside her head as she managed to roll over onto her back and hoist one leg up onto the bed. The other continued to hang over the side. She knew she should shower. She hadn’t had anything to eat except an apple and power bar for lunch. How many hours ago? She had swished down a couple of painkillers for supper before toppling onto the sheets. When Tinker jumped up onto the bed, the movement of the mattress made her groan. She was whipped, wasted, totally wiped out.

But if Chaney thought she was going to quit, he was mistaken.

And if she could ever get her rubbery legs to support her again, she’d prove it to him.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, where he probably had all sorts of other fiendish things planned to force her to cry uncle.

But she’d made it through the first day, even if just barely. And she’d make it through tomorrow, too. And the next day and the next. Jack couldn’t make her quit. And he couldn’t make her cry.

But what Chaney could do was exhaust her into a good night’s sleep. No dreams. No restless tossings and turnings that left her wringing with sweat and limp with despair when she woke to find the nightmare was real. The nightmare that ended her father’s life and her neatly planned future with a gunshot.

Tessa opened her eyes to the first gray streaks of dawn and lay for a moment, thinking with a bittersweet anguish that even after his death, Robert D’Angelo still controlled the mechanics of her day.

She had worked for him part-time to put herself through college, planning to follow his footsteps into the legal realm where justice triumphed and one determined individual could make a difference. At least, that’s what she’d believed at the time. Her father had encouraged those beliefs with his unflagging work ethic, with his stirring speeches, with a firm handshake and firmer declaration that he would do whatever it took—within the limits of the law—to see one more criminal off the streets. His demeanor held the voting public, even the fickle press, in thrall. No one could say a bad word about the dynamic D.A., until he’d been found slumped over his desk with a pistol in his hand.

And she would do whatever it took, without complaint, to restore the good opinion the world once held of District Attorney Robert D’Angelo.

And that vow gave her the strength to drag herself out of bed. Another brutal day in paradise.

She survived the run that day, and on the next eight that followed, with legs trembling and the image of Jack’s tight ass bouncing in front of her like one of those beckoning balls leading from one word to the next in a karaoke sing-along. Whatever gets you through it, Stan used to say. Her new mantra. She couldn’t remember what day it was and the thirst for daily news of the outside world made her feel as though she’d been incarcerated in solitary confinement. In a way, she was, isolated from the reality of nine-to-five and the eleven o’clock recap of the day. Her day never deviated. And the sameness made all else a blur. She was stuck in a Twilight Zone of her own making.

So she focused her energy into Jack’s regimented schedule, looking no further than the next exercise, the next meal, the next exhausted night’s sleep. And for the present, it was enough to get her by from one brutal day to the next. Muscles and tendons she never knew existed now complained like old friends. Where she’d been and where she was going faded into limbo. Only the moment mattered. And Jack Chaney ruled those moments with a dictatorial fervor. He expected her to break or get bored. She saw it in his cynical smile every time she asked how she was doing. “Still here and that’s saying a lot,” he would answer.

Still here. Damn right.

He didn’t believe in her and he didn’t believe in what she was doing. A deep stubborn streak surfaced to defy him. She didn’t need his encouragement or his coddling. She’d come into his hands a house pet, domesticated right out of any natural instincts to survive, and his uncompromisingly harsh treatment was making her into a lean, mean junkyard dog. That’s why she was here. Not to hide, not to ogle his fabulous butt, not to give in to the fears that ruled her every waking hour. She was here to get in touch with that inner she-wolf. And then she would make them howl for mercy.

After a scarfed-down breakfast of a surprisingly delicious scrambled egg burrito and juice chased with crude-weight coffee, Tessa confronted Jack’s fitness course with a bring-it-on attitude. After all, what could Jack put in her way that was worse than finally breaking down the door and stepping into her father’s office where the metallic scent of blood and gun discharge hung in the air? What could he do that would reduce her to the quivering, pleading mass she’d been on the floor of her apartment? Nothing. Nada. Nothing he could put her through could rival those life-altering experiences. Oh, he could make her hurt, he could make her curse him under her breath, he could make her long for a breath that didn’t tear up through the lining of her lungs, but he couldn’t shatter her world the way those two events had. So, bring it on, Jack Chaney. She would take whatever he could dish and she would grow stronger, more confident, more dangerous a foe than her unseen enemies bargained for.

Because she was Robert D’Angelo’s daughter and odds didn’t matter when justice was the reward.



What made a woman like Tessa D’Angelo tick? Jack wondered as she wound her lithe body through his obstacle course. Seeing her at Jo’s, trembling like a fragile flower on the end of a delicate vine, he was sure she’d wilt before the end of the first day at his Wolf’s Den. She belonged in a world of expensive silk suits, high heels and perfumed evenings, not grunting and sputtering her way through a break-of-dawn run or sweating to calisthenics that would have a made a newbie marine falter.

Tougher than she looks. No kidding.

And he was kidding himself if that didn’t impress him out of his usual detachment.

He frowned as his gaze followed her graceful crossing of the balance beam. Even though she must have been exhausted from the morning run, she managed to move with the agile strength of a dancer, arms seesawing in fluid sweeps as she hurried across the narrow plank. With a hopping dismount, she sped without hesitation toward the tires and tiptoed through them like a child playing hopscotch. Her pale blond ponytail bobbed with girlish energy but there was nothing childish in the bounce of her breasts beneath her zippered jacket. He glanced at the stopwatch in his hand to give his imagination a time-out.

Everything about Tessa nudged uncomfortably against the barriers he’d created to keep the outside world at bay. Her determination combined with the wounded-bird protectiveness she’d stirred the moment she peeled down her sunglasses to bare an unwavering stare above all those assorted bruises convinced him to take her under his wing. And that made her a threat. A threat to all he’d built here in his isolated, insulated wilderness. A threat to his “Don’t involve me” motto.

He hated causes, knowing that starry-eyed do-gooders like Tessa and her father often fell victim to them. He could have told her that her father was probably guilty of everything the papers accused. He knew, firsthand, that good men sometimes got mixed up in bad things through no fault of their own. But it wasn’t his job to educate the mulish and high-minded Ms. D’Angelo in that area. Her unrealistic ideals were not his problem.

Whatever information Stan was bound to discover once he put his nose to the ground wasn’t going to clear Robert D’Angelo’s good name. It was going to show his naive daughter an ugly truth, that when he was pressed into a situation he couldn’t escape, the D.A. had taken the coward’s way out by putting a gun to his head, leaving his family to clean up the mess.

Well, who was he to condemn D’Angelo? Hadn’t he done the same thing on a less fatal level?

Tessa swung across the ladder, going rung to rung like a twenty-first-century Jane in his own private jungle.

Coward, she had called him. Who was he to argue? As long as she believed him to be a man without honor, a coward who trained then sent others to carry out deeds he refused to champion, she would keep a safe distance. Stan would ferret out the facts and make her face them. Then she’d be gone to piece her world back together and he could go on living day to day in his. Without complications. Without risk. And he’d be happy as a clam about it, closed up in his impenetrable shell.

Tessa D’Angelo and her cause was not his concern.

He clicked the stem on the watch as she sprinted past him. Purposefully he didn’t look her way as she bent over, hands braced on her knees, her sweet little derriere pointed in his direction. He was glowering when she came over to peer down at the sheet tacked to his clipboard.

“How’d I do, coach?”

Her voice was breathy, slightly ragged, the way he’d imagine it would be after an exuberant bout of sex. His own growled in response.

“Better by five point two seconds.”

She looked ridiculously pleased at that, as if she’d won some prestigious court case or the lottery.

“But don’t start booking your Olympic berth just yet.”

Even his surly retort couldn’t dim the sudden flash of her smile.

His gut twisted.

Then her bright, curious eyes lifted to a spot past his shoulder and her tawny brows arched in unspoken question. He glanced behind him to see Constanza carrying linens across the footbridge to the barracks. Even before she asked, he suddenly realized the conclusion Tessa had drawn.

“Are she and the little girl—”

Jack cut her off. “What they are, is none of your business. You were not invited here as a guest and I’ll allow for no intrusions into my private life. Clear?”

She blinked, startled and hurt, but the fiery pride was quick to resurface. Her tone was equally chilled. “Like my mother’s fine crystal.”

She caught the book he tossed her way without checking the cover. Her gaze still skewered his, letting him know how unforgivably rude he’d just been.

Knowing she was right didn’t improve his mood.

“Homework. Read lessons one through four. We’ll be going over them at fourteen hundred hours. And I don’t mean in a lecture hall.”

She rolled the self-defense manual in her grip and, without another word, started for the barracks. As she passed the South American woman at the bridge, Tessa never acknowledged her with so much as a glance.

A long, hot shower helped unknot Tessa’s muscles but did little for the tension twisting through her. With a towel turbaned around her damp hair, she reclined on her bunk against a brace of pillows borrowed from the empty rooms and flipped open the manual that she noted was written by a former SEAL. Poet laureates didn’t teach unarmed combat.

While Tinker leaned into her hip to fastidiously wash his hind leg, Tessa began to study with the concentration she’d applied to her bar exam. Taking notes in a spiral pad, she jotted down the essentials of stance, footwork, making a proper fist and basic hand techniques for pummeling your assailant. Tinker paused to glare at her as she practiced the rudiments of the jab-punch, hook-and-elbow strike. She smiled faintly. Okay, a little like her Tae-Bo classes. She could do this. She continued through the detailed mechanics of knee strikes and round kicks, picturing Jackie Chan then, annoyingly, Jack Chaney, illustrating the moves in her mind’s eye. Thinking of Chaney inspired her to restless movement.

With the book open on her bedspread, Tessa ran through the drills, combining punches and kicks with swift, potentially lethal intent. She pictured Jack’s carved-in-stone features as he told her not to intrude in his personal life. Pow. Right jab. As if she’d find anything fascinating there.

He could keep his oh-so-important secrets. Chaney’s life, no matter how intriguing, was not the reason she was here—here in the bunkhouse as a student, not in the main house as a guest, where the mysterious woman and child who may or may not belong to him lived.

A sudden surge of melancholy stole her aggressive thunder. He didn’t have to be so mean about it.

Closing the book, she flopped down on the bed and gathered a briefly resistant Tinker up in her arms. As she stroked his scarred head, he magnanimously issued his rumbling purr of approval.

Even in the daytime it was quiet. She was a city girl, born and bred, used to the city’s vibrant, jarring cadences. It was the music that scored her daily activities. She’d always been in a hurry, darting from the office to the court to dinner meetings and social galas. Working, always working, even in her pajamas late at night, curled on the couch in front of “David Letterman,” a volume of appellate law on her lap, absently shooing Tinker out of her bowl of Frosted Cheerios.

Her planner was always full, her voice message light blinking and her bathroom mirror covered with multicolored sticky notes reminding her of errands to be prioritized. And what fueled most of her hours, nearly 24/7, was her father. Arranging his schedule, proofing his speeches, writing his motions, picking up his dry cleaning, always busy behind the scenes so he would look together and unharried. What was she going to do without him in her life to provide that driving force? Even now she couldn’t believe she would never hear his voice over the intercom asking if she knew where to find the Pellingham brief. Her days, her nights, her focus all funneled into Robert D’Angelo and his charismatic climb from prosecutor to D.A. and on into a political arena. Phones ringing, cabs honking, file cabinet doors rattling open, the constant gurgle of coffee being brewed. Those were the sounds that had filled her life with meaning.

Here, in this isolated silence, her thoughts echoed. And the last thing she wanted was time to think, time to second-guess, time to doubt. Was she doing the right thing? Would her father approve of the steps she was taking? If he was innocent, he would.

If?

She hadn’t meant if. The Freudian slip horrified her.

She was the only one who knew for certain that her father wasn’t guilty. Even if she hadn’t heard another man’s voice—The Voice—in the inner office just before the fateful shot, she’d have been sure. How could her father turn against all the things that mattered to them, all the things that pulled them together, as close as father and daughter could be when striving for the same cause?

But that wasn’t quite true, was it?

They’d never been close as father and daughter. She’d put her own ambitions aside, pushed her way into his world, tried to find a place for herself in his busy professional life since he’d never had time for her in his personal one.

Why hadn’t she been able to earn his love the way she’d claimed his respect?

Closing her eyes against the fresh pain stemming back through her childhood, Tessa braced her forearm across her brow as if to hold the hurt away. And with eyes closed, cocooned in silence, her weary body surrendered while her tormented mind continued to spin.

You won’t like what you find. Stop now…

She surged into an upright position, the cry of panic and pleading still on her lips. Hands caught her wrists as her arms flailed, gently restraining her. Fingers cupped the back of her head, pulling it in against the warm, sheltered lee of a broad shoulder. Once released, her arms whipped around the solid support of the last man she’d expected to find upon waking in her bed.

“Daddy?”

But the voice that soothed away all the agony and terror of her dreams belonged to Jack Chaney.

“It’s all right. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.”

Too late.

He wore a black T-shirt, heated by the filtered sun and by the skin beneath it. He smelled of the woods, fresh laundry soap and some deeply masculine aftershave. For a time she was oddly content to ride the comforting rise and fall of his breaths. He held her carefully, as if he feared she might break, or as if he was afraid too tight an embrace would serve to frighten her more. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt protected and safe.

Her father had never come into her room to chase away the fragments of childish nightmares. Her mother had.

And now here was a man she wouldn’t have thought had any soft edges, soothing her hair and quieting her hitching sobs.

Her hands opened, spreading wide and not coming close to encompassing the breadth of his shoulders. Soft edges? Hardly. He might well have been hewn of warm granite under the snug pull of cotton. Her thumbs shifted, tracing the swell of muscle and in one breath, her sob dissolved into something suspiciously like a sigh.

Fearing he’d heard it, Tessa started looking for a graceful way to escape his arms. How could she let him see her so achingly vulnerable and still demand his respect? She rubbed her face against his chest to erase the tears before struggling to lean away. His arms gave gradually, almost with reluctance. She couldn’t quite meet his gaze, afraid of what she’d see there.

“I’m sorry. Just a nightmare.”

“I heard you cry out. I came down when you didn’t show up for your lesson.” His words petered out until an awkward silence pushed between them more forcefully than physical distance. She snagged a quick breath as he rubbed away the last damp trail of evidence from her cheek with the slow drag of his thumb. Calloused yet unbearably tender. She sat back so fast the top of her head came up under his jaw, snapping his teeth together like a trap. She did glance up then, fatalistically drawn to see the quizzical knitting of his dark brows. He seemed bemused. Somehow, that was all too intimate.

“You shouldn’t be here. What if your wife—”

She hauled in the blurted statement when his expression froze over.

“I don’t have a wife,” he said at last, enunciating with surgical precision. “I don’t belong to any woman or any career. I am my own man, Ms. D’Angelo, and I like it that way.”

The strange choking sensation building up from her chest to wad in her throat made her next words rumble.

“That’s the way I like it, too, Mr. Chaney. You’ve made it perfectly clear that the only thing on your agenda is not to get involved, with my mission or my motives. And I will not allow any intrusions into my search for justice, especially from a man who knows nothing about honor.”

For a moment he said nothing, then, oddly, he smiled. “Well, since it seems you’re so eager to get started with full contact, let’s get to it.”




Chapter 4


For a moment she saw stars.

“Don’t drop your hand.”

Tessa sent out a punch and within a heartbeat her jaw numbed from the shock of another impact.

“What did I just tell you?”

“Don’t drop your hand,” she muttered through her mouth guard.

“Relax.”

She stepped back and rolled her shoulders to ease the tension in them.

“Make a fist. Thumbs to your temples. Move them out about six inches from your body and at nose level. Elbows and fists at a forty-five degree. Good. Now keep that guard up. Your opponent is not going to stand there and let you hit them. They will hit you back. Concentrate. What are you thinking?”

She was thinking that he wasn’t married.

She probably deserved every jab he shot through her weak defense because of the odd elation that scrambled her timing and most likely her brain.

Why should she care if Jack Chaney was single?

Maybe she’d taken one too many punches.

Looking at him in the fading daylight, dark, tough, aggressive in his baggy gray sweatsuit, all she could think of was the tenderness in his touch. I won’t let anyone hurt you. She believed him and for the first time in over a month, the crushing panic was gone from inside her chest. I won’t let anyone hurt you. Funny how such a simple claim from a near stranger could release her fears.

But Jack wasn’t going to be there to protect her once she left his forest retreat, so she’d better listen and learn how to do it for herself.

“Never assume every opponent is going to respond the same way to a kick or a punch. Some you can drop, some will just shake it off and keep coming. Winning involves timing, speed, coordination and technique but none of those mean anything if you don’t keep fighting. When it’s time to fight, go at it one hundred and ten percent. You do whatever is necessary until your opponent is neutralized. Once you commit to fighting back, use surprise. React quickly when your opponent doesn’t expect it and do it with force. No hesitation. Be prepared to hit and keep on hitting until your opponent is no longer a threat. Then break off. That’s the difference between reasonable and excessive force. Be alert, decisive and aggressive. SEALs call that the warrior mind-set. Be aware of your surroundings. Be ready to act when you need to and be ready to commit that hundred and ten percent.”

She’d started to nod when she saw the blur of his right hook coming. And surprisingly, instinctively, her hand was there to deflect it. In the same motion, her right jabbed out to connect solidly with his chin. It wasn’t a hard pop or a damaging one. It didn’t stagger him or even cause him to flinch. But she’d made contact. Quickly, decisively and with aggression.

Jack grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about. Ready to mix it up some more?”

“Bring it on, Chaney.”



As they sat at the war room table eating a delicious meal laid out by the silent and nearly invisible Constanza, Jack continued to instruct and Tessa listened. Still flushed with the accomplishment of landing her first blow, she allowed herself the illusion of being one of his capable trainees preparing to do battle. In a way, she was. The men who’d framed and murdered her father were still out there and they’d made it clear they weren’t going to accept her interference quietly.

“There are four levels of readiness,” Jack was saying as he forked rice and beans into a warm tortilla. “Most people wander around in the white level, totally oblivious to what’s going on around them. It’s in this unaware comfort zone that people are the most vulnerable and when they’ll most likely be attacked.”

Tessa could see herself entering her apartment, as white as the rice on the table, seeing warning signs all around her yet clueless as to the danger. She’d been vulnerable, a victim.

“Every average citizen needs to increase their awareness to the yellow level. This isn’t a state of paranoia. It’s a state of preparedness. Awareness is a tremendously powerful tool that uses all your senses. You take the time to notice your surroundings so you can foresee potential problems. Watch people for verbal cues and body language. Learn the names of the security people who work in your building and make sure they know you. Know where the alarm buttons are, where the exits are, just like on an airplane. When you’re going someplace new, plan your transportation routes in advance. Walk closer to the street than to alleys and doorways. Ask yourself, if you were an attacker, where would you hide? Carry your body confidently. Walk or stand erect in a way that conveys assertiveness. When you pass someone, look them in the eye. Let them know you see them but maintain your personal space of at least two arm lengths. That’s your safety zone.”

It made sense. Tessa nodded. She’d been a victim. She’d walked right into a situation, blindly, trustingly. She understood the analogy. When you’re on an airplane that’s going down, it’s too late to look in the seat back flyer to locate exits and safety equipment. She rolled another tortilla and munched thoughtfully, passing a piece of the delicately spiced chicken down to Tinker.

“Once you’re in the yellow zone, proceeding with caution, and you know something isn’t right, that something bad might happen, you slip into the orange level of readiness. At this point, you know some action is necessary on your part. You either have to get away from the situation or be prepared to confront it. Moving quickly and decisively from yellow to orange is vital to your personal safety and self-defense. You have to be prepared to weigh your options and make your move. Be ready to jump into red if necessary. That’s where you hit first, where you do whatever you need to do, and do it immediately, for your safety or the protection of your loved ones.”

She felt a twinge of remorse. Too late. She’d been too slow to action, to even suspect. She could hear the muted voices in her father’s office, behind his closed door, but she still hadn’t reacted with more than puzzlement. Then the shot. She’d been paralyzed for how long, for how many vital seconds, while the perpetrator escaped?

Jack was studying her, his features impassive. Did he see her guilt, her grief? He could have said something to lessen her sense of blame but he didn’t. There was no way to do that now. She’d buried her father. But she wasn’t about to let her mother bury her. Instead of telling her to forgive herself, Jack explained away her culpability with a simple statement.

“We live in a passive society. We depend on other people to protect us. We see ourselves as having no control over our surroundings. We’re victims before the fact, accidents waiting to happen. But it doesn’t have to happen if you’re ready for it. Be prepared to fight. Be prepared to get in that first punch. Once you let your opponent take control, you’re in trouble. If you let them take you away from the initial point of attack, statistics show you only have a three percent chance of survival. Don’t give them that control. Be ready. Don’t hesitate. Be proud and indignant. They can’t do this to you. The strong and aggressive survive, Tessa. I didn’t make up those rules but you’d better learn to follow them.”

And she would.

Peripherally, she realized he’d called her by her first name. She wondered if he’d meant to or if he was unaware of it. Going from Ms. D’Angelo to Tessa put them on a new level of intimacy, and because of it, she found herself saying, “He hurt me, Jack. He surprised me and hurt me in my own home. I never saw it coming and I couldn’t get away. He wanted to scare me and he did. He terrorized me for I don’t know how long. I’d come around and think he was gone and then I’d hear him and see those creased trousers. And he’d hit me…”

She felt it all over again, the terror, the pain, the awful feeling of having no control. Coldness shuddered out from her belly, radiating outward to chill her heart, to freeze her blood, to immobilize her muscles.

And then Jack’s big, warm hand settled firmly over hers. His expression was intense, his features inscrutable. He didn’t try to tell her it would be all right. He didn’t try to tell her to let it go. He made her face it, head-on, right back into the hell of that night.

“What was he doing there, Tessa? What did he want?”

She blinked up at him through the glaze of her tears, trying to focus on what he was asking. “What was he doing?”

“The police report said it was a robbery. Was anything missing?”

“No.” Her tone steadied. “It wasn’t a robbery.”

“Then what was he doing there? Why did he stay after you walked in on him? Tessa, did he do anything else to you?” Though his tone didn’t actually change, it was suddenly infused with a harsh grittiness. The voice of a truly dangerous man.

“He was in my room.” She could hear the sounds from the bedroom, the sounds of drawers being opened and shut. The shuffle of papers, the sounds of her belongings being tossed carelessly to the floor. “He was looking for something.”

“What? What did he think you had?”

The fear fell away before a new cool logic. “Evidence. Evidence against him or his boss. Whatever my father was planning to use to indict them.”

“Did your father usually send files home with you?”

“I took things home with me all the time. My work day didn’t end at five.”

“What cases were you working on? What was big enough for them to resort to murder?”

“We were in the middle of a lot of cases but just one big, ugly confrontation. Councilman Rachel Martinez. She and my father were planning to run for the same congressional seat. Only, when we started digging into her background, unpleasant things started popping up. Things my father believed linked her to drug trafficking and an overseas pipeline.”

“The same things your father was accused of.” He said it flatly, noncommittally.

“Fancy that.”

“Mmm.”

“I think Martinez had him killed.”

“You can think what you like but proving it is another thing. What did your father have on her?”

Tessa rubbed her brow in frustration. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. Usually we worked on everything together, a team effort. But he wouldn’t confide in me on this one. He was putting together a solid case, was all he’d say.”

“Whatever he had, they didn’t find it when they killed him or maybe you chased them off before they had the chance. If they had found it, they wouldn’t have come after you. The police never found any link between drugs and Martinez.”

“They weren’t looking in that direction.” Her tone snapped like brittle ice. “They gave their report based on the testimony of some sniveling junkie looking to cut a deal. They took his word, a three-time loser, over my father’s. All the good he’d done, all the criminals he’d put away, and they took the word of a felon.”

“Our system loves to condemn its own heroes,” was Jack’s philosophical response.

“Yeah, well, it stinks. It really stinks. And now the real villain is still out there because there’s no one like my father willing to hunt him down.”

“Yes there is.”

Her. He meant her.

“Like father, like daughter,” he summed up succinctly. “Isn’t that why you’re doing this? Because just like him, you couldn’t let it go, you couldn’t let them go unpunished?”

Her reply was soft, humbled. “Something like that.”

“Then don’t let them get away with it.”

Fear unexpectedly stabbed through her insides, making her go all cold again. “I can still hear his voice, Jack.”

Walk away while you can. My next visit won’t be quite so pleasant.

“And you’re afraid of what he said.”

She didn’t have to answer.

Jack wanted to curse. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to crush her close in his arms and never let her go. Didn’t she realize the danger she was in if any of what she suspected was true? Why couldn’t she be like ninety-nine point nine percent of the populace and give up and let it go? Like father, like daughter. She’d sunk in her teeth and she wouldn’t release that bite, not ever. Not even after they struck her and threatened her. Not even when the system that was set up to protect her, failed her. Didn’t she know how easily professional men—men like him—could break her delicate bones?





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