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  Her fairytale existence thus far had provided no point of reference for a situation like this. The magazines she read with their quizzes about the perfect man, the perfect job, and the perfect make-over for a woman of her personality type hadn’t prepared her. Not a one had offered a quiz depicting what a woman of her personality type would do when confronted with an evil brother and a homicidal boyfriend.

  Just drive, her inner voice cried, spurring her to action. Get the hell out of this city. Head for farm country, isolated farm country where no one would ever know her. Find a cheap motel in which to hide for the rest of her life. That was her plan, the best plan she could devise. She had no way of knowing what other women did when their brothers and lovers wanted them dead, but she suspected they ran and hid. It made sense.

  Fiona eased the Impala into traffic, her immediate destination I-90 West.

  * * *

  The lights of Watertown, South Dakota, lay ahead, not a big city with a thick blanket of bright lights, but a big town with a delicate filigree of twinkling lights. Saint Paul was over two hundred miles behind her. Had she run far enough?

  Fiona pulled off the interstate and into a rest area. She hadn’t been thinking clearly when she’d planned on spending the night at a motel. She needed to consider that, if Chad had been able to find her at the Doubletree, he’d be able to find her the instant she used Valencia’s charge card to check into a motel. She wasn’t certain, but she thought motels required a charge card.

  Maybe a better plan would be to sleep in the car. It was March in the north country, though, and after a frigid day in a region thickly frosted in fresh snow, the temperatures tonight could drop below zero. She glanced at the gas gauge, deciding there wasn’t enough gas to keep the car running all night long. She’d already gassed up once, using most of the cash in Valencia’s wallet, so a refill was out of the question.

  She’d have to wear a lot of clothes to sleep in the car. Turning off the engine, she climbed out, hopping into the back seat next to the two suitcases and zipping open the wheeled traveler. She’d need to double up on everything, but Valencia was a full size larger than she. It was a miracle the woman hadn’t been spotted for an imposter. A miracle? If she’d been spotted, all that would have happened would have been a delay in Daddy’s execution while they booted Valencia off the plane and tracked Fiona down.

  Besides, she couldn’t call one woman dying in another woman’s place a miracle. She didn’t know what to call it. Chance. Fate. Destiny. Valencia had died because Chad thought the woman who boarded the plane was his one-night stand, a horrible reversal of the black widow. The black widower. Sleep with them and then kill them. What kind of a man did something like that?

  Did it matter? Because of her, Valencia was dead.

  Not true, not true, not true! Valencia would have died eventually. She wouldn’t have known she should flee, and Chad would have found her in her hotel room and killed her. Either way, Valencia would have died. She needed to keep telling herself that. Believing otherwise was a one-way ticket to self-loathing, with stopovers in doubt and despair.

  Fiona dragged the metal suitcase onto her lap. This one was locked. She pulled the car keys from her pocket and began trying each key, one at a time, until she found one that worked. Flipping up the latches, she raised the lid, staring down in bemusement at the thick sheet of gray foam. After peeling it to the side, she froze.

  Neatly arranged, tightly snugged into foam pockets, lay several stacks of banded currency; a bulging velvet sack; a holstered, snub-nosed pistol with two spare clips; a large, squared-off pistol with several ammunition clips; and two passports bound with rubber bands. Tugging open the mouth of the sack, she shoved a hand in and pulled out a one-ounce American gold eagle coin. She lifted the sack, hefting it, surprised by the weight. That was a lot of gold. After replacing the sack, she picked up one of the passports and, sliding off the rubber band, opened it, revealing a driver’s license and three charge cards. She stared down at Valencia’s passport photo, but this time, her name was Susan Nisman. Her fingers trembling, Fiona examined the second one, this one without a license or charge cards. It belonged to Valencia.

  Who in the hell was she? No. What in the hell was she? The suitcase offered no answers, no employment badge for NSA, CIA, FBI, or McDonalds. Whatever or whoever she was, Valencia hadn’t been acting on her own. Fiona recalled the half-smile the woman had given her when Fiona had told her it wasn’t likely one of her charge cards alone could buy all of hers combined. Valencia had been acting on the behalf of an agency with immense resources.

  Fiona was pinioned between two opposing forces: a brother who wanted her dead and a mysterious agency that sent its employees into the field with cash, guns, gold, fake ID’s, and unlimited charge cards, the kind of agency that went by initials, sent its employees to torture camp during slack times, and gifted bullets and garrotes as stocking stuffers at its annual Christmas party.

  She reconsidered her decision to contact Valencia’s family. Contact with them would alert Valencia’s employer Fiona Delaney was alive and well in South Dakota, a problem they were certain to want to rectify.

  She should at least check the phone for messages. Maybe therein lay the identity of Valencia’s mysterious employer. Fiona reached over the console, dragging the purse from the front seat. Withdrawing the cell phone, she powered it on and widened her eyes when it immediately rang.

  A man’s face appeared on the cell phone screen, dark-skinned like Valencia, maybe a brother, with brown eyes, a strong chin, and long black hair past his shoulders. It wasn’t a formal picture, not given a background cluttered with picnic tables, a trashcan, and a sign reading, “No Camping.” Fiona found herself mesmerized by the laughter in his eyes. Valencia had snapped a photo of a man who’d been looking at her with a warmth developed only after a long history of love and communication, the way Daddy used to look at her. The connection between Valencia and this man was both familial and strong.

  Valencia had been loved. No matter what agency signed her paychecks, this man had loved her.

  When the next ring sounded, Fiona panicked. She couldn’t answer, not knowing what she now did about the woman’s mysterious employer, but she didn’t know how to ignore the call. This phone wasn’t like hers. She hit a likely icon and flinched when she instead took the call.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been trying you all day, ever since we heard about the plane.” His voice was deep, with a hint of gravel, and sharp, with a hint of accusation.

  Fiona hit the power button, shutting down the phone and tossing it in the metal suitcase. She eyed it warily, as though afraid it might again ring, as though afraid the man might materialize beside her, asking her who in the hell she was and what she was doing answering Valencia’s phone. She wished she hadn’t powered on the phone. She wished she hadn’t seen the photo of Valencia’s brother or heard his voice. Before that, the woman had been a stranger who’d died in Fiona’s place. Now she was a flesh-and-blood woman with people who loved her.

  A flesh-and-blood woman who traveled with guns, multiple identities, cash, and gold. If she and her brother were close, then he knew about her job and the risks she took.

  She couldn’t worry about her. Valencia McDermott was dead, but Fiona Delaney was alive, and if she wanted to stay that way, she needed to focus on herself and herself alone. Grabbing a stack of currency, she shoved it into the purse and moved the phone into the empty slot, replacing the sheet of foam, slamming shut the case, locking it, and sliding it to the floor.

  Her biggest problem had been resolved. She had cash, lots of cash. That’s what mattered. Now she could stay at a motel without using a charge card. She’d try each motel until she found one willing to take her without a charge card. Fiona glanced at her watch. It was almost 9 PM. If necessary, she could find an unscrupulous motel check-in attendant who’d take a bribe. She’d sleep. And when she woke in the morning, she’d run and hide some more.

  Chapter 5
r />   Three Years Later

  Shifting her weight on the balls of her feet from right to left and back again, Fiona pummeled the speedbag, concentrating not on force but on timing and coordination. Again and again, her taped hands hit the bag while she took pleasure in the rhythmic slapping sound and remembered to breathe deeply and evenly. No longer did she see Chad’s or Whitley’s faces on the ball; therein lay the potential for disaster. The mind must be clear of anger and focused on the task, not on the end result.

  For the first time in her life, she was fit, both mentally and physically. Each week she had one visit to the gun range; one taekwondo class; three three-mile jogs; three rigorous exercise routines, both aerobic and anaerobic; and two sessions at the gym. Last week, after inadvertently knocking out her sparring partner, her gym trainer had offered to find her an amateur fight if she was interested. She’d thanked him but declined. She had her own amateur fight in mind.

  She was ready.

  She hadn’t always been this way. The first two years on the run had been wasted. She’d spent her time spooking at shadows, living in sleazy motels offering weekly rentals, afraid to venture outside during the day lest someone recognize her, afraid to venture outside at night lest she encounter an unsavory character. She’d slipped into what she now knew was a depression, spending most of her time sleeping and the rest of it watching television. Her appetite diminished, and sometimes she forgot to eat. One day, she’d looked at herself in the mirror, and she’d been appalled at the emaciated face with sunken eyes looking back at her, hanks of greasy black hair curtaining the hollowed cheeks. If her father knew what she’d become, he’d be horrified and ashamed.

  For a second, a fleeting second, she’d seen anger spark in the brown eyes, not the petulant anger of a child who hadn’t gotten her way, but the determined anger of a woman who was done hiding, the strong anger of a woman who wanted to fight her way back to sanity. She’d cleaned herself up, begun forcing herself to eat regular meals, and started a brief, physically exhausting exercise regimen. A month later, she’d looked for and found a rural rental house in a small town south of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, telling the elderly owner she was fleeing an abusive ex-boyfriend and couldn’t use her own name. She’d looked the part, and he’d believed her, accepting a year’s cash rent in advance and her promise to pay utilities each month, also in cash, if he kept the water, electricity, and gas in his name.

  And she’d worked on regaining her self-respect and health. That had been eleven months ago. She had one month left. By then, she needed to come up with a plan to expose Whitley and Chad. Fiona felt panicked at the thought—the time had come too quickly, and sometimes she was still afraid—but she sought and found peace in the belief she would come up with something, now that she was well. It would come. For her father, she would find a way.

  It bothered her she hadn’t been able to research the alarming patterns Valencia had mentioned. She needed access to the Internet, and she couldn’t access the Internet without using some form of ID. She could and did research hard-copy social philosophies and cultural practices at the public library without a library card, but she couldn’t use its computers. Although toying with the thought of purchasing a laptop computer and frequenting a restaurant or the airport to take advantage of free Wi-Fi, the risks of exposure in these extremely public and thoroughly surveilled locales had decided her against it.

  She refused to allow herself to worry about it, not yet, anyway. She had a month. Fate would step in, just as it had three years ago when she’d hid in an airport women’s room while another woman took her place on a flight to death.

  At the sight of a shadow slipping past the gym’s front window, Fiona stopped, catching the speedball with one hand and swiping the taped knuckles of her other hand across the sweat on her forehead. She hadn’t imagined that. She never did. How ironic to flee a murderous brother and his mercenary employee only to gain herself a stalker.

  He was out there, watching her work out. Grant Haldeman. Believing himself invested with charm and looks devastating to mere mortals such as Fiona, the man had been stalking her for the past six months, ever since the day he’d seen her doing research in the Siouxland Public Library. If she was in the library researching, she could count on Grant showing up, sitting across from her, and asking her what she was doing. As though it weren’t obvious. Working out at the gym or shooting at the gun range was almost a guarantee for a certain shaggy, dark blond head to appear, a lecherous expression on the rugged face and a pitiful come-on emerging from a smirking mouth.

  The old Fiona would have found him attractive. The old Fiona would have been flattered by his attention. She wasn’t that woman anymore. Today’s Fiona found Grant Haldeman repulsive and annoying. Like one of the brown ticks common in this part of South Dakota, burrowing into one’s flesh and bloating itself on life-giving blood, her stalker burrowed into her world, attempting to fatten himself on her life-sustaining solitude. Grant Haldeman represented everything wrong with men: arrogant users who took what they wanted and then, having made the desired conquest, walked away, moving on to the next gullible victim. Maybe she’d be alive when he was through with her; maybe she wouldn’t.

  Fiona stepped back from the speedbag. She’d done enough for today. While keeping an eye on the window, she unwrapped the tape from her hands, balling it up and shoving it into her gym bag. Her fingers grazed cold metal, taking comfort in the gun she carried with her always, a gun she now knew how to use with deadly accuracy. It was a shame she couldn’t use it on her stalker, but the bullets within belonged to the men who’d killed her father and tried to kill her.

  Using her free hand to shield her eyes against the hot July sun, Fiona walked to her car, staring straight ahead but ever aware of the presence of others: a young couple standing before the bank across the street, engaged in a serious discussion; two women pushing baby strollers down the street toward the park; several vehicles cruising past with uninterested drivers and passengers; and a solitary figure disappearing around the corner in the distance. Clueless Grant Haldeman, if she didn’t miss her guess.

  She glared after him while shaking out her keys and then paused, alarm rising, when she didn’t hear the car respond to the remote unlock. Had she forgotten to lock the car again? She thought she’d locked it. She remembered twisting toward it while walking away. She remembered clicking the button. She didn’t remember it beeping, though. She’d been in a hurry. It seemed she was always in a hurry these days, driven as she was by a sense of time running out.

  She examined the lock. No, she hadn’t locked the car. Dammit! It was through sheer luck alone she’d lived this long. Fiona opened the car and scrutinized the interior, looking for signs of another’s presence but seeing nothing alarming. Hopping in, she turned on the ignition and exited the parking lot, turning south toward Worthing, South Dakota, her new home, but not for much longer.

  * * *

  Sundays were a gym day. On Mondays, Fiona jogged at dawn, enjoying the cool air and the countryside’s bluish hue. Sometimes she surprised a deer or a pheasant into flight, startling her as much as she startled it, but rarely did she see any traffic on the gravel roads surrounding her rental home. The sense of isolation was intense, as though she were Earth’s only human inhabitant, carefree, never worrying about who might next betray or harm her. Of all her physical preparation, jogging most relaxed her.

  After her jog, she showered, made breakfast, and did the dishes while watching the early morning news, with its emphasis on finance and national news. Delaney.com had merited casual mention twice over the past year, snippets about petty squabbles with publishers that were eventually resolved to no one’s satisfaction.

  When Whitley’s familiar face filled a rectangle at the upper right-hand corner of the screen, Fiona paused in the middle of drying a plate and moved toward the television. He didn’t appear to have changed, still the mirror-image of their blue-eyed father, with the exception of the white-blond hair. She so
ught evil in the eyes and the set of the mouth but saw only a good-looking man with a pleasant expression.

  Fiona no longer felt anger when she saw him. She felt motivation and purpose. Once she determined what Valencia’s research had revealed about Delaney.com, she’d expose him for the murderer he truly was, stripping that pleasant expression from his good-looking face.

  She raised her eyebrows while listening to the news anchor. Whitley hadn’t made the news for another war of wills with a publisher, but for his marriage, a marriage representing a fresh start for the brave young entrepreneur who’d lost his entire family in a terrorist attack three years ago. A news clip of the newlyweds filled the screen, and Fiona tilted her head to study the lovely platinum-blond woman at Whitley’s side, her blue eyes shining, a sweet smile on her face, her wedding gown plain but elegant while her new husband tugged her down the church stairs and ushered her into a waiting limousine.

  Shaking her head, Fiona returned to the kitchen. Someone should warn Whitley’s bride about the monster she’d married. Fiona pitied the awakening she had in store. Unless she knew. Unless she, too, was homicidal and corrupt. She hadn’t looked evil, but neither did her husband.

  At the flash of motion outside the kitchen window, Fiona grabbed her fleece jacket from its peg, the weight of the Ruger pistol in its pocket comforting. Shrugging into the jacket while studying the vehicle driving down the lane toward her, anger rose at the sight of a blue pickup, the same color and make as the one driven by Grant Haldeman during the several times he’d driven past her while she was jogging.

  This would be the first time he’d visited her at home. She wondered whether he’d decided to take his stalking to the next level. He had gall; she’d give him that much, but that was all he was going to get from her. She’d learned a hard lesson in trust and love. Never again would she give either to a man.