Книга - Operation Nanny

Operation Nanny
Paula Graves


WANTED: NANNYMUST BE GOOD WITH WET WIPES AND GUNS.Lacey Miles becomes the unexpected sole guardian of her young niece. Knee-deep into an investigation of a sleeper cell, Lacey finds that motherhood is a lot more perilous than she expected, so she hires a nanny with an impeccable résumé…who's a far cry from Mary Poppins.Beneath his friendly demeanor, Jim Mercer is a former Marine turned undercover agent, tasked with ferreting out the terrorists targeting Lacey and her loved ones. Jim may be the ultimate caretaker, but the closer Lacey comes to blowing her case open, the more Jim's true identity is revealed. And the deeper he falls for this vulnerable little family.







WANTED: NANNY

MUST BE GOOD WITH WET WIPES AND GUNS.

Lacey Miles becomes the unexpected sole guardian of her young niece. Knee-deep into an investigation of a sleeper cell, Lacey finds that motherhood is a lot more perilous than she expected, so she hires a nanny with an impeccable résumé…who’s a far cry from Mary Poppins.

Beneath his friendly demeanor, Jim Mercer is a former Marine turned undercover agent, tasked with ferreting out the terrorists targeting Lacey and her loved ones. Jim may be the ultimate caretaker, but the closer Lacey comes to blowing her case open, the more Jim’s true identity is revealed. And the deeper he falls for this vulnerable little family.

Campbell Cove Academy


Lacey Miles stared at Jim a moment, her only reaction a slight narrowing of her eyes.

“Ms. Taylor said you had specified that you had no issues with hiring a male caretaker.”

“I don’t,” she said bluntly in a tone that suggested just the opposite.

“You seem as if you’ve been blindsided.”

Her lips curved in a faint, perfunctory smile. “I guess I have been, in a way. I didn’t have a chance to look over your credentials or even get your name. I just wasn’t expecting a man.”

“Oh.”

“I’m in a hurry to make a hire, you see,” she added quickly, as if she realized what she’d just admitted made her sound ill prepared. “In fact, you’re the first person who’s even applied for the job.”

He was pretty sure he knew why. The story about the car bomb meant for her, the one that had killed her sister and brother-in-law instead, had made the national news. There weren’t a lot of wannabe nannies willing to walk into a situation like that. Which made him the perfect person for the job.


Operation Nanny

Paula Graves






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


PAULA GRAVES, an Alabama native, wrote her first book at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. Paula invites readers to visit her website, paulagraves.com (http://paulagraves.com/).


For my nieces, Sarah, Kathryn, Melissa and Ashlee,

and my nephew, Nathan. Most of you aren’t old enough

to read my books, but maybe you’ll look them up in a

few years, see this dedication and smile.


Contents

Cover (#u6bccd1d3-66b6-5761-9580-67e2968629d7)

Introduction (#u019e0b80-d84a-5d34-8b79-657680c6759c)

Title Page (#u1f10758f-c8fe-54f5-9bc3-a9d442d61e05)

About the Author (#u74fd0897-30b9-5b68-ad10-30a2d14d624f)

Dedication (#u5a20f3ed-4769-5db1-ad3d-0e5211e54420)

Chapter One (#ulink_ecaf1005-8c65-56a0-8a58-0c00e4295f99)

Chapter Two (#ulink_4e6f7537-5337-5f4c-95d4-534f7108ab77)

Chapter Three (#ulink_8970e83d-b469-5ac1-b5ee-85277d0685e5)

Chapter Four (#ulink_dee1e07a-cb06-528c-b29e-197c944bcf99)

Chapter Five (#ulink_19e7e9d6-de2b-5df0-9177-115578de6f90)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter One (#ulink_a820af66-c431-54bd-8383-e075b71a099b)

The blue pickup truck was in her rearview mirror again. It had been there, off and on, since shortly after she’d crossed the Potomac into Maryland. Of course, many vehicles—not just the pickup—had shared the road into Frederick with her, many of them staying behind her for miles at a time before turning off.

Maybe that was the problem, Lacey thought. The pickup had never turned off.

A soft whine from the backseat drew her attention away from the rearview mirror. She dared the quickest glance at the child seat belted in behind the passenger seat, reassuring herself that Katie was just being fussy. Her niece’s bright gray eyes stared back at Lacey, reminding her so much of Marianne that she had to suck in her breath against a sharp stab of grief.

“Almost there, sweet pea,” she said as brightly as she could manage. They were only a few minutes out of Frederick now, and early for the appointment for once.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. She couldn’t see the pickup anymore.

Frowning, she looked forward, her gaze drawn to the green directional sign coming up fast on her right, informing her of an upcoming exit. It was a couple of exits before the one she’d planned to take, but the prickling skin on the back of her neck made the decision for her.

She moved to the exit lane as quickly as she could and took the off-ramp. As she came to a stop at the bottom of the off-ramp, she spotted the blue pickup driving past her, continuing on the highway.

Blowing out a pent-up breath, she couldn’t hold back a soft bubble of laughter. Talk about jumping at shadows.

“Firsty,” Katie announced from her car seat.

“I know you’re thirsty, sweetie. As soon as we get to the employment office, I’ll get your apple juice for you, okay?” Lacey wasn’t sure how much her niece really understood at the age of two, but the little girl subsided into silence for the remainder of the slightly longer drive into Frederick.

Elite Employment Agency occupied a tall, narrow redbrick building near the end of a block of old restored row homes in the downtown area. To Lacey’s chagrin, there were no parking slots available on the street, but a small sign in front of the office indicated there was more parking available in the alley behind the building.

Lacey tamped down a creeping sense of alarm and followed the sign until she reached a narrow alley flanked on either side by what looked like large, sprawling garages. At the time some of these homes had been built, she realized, these garages might have been stables for carriage horses. They’d obviously been updated once automobiles became ubiquitous, but there was a quaint feeling here among the garages, as if she could pull open one of the doors and find herself immersed in the remains of the town’s rich history.

But as she parked in the small gravel lot behind the employment agency, some of the alley’s charm faded, for she found herself hemmed in between two large garages on either side and also behind her, where garages for the buildings on the next street closed the alley in like a narrow gorge.

Sunlight struggled to penetrate the steel-gray winter sky overhead, reminding Lacey that snow was expected later in the week. She hoped the interview with the prospective nanny would go quickly and well. The sooner she could get a nanny hired and settled into the old farmhouse, the better.

“Firsty?” Katie ventured from the backseat as Lacey turned off the car.

“Just a second, baby.” She reached across the seat for the diaper bag, praying she’d remembered to pack the apple juice. And extra diapers.

With relief, she found the cup of apple juice and snapped off the drinking-spout cover. “Here, sweetie.”

Katie grabbed the cup and upended it, drinking with greedy sucking sounds. Lacey took advantage of her niece’s preoccupation to gather up the bag and her purse. She checked twice to make sure she had the car keys before she got out and walked around to the trunk to retrieve Katie’s stroller.

The crunch of gravel was the only warning she got. It was just enough for her to reach into the trunk before a pair of arms wrapped around her and started dragging her away from the car.

She fought to stay with the car, wrapping her fingers around the first thing they found—the cold metallic bite of a tire iron. As the arms around her tightened like a vise, she twisted to one side and swung the tire iron downward. It wasn’t a solid hit, but the iron connected with her captor’s leg, and she heard a loud bark of pain and a stream of profanities in her ear.

The arms around her loosened, just a bit, but it was enough for her to jerk out of his grasp. Her first instinct was to run as far and as fast as she could, but the sound of Katie’s cries, muffled by the car windows, stopped her cold.

She swung around to face her captor, wielding the tire iron in front of her like a club. But whatever small bravado she could muster faltered as she saw the barrel of a large black pistol aimed straight for her heart. All of the earlier ambient noises of the day—the rustle of wind in the winter-bare trees, the hum of nearby traffic—were swallowed by the thunderous throb of her pulse in her ears. Her entire focus centered on the dark, black hole of the pistol’s barrel and the masked man who wielded it.

“Hey!” A man’s voice broke through the swoosh of blood in her ears, and the pistol barrel swung quickly away from her, aimed at the newcomer.

Jerking out of her frozen trance, she swung at the man as hard as she could, hitting his shoulder and sending him stumbling toward the alley. The pistol went flying under a nearby car as the man caught himself against its trunk. He pushed upright again, staring at Lacey for a moment, then at something down the alley.

“Stop!” The voice that had broken through her paralysis belonged to a tall, broad-shouldered man in a neat charcoal suit who was running toward the man in the mask. He was still several yards away but gaining ground.

The masked man bolted down the alley, moving fast for someone his size. The man in the suit tried to pick up speed, but his dress shoes slipped and slid across the slick surface of the alley, and the man who’d pulled the gun on Lacey outdistanced him easily. There was a green van waiting halfway down the alley. The man in the mask jumped into the passenger seat and the car sped down the alley, took a turn and drove quickly out of sight.

Lacey opened the back door of her car and unbuckled her sobbing niece from the car seat, pulling her close and murmuring soft words of comfort to her as the man in the suit returned to where she stood, giving her a look of apology.

“Are you okay?” he asked, stopping short as she backpedaled away from him. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

She tucked Katie closer, keeping a wary eye on the newcomer. Just because he’d tried to come to her rescue didn’t mean he was anyone she could trust. Especially not now.

“I’m fine.”

He reached into his pocket slowly and withdrew a cell phone. He waggled it toward her as if to reassure her that it wasn’t any sort of weapon. “I’ll call the police.”

She looked behind her, where the back door of the building posed an almost irresistible temptation. She didn’t want to deal with the cops. She’d had her fill of the police in the past few weeks since her sister’s death. She knew they were just doing their job. Intrusive questions and suspicious minds came with the territory. Her own line of work shared some of those pitfalls; the people she interviewed were often emotionally distraught or shattered by the events they’d witnessed.

But knowing those facts didn’t make it easy to be on the other side of the interrogation. Especially when what was left of your sister and brother-in-law had just been zipped into body bags and carted off to the morgue.

“I don’t remember anything about him,” she murmured, feeling sick. Katie sniffled against her shoulder, but at least her wails had subsided.

“Not much to remember,” her rescuer said gently. “Did you see where his weapon went?”

“Yes,” she said quickly. “Under that car.” She nodded toward the late-model Buick parked next to hers. “But don’t try to retrieve it. He might have left trace evidence.”

“I know.” He punched numbers into the phone as he crouched beside the Buick and looked under the chassis. “A woman was just accosted by an armed man in the alley behind Elite Employment Agency on Sixth. No, nobody’s injured. The man lost possession of his weapon. I’m looking at it right now.”

Lacey’s knees began to shake, and she had to lean against the side of her car. Katie began to feel like deadweight in her arms, and, to her horror, she felt herself losing her grip on the little girl.

“Whoa, now.” The man rose quickly to his feet and caught Katie as she started to slide out of Lacey’s arms. “I’ve got her.”

Lacey waited for Katie’s wails to start, but to her surprise, the little girl just stared up with bright, curious eyes at the man in the suit. Bracing herself against the side of the car, Lacey held out her arms. “I’m all right. I can take her back now.”

He ignored her outstretched arms and opened the passenger door of her car. Nodding toward the seat, he said, “Why don’t you sit down right there, and then I’ll give this cutie back to you.”

It was a good idea, so she sat sideways, her feet still on the pavement. The man handed Katie back to her, and the little girl wriggled around until she was facing the stranger.

Katie was smitten, Lacey realized with some surprise, glancing up at the man, who was still making funny faces at Katie. Now that she wasn’t drowning in adrenaline, Lacey could see why. Their rescuer was a good-looking man, with a mobile face that seemed made for smiling. His exertions had mussed his short, sandy-brown hair, revealing a tendency to curl.

His gaze shifted away from Katie and settled on Lacey, warmth shining in his hazel-green eyes. Sympathy tinged his voice when he spoke. “Feeling a little less shaky?”

“Yes, thanks.” The moan of sirens in the distance seeped through the sound of traffic noise. “That must be the cops.”

“Must be.” The man smiled faintly. “I’m Jim Mercer.”

“I’m Lacey Miles.”

His smile spread. “I know. I’ve seen you on TV.”

“Oh.” She still felt strange when people recognized her, even though she had just finished her third year on air with the news network. “I haven’t thanked you. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t shown up and chased that creep away.”

He glanced at the tire iron she’d dropped by the car. “Probably brained the guy,” he said wryly.

She laughed, even though nothing about the past few minutes was funny.

The sirens grew louder, and the flash of blue and cherry lights lit the gloom of the alley. A second later, a white-and-blue Frederick Police Department cruiser pulled up behind Lacey’s car.

The next half hour proved to be almost as stressful as the attempted ambush, as Lacey had to answer dozens of questions, first from the responding officers, then from the detective who arrived a few minutes later. Because of the cold, the detectives took them inside the employment-agency building to ask questions, but the warmer temperatures didn’t do much to improve Katie’s mood. She cried every time Lacey tried to put her in the stroller, so Lacey ended up answering the detective’s questions while bouncing a fretful Katie on her knee.

“He was wearing a mask,” Lacey answered for what felt like the tenth time. “I didn’t see his hair or his eyes. He was pointing a gun at me. I just saw the gun.”

At the other end of the conference-room table, Jim Mercer was answering questions posed by another detective, who looked bored and sleepy. Jim glanced her way once, his eyes soft with concern. A warm sensation spread through her chest in response, catching her off guard.

He’s a stranger, and you are in no position to feel anything for a stranger, she reminded herself. Trust no one.

Detective Braun finally closed his notebook and held out a business card. “We’ll see if we can get anything off the weapon. But even if we can track it with the serial number, it’s possible it was stolen. However, you can call me if you remember anything else, and I’ll be in touch if we’re able to track anything down on your assailant. It’s just—”

“I understand.” She took the card. “I know there’s not much to go on.”

“You might want to call a friend to drive back to Virginia with you,” he suggested. “So you’re not out there alone.”

She nodded even though she knew there was nobody she could call. Her work had been the center of her life for the past ten years, to the point that it consumed her life almost entirely. The low pay and bad hours paying her dues on the local level, then the big move to the occasional national gig and, finally, a regular investigative slot on a national network—all those steps up the career ladder had taken a big toll on the rest of her life.

She’d always thought there would be time later, time to rebuild friendships and family ties that had suffered during her upward climb.

Now Katie was all she had left, and she had absolutely no idea how to be a mother to her sister’s child.

“Do you think it could be connected to the bombing?” she asked Braun as he started toward the conference-room door.

He stopped and looked at her. “It’s possible. But this attack seems pretty random.”

“Someone set a bomb in my car. My sister and her husband were killed because they borrowed it. Maybe you remember that bombing—Marianne and Toby Harper? Ring any bells? And now, two weeks later, I’m accosted at gunpoint. I’m not sure I’d call that random.”

Braun looked both sympathetic and frustrated. “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. You may be right. It may be connected. I plan to make a call to the DC police and compare notes with the lead detective in the bombing case. Maybe we can come up with a more solid connection.”

As he left the room, Lacey tucked Katie closer, breathing in the warm scent of powder and baby shampoo. Meanwhile, she thought, Katie and I are sitting ducks.

* * *

“AND YOU’RE SURE you didn’t make out anything about the license plates?” Detective Marty Ridge stifled a yawn.

“No,” Jim answered, trying not to let his impatience show. If he’d seen a license plate, he’d have described it in detail. But the plate on the green Chevy van had been obscured with mud. Probably on purpose. He couldn’t even be sure whether they were Maryland or Virginia plates.

“Well, we’ll have to hope the weapon gives us something to go on,” Ridge said in a tone that suggested Jim’s testimony was going to be no help at all.

Jim stifled a grimace of annoyance and glanced down the table at Lacey Miles and her niece. The little girl was fussing despite her aunt’s attempt to soothe her. From the expression on Lacey’s face, she didn’t know how to comfort the child, which made him wonder just how much she knew about taking care of a baby.

“Call if you think of anything else.” Rising, Ridge handed Jim his card, but from the look on his face, it was something he did out of habit rather than any real hope that Jim could add anything to the investigation.

After Ridge left, Jim walked to where Lacey sat. Katie looked up at him and her pout turned into a smile. Something inside him melted as the little girl held out her arms to him.

“No, Katie. Mr. Mercer has to go now.” The smile Lacey flashed in his direction was halfhearted at best.

“Actually, I have an appointment here. A job interview.”

“Oh.” Lacey’s sandy brows lifted slightly as she looked him up and down. He quelled the urge to squirm a little at her scrutiny, even though her gaze seemed as sharp as that of any drill sergeant he’d ever faced during an inspection. “Well, good luck.”

“Thanks.” He left the room, his steps faltering briefly when Katie began to cry. As he closed the door behind him, he heard Lacey’s soft murmurs of comfort, and he wondered if the little girl would be appeased.

At the front office, he gave his name to the receptionist, apologizing for being late and explaining the situation.

“You’re lucky,” the woman said with a friendly smile. “Your appointment is late, too.”

He glanced back toward the conference room, where he’d left Lacey Miles and her little niece. “I know.”

* * *

THE EMPLOYMENT OFFICE MANAGER was a tall, sharp-eyed brunette with the bone structure of a model named Ellen Taylor. She wore a sleek blue suit that fit her angular body to perfection, and her voice was inflectionless and polished. “I’m so sorry for your ordeal, Ms. Miles.” She spared a brief smile for Katie, but she was clearly not someone who had much experience with small children.

Join the club, Lacey thought. “I hate that I’ve kept the prospective nanny waiting.”

“It’s not a problem,” Ellen assured her. “Are you ready?”

Lacey glanced at her own rumpled suit and Katie’s tear-streaked face. She sighed. So much for a good first impression. “Sure.”

“Good. Before we start, how do you want to handle this? Do you want me to sit in or do you want to handle the interview yourself?”

If she thought Ellen Taylor knew anything about babies or nannies, she might have asked her to stay. But she might as well go into this interview the way she’d continue after she hired someone—clueless and needy.

Besides, she was a professional reporter. She’d interviewed presidents, prime ministers and kings, as well as rebels and terrorists. If she couldn’t handle asking a prospective nanny a few pointed questions, what kind of reporter was she?

“Very well. I’ll let you handle it, and then when you’re done, you can tell me whether you want to interview any other prospects.” Ellen left the room in a faint cloud of Chanel No. 5.

“Oh, wait—” Lacey began, but the door had already clicked shut behind the woman. “Damn it.”

She’d forgotten to ask for a résumé beforehand. She’d planned her early arrival so she could do a quick read through the potential nanny’s employment history so she could ask intelligent questions. No reporter liked to go into an interview blind.

“Oh well,” she murmured against Katie’s cheek. “Guess we’ll find out soon enough if we’ve found our own Mary Poppins.”

There was a quiet knock on the conference-room door.

“Come in,” Lacey said, taking a deep breath to calm her sudden rattle of nerves and pasting a smile on her face.

The door opened and Jim Mercer entered, a faint smile on his face. “Hello, again.”

“Oh. It’s you.” Her smile faded. “Did you forget something?”

“Actually, no.” He smiled at Katie, who reached out for him again. “Hey there, sweetie.”

Lacey tugged her niece closer. “I hate to seem rude, considering how you came to our rescue, but I don’t really have time to talk. I’m about to conduct a job interview.”

Jim pulled out the chair across from her and sat. “I know. I’m the one you’re interviewing.”


Chapter Two (#ulink_86b63888-219a-593b-8a1f-30ec454051f2)

Lacey Miles stared at Jim a moment, her only reaction a slight narrowing of her eyes. Otherwise, she maintained a pretty impressive poker face. “I see.”

When she said nothing more, he asked, “Is that a problem? Ms. Taylor said you had specified that you had no issues with hiring a male caretaker.”

“I don’t,” she said bluntly in a tone that suggested just the opposite.

“You seem as if you’ve been blindsided.”

Her lips curved in a faint, perfunctory smile. “I guess I have been, in a way. I didn’t have a chance to look over your credentials or even get your name. I just wasn’t expecting a man.”

“Oh.”

“I’m in a hurry to make a hire, you see,” she added quickly, as if she realized what she’d just admitted made her sound ill prepared. “I haven’t had much luck since I sent my request to Ellen. In fact, you’re the first person who’s even applied for the job.”

He was pretty sure he knew why. The story about the car bomb that had been meant for her—the one that had killed her sister and brother-in-law instead—had made the national news. There weren’t a lot of wannabe nannies willing to walk into a situation like that.

“Anyway, best-laid plans and all that.” Lacey breathed a soft sigh. “So tell me about yourself.”

“I’m thirty-four years old. I spent a decade in the Marine Corps, and then over the next four years, I went to college and earned a degree in early-childhood education.”

“Really? First a Marine, now a nanny?” That piece of information seemed to pique her interest.

“I’d eventually like to run my own day-care center,” he said, wondering if she’d believe it.

“What sort of experience with child care do you have?”

“I raised my younger siblings from the age of fifteen. My father was a police officer who died in the line of duty, and my mother had to go back to work. I had three younger siblings, ages two through eleven. I was their full-time caregiver until my mother remarried shortly after I turned eighteen. At that time, I joined the Marine Corps.”

“That’s your most recent child-care experience?”

“After college, I worked a couple of years as a nanny for a family in Kentucky.” He slid his résumé across the table to her. “Their contact information is on my résumé.”

She set Katie on the floor and picked up the paper. After a few minutes silently reading what was written there, she put the paper down and looked up at him, her gray eyes narrowed. “Assuming your references check out, how quickly can you start work?”

“As soon as you hire me.”

“What about the family you were working for? You don’t need to give them any notice?”

“No. Mrs. Beckett decided she was missing too much of her children’s lives by working in an office, so she took a job that enables her to work from home. So I’m back in the job market.”

“I see.”

She fell silent again, her gaze wandering back to the résumé, as if she might find something new written in the words on the page. What was she looking for? Jim wondered. A reason to hire him?

Or a reason not to?

A tug on his pants leg drew his attention. Katie stood at his knee, her gray eyes gazing up at him with curiosity. When she saw him looking, her little face spread into a big grin.

“Hey there, Katiebug.”

At the sound of his voice, she lifted her arms.

“May I?” He looked at Lacey for permission to pick up the child.

“Sure.”

He picked up Katie and set her on his knee. She grew instantly intrigued by his blue-striped tie, her fingers playing with the fabric. He couldn’t hold back a smile, which she returned with a giggle.

She was at a very cute age, just a shade past two. Pretty steady on her feet, starting to build her vocabulary, curious about everything that crossed her path—she had probably already started becoming a handful before her parents suddenly and tragically disappeared from her life, leaving her in the care of her aunt.

Her aunt, who was a single woman with a high-powered, very public career. Earlier, he’d wondered just how much Lacey Miles knew about taking care of a small child. He was becoming more and more certain she was clueless. No wonder she was desperate to hire a nanny.

“Katie likes you,” she said. “A point in your favor.”

“Ms. Taylor said you needed a live-in nanny. Does that mean you’ll be going back to work soon?”

Lacey’s sandy brow notched upward. “What makes you think I haven’t been working?”

“I haven’t seen you on air. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed you weren’t working behind the scenes.” It wouldn’t do for her to realize just how much he already knew about her. She was already on edge as it was, and the attack this afternoon had only made things worse for her.

It had been a brazen attack, during daylight and out in the open. Although, if he hadn’t happened to be walking down that alley when he had, it might have been very easy for her attacker to kill her outright or carry her and the child away in the van that had been waiting for him.

The big question was why. Why had someone gone after her today? Why had someone set a bomb under her car a couple of weeks ago?

Just how much danger were she and her niece really in?

“I guess you know why I have custody of my niece now. I’m all she has. Both sets of grandparents are dead, and Toby didn’t have any brothers or sisters.”

He nodded. “I’m very sorry about your sister and your brother-in-law.”

“They were killed in my car.” She spoke as if she had to force the words from her lips. She was clearly dealing with some pretty hefty guilt about her sister’s death. And he gave her points for being honest about the threat hanging over her head, too, even though it might be enough to scare a prospective nanny away in a heartbeat.

“If you’re trying to tell me there might be a little danger involved in this job, I’d already gathered that much before I ever agreed to apply for the job.”

Her sharp gaze met his. “And yet, here you are. Even after you had to chase away another attack on us just today.”

“I did mention I was a Marine, didn’t I?”

For the first time since they’d met, a genuine smile touched the edges of Lacey’s lips. “You did.”

“Danger doesn’t impress me the way it might someone else.”

“I’m not asking you to be a bodyguard,” she said sharply. “I don’t need a security detail. I think that would probably make things worse, not better.”

He wasn’t sure why she felt that way, but he didn’t want to start asking questions that would make her even more reluctant to hire him. “I’m just saying, I’m not afraid to work for you. If you think I’ll suit your needs.”

She gave him another long, sharp-eyed look. “You’d have to live with Katie and me at my late sister’s farmhouse in Cherry Grove, Virginia. It’s a small town about a forty-minute drive from here in Frederick. The house isn’t completely renovated, but enough has been done for it to be a comfortable place to live.” Her voice faded for a moment, and what was left of her faint smile disappeared completely, swallowed by a look of hard grief. “Marianne and Toby were hoping to have it finished by this summer, but they ran out of time.”

Jim felt a dart of sympathy. “Were they living there when they died?”

Lacey shook her head. “No. Why?”

“I was just wondering why you choose to live there instead of in DC. I thought maybe it was to make things easier for Katie. Not wanting to take her away from the home she knows—”

“No, that’s not it. Just the opposite, actually. See, I was keeping Katie at my apartment when... That night. Marianne and Toby were celebrating their wedding anniversary. New Year’s Eve.” Lacey’s lip trembled briefly before she brought her emotions under control. “I don’t want her watching my front door, waiting for them to come back and get her.”

He looked over at Katie, who’d slid off his lap and wandered over to play with a stuffed cat hanging by a red ribbon from the push bar of her stroller. He felt a rush of sadness for the child, and also for her tough but grieving aunt. Neither of them had expected to be where they were, the only family either of them had left.

Both of them in danger they couldn’t predict or easily prevent.

“I want the job if you want to hire me,” he said flatly, meeting Lacey’s gaze. “I think I can help you. And I need the work.”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and he began to worry that she was going to turn him down. It wouldn’t be a complete disaster if she did so, he knew. There were other ways to accomplish what he wanted to do.

But it would be so much easier if she’d just give him the nanny job.

She rose slowly, still looking at him through cautious gray eyes. “I’ll call your references today and see what they say. I’ll be in touch, one way or the other. May I contact you directly?”

He rose, too. “My number is on the résumé.”

She continued to look at him for a long, silent moment, as if trying to assess his character in that lengthy gaze. Finally, she extended her hand. “It was good to meet you, Mr. Mercer.”

“Jim,” he reminded her, taking her hand firmly in his.

She withdrew her hand. “Thank you again for your help this afternoon.”

“I’m glad I was there. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to catch the guy before he got away.”

“Two against one isn’t good odds. Even for a Marine.”

He waited for her to gather up Katie and settle her in the stroller, noting the way her hands shook slightly when Katie started to whine at being confined again.

She needed his help. A lot. And not just with Katie.

He was counting on that fact.

* * *

IN NO BIG hurry to return to the isolation of the Cherry Grove farmhouse, Lacey detoured southeast to Arlington, calling Detective Bolling with the Arlington County Police Department Homicide/Robbery Unit. As lead investigator into the car bomb that had killed Marianne and Toby, he was certain to be interested in what had happened to her in Frederick earlier that day.

He met her in a small café a few blocks from her apartment, smiling at Katie as they sat. “How’s she doing?”

Lacey shrugged. “Hard to know. She’s not a big talker yet.”

Bolling gave her a look of sympathy before he went into business mode. He listened intently as she told him about the ambush in Frederick, copying the name of the Frederick detective who’d given her his card. “I’ll give him a call. You sure you and the little one are okay?”

“Someone came to our rescue. Chased the guy away. There were two of them, did I mention that? The one who pulled the gun on me got into a van waiting for him down the alley from the employment agency.”

Bolling frowned at that. “Sounds premeditated. Having a getaway vehicle in place.”

“That’s what I thought, too. I think they wanted to abduct me, Detective Bolling. Otherwise, why didn’t he just shoot me right there?”

Bolling’s brow furrowed as he considered that possibility. “That’s a departure from a car bomb.”

“Do you think the situations could be unrelated?”

“Maybe. But it doesn’t seem likely, does it?” Bolling’s frown deepened. “What were you doing at an employment agency in Frederick, anyway?”

“Hiring a nanny.”

Bolling looked at Katie. “Does that mean you’re going back to work?”

Why did everyone assume hiring a nanny equaled returning to her job at the network? What did they think—that all women just naturally knew how to care for a two-year-old when one was dropped in their laps?

Immediately, she felt guilty for the flash of irritation. Most women probably did have at least some clue how to care for a small child. Even those who weren’t in the position financially and professionally to take a sabbatical from work.

“No, I’m not going back to work yet. But I don’t have a lot of experience caring for a child.” She stirred her glass of ginger ale with a long red straw, not meeting Bolling’s gaze. She didn’t want to know what he thought of that admission. Pity or disapproval would be equally unwelcome.

“Did you find a suitable candidate?”

“Maybe.”

“If you’d like, we could run a background check before you hire her.”

“Not necessary,” she assured him. She was as capable as the police to run a background check on Jim Mercer. Maybe more so, since her network connections gave her access to information even the police couldn’t get their hands on. Not without a warrant, anyway. “But I’d like to stay in the loop if you hear anything from the Frederick police about my assailant. I didn’t get the feeling Detective Braun was interested in keeping me updated.”

“I will tell you if anything important comes out of the investigation,” Bolling promised. “You sure you don’t want something to eat? My treat.”

“No, but thanks.” What she wanted, she realized with despair, was to go to her place in Virginia Square, sleep in her own bed and wake up to find everything that had happened in the past couple of weeks was nothing but a bad dream.

But that wasn’t going to happen. Marianne was gone. She wasn’t coming back. And Lacey couldn’t shake the feeling that there might be worse yet to come.

“Have you given any more consideration to hiring private security?” Bolling asked.

“I’ve considered it. But I’m trying to stay off the press’s radar, at least for now. Hiring security guards would just draw more attention to me.” She lowered her voice to a whisper after looking around to see if anyone was listening. “Especially in Cherry Grove.”

“You’re afraid that instead of covering the story, you’ll suddenly be the story?”

She nodded. “Katie has enough to deal with as it is. I don’t want her little face plastered all over cable news for the next few weeks.”

“You have enough to deal with, too. I get it.” Bolling put a ten on the table between them and stood up. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car.”

The temperature had dropped by several degrees while they were in the café, Lacey noted. The snow predicted for the end of the week might come sooner than expected. She’d have to make sure they were stocked with plenty of firewood in case the power to the farmhouse went out in the storm.

“Is this vehicle registered in your name?” Bolling asked as he helped her settle Katie in her car seat.

“No,” she answered. “It belonged to Toby and Marianne, so I guess it belongs to Katie and me now. I might as well use it until I can get another vehicle.”

“Just be careful, Lacey. Okay? I know it’s possible what happened to you today was random, but...”

But it wasn’t likely. She knew that already.

“I’ll be in touch,” she promised.

Meanwhile, she had some background checking to do.

* * *

JIM HADN’T FIGURED on hearing from Lacey Miles for a few days. He knew she’d already talked to the references he’d provided on his résumé, but he was pretty sure she wouldn’t have stopped there. He’d been watching her reporting for a few years now. He knew she was smart, prepared, resourceful and very, very thorough.

So it was with some surprise that he heard her voice on the phone shortly after lunchtime the day after the interview. “Mr. Mercer? This is Lacey Miles.”

He put down the Glock he was cleaning and sat up straighter. “Ms. Miles. How’s Katie? How are you, for that matter? Recovered from the attack?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, as if his questions caught her off guard. “We’re fine,” she said after a couple of beats of silence. “Just fine. I’m calling about the job you interviewed for yesterday.”

“Yes. Have you made a decision?”

“I have,” she said, her voice a little stronger. “I’d like to hire you to care for my niece. Were you serious when you said you could go to work immediately?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Then could you be here by four this afternoon? I have somewhere I need to go this evening. Somewhere I can’t take Katie.”

He frowned, not liking the sound of that. “You’re not going out alone, are you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Damn it. You’re a nanny, not a Marine. Remember that. She’s your boss, not someone you’re protecting. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I have no right to ask you such a question. I just—After the bombing and what happened to you yesterday...forget I asked. Yes, I can be there by dinnertime. I just need the address.”

“Do you know how to get to Cherry Grove? East of Lovettsville, near the Potomac. There’s a big fountain in the center of town. Shaped like a cherry.” She couldn’t quite keep a hint of laughter out of her voice. “Trust me, you can’t miss it. If you’ll stop at the gas station across the street from the fountain, just ask for the old Peabody farm. They’ll tell you how to get here.”

“Got it,” he said. “I’ll pack a bag and be there by four. Will that work?”

“Yes. Thank you. We’ll give this a try and see how it goes.” She hung up before he could say anything else.

He punched in a phone number and waited. He got an answer on the second ring. “It’s Mercer.”

“Any news?”

“Yeah. I’m headed to Cherry Grove. This evening. She’s going out and needs me to watch Katie. Says we’ll give this a try and see if it works out.”

“It’ll work out,” the voice on the other end of the line said firmly. “You’ll make it work out.”

“Understood.” He hung up the phone, picked up his Glock and started cleaning the weapon again.


Chapter Three (#ulink_df1fea57-7493-5abf-9df7-e0edcce2aaca)

“What do you say, sweet pea?”

Katie gazed back at Lacey, her gray eyes bright with curiosity, as if she was trying to make sense of the question.

Lacey ruffled the baby’s blond curls and laughed self-consciously. “It’s okay, sweetie. If Aunt Lacey doesn’t know whether she’s done the right thing, she doesn’t expect you to know.”

“Wacey,” Katie said solemnly.

Lacey picked her up and gave her a hug. Apparently not in the mood for a snuggle, Katie wriggled in her grasp, and Lacey set her down on the floor again with a sigh. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better about her mothering skills, Katie.”

Katie flashed a lopsided grin and toddled off to the window, where she’d left her favorite stuffed cat sitting on the windowsill.

Lacey looked around the small front parlor, feeling entirely overwhelmed. When she’d decided to move herself and Katie out here to Nowheresville, Virginia, she hadn’t realized just how little of the farmhouse had been renovated. Half the sprawling old Folk Victorian house was still trapped in limbo, somewhere between demolition and reconstruction, and she had no idea how or when she’d be able to finish the work.

The contractor she’d hired to assess the status of the renovation had assured her that the foundation had been made sound, the roof was new and there were no safety hazards to worry about, although there had been some question about the safety of an underground tunnel the contractor had discovered in the basement, which was the only remaining part of the antebellum home that had burned to the ground a few years before the farmhouse had been built on its foundation.

But most of the upstairs rooms had yet to be repaired and painted. There was a whole bathroom in the master suite that had been completely gutted. And the sprawling kitchen at the back of the house was only halfway finished, though most of the remaining work was cosmetic rather than functional.

Poor Jim Mercer didn’t have any idea what kind of mess he was about to walk into.

Her cell phone rang, a jarring note in the bucolic peace of the isolated farm. She checked the display and grimaced when she saw the name. “Hi, Royce.”

“I heard you’re hiring a nanny.”

“Where’d you hear that?” she asked, wondering which employee of Elite Employment Agency had let that information slip to the wrong person.

“Oh, around. You know.”

Maybe it had been Jim Mercer himself who’d spilled the news. Maybe he’d decided to do a little background checking on her, as well. She couldn’t really blame him if he had, she realized. He had a right to know just what sort of mess he was walking into if he took the job. “You called to find out whether or not I’m hiring a nanny?”

“No,” Royce said in a tone of long-suffering forbearance. “I called to find out whether your decision to hire a nanny meant you were coming back to work.”

“Not yet. You said I could take a few months. Have you changed your mind?”

“If I said I had, would you come back to work?”

“No,” she answered flatly. “I need this time off, Royce. If you can’t give it to me, I’ll turn in my notice. Then when I’m ready to return to work, I’ll give one of the other networks a call.”

“No,” Royce said quickly. “I said you could have the sabbatical. I’m not going to renege.”

“I really do appreciate your understanding.”

“I hear the cops still don’t know who set the bomb or why. Do you think it had something to do with that piece you were doing on al Adar?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. Not long before the car bomb that had killed Marianne and Toby, Lacey had spent several months in Kaziristan, a Central Asian republic fighting for its very existence. A terrorist group known as al Adar had risen from the ashes earlier in the year, after several years of near dormancy, taking advantage of an economic downturn in the nascent democracy to stir up trouble and violence. Her exposé on the troubling rise of the terrorist group had just been nominated for a Murrow Award for investigative reporting.

But al Adar hadn’t yet made a name for themselves outside of Kaziristan. They hadn’t really started exporting terrorism on a regular basis, despite a few aborted attempts a few years back.

Or had they?

“I want to hire security for you and your niece.”

“Royce, we’ve talked about this. If I make a big deal out of what happened, the press will do the same. They’ll start publicizing where I am now, something that only a few people know about at the moment. Since I’d like to keep it that way, no—I’m not going to hire a bunch of bodyguards that’ll start tongues wagging all over the East Coast.”

“You’re a target, Lacey.”

“I’ve taken a sabbatical. I’m not reporting on al Adar or anyone else. Maybe that’ll be enough to appease whoever it was who came after me.” She wasn’t sure she believed it, but the last thing she wanted right now was to live under the watchful eyes of a bunch of muscle-bound security contractors who’d try to watch her every move and keep her from doing what needed to be done.

Regardless of who had set the bomb under her car, she was the one who felt responsible for her sister’s death.

She had to be the one who figured out who hated her enough to kill her. And stop him before he could take another shot at killing her.

“Do you really think it’ll be enough to appease someone who wants you dead?” Royce asked.

“I don’t know. But it’s better than living in a cage until the cops finally figure out who set the bomb.”

Royce was silent for a long moment before he spoke in a hushed tone. “Tell me you’re not thinking about tracking down this killer yourself.”

She didn’t respond.

“Damn it, Lacey. You’re a reporter. You’re not a cop.”

“I tracked down the head of al Adar when the US government thought the man was dead.”

“Different situation. You weren’t his target, for one thing.”

There was a knock on the front door. “I have to go, Royce. I’ll call you later.”

She hung up the phone and walked to the front door, sneaking a peek through the security lens. Jim Mercer stood on the other side of the door, dressed in a brown leather bomber jacket, his hair ruffled by the cold wind moaning in the eaves outside.

She unlocked the door and opened it. “You’re early.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Is that a problem?”

“No, of course not. I just mean, you’re not late.” She forced a smile, acutely aware that the past two weeks had done a number on her social skills. “Come in. I’ll show you your room and you can get settled before I have to leave.” She closed the door behind him, careful to lock the dead bolt.

He stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked around. “This place is great. How old is it?”

“I think it was built in the eighteen nineties. Something like that. It was updated in the sixties or seventies, I think, but Marianne and Toby were planning to renovate the place with its history in mind. You know, try to match the styles of the Folk Victorian era even while they updated the plumbing and electrical.” She led him into the large family room. “They did take down a couple of walls to make this place more open concept, but the hardwood floors are all original, and so are the window trim and the crown molding.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said.

Katie turned at the sound of his voice, staring at him with a look of sheer delight. “Hey!”

Jim grinned back at her. “Hey there, Katiebug!”

She ran toward him, her chubby legs churning, and tugged on his jeans until he put down his duffel bag and picked her up. She patted his cheeks and again said, “Hey.”

“She’s usually so shy,” Lacey murmured, not sure her niece’s crush on her new nanny was such a good idea. What if Jim didn’t work out? What if another person disappeared from Katie’s life?

But what could she do? She needed help with her niece, someone to take care of the little girl while she continued her investigation into her sister’s death. Better that it be someone Katie liked than someone she didn’t, right?

Jim tucked Katie into the crook of one arm and picked up the duffel bag with the other. “Kids like me,” he said with a shrug, nodding for her to continue the tour of the house.

She took him through the kitchen to the narrow hallway that led to the first-floor master bedroom. She had been staying there because it was close to the nursery, although for the past two weeks, Katie had been sleeping in the bed with Lacey.

She thought it might be better for her to move to one of the other bedrooms downstairs and let Jim have the bedroom suite. Katie could move to the nursery next door, and he’d still be close enough to go to her in the night.

“This is your room,” she told him as she opened the door and led him inside.

He looked around the large room, his brow furrowed. “This is a nice room.”

“It’s technically the master suite, but it’s next door to the nursery, so...”

He nodded, understanding. “You’ll be upstairs?”

“No, the upstairs hasn’t really been renovated yet. There are a couple of other bedrooms on the first floor. I’ll take one of those.”

“Of course. Whatever you want to do.” He turned to look at her. “How are you doing? After the ambush, I mean.”

“I’m fine,” she said with a firmness she didn’t quite feel. Despite her determination to show no fear, the most recent attack had rattled her nerves almost as much as the car bombing had, despite the fact that neither she nor Katie had been hurt. Maybe because it had come out of the blue, in a place she hadn’t expected to face danger. She had almost convinced herself that the bombing had been a onetime act of violent rage. A venting of hate and anger, perhaps, emptying a twisted soul of the unspeakable darkness inside him.

Much easier to deal with the idea of a psychotic outburst than to contemplate the idea that someone had deliberately set out to kill her in cold blood, driven not by emotion but rational if diabolical intent.

Jim set the duffel bag on the floor by the bed, bouncing Katie lightly in the crook of his arm. “I’ll unpack after you get back home,” he said, turning to look at Lacey. “Any idea how long you’ll be out? So I know whether to start calling around to find you if you don’t show up on time.”

She couldn’t decide if she found his words irritating or endearing. As she’d told Royce Myerson, she didn’t want a bodyguard. She didn’t want her movements tracked or to be trapped inside this farmhouse, afraid to stick her head out the door for fear of having it lopped off.

At the same time, she couldn’t deny a sense of relief that she now had someone around who cared whether or not she came back home safely. Someone to call in the cavalry if things somehow went wrong.

“I should be home by eleven at the latest.”

“If Katie and I need you, we can reach you by phone?”

“If it’s an emergency.”

“Listen, I know you’re not looking for a bodyguard, and I don’t imagine you care to tell a virtual stranger where you’re going and who you’re seeing, so I’m not going to ask you to tell me that.” Katie had started wriggling in his arms, so Jim set her on the floor, not missing a beat. “But could you leave that information somewhere here in the house so that I can find it if you don’t get back on time and I can’t reach you?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You mean so the cops will have somewhere to start looking when you call it in?”

His brow furrowed. “Well, I hadn’t planned to put it quite that bluntly.”

She smiled. “It’s a smart idea. I’ll leave the address where I’ll be on the message board in the kitchen. Will that work?”

“That works.” He returned her smile, and she felt an unexpected twisting sensation in the center of her chest. Damn, he was awfully cute when he smiled. She didn’t need to start thinking about him as a tall, attractive man instead of her niece’s nanny. Definitely needed to nip that in the bud.

“There are some jars of peas and carrots in the cabinet,” she told him, leading him back to the kitchen. “And some creamed chicken in the fridge. She likes her food lukewarm. Not hot, not cold.”

And she liked to throw her food around and make a mess, which Jim would find out soon enough.

“She’s still eating food from jars?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Marianne used to cook, and I think Katie was eating some regular table food, but I’m not quite that domestic,” she admitted, guilt tugging at her chest. “I guess I’m going to have to buy a cookbook or something.”

“I can cook,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

“I don’t expect you to be a housekeeper and chef, as well as a nanny.”

“I like to cook. I like to eat. You’ll be buying the groceries, so it’s not like you’ll be taking advantage.” He crouched as Katie toddled up to him, smiling at the little girl. “We’ll see if we can find the fixings to make a chicken potpie tonight. How does that sound, Katiebug?”

“Pie,” she said in a tone of approval.

Damn it, Lacey thought. Great body, adorable dimples—and he cooked?

Even Mary Poppins couldn’t touch that.

“Should I save you a plate? Or will you be eating out?”

“I was planning on grabbing something while I was out, but you’re making this potpie sound tempting.”

He slanted a smiling look at her. “Don’t get too excited. We’re talking about canned vegetables and crumbled-cracker topping here.”

She really needed to get out of here before he tempted her to change her plans and stay. “Save me a plate. If I don’t eat it tonight, I’ll eat it tomorrow.”

She grabbed her purse from one of the hooks in the small mudroom off the kitchen. “Don’t start calling the police and hospitals until after ten,” she said, keeping her tone light, even though she knew her safety wasn’t really a laughing matter.

But she couldn’t afford to live in fear. She had to find a killer before he struck again. She had to do it for Marianne and Toby. For her orphaned niece.

For herself.

Outside, night had fallen completely, and the first grains of sleet peppered her windshield as she started Marianne’s Chevrolet Impala. With Katie still small enough to fit easily into a car seat buckled to the sedan’s backseat, Marianne and Toby hadn’t yet seen the need to upgrade to an SUV or minivan. But it wouldn’t be long before Lacey would have to start thinking about getting a more family friendly vehicle.

Stopping at the end of the long driveway, Lacey rubbed her temples, where the first signs of a headache were beginning to throb. How was she supposed to be Katie’s mother? Katie had had a good mother. A great mother. A mother Lacey didn’t have a hope of emulating. Marianne had been a natural. Chock-full of maternal instincts and glowing with the joy of motherhood.

And now she was gone, and all Katie had left were memories that would fade with time and an aunt who had no idea how to be a mother.

“Stop,” she said aloud, gripping the steering wheel tightly in her clenched fists. “You’ll learn what you need to know. You’ll do your best.”

And you’ll start with finding the son of a bitch who killed Marianne and Toby.

A call had come early that morning from Ken Calvert, a source in the State Department, an analyst in the department’s South and Central Asia division. She’d dealt with Calvert several times following up on the stateside elements of her investigative report on the rejuvenation of al Adar. Calvert claimed to have new information about a possible domestic al Adar connection, but he didn’t feel comfortable telling her about it over the phone. He wanted to meet her at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at seven.

Maybe she was crazy to go out there alone. But she needed to know if it was possible that al Adar had put out a hit on her here in the United States. At least the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was a public place. It might not draw hordes of tourists on a snowy night in January, but Lacey had never been to the sleek reflective memorial wall when there weren’t plenty of visitors around. She should be safe enough.

She went east on River Road, heading for the highway that would take her into the capital. It was an hour’s drive from Cherry Grove to DC. She hoped Ken Calvert really had come across something useful for her. She didn’t look forward to driving home in the snow.

For the first third of the drive, traffic was moderate and, at times, light. But the closer she got to DC, the heavier it got. Headlights gleamed in her rearview mirror like long strands of Christmas lights stretching out along the highway behind her.

Any one of those vehicles could be carrying the man who had attacked her in Frederick, she thought. Or whoever had set the bomb in her car.

The thought that she might be sharing the road with a killer made her stomach tighten. She forced herself to take deep breaths past the sudden constriction in her chest.

Stay focused, she told herself. Keep your eyes on the goal.

It was a relief when she reached the outskirts of Dulles, Virginia, and the relentless darkness of the highway gave way to well-lit civilization. The endless stream of lights behind her became vehicles she could recognize—eighteen-wheeler trucks, expensive sports cars, sturdy SUVs and the occasional pickup truck.

Including a familiar-looking blue pickup just a few cars behind her.

Her heart skipping a beat, she checked her rearview mirror again to be certain.

It was the same truck she’d seen following her on the highway into Frederick yesterday.

She didn’t like using her cell phone when she was driving. But she found herself reaching for the phone anyway. She shoved it into the dashboard holder and pulled up the farmhouse number on her contacts list. The phone rang twice before Jim Mercer answered, his deep voice instantly reassuring. “Hello?”

“Jim, it’s Lacey Miles.” She glanced at her mirror and saw the blue pickup keeping pace with her, staying a couple of vehicles back. Swallowing her fear, she forced the words past her lips. “I think I’m being followed.”


Chapter Four (#ulink_3ad94931-38ae-59de-80bb-c0e522aca8d2)

The fear in Lacey’s voice caught Jim by surprise. She normally seemed so composed and competent that her shivery words made his chest tighten with alarm. “Tell me what’s happening. What makes you think you’re being followed?”

“The other day, before I got to the employment agency, I thought I saw a blue pickup truck following me. I left the highway early, and it passed on by, so I didn’t think about it again. But the same truck is behind me right now.”

“Are you sure it’s the same truck?”

There was a brief pause. “I think it is.” Her voice took on a sheepish tone. “I guess I’m not sure. It’s dark out. Maybe I’m wrong about the color. I’m sorry. I’m probably overreacting.”

“Where are you?”

“I just passed the exit to Dulles.”

Dulles? She was nearly to DC. “I don’t suppose you could cancel whatever you had going on tonight and come back here?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and Jim realized the question was entirely inappropriate coming from a nanny she’d just hired that day on a probationary basis.

“I’m sure I’m overreacting,” she repeated. “I shouldn’t have called.” She hung up without saying anything further.

Jim pressed his head against the wall, feeling stupid. He had to remember why she’d hired him. She was expecting him to take care of Katie, not protect her from whoever was trying to kill her. He couldn’t come across as overprotective of her.

Katie looked up at him from her seat on the floor, where she was playing with brightly colored letter blocks. “Wacey?” she asked.

“Yeah, that was your aunt Lacey,” he answered, settling himself on the floor in front of Katie, trying to decide what to do next. If he called Lacey back, she’d be suspicious. But what if that blue pickup really was following her? And why was she going to DC in the first place? A date? A meeting with the network?

Or had she been lured into a trap?

He bit back a curse, pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Lacey’s number.

She answered on the first ring. “What?” she asked, her voice tight. He couldn’t tell if she was worried or impatient. Maybe both.

“Look, I know you think you’re overreacting, but at least stay on the phone with me until you get where you’re going safely.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. For a moment, he thought she’d hung up on him, but then she said, “The truck’s still back there.”

“Has it gotten any closer?”

“No. It hasn’t turned off or fallen back, either.”

“Wacey?” Katie queried, looking up at him with troubled gray eyes.

“Yes, Katiebug.”

“Don’t worry her,” Lacey said quickly. “Kids can sense things.”

“I know.” He pasted a smile on his face until Katie’s expression cleared and she went back to playing with her blocks. He spoke calmly into the phone. “I know you don’t want to tell me where you’re going—”

“I’m meeting someone at the Vietnam memorial.”

He started to frown but froze his expression before Katie could pick up on his anxiety. “There’s no parking near the memorial.”

“I know. I’m going to park at my apartment in Arlington and take a cab into the city.” She released a soft sigh. “I thought it would be safe. There are always tourists at the memorial. A wide-open public place.”

“Maybe not in this weather. And you have to get there first.”

“I know. I should have thought it through more.” She sounded angry, but Jim knew it was self-directed. “I’m not used to being afraid of my shadow. I don’t want to get used to it.”

“Maybe you should call and reschedule whatever this meeting is.”

“I can’t. It might be something I need to know.”

Jim lowered his voice, even though Katie didn’t seem to be listening to him any longer. “About the bomb?”

“I don’t know. Maybe about the bomb. I got a message from one of my State Department contacts. Said he had some information I could use. I didn’t get the details, but I’ve dealt with this person before. He’s been reliable.”

“Was meeting at the war memorial his idea or yours?”

“His.”

“And you’re sure you can trust this guy?”

“I’m not sure about anything right now,” Lacey answered, her voice taut with frustration. “Sometimes I think my whole life has been turned upside down and I don’t know where to go or whom to trust.”

Anything he could say in answer to that lament would probably make her suspicious, he knew. So he fell silent a moment, waiting for her to speak.

Finally, she said, “I’m in Arlington now. I should be at my apartment in a couple of minutes.”

“Is your parking place outside or in a garage?”

“Private garage. Lots of security. I should be okay until I leave the garage.”

“You want me to hang up so you can call a cab?”

“No. I’m going to go up to my apartment. I need to grab a few things anyway. That’s why I left an hour early. I can call the cab from my landline. Listen, I’m at the garage entrance. I always lose cell coverage in the garage, so I’m going to hang up. I’ll call you back in five minutes, when I get to my apartment.”

“Be careful,” he said softly, smiling at Katie, who had looked up sharply at his words.

“Five minutes,” she said and ended the call.

“Five minutes, Katiebug. We can handle waiting five minutes, can’t we?”

Katie gazed back at him, her expression troubled.

He held out his hands, and she pushed to her feet and toddled into his arms. He hugged her close, breathing in the sweet baby smell of her, and settled his gaze on the mantel clock.

Five minutes.

* * *

THERE HAD BEEN a time when her apartment had been nothing short of a sanctuary. It was her home base, the place where the craziness of the world she traveled as part of her career couldn’t touch her. Here, she was just Lacey Miles, sister and aunt. Good neighbor and, when she could find time to socialize, a halfway decent friend and girlfriend.

Until the night Marianne and Toby had died.

Just a couple of days ago, she remembered, she’d wanted nothing more desperately than to come home to this condo and try to recapture that sense of safety and calm. But as she walked through the apartment, listening to the silence enveloping her, she felt as if she’d walked into a strange world she’d never seen before.

Furniture she’d spent weeks shopping for looked alien to her, possessions that belonged to a different person from a different time. The vibrant abstract painting on the wall she’d found in a little art studio a few blocks away seemed lifeless, stripped of its beauty and meaning.

She pushed the thought aside and headed to her bedroom. When she’d moved into the farmhouse, it had been an impulsive choice. An attempt at escaping reality, if she was brutally honest with herself. The apartment was a vivid reminder of that night, of the phone call and the police visit that had shattered her life. She’d packed in haste, almost frantic to get out of this place, away from those memories. The farmhouse was a connection to her sister, but one without any memories to haunt her. She’d never even been there. Marianne and Toby had still been living in the city when the bombing happened. The farmhouse had still been a project, not a home.

Surveying the contents of her closet, she looked past the sleek, vividly colored dresses she wore on air. They had no place in her life at the moment. Pushing them to one side, she selected several sweaters and coats, the fleece-lined outerwear that she’d need, since the weather forecasters were predicting a snowy late winter. Rolling them up, she packed them in a medium-sized suitcase and set the bag by the front door so she wouldn’t forget it.

She picked up the phone sitting on an antique cherry table by the door and called for a cab. A car would be there in ten minutes, the cab company promised. It would make her a few minutes late for her meeting with Ken Calvert, she realized, but it couldn’t be helped. Meanwhile, it gave her time to pack the bag in her car for the trip home.

She was halfway down to the garage when she realized she hadn’t called the nanny back.

Jim Mercer answered on the first ring, his voice tight with tension. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said quickly, surprised by his tone.

“You were in the garage a long time. Longer than five minutes.”

“I got busy. I packed a few things I’m going to need at the farm and I had to call a cab.” She felt guilty, which was ridiculous. The man was her nanny, not her keeper. Why did she feel the need to explain herself to him? “I think you may be right. That truck was probably just headed to town like I was.”

“I’d still feel better if you stayed on the phone until you reach the memorial.”

“I’d feel better if you were concentrating on Katie.”

“She’s right here,” Jim said. “We ate while we were waiting for your call. Now she’s half-asleep in her high chair.”

“Did she make a mess with her food?”

“No more than the average two-year-old. I’ll clean her up before I put her to bed.”

Lacey felt a quiver of envy. Most of the time, she felt completely out of her element with Katie, but the one thing both of them enjoyed was that brief time between dinner and bedtime, when Katie was drowsy and at her sweetest. She loved bedtime stories, and Lacey loved telling them. They’d cuddle in the rocking chair in Katie’s pretty yellow nursery while Lacey spun the familiar old tales of princesses and evil queens, wicked wolves and hapless pigs, evil old crones and two hungry children lost in the woods.

“Give her a kiss for me.” She reached the elevator to the garage. “I’m about to lose my connection again. I’m heading to the garage to put my bag in the car so I don’t forget it.”

“I’ll get Katie cleaned up and in bed while I’m waiting for your call back.” Jim’s voice was firm.

“I think we need to have a talk about who’s the boss and who’s the nanny,” she muttered.

“You were attacked a couple of days ago, and now you think you’re being followed by the same blue truck that followed you that day. On top of what happened to your sister—” Jim’s voice cut off abruptly. “I’m sorry.”

“You said the guy who attacked me drove off in a van.”

“He was the passenger in the van. But when he attacked, he came from the opposite direction, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe he had the blue truck parked nearby.”

As much as she wanted to talk herself into believing she was letting her imagination run away with her, Jim had a point. “Okay, okay. I’ll call you back. All right? But I’ve got to go down to the parking garage now, or I’ll miss my cab.” She hung up the phone and shoved it into her pocket.

A woman exited the elevator when it opened. She looked up in surprise at Lacey, her expression shifting in the now-familiar pattern of recognition, dismay and pity. The woman smiled warily at Lacey as they passed each other, and for a moment Lacey feared her neighbor was going to express some sort of awkwardly worded sympathy, but the elevator door closed before either of them could speak, and she relaxed back against the wall of the lift, glad to have dodged another in a long line of uncomfortable moments.

Nobody knew how to express condolences for Lacey’s bereavement. Lacey herself would have been at a loss for the right words. How do you say I’m sorry your sister was murdered in your place without making everything a whole lot worse?

She stashed her suitcase in the trunk of her sister’s Impala and took the elevator back to the lobby to wait for the cab to arrive. As promised, she dialed her home number. Jim answered immediately, his voice slightly muffled by a soft swishing sound Lacey couldn’t quite make out. “Thanks for calling me back. I know you think I’m overstepping my bounds.”

Surprised by his apology, she bit back a smile. “I know you’re just concerned for my safety.”

“But you’re a smart, resourceful woman who’s made her way through war zones. I know you know how to take care of yourself.” A touch of humor tinted his voice. “I mean, I saw you with that tire iron the other day.”

She released a huff of laughter, some of her tension dispelling. “Still, it doesn’t hurt to have someone out there watching your back, right? Even if it’s over the phone.”

“When’s the cab supposed to arrive?”

She glanced at her watch. “Should be anytime now. How’s Katie?”

“I got about three pages into Goodnight Moon before she fell asleep. I’m just washing up from dinner now.”

That explained the swishing sound. It was the water running in the sink. “You know, we have a dishwasher.”

“I know. But when I’m worried, I like to keep my hands busy.”

“I thought you knew you didn’t have to worry about me.” She looked up as lights flashed across the lobby glass. Probably her cab arriving.

“Knowing you can take care of yourself is not the same thing as not worrying about your safety,” he murmured in a low, raspy tone that sent a ripple of animal awareness darting up her spine. It had been a while since anyone outside of Marianne had really worried about her safety, she realized. Her bosses at the network wouldn’t have been happy for her to be killed on assignment, of course, but she knew it was more about liability and the loss of a company asset than about her as a person.

Maybe Jim’s concern for her was more about not wanting to lose his new job almost as soon as he’d gotten started. But something in his voice suggested his worry for her was more personal than pragmatic.

And while her head said there was something not quite right about his instant preoccupation with the danger she was in, she couldn’t quell the sense of relief she felt knowing there was someone who cared if she lived or died, whatever his motivation might be.

The lights she’d seen moved closer, and she reached to open the lobby door as they slowed in front of the building.

Until she realized the lights belonged to a familiar blue pickup truck.

She froze, her breath caught in her throat.

She must have made some sort of noise, for Jim’s voice rose on the other end of the line. “What’s happening?”

“The blue pickup truck is in front of my building,” she answered, slowly retreating from the door until her back flattened against the wall.

“Is it stopping?”

The pickup slowed almost to a halt, then began to move again, moving out of sight. Lacey released a soft hiss of breath. “No. It almost did, then it drove on.”

“Lacey, you can’t go meet your friend out there tonight. You need to get in your car and come home.” Jim’s tone rang with authority, reminding her that he’d spent a lot of years in the Marine Corps. She could almost picture him in fatigues, his hair cut high and tight, his voice barking instructions in the same “don’t mess with me” tone he was using now. “Call him and cancel.”

She wanted to argue, but he was right. Whatever Ken Calvert wanted to tell her could wait for another night. “Okay. I’ll call him right now. I’ll call you back when I’m on the road.”

She hung up and dialed the cab company first, canceling the cab. “I have an account,” she told the dispatcher when he balked at canceling the cab when it was nearly to her apartment. “Bill me for it.”

Then she phoned Ken Calvert on her way back to the elevators. After four rings, his voice mail picked up.

“Ken, it’s Lacey. I can’t make it tonight. Call me tomorrow and we’ll reschedule.” She hung up the phone and entered the elevator, trying to calm her rattling nerves.

The walk from the elevator to the Impala was a nightmare, as she found herself spooked by the normal noises of cooling engines and the muted traffic sounds from outside the garage. She didn’t start to relax until she was safely back on the road out of town.

Settling her phone in the hands-free cradle, she called Jim. “I’m on my way home.”

“Stay on the line,” he said.

“I’m feeling like an idiot right about now,” she admitted. “Jumping at shadows.”

“You’re being safe,” he corrected her firmly. “It’s not like the danger isn’t real, right?”

“Can we talk about something else?” she asked, trying to control a sudden case of the shivers. She turned the heat up to high, wishing she’d donned one of the heavy coats she’d packed before she got behind the wheel of the car.

“Sure. I could read to you. After all, I know where to find a copy of Goodnight Moon.”

“That’ll put me to sleep.” She didn’t know if it was the blast of heat coming from the vents or Jim Mercer’s warm, comforting voice doing the job, but the shivers had already begun to subside. In their place, a creeping lethargy was starting to take hold, making her limbs feel heavy. “Don’t you have any salty tales from your time in the military? Tell me one.”

He told her several, with the seductive cadence and natural delivery of a born storyteller. Katie was going to love him, Lacey thought. Her little niece was a sucker for a well-told story.

The drive home seemed to pass in no time, unmarred by any further sightings of the blue pickup. As she drove through the tiny town of Cherry Grove, the snow that had been threatening all day finally started to fall, first in a mixture with tiny pebbles of sleet, then as fat, wet clumps as she turned into the long driveway to the farmhouse. “I’m here,” she said into the phone.

“I know. See you in a minute.” Jim hung up the phone.

The outside lights were on, casting brightness across the gravel drive. The front door opened as she walked around to the Impala’s trunk to retrieve her suitcase. By the time she hauled it out, Jim Mercer stood beside her, tall and broad shouldered, a wall of heat in the frigid night air.

He took the suitcase from her numb fingers. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she answered, almost believing it.

He followed her inside, waiting next to her while she engaged the dead bolt on the front door. “I heated up the potpie. I thought you might be hungry.”

She was, she realized. “Starving.”

He set the suitcase on the floor in the living room and led her into the kitchen, where a warm, savory aroma set her stomach rumbling. “It’s not much,” he warned. “Canned vegetables, canned chicken and canned cream-of-mushroom soup.”

“Beats ramen.” She shot him a quick grin as he waved her into one of the seats at the kitchen table and retrieved a plate of casserole from the microwave. It was warm and surprisingly tasty for something straight out of a can. “Not bad.”

“I’m glad you’re home safe,” Jim said. The warmth in his voice and the intense focus of his gaze sent a ripple of pleasure skating along her spine. She quelled the sensation with ruthless determination.

He was Katie’s nanny. Nothing more.

“Why don’t you try to relax?” he suggested when she started to carry her empty plate to the dishwasher. “I’ll clean up.”

“That’s not your job, you know—” The ring of her cell phone interrupted. With a grimace, she checked the number, frowning at the display. It had a DC area code, but there was no name attached. She briefly considered letting it go to voice mail before curiosity made her pick up. “Hello?”

“Lacey Miles?” the voice on the other end asked. It was a male voice, deep and no-nonsense.

“This is Lacey,” she answered, troubled by something she heard in the man’s voice.

“This is Detective Miller with the Metropolitan Police Department. Did you place a phone call to a Ken Calvert earlier this evening, telling him you couldn’t meet him?”

She tightened her grip on the phone and dropped into the chair she’d just vacated. Jim paused on his way to the sink, turning to give her a worried look. “How did you know that?” she asked Detective Miller.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “We found the message on Mr. Calvert’s phone. I regret to inform you that Mr. Calvert died earlier tonight.”


Chapter Five (#ulink_d9ff8aae-f60e-5a7f-bbc3-2714f3ee7458)

Lacey’s face had gone pale, and her gray eyes flicked up to meet Jim’s. Whatever she’d just heard over the phone had been a gut punch. “What happened?”

Jim eased quietly away from the sink and sat in the chair across the table from her, trying to guess the other end of the phone conversation by reading Lacey’s expression. But she had recovered quickly from the shock of whatever she’d just been told over the phone and now sat composed and quiet, only a faint flicker of emotion in her eyes betraying her inner turmoil.

“I see,” she said a moment later. “Of course. You want to see me tonight?”

Jim glanced at the clock on the wall over the table. It was eight-thirty. If someone was planning to meet with Lacey this late in the evening, something pretty significant must have happened.

But what?

“I’ll be here,” Lacey said finally before she ended the call and set her cell phone on the table in front of her, looking at it for a moment as if it was a dangerous beast she expected to strike.

“Are you okay?” Jim asked.

She looked up at him. “The man I was supposed to meet tonight was murdered.”

Jim’s gut tightened. “My God.”

“He was found at a parking deck on Virginia Avenue, near the memorial, shortly after seven.” She passed a hand over her eyes. “The police didn’t give me any details, really. But a detective wants to talk to me tonight. Since I was the last person to call Ken on his cell phone.”

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

She shook her head as if to ward off his sympathy. “It wasn’t like we were close. He was a source for some stories I did in the past.”

“He had a new tip or something? Is that why he wanted to meet you tonight?” Jim tried not to sound too eager for her answer.

“Something like that,” she answered vaguely, sounding distracted.





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