“You and the boy are coming with me.”

Navy SEAL Kenneth Nash has one objective—protect the son he’s never known. If that means dragging along his former sister-in-law Mallory Ward, then so be it. But while hiding out in a rustic cabin in the Rockies, Nash faces an unexpected problem.

Suddenly he’s feeling things for Mallory that he has no right to feel. Regardless of how this turns out, he could never be the family man that his son and Mallory deserve. Yet as danger approaches, Nash and Mallory’s attraction persists—and it could jeopardize the entire mission.

“You don’t trust me. I get it.”

No matter how many times Nash professed his innocence Mallory wasn’t going to believe him. “You haven’t even asked me if I killed those two marshals.”

“Let me and Ben go, Nash. You don’t need hostages. We’ll only slow you down.”

“Right on both counts.”

“Why, then? Do you really think you’re going to raise your son on the run, always looking over your shoulder? And what about me? You think I’m just going to go along for the ride? We have a good life.”

“That life’s over,” he said, feeling the need to put an end to false hope.

Uncertainty filled her eyes. If she hadn’t been afraid before, he could see she was now. “What are you not telling me, Nash?”

He pushed to his feet and stopped alongside the couch beside her. “I’m sorry if you can’t trust me, Mal, but you’ve got no one else you can trust.”

He continued walking and then stopped. “And for the record, I didn’t kill those two marshals. No matter what anyone else says.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever felt like chucking your old life for a new one? While this has always been a favorite fantasy of mine, the reality is I’m far too attached to my life for that kind of change. But what if you’d lost everything and had nothing more to lose?

Such is the case for Kenneth Nash. Wrongfully convicted of his wife’s murder, the navy SEAL accepts a deal from the Feds that allows him to go deep undercover in search of the real killer. Seven years later, his cover is blown and he must choose between the integrity of his original mission or saving the son he’s never known along with the sister-in-law who testified against him.

There are somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 families in the Witness Protection Program, also called Witness Security Program (WITSEC). According to the U.S. Marshals Service, no witness who’s followed the rules has ever been killed.

Some interesting facts about the program:

Witnesses can choose their new names, but are advised to keep current initials or the same first name.

Name changes are done by the court system just like any other name change, but the records are sealed.

Witnesses must not contact former associates or unprotected family members. Or return to the town from which they were relocated.

If the witness has a criminal history, local authorities are made aware of the situation. Only a small percentage of criminal witnesses return to a life of crime.

Can’t wait to find out what you think. You can contact me through my website, www.rogennabrewer.com, my Twitter account (@rogenna) or on Facebook: /rogenna.

Happy reading!

Rogenna Brewer

The SEAL’s Special Mission

Rogenna Brewer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When an aptitude test labeled her suited for librarian or clergy, Rogenna Brewer joined the United States Navy. Ever the rebel, she landed in the chaplain’s office where duties included operating the base library. She’s served Coast Guard, Navy and Marine Corps personnel in such exotic locales as Midway Island and the Pentagon. She is not now, nor has she ever been, in the Witness Protection Program. But her grandfather did cross paths with Al Capone once and lived to tell about it. There may or may not have been bootleggers in her family history.

To those who keep me grounded in reality:

My husband and sons. My mother.

My best friends and fellow writers Tina Russo Radcliffe and Debra Salonen.

My lifeboat Linda Barrett, Jean Brashear, Dee Davis, Ginger Chambers, Annie Jones, Julie Kenner, Day LeClaire, Barbara McMahon, Lisa Mondello and Karen Sandler.

And to my editor Karen Reid who had to put up with a little too much Rogenna Reality TV for this book.

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFETEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

Extract

PROLOGUE

Coronado, California

“FREEZE!” HER VOICE shook almost as badly as the SIG Sauer in her hand. After twenty weeks of G-man U in Quantico, Virginia, twenty-three-year-old rookie FBI Agent Mallory Ward never imagined facing down her first perp in her sister’s kitchen. “Freeze, Nash. I mean it, damn it!”

Her false bravado lost all conviction as she tried to comprehend the bizarre scene playing out in front of her. Her brother-in-law, covered in her sister’s blood, cradled a blue bundle in the palms of his hands.

“Dear Lord, Nash, what have you done?”

Mallory shook her head to clear it. She’d stepped outside for just a moment.

One minute Nash was giving her sister mouth-to-mouth. The next he was ordering Mallory to grab his cell phone from the pack he said he’d left outside the back door. When she couldn’t find his phone, she’d taken those precious extra seconds to grab hers from her rental car parked out front at the curb.

Mallory kicked past an overturned chair and stepped over the cordless phone unit that had been ripped from the wall. Her sister’s still-warm body lay lifeless on the cold tile floor where her brother-in-law had been performing CPR.

Mallory couldn’t remember if she’d punched 911 before dropping her cell phone to reach for her gun. Though only seconds, it seemed like a lifetime ago. She’d initially been willing to give Nash the benefit of the doubt when she stumbled upon him at the center of an obvious crime scene....

Until she watched the Navy SEAL slice the swell of her sister’s belly.

“She’s gone, Mal.” His voice never wavered.

“You have the right to remain silent...”

“There was nothing more I could do for her, except save our son.” Nash dropped his KA-BAR in the puddle of blood.

Sidestepping the slick pool, Mallory still managed to leave the imprint of her sole behind. Biting back the copper tang of panic, she continued to read him his Miranda rights—Article 31 in the military. “Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law....”

Nash ignored her, concentrated on the little bundle in his arms. He covered the teeny nose and mouth with his own mouth. The tiny concave chest expanded and then contracted with each puff.

“Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you...?”

She couldn’t afford to make another rookie mistake.

Sirens blared in the distance—emergency responders, too late to save her sister. Mallory’s world spun out of control.

The tile floor rushed up to meet her.

CHAPTER ONE

Denver, Colorado

Seven months later

“MUH, MUH...MUH,” Benjamin babbled from his crib.

“Up already?” Mallory carried her coffee into the baby’s room. Strong. Black. A reason to get out of bed at zero dark thirty and make it through another day.

Of course, Benji was the real reason she bothered to set the timer on Mr. Coffee. He pulled himself up to gnaw on the guardrail while bouncing on his tiny toes. He couldn’t walk yet, but he sure gave those chubby baby legs a workout.

“Stop before you knock out a tooth.”

Her words startled him into stopping. He reached for her and fell back on his diaper-padded bottom. “Mama!” he cried with his arms outstretched.

“Say, what—”

“Mama, mama,” he continued to blubber.

“Oh, Benji.” Mallory set her happy face mug on the dresser and lifted her nephew out of his crib. He rewarded her with big tears and baby drool all over her new black suit jacket. “I wish your mama was here, too.”

“Mama,” he insisted, latching on to her nose. How much plainer could it get? Benji wasn’t asking for his mother—Mallory was the only mother he’d ever known.

He didn’t understand that the woman who’d carried him for thirty-six weeks was dead. Benji’s only world was the one Mallory created for him. That’s why she needed to push past her grief and do more than just go through the motions...for both their sakes.

Hugging her nephew tight, Mallory repeated, “Mama, mama.”

Until she almost believed it.

She kept a firm hold on her little wiggly worm while she changed his diaper and then carried him out of her old room. It wasn’t much of a nursery. It wasn’t much of a room, either. She’d pushed her twin bed against one wall and then hauled the old crib down from the attic.

The baby crib was a beautiful piece of heirloom furniture in a rich cherrywood. It was so well crafted that it still met safety standards decades later—she’d checked. Someday she’d bring down the rest of the ensemble and turn the room into a real nursery. Hopefully before Benji grew out of the nursery altogether.

At first, she’d slept in her old room with him.

Now more often than not she fell asleep in front of the TV on the leather sofa in what had once been her dad’s study. She kept her clothes in one huge pile on her parents’ bed, with the intention of eventually moving into their bedroom located across the hall with its en suite bathroom. Though she already showered in the en suite and dressed in the bedroom, she still couldn’t bring herself to clear out the closets.

To her it was still her parents’ room, her parents’ house—the home where she and Cara had grown up. Just passing Cara’s old room next door to hers made Mallory want to cry.

She’d opened the door once.

Everything remained as Cara had left it before going off to college—with the addition of her wedding dress, which had been hanging in a storage bag on the back of the closet door since Cara and Nash’s wedding. It’s where their dad had stashed Cara’s personal effects brought back from San Diego. And where a short while later Mallory had found her mom crumpled in a heap on the bed—an empty pill bottle in her hands—among boxes of Cara’s childhood, college and wedding mementos.

There were more memories in that room than Mallory could handle.

The whole house was haunted by a not-too-distant past. At some point, though, she’d have to find the strength to deal with it and make it her own or put her childhood home up for sale. She simply wasn’t ready to do either.

Mallory carried Benji downstairs to the kitchen, where she settled him into his high chair for breakfast. While making him a bowl of rice cereal with applesauce, she grabbed a carton of yogurt for herself. Shoving aside the stacks of bills and legal papers, she made room at the table so she could sit down to feed him.

One of her father’s colleagues was helping her sort out her family’s financial and legal mess pro bono. Her parents had considerable assets and the foresight to have both wills and living wills. But even they were not prepared for the tragic turn of events that would require shifting power of attorney and property to their younger daughter so soon after their older daughter’s death.

Cara hadn’t owned anything of real value that didn’t also belong to Nash, except for a small burial policy the insurance company refused to pay out because Nash was the sole beneficiary.

And even though Mallory was Benji’s court-appointed guardian, she had a big battle ahead of her in order to gain full custody. Kenneth Nash was still the baby’s father and Benjamin Nash was legally a ward of the state of California until a judge said otherwise.

She couldn’t discount Nash’s family.

His mother, his aunt and uncle, numerous cousins, including a married cousin in New York, had all expressed interest in adopting Benji. And that was just on his mother’s side. But it seemed wrong somehow—disloyal to Cara’s memory—to allow her murderer’s family to raise her son.

Mallory might not yet have her act together at twenty-three, yet she was determined to pull it together fast—she had to, for her nephew’s sake.

Life had been anything but easy these past few months, between the trial, and the responsibilities of a preemie nephew and aging parents—make that aging parent, since her mother had died after collapsing in Cara’s room. And without her mother’s help, she’d had no choice but to put her father in an assisted-living facility. And, to add to everything else, Dad wasn’t adjusting very well to the loss of Mom or his new home.

The telephone rang as Mallory shoveled another spoonful of rice cereal into Benji’s eager mouth. She glanced over her shoulder at the shrill disruption. The call appeared to be coming from a blocked number.

With an eye on the clock, she got up from her seat and picked up the wireless receiver. Mallory had only been back to work a couple of months and couldn’t afford to be late again. Please do not let it be the assisted-living facility. “’lo?”

“Ms. Ward, it’s Tess Galena.” The NCIS special agent worked out of the San Diego field office and had been assigned as the special agent in charge of Cara’s case. The woman was somewhat of a legend in her field. Mallory had once dreamed of that kind of professional recognition and respect, until circumstances beyond her control landed her behind a desk.

Galena’s investigation into Cara’s murder had led to Nash’s conviction.

“Ms. Ward, are you there?” Galena asked.

“What?” Mallory wiped Benji’s face with a clean cloth. Offering a reassuring smile as she exchanged his bowl of mush for a few Cheerios he could manage on his own. “Sorry. Yes, I’m here.”

“I need you in San Diego today. My assistant has booked you a flight.”

“I’d have to check with work—”

“Your superiors are aware of the situation. Plan to be here for a few days.”

The woman must have some serious pull.

“What’s this about?” The yogurt in Mallory’s stomach soured as the possibilities, none of them good, ran through her mind. “I don’t have anyone to watch Benji.”

NCIS Special Agent Tess Galena never hesitated. “Actually, Ms. Ward, we need both of you. We’ll brief you when you get here.”

“Is it Nash?”

“I can’t say anything more over the phone. Someone will meet you at the airport, Ms. Ward.”

* * *

Naval Brig Miramar

San Diego, California

AS SOON AS they landed at San Diego International Airport, Mallory and Benji were taken to the brig at Miramar. Once a naval air station, made famous by the movie Top Gun, the base now belonged to the Marine Corps. The brig itself, run by the Department of the Navy, consolidated Level I and Level II military prisoners.

Nash, as a convicted murderer, was housed at Fort Leavenworth, a Level III disciplinary barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas, and the sole maximum-security penal facility for the U.S. military. Mallory couldn’t have been more confused, but neither of her special agent escorts had deemed it necessary to fill her in on the details during the drive over.

Shifting Benji on her hip, she adjusted the diaper bag and purse on her opposite shoulder as they breezed through security with a show of agency badges. They were buzzed through several more gates and then led to an interrogation room by a uniformed guard.

The otherwise nondescript room consisted of military-issued furniture, a gunmetal-gray table and four chairs. Her escorts took up positions outside the steel security door, which locked with a quiet click behind her.

She recognized Commander Mike McCaffrey—Mac—Nash’s former commanding officer, leaning against the wall next to a large mirror, which was likely a two-way. Nash had served under McCaffrey as executive officer of SEAL Team Eleven. The commander straightened to his full height as she entered the room.

Tess Galena sat at the table. The NCIS special agent wore a pin-striped suit, obviously tailor-made for her curvy figure—there was no mistaking that the woman in designer duds was the woman in charge. Mallory’s own slobber-stained, off-the-rack ensemble made her feel dowdy in comparison.

“Ms. Ward,” the woman said, uncrossing her long legs and rising to her feet. “Please have a seat.” She indicated the chair across the table from hers. “I apologize for such short notice.” Galena’s sharp glance toward the commander had Mallory wondering who exactly had called this meeting.

Mallory sat and then adjusted Benji on her lap. Tugging at the sleeves of his little jacket, she dropped it into the diaper bag at her feet.

He was a quiet baby, prematurely taken from his mother’s womb in a grizzly scene Mallory wouldn’t soon—if ever—forget. She hoped they wouldn’t be here long enough for Benji to get tired or hungry during this major disruption to his routine.

“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?” Mallory forced herself to make eye contact, first with Galena and then the commander. “Nash,” she whispered, reading it on their faces with a sinking sensation in the pit of her gut. “He’s escaped.”

She didn’t know why escape was the first thought that popped into her head. But as a Navy SEAL trained in escape and evasion, Nash certainly had the skills. If anyone could break out of a military prison, he could.

“Not yet.” The commander sauntered over to the table. “But he will. With your help.”

The absurdity of his statement took a moment to sink in.

“Like hell I will.” Only a cold-blooded killer could do what Nash had done to his pregnant wife. “Not in this or any other lifetime will I be helping that man escape—”

Galena leaned across the table. “Mallory... May I call you Mallory?” She continued without waiting for the consent, which Mallory would have given gladly. “Kenneth Nash can serve a higher purpose than any death sentence handed down to him.”

Mallory wasn’t so sure about that. She didn’t necessarily believe in capital punishment. But if anyone deserved to pay the ultimate price, Nash did.

“To put it bluntly,” the commander interrupted, “we’re proposing a mission few men are even qualified to undertake. You’re aware, of course, that Nash is half Syrian—on his mother’s side. He has the looks and the know-how for a deep-cover op to infiltrate al-Ayman.” She knew al-Ayman to be a terrorist organization with ties to al Qaeda.

“What are you suggesting?” She looked from one to the other.

Galena cleared her throat. “The president has reviewed the case and is prepared to offer Kenneth Nash a full pardon for the murder of his wife, your sister, in exchange for certain, shall we say—services. What you need to understand, Mallory, is that he’d be a free man. And we need you to be comfortable with that.”

Mallory smoothed a hand over her nephew’s dark head. “You’ve got to be kidding.” A presidential pardon? So much for the president getting her vote of confidence. “There must be other men, loyal Americans of Middle Eastern descent—”

“None with Lieutenant Commander Nash’s background and training who are already serving a prison sentence.” The commander had a grim certainty about him Mallory found disconcerting. “We’re proposing a move to Gitmo under an assumed name. He’d be so deep undercover not even the marines guarding him would know his true identity.”

“His main objective would be to gather intel from the detainees held at the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” Galena clarified. “Specifically the youngest son of Mullah Kahn. Mullah, also known as the Cobra, is the head of the al-Ayman terrorist network. His son, Bari Kahn, was captured last year, right here in California. Additionally, Nash would be tasked with finding security leaks within our own system.”

Mallory shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “And if he’s caught—”

“If he’s caught by either side,” the commander said with emphasis, “he’d be a marked man.”

That shouldn’t bother her as much as it did.

She shouldn’t care.

She didn’t care.

Galena directed a sharp glance at the commander. “Or he may come out of all this unscathed.” The NCIS agent drummed a pen on a pad, a sign of restlessness Mallory wouldn’t have associated with the woman. Perhaps she had her own reservations and was just as uncomfortable with the situation as Mallory. “Detainees in Cuba won’t be held forever. There’s plenty of public outcry as U.S. involvement in the war comes to a close, and when the last prisoners are released or transferred to other countries, as many have been already, Nash will be among them.”

“You’d let him go? Just like that?”

“Gitmo is no cakewalk.” The commander crossed his arms. “Even if he were to go free, you’re not in any danger, Ms. Ward,” he said with the unwavering confidence of his rank. “I strongly believe in Lieutenant Commander Nash’s innocence.”

He might believe it. She might even want to believe it. But she’d seen what she’d seen. And Mallory’s testimony had convicted the man, for crying out loud—what was to stop him from coming after her?

Or Benji?

There was no doubt in her mind Nash would come after his son.

She felt it with bone-chilling certainty.

Mallory stared out of focus at the two-way mirror. As if looking at it through a haze of raw emotions would allow her to see more clearly. That’s when she felt it, the eerie sensation of being watched.

Of course, there was someone behind the glass, watching them. She took a deep, shuddering breath and held Benji tighter. “Are you saying this assignment somehow hinges on my approval?”

She fixed her gaze on the commander this time. He shifted his to Galena as if this condition was a point of contention between them. “No,” he said, returning his attention to her.

“Then why am I here, sir?” Benji shoved a pudgy fist into his mouth. “Why are we here?”

Galena stepped in and answered for him. “We can’t just waltz a high-profile prisoner like Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Nash out the front gate of a federal prison.”

Mallory sensed the commander’s growing impatience with this conversation.

He hunkered down eye level to her nephew and allowed Benji to grab his thumb as he cupped the baby’s chubby cheek. Benji immediately became intent on bringing that masculine digit to his mouth like a new teething toy. She knew the commander was a new father himself and wondered what he really thought of this whole mess.

“We’re taking Nash out of here in a body bag,” he said. “Stone-cold dead. Kenneth Nash will no longer exist.”

He’d said it with such finality as he lifted his gaze toward hers that Mallory shivered and turned away from the glimpse of resignation behind the man’s eyes. Was that supposed to make her feel guilty?

“We’re going to fake his suicide.” Galena straightened in her seat. “We didn’t want you caught off guard. There will likely be renewed interest in your sister’s case as well as press coverage. We need you to keep a low profile for the next few days.”

“Out of sight, out of mind.” Mallory shook her head in disbelief.

The commander gently disengaged himself from the baby’s grasp and pushed to his feet with his mask securely in place. “We weighed in heavily against telling you anything, Ms Ward.”

“So why did you?” She glanced at the two-way mirror again.

“Frankly, Nash’s odds of survival are better on death row,” the commander said. “He may be a free man, but he won’t be free. And he won’t be Kenneth Nash.” His firm mouth held a grim line. “There’s no reason for you to be afraid. Should he survive this operation, Lieutenant Commander Nash has agreed to no contact with you or his son. Ever.”

He might want to believe there was no real danger to her or the baby, but the pounding in her chest told Mallory otherwise. She choked back a laugh as she looked the commander in the eye. “A lot of good a restraining order did my sister.”

He didn’t balk at her accusation. The facts were irrefutable.

At the time, Mallory had tried to talk her sister out of filing the protection order. The marriage had never been volatile. But Cara had kicked Nash out of their off-base housing for reasons that were still unclear to everyone, except perhaps Nash, and he wasn’t talking. He’d left without incident but had later returned drunk and dismal. Mallory had to drive him back to the bachelor pad where he was staying with friends.

Even then, she’d been on his side.

But the next morning Cara had insisted on filing a restraining order to keep him away. Mallory thought the whole separation ridiculous. Yet Cara was dead before Nash had even been served the papers—which proved, only too late, Cara had reason to fear him.

“Nash has made one stipulation,” the commander said.

“Just one?” She might have known.

“He wanted to see you and the baby one last time.”

“Seriously?” She jerked her head toward the mirror. “He’s behind that glass, isn’t he? That’s why you really brought us here?”

“He’s not asking—”

“What does he want?” She pushed to her feet with her nephew in her arms and faced off with her own reflection. “Forgiveness? Forget it!”

“To say goodbye, Ms. Ward. The man just wants to say goodbye to his son.”

Protected by that pane of glass, she put on her bravest facade and continued to stand there as tears pricked behind her eyes. She would not cry.

How had the boy her sister had dated since high school become the man who’d murdered her? No tears. Not for him.

She’d cried them all for Cara. Her best friend and big sister.

Gone forever.

“Fine. I want to see him, too,” she demanded. “I want him to look me in the eye as he begs for his get-out-of-jail-free card,” she hissed at the mirror.

“That’s not what’s happening here.”

“Even I know he has a better than average chance of survival, Commander—freedom. Anyway, why tell me any of this? What’s to stop me from going to the press?” Mallory knowingly put more than just her career on the line with that threat.

The commander’s demeanor changed in an instant. “That would be ill advised, Ms. Ward. I don’t think I need to remind you that this conversation is highly sensitive.”

Sensitive, meaning classified!

Every government agency out there—no matter what its initials—needed a deep-cover operative of Middle Eastern descent, more than they needed another homogenized desk jockey with unruly red hair and freckles like her.

Mallory scoffed at his words. “I’m not very good at keeping secrets.”

A muscle twitched in the commander’s jaw. Mallory clamped down on her back teeth to keep from saying something she shouldn’t. Tension filled the room as they squared off against each other.

“If you promise to keep quiet, Mallory, then Kenneth will sign over custody of his son to you—right here, right now, today. Plus, he trusts you.” Galena’s words broke through strained nerves and forced Mallory to look in her direction. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here at all.”

Her ex-brother-in-law had no reason to trust her. He had to hate her as much as she hated him. But maybe this highly irregular request for her presence and then Benji’s was finally starting to make sense.

She wouldn’t be surprised to find the proposed undercover op was Nash’s idea. Something he and the commander had concocted and then taken up the chain of command, maybe even directly to the secretary of the navy, who’d taken it all the way up the chain to the President of the United States.

The president who’d pardoned her sister’s murderer.

She might just have to change her whole party affiliation.

“I want to see him now,” she demanded a second time as Benji began to fuss.

The commander nodded to whomever watched them from behind that plated glass. Mallory bounced Benji on her hip to keep her trembling body under control. A few pulse pounding heartbeats later the door opened.

A marine guard ushered Nash into the room with his hands and legs shackled.

Mallory forced herself to look at him—at the stranger he’d become. He’d lost weight since she’d last seen him at his court-martial. The prison uniform hung on his lanky frame and washed out his olive complexion.

The dark stubble on his head and clean-shaven face brought out the high cheekbones and the prominent nose descended from the nomadic princes of the Lost Tribes of Israel. But he’d always be that boy from Brooklyn, New York, to her. Just as he’d been the day he moved into their Denver neighborhood.

That distinctive New York boroughs accent had set him apart more than his mixed heritage. She remembered him as being street tough and smart—an irresistible combination for most teenage girls. She’d been younger than Cara by almost four years and halfway in love with “Kenny” Nash herself by the time she was twelve.

Her unrequited crush had evolved into something much less painful over the years and they’d become fast friends, family.

He’d lost that accent somewhere along the way. But not that edge.

Though she hated to admit it, even he would have a hard time pulling off a mission of this magnitude. Yet somehow she knew he would.

Fluent in half a dozen Semitic languages, including Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and Tigrinya, Nash had carried a double major in political science and theology while at Harvard. He’d graduated from the prestigious university with honors, and a B.S.D.—Bull Shit Degree, as he liked to call it—before joining the navy.

The navy had seemed like such an odd career choice for him at the time. And her sister had been less than thrilled to have her fiancé and future husband join the military.

Mal distinctly remembered their father saying the military was a good choice for a young man with political aspirations, although Mal just couldn’t see Nash as a politician. She thought his enlistment had more to do with the fact that his father had been a marine—either that or a restless desire to see the world. Nash had an insatiable curiosity with world religions and religious artifacts. He even went on to earn his master’s in education while in the service.

For a long time she’d held on to the romantic notion that he was more Indiana Jones than Navy SEAL.

Part scholar, part mystery. Passionate in his thinking.

She also knew better than most not to argue politics or religion with him.

Christian, Muslim, Jew. As far as she was concerned, a person’s religious beliefs and practices were his own business. But in some parts of the world, the distinction could get a person killed. This was why his mother’s family had fled Syria for Israel, and then later America, when his mother was a young girl.

Nash’s dark brown eyes remained sharp and focused on her. The chains rattled one last time as he settled against the wall.

Benji swiveled toward the sound. Resting his small head against her shoulder, he shoved a sloppy fist into his mouth as he stared without recognition at the man who’d brought him into the world.

Nash stood with his head high and met Mallory’s hate-filled glare before shifting his attention toward the son he’d delivered by cutting open his wife’s womb. Cara had died before help arrived. But was she dead before he’d slaughtered her?

That question haunted Mallory to this day.

The autopsy had been inconclusive at best. Medical experts testified to both scenarios, depending on their allegiance to the prosecution or the defense.

There were those who’d called Nash’s extreme measures heroic. He was a Navy SEAL, trained to assess and react in critical situations without hesitation. Then there was the fact that his actions were criminal.

He might have been EMT trained, but he was not a surgeon.

Hero or killer? He’d saved his son’s life either way.

A traumatized fetus couldn’t survive more than four minutes without oxygen from its mother. So if Nash’s story was to be believed, less than four minutes separated him from the real murderer. But his account of those two hundred and forty seconds was as muddy as his defense.

Regardless of how Cara wound up on the floor fighting for her life, Mal believed Nash sealed her sister’s fate with his knife.

Why didn’t he just continue CPR? Especially after she arrived and could have helped. Only Nash knew his real motive for sending her outside for a phone he knew she wouldn’t be able to find because he’d had it on him all along.

Records indicated he’d actually dialed 911 before she did. So there was no reason to even send her outside, except...

To save his son’s life? Or to cover up his even more heinous crime?

Or both.

The pinch near the corner of his mouth might have gone unnoticed if Mallory hadn’t been searching for a reaction from him.

“Take a good look,” she spat. “Because it’s your last.”

Until that moment, there’d been some niggling doubt that maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was innocent. She wanted to believe with her whole heart he’d fought off a one-armed man like Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. Because for as long as she could remember, Nash had been her real-life action hero.

But maybe there was no one-armed man. What there was, though, were telltale scratches on Nash’s face, his skin cells under Cara’s nails, and his partial prints on the phone cord that had been ripped out of the wall and then wrapped around Cara’s neck.

No forced entry, nothing missing.

Cara had trusted her killer.

Mallory wouldn’t trust Nash again if her life depended on it. If there was still such a thing as a firing squad, she’d volunteer to be the one and only shooter. She’d riddle his body with bullets just to watch him bleed. She wanted revenge, vengeance. Not freedom for her sister’s murderer.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice provided the death penalty as possible punishment for fifteen offenses, most of which had to occur during wartime. All nine men at present on death row had been convicted of premeditated murder or felony murder. The president had the power to commute a death sentence to life, and no service member could be executed without the personally signed order from the Commander in Chief.

Eisenhower was the last president under whom a military execution had been upheld. In fifty years, only George W. Bush had signed a single death writ, and that order was still under appeal.

Nash had plenty of time to plead his case.

The man she’d known wouldn’t have gone down without throwing at least one punch. If he was innocent, he would have—should have—fought harder to prove it.

He wouldn’t do the unthinkable.

Mallory took an involuntary step backward and plopped into her chair as Nash moved to sit across the table from her. Galena set some papers in front of him and then handed him a pen. His hand shook as he signed at the flagged lines without reading. When he finished, he set the pen aside and pushed the papers across the table toward Mallory.

Her lower lip threatened to tremble. The man didn’t deserve her pity. Strengthening her resolve, she raised her chin to look into Nash’s eyes.

“You just sold your son for your freedom.”

CHAPTER TWO

Midtown Precinct, Manhattan

New York City, New York

Seven years later

“COFFEE?” A PAPER cup appeared within easy reach of his cuffed wrists, chained to the table. Nash ignored the cup while the man who’d offered it scooted around the table to sit across from him. It was Good Cop’s turn to have a crack at him while Bad Cop scowled from the corner. Actually they were both Feds. But he wouldn’t hold that against them. “Sayyid,” Good Cop said as if confiding in his new best friend. “We know you’re his number-two....”

They didn’t know shit about him, but he wouldn’t hold that against them, either.

The man flipped through a file full of misleading information. Sayyid Naveed, born in Syria, educated in the U.S. as a devout Muslim. Detained at Gitmo for suspected ties to terrorism. Escaped from Gitmo—which was true. Though the actual account was classified and well above this guy’s pay grade, he probably had some version of that truth in front of him. As well as Nash’s mug shot on an FBIs Most Wanted bulletin. He was somewhere in the top one hundred, not high enough to attract any real attention, but high enough that anyone coming into contact with him would know they had someone important on their hands.

His file also read that he’d spent six years working his way up to a position of trust within the al-Ayman terrorist network—that was true, too. Helping Bari Kahn, the youngest son of Mullah Kahn, escape from Gitmo had all been part of his plan—the part he hadn’t disclosed to the authorities that had sanctioned his assignment. Nash had known going in that if he got the chance to escape—with or without Kahn’s son—he was going to take it.

He’d left it to Mac to smooth things over with the top brass.

The years of intel Nash had been feeding U.S. intelligence agencies since hadn’t hurt his case, either, but he’d always known he was in this alone. Which was why he’d hedged his bets with the Israelis. He might be working more than one angle, but he wasn’t a traitor to his country or his beliefs. The Allies wanted to put an end to the al-Ayman faction of a global terrorist network, and so did he.

Only his reasons were more personal.

“Just tell us what we need to know and we’ll go easy on you.”

His new BFF had made all sorts of promises over the past eight hours.

Nash stared past the man’s shoulder to his own reflection in the two-way mirror and remained silent. Most days even he didn’t recognize the man he’d become. His shoulder-length hair was long enough now that the natural curl had taken over and the scruff on his face was more beard than not.

He hadn’t asked for a phone call. A drink of water. Or to use the bathroom.

All of which were within his legal rights.

“Well, why don’t I tell you what we know?” Good Cop said. “We’ve shut down the entire al-Ayman operation today.”

Big Dog was barking up the wrong tree. Nash had supplied intel for the fifty-city sweep across the Americas and Europe from the inside.

Hitting al-Ayman hard at the sex trafficking level was one way to mess with their cash flow. Unfortunately they had other means.

Drugs. Prostitution. Money laundering.

You name it. If it was illegal, al-Ayman was into it.

It would take years for Nash to wash away the stench of his own participation in such activities.

No, today was about one thing—catching the man at the top in the wrong place at the right time. Seven long years he’d waited for justice, and now he was going to get it through the federal court system in the state of New York.

In the good old U.S. of A.

Kahn wasn’t the kind of terrorist that could be taken out with a drone.

He was a well-connected international businessman. With enough money and clout to make certain countries look the other way.

He’d have to be taken down by the legal system on a bigger, more public stage.

“Guys like you don’t last long in prison. Tough on the outside. All jelly doughnut on the inside.” Good Cop took a big bite out of a jelly doughnut for emphasis. Goop oozed from between his thick, smacking lips and a glob landed on his tie. He picked up a napkin and made an even bigger mess.

Hunger gnawed at Nash’s insides, a hunger for justice. Besides the scene in front of him was enough to curb his appetite for food. The box of doughnuts had been sitting there all day— They were probably stale by now anyway.

“A pretty boy like you—” Bad Cop shrugged from the corner “—you’ll be someone’s bitch inside a week.”

“How long do you think before one of your cohorts rolls over on you, Sayyid?” Good Cop asked. “We’re questioning them right now. Why not do yourself a favor? I can get you a nice cozy cell in isolation, away from the general population.”

The man pushed a pen and pad of paper toward Nash for his confession.

Seriously? The pen was a mistake. He could kill both of the agents and be free of his handcuffs before whoever was watching the box could enter the room.

Not that Nash would.

He’d done enough bad shit in the past seven years.

Honed his skills. Acquired new ones.

But it was all sanctioned shit.

Killing a Fed for no justifiable reason? Well, even Mac wouldn’t be able to get him out of that one.

Nash wished his ride would hurry up and get here.

As amusing as these guys were, he was getting kind of bored hearing the same fairy tale over and over again. Just to prove wishes really do come true, the door opened. Nash caught a glimpse of Mac and two U.S. Marshals reflected in the mirror. Another man, important and harried looking, wearing dress pants and a white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves, entered the room behind them. “This one belongs to the Marshal Service now.”

The captain, or whoever he was—whatever police precinct had assisted the FBI with the raid—walked over and unlocked the chains that tethered Nash to the table. The look on the faces of Good cop/Bad Cop was worth the wait.

Without a word, Nash stood and followed the lead U.S. Marshal out the door while the other marshal and Mac walked behind. He was still shackled and for good reason—his very life depended on him never blowing his cover.

As they exited the room, Mullah Kahn was being hauled out of another room in shackles. Flanked by two federal agents and trailed by a couple of designer suits with leather briefcases, Kahn was on his way to Booking. The al-Ayman leader might have a couple of high-priced attorneys on the payroll, but he wasn’t making bail this time.

The snake turned to stare at Nash in passing. Saw Mac’s uniform and the Windbreakers identifying the marshals. “Where are they taking you?” the al-Ayman leader demanded.

“Gitmo,” Nash said with the expected contrition of an underling.

“Shut up and keep moving.” McCaffrey shoved him from behind.

Kahn shouted in Arabic as the FBI led him away.

“What the hell was all that about?” Mac asked once they were outside and beyond earshot of anyone else that might be listening.

“He still thinks he’s in charge.” Kahn had called him son and promised to keep him out of prison. “Nice touch with the shove, by the way.”

“Just doing my part. How are you holding up?”

“About as good as I look.”

“Well, you look like crap,” McCaffrey said. “So I guess that answers my question.”

“What’s the word on Bari?” Bari Kahn, the little weasel, had slipped out before the raid on the warehouse down by the docks.

Mac shook his head.

“Lieutenant Commander Nash.” The redheaded marshal opened the back of an unmarked white van used for prisoner transport. “Sorry, sir. Protocol. I’ve been instructed to leave the cuffs on. You’ll be riding in back.”

Nash had been through this once or twice before. He’d be taken to a secure location for debriefing before they’d let him out of his cuffs. Only this time he wouldn’t be given a new assignment.

Federal prosecutors would be present to take his statement and then he’d be moved to a safe house. Because this time he was testifying.

* * *

Safe house somewhere in the Catskill Mountains

“NASH, YOU IN OR OUT?” Irish tipped the kitchen chair back on two legs to poke his head around the corner.

“Go ahead and deal me in.” It’s not as if he had other plans. They’d been cooped up in this house close to fourteen weeks now. Only two more weeks to go until the trial. Nash eased the ache in his neck and then flipped from the Weather Channel to Thursday Night Football before setting the remote aside.

He’d been daydreaming through the forecast for the Western states again.

The snowstorm closing in on the Rockies in time for Halloween had him thinking of things other than the extended forecast. Things he shouldn’t be thinking about.

He hadn’t been this close to—or felt this far from—home in years.

He was born within a hundred-mile radius of where he stood right now and had spent several summers as a boy in the Hudson River Valley.

If he wasn’t for all intents and purposes a ghost, he could call on his mother for a visit.

As for Colorado...well, that was some sixteen hundred miles away and another lifetime ago. Yet he felt the pull. But this caretaker’s cabin in the Catskills was as much a prison as Leavenworth or Gitmo. And he wasn’t free to move about.

U.S. Marshal Reid “Irish” Thompson finished dealing as Nash and U.S. Marshal Salvatore Torri joined the freckle faced kid for a little three-handed Texas Hold’em. Thompson claimed marshals invented the game out of sheer boredom, though little was known of the actual origins of Hold’em poker, except that it first appeared in the early 1900s. The Texas Legislature laid claim before the game migrated to Las Vegas, Nevada, in the 1960s and became synonymous with the word poker.

All Nash knew was they’d played a lot of poker these past four months.

And he’d bet those marshals of old didn’t sit around playing cards in their body armor. Long johns, maybe. But not Kevlar.

His guards were cautious and he appreciated it.

“You’re not still thinking about what the federal prosecutor said this afternoon?” Irish asked once he finished passing out the chips.

Nash picked up his stack of red chips and let them fall through his fingers in a rhythmic motion. After this was all over and he’d given his testimony, he intended to let his chips fall where they may so to speak. Checking his hand against the flop, he plunked two chips off the top and then tossed them into the pot. “There’s no reason for Sari to testify.”

Sal raised his bet. “Can’t blame her for wanting to.”

Needing to was what Nash was afraid of.

Irish took his time rearranging his cards and then comparing them to what was on the table. The kid was into them for some twenty grand now. It wasn’t as if Nash planned to collect; they kept the running tab purely for bragging rights and weren’t even playing for real money, but maybe he should let Thompson win a few hands before he left.

“I think it’s messed up that her brother could get away with something like that,” Thompson said. “And if her father ordered it, then he’s just a sick bastard.”

Sal passed around the pizza box from the Torri family’s pizzeria in nearby Albany—if forty miles could be considered nearby. Nash took several slices and a cold Near Beer.

His marshals didn’t drink on duty.

And Nash didn’t drink, period.

As far as he was concerned, Sari’s father and brothers deserved worse than prison for the mental and physical abuse they’d subjected her to. But Sari’s story was so personal there’d be no hiding her identity.

That would be bad news for her. And for him.

He’d like nothing better than to testify in open court himself. But that wasn’t going to happen when transmitting a pixilated image and altered audio from another room could protect his identity.

And for one very good reason....

Suddenly Nash’s thoughts went some sixteen hundred miles away again.

He could go days, weeks, without even worrying about Ben. Knowing he’d left his son in capable hands. But then there were days—like today—when he’d realized the reality of his choices meant more than just missing out on the first seven years of his son’s life.

And it always hit him hard.

Of course, he’d known the sacrifices he was making in going after Cara’s killer and then not killing the man. He could have had his revenge a long time ago and no one would have been the wiser—and maybe he should have.

But he wanted to clear his name for Ben’s sake.

Even if Nash was no longer his last name. Or Ben’s.

Sal Torri was telling a story about his own son, and Nash forced a laugh. Swapping sea stories over Near Beer, pizza and poker with the guys was almost like being part of the Team again.

Only back then the beer had been genuine.

And so had he.

Sal did the majority of their cooking and grocery shopping. Once a week he drove into Albany for supplies and—Nash suspected—a quick visit with his large Italian family, which included a pregnant wife and a young son.

While they played cards, Sal also did most of the talking. The man’s familiar street-tough accent lulled Nash into slipping back into his own every now and again.

As far as safe houses went, this one was rather low tech.

Security cameras. Perimeter alarms.

A panic room.

Once a popular vacation spot for New Yorkers, the row of vacation homes had burned to the ground in the late ’70s. For whatever reason, the owner had been unable to rebuild and his heirs further neglected the taxes.

Eventually the government seized the property along with the only building left standing. The caretaker’s residence had been a safe house for close to thirty years without a single breach. In fact, no witness in the history of the U.S. Marshal Service had ever died while under protection—with the caveat—while following the rules of the program.

The rules were simple—but maybe harder for some than others to follow.

You could never return to the town from which you were relocated. You could never connect with known associates, or friends and family not in the program.

Never was a long time.

And this wasn’t a reflection on his babysitters, but he’d already decided against going into the Witness Protection Program once the trial was over. He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew he’d have to don another identity and then move on regardless of whether he entered the program.

But this time he wanted to be truly anonymous.

Outside government control and way beyond government contact.

Nash could make a good living in the private sector or he could retire to a quiet life. He had enough money to do whatever he wanted. Either way, he was willing to disappear so that Ben wouldn’t have to.

As far as the al-Ayman network knew, Kenneth Nash was already dead. And the identity of the undercover agent testifying against them, the man they knew as Sayyid Naveed, would remain anonymous.

Suddenly the perimeter alarm wailed and lights flooded the exterior.

As a precaution the house went into auto lockdown.

All three men abandoned the card table. At first glance, the monitors above the duty station built into the kitchen revealed nothing going on.

One camera focused on the only road in or out, barricaded with a warning that a nonexistent bridge had been washed out. The others focused along a footpath and the outer and inner perimeters.

The cameras were motion-sensitive and this wasn’t the first time they’d gone off. Any movement, a deer, a skunk, or the rustle of the wind through the trees, and it appeared on the screen.

Torri did a quick computer scan. “I’ve got nothing. Irish, get the asset to the basement while I check this out.” He drew his weapon and picked up a transmitter and then tossed one to Irish.

Translated: they were locking him in the panic room as a precaution.

Witnesses weren’t allowed to carry. Though Nash was the exception—being more agent than criminal—this was their show, not his.

He knew better than to argue. He was no good to anyone dead.

Thompson put a hand on Nash’s back. But before either of them could take a single step in the right direction, the front and back doors exploded. Followed by two pops. Torri slammed backward with his brains all over the kitchen floor. Two men dressed in black leather from head to toe and wearing motorcycle helmets entered through the back and then another one from the front.

Irish put himself between Nash and the first shooter. He got off a couple of rounds in each direction before dropping to his knees from a bullet to the leg. He took another bullet to the arm before he could get off another round.

Nash made a move for the kid’s gun and instantly had two beads on him.

He raised his arms and straightened slowly.

Irish raised his arms, but couldn’t rise above his knees.

The first shooter through the door, the one who’d shot Torri, sauntered over to within feet of where Nash stood in the middle of the small living room. He lifted his dark visor on his grotesquely scarred face. “Sayyid, my brother,” he said with a big grin on his face.

And then Bari Kahn shot Irish twice more, once to the neck and once to the face without so much as a passing glance at the young marshal who would die thinking Nash was a traitor.

Nash winced on the inside. On the outside, he played it cool.

Bari kicked Irish’s firearm under the couch as he eyeballed Nash through his drooping lids. “Or should I say Lieutenant Commander Kenneth Nash?”

So much for playing it cool.

“Remove the Kevlar.” Bari motioned with his gun. “You won’t need it where you’re going,” he said as his two henchmen ripped the protective vest off Nash at the Velcro tabs.

They also relieved him of the weapon he’d hoped to keep hidden. And then forced him to his knees, facing the window so that his back was to their leader.

“I’d be happy to take you to hell with me, Bari,” Nash said over his shoulder.

Bari stepped farther into the room and over Irish’s limp body, circling around to level the barrel of his gun at Nash’s chest. “Tell me where my sister is.”

“Even if I knew, you know I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Sadly, I do know.” Bari continued his circle until he was at Nash’s back again.

The TV went from being background noise to being the only noise as Nash caught Bari’s reflection in the window. The man raised his gun to the back of Nash’s head and then lowered it.

Nash blinked. Surprised to find he was still alive.

“Father wants you alive. So he can have the pleasure of torturing you himself, I’m sure.” Bari’s reflection shrugged as if it made no difference to him. “Lucky for you he ordered me not to kill you.”

“Since when have you ever listened to your father?”

“Exactly.”

Nash caught Bari’s reflected nod toward his man.

In that same instant, Nash grabbed Bari by the arm and wrestled for possession of his gun. Bullets went flying through the cramped space. Nash angled the weapon at Bari’s men. One man went down. Nash shoved Bari into the other and then launched the downed man helmet first through the window.

Diving after him through the shower of glass and bullets, Nash landed in a heap outside the window. He reached for the downed man’s Glock mere inches from his own torn and bloody hand and then rolled onto his back, firing through the empty window.

Scrambling to unsteady feet, he angled toward the heavily wooded area with Bari and his man not far behind him. Nash ran full tilt, dodging stray bullets and low branches for several heart-pounding miles until he was sure he’d outrun them.

Even then, he only slowed enough to access the damage.

ATVs rumbled in the distance. Bari and his man?

That would give them a light source and the ability to cover more ground, but it also meant Nash would hear them coming.

More than likely, Bari had changed up his plan. From here on out it would be a race against the clock to try and stay one step ahead of the terrorist.

How in the hell had Bari found him in the first place?

Nash had been in this business long enough to know that when enough money exchanged hands, almost anyone or anything could be found. Had Bari bribed someone in the federal prosecutor’s office? Used his father’s fancy lawyers to get to someone on the inside? Blackmail, maybe?

Could they have been followed back from the federal prosecutor’s office in New York City that morning? All this speculation was just that, speculation. The one thing he did know was that his cover was blown.

Trust no one.

Right now his priority was to stay alive.

More important, he had to keep those he loved alive.

His mother, his son.

Nash didn’t even want to think about what might happen if Bari reached Ben before he did. Running headlong into a trap was the least of his worries. Nash removed some of the larger, more uncomfortable shards of glass from his palms and did his best to stanch the flow of blood from the apparent bullet wound at his side.

He’d been struck from the front at close range with no exit wound—more than likely in his struggle with Bari. Only he’d been too pumped full of adrenaline to feel anything until now.

No telling how much blood he’d lost.

Fatigue had already started to set in. He could feel it in the weight of his limbs.

By the time he reached the nearest town, the last of his strength was fading. He barely remembered stealing a car and driving into the city. Once he got there, he ditched the stolen vehicle and grabbed what he needed from a locker he kept for emergencies.

Then he hopped on a subway to sanctuary.

Nash hunched his shoulders and kept his head down. Shoving his hands deeper into the pocket of his dark hoodie where he cradled the Glock, he entered a long-forgotten alley on the west side. He used what little strength he had left to knock on the door. It took several minutes for someone to answer.

When the door opened, an elderly man stood on the other side.

“Rabbi Yaakov?”

“Yes?” The old man studied him from behind wire-framed glasses.

“I’m with the Institute.” Nash kept his voice low, using the literal English translation for Mossad.

The Institute was responsible for covert operations and counterterrorism, as well as bringing Jews to Israel from countries where official immigration agencies were forbidden and protecting Jewish communities.

The rabbi looked up and down the alley before pulling Nash inside. “You can’t be here,” he hissed.

“I need your help.” Nash unzipped the hoodie to reveal his blood-soaked T-shirt. “I can pay in cash.” He dropped his backpack to the floor at the rabbi’s feet.

“Oy,” the old man said. Nash’s knees threatened to buckle as the rabbi ducked under his arm to support his weight and led him to an industrial-size stainless steel kitchen. “If you’re going to pass out, do it up here.”

* * *

WHEN NASH CAME to, he was stretched out on one of the stainless steel workstations, watching the rabbi drop the last of his instruments into a stainless steel bedpan. The rattle must have been what had woken him. Nash glanced at the pan full of instruments. He eyed the bullet and bloody gauze with distaste, wondering if he’d just traded that bullet for a lifetime of hep C.

“You want I should call a doctor?” Rabbi Yaakov said when he caught the frown on Nash’s face. The old man snapped off the latex gloves with equal disgust. “The Institute sees to it that I’m well equipped. I use only sterile instruments.”

Nash did not dare question the man’s medical practice further.

Mossad took care of its own.

Besides which, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Any emergency room staff would have to report him to the authorities.

“I need a plane.” Nash pushed to sit up and then dropped back to his elbows. He turned and then threw up into the bedpan. “Preferably one with a pilot,” he said, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “To Denver.”

CHAPTER THREE

Less than twelve hours later

IDLING IN A black Ford Explorer on the crimson and gold tree-lined drive, he could pass for any other parent waiting for his son or daughter after school.

Except the snowcapped mountain license plates had belonged to an abandoned junker in an overgrown backyard. And the tamper-resistant expiration stickers had been lifted off a newer vehicle.

Grit scratched his sleep-deprived eyes like sandpaper. He removed his Ray-Ban Predators and wiped at his weary lids. If he closed them now he wasn’t sure he’d ever open them again. Replacing his sunglasses, he pulled his ball cap lower.

The three o’clock bell signaled an end to the school day and the school week since it was Friday. Boys and girls poured out of the building, clamoring to be heard above the final peal. Mallory had put him in a private school, which made the boy harder to find. But not hard enough for anyone looking.

Not that he believed she’d hidden him out of fear or as a precaution. If that were the case, she and the boy wouldn’t be living in the same house she and her sister had grown up in.

He was sketchy on the details of the past seven years, but he knew her mother had passed away some time ago and that her father now resided in a nearby nursing home.

Nash glanced at the dated surveillance photo on the seat beside him. Hell of a thing not to know your own son. But he would have recognized the boy anywhere, right down to the Transformers T-shirt—it could have been his own second grade photo staring back at him.

Nash spotted Benjamin among a group of boys in uniform skipping down stairs despite being weighted down by backpacks bigger than they were. Quickly folding the photo along worn creases, he tucked it back into his pocket. As he watched, a man in a black turban approached the group of small boys. Nash reached for the door handle but pulled back at the last minute as a dark-skinned boy broke off from the crowd and ran up to embrace the lucky bastard.

Nash relaxed his grip on the Glock in his lap hidden beneath a newspaper.

He should have known better. His enemies wouldn’t be that obvious. If they even looked like his Middle Eastern brethren.

The group of second grade boys thinned out as they reached the sidewalk, with two of them breaking off in one direction and Benjamin in another.

“Damn it!” Nash checked his mirrors and then shoved the Explorer into gear. She didn’t seriously allow the boy to walk those six blocks to the house alone, did she?

After everything he’d seen and done these past seven years, he wouldn’t let a kid wander next door to his own house, let alone down the block in his own neighborhood. Urban jungles were some of the most dangerous.

As he pulled away from the curb, a teenage girl with two-toned, blond-on-black hair, rushed up to Benjamin. He heard her simultaneously scold him for not staying put and apologize for being late. The apparent babysitter and the boy continued down the block toward a rusted-out red Volvo.

The combination of an old car and a young driver didn’t make Nash feel any better about his son’s safety. But he drove on without so much as a glance in passing. Turning left at the third stop sign, he avoided the unmarked car parked across the street from his former in-laws’ home, which now belonged to Mal—not just his former sister-in-law, but also his son’s aunt and guardian.

If not for that familial connection, he would have braked at his first opportunity and snatched the boy right then and there. He checked the rearview mirror as the Volvo stopped at the same intersection before continuing toward the house.

Nash turned right at the alley and slowed the Explorer.

Modern pop tops punctuated the row of American Craftsman homes that made up the old Washington Park neighborhood that lay within spitting distance of downtown Denver. He’d scouted the area earlier. The stakeout appeared to be limited to the two Feds sitting in a black sedan out front.

At least a dozen federal agents should have been swarming the place by now. Unless, of course, they thought he was dead like the two federal marshals assigned to protect him.

In which case, they should have taken even more precautions.

He winced as a spasm in his side reminded him of his narrow escape and just how much blood he’d lost at the scene. Shoving back the brim of his ball cap, he swiped the beads of sweat forming on his brow.

Focus, Nash.

He tugged the ball cap back down and then took a familiar left turn out of the alley. He knew these lanes well—he’d grown up here.

After he’d entered the service, his mother had moved back East to be with family. As far as Sabine Nash knew, her only child—a convicted murderer—had died a coward in prison. He’d had to rely on Rabbi Yaakov to see that his mother paid a visit to their relatives in Israel for the time being. He didn’t have the time to get both her and his son to safety. Nash beat back a twinge of guilt.

Thank God his father hadn’t lived to see this day.

Though it was unlikely anyone from the old neighborhood would recognize him, including his own mother, Nash continued straight instead of taking another right. He didn’t want to drive past the old house where he’d grown up just in case their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Rosenberg, had lived to see her eightieth birthday.

* * *

MALLORY PUSHED HER father’s wheelchair, enjoying the relatively warm autumn weather as they strolled the parklike grounds between the assisted-living facility and his nursing home. The late afternoon sun reflected off the pond as they followed the winding path toward a chorus of honking geese who were making a pit stop on their way south for the winter.

“Slow down, Margaret! You’re driving too fast.”

“It’s me, Daddy, Mallory. Mom—” There was no point in bringing it up again. He’d just relive the pain of losing his wife of thirty-five years. Or worse, would only feel frustrated because he couldn’t remember her at all. “Mom couldn’t make it today.”

“Mallory?” He cranked his neck but couldn’t turn his head far enough back to look at her, so he shifted his frail body to face her. “I have a daughter named Mallory.”

“I know.” Mallory sat on a bench and then angled his chair toward her, hoping for some sign of recognition from him today. At least this seemed to be a good day.

“Going to make a damn fine lawyer someday.” The pride in his voice turned the remembrance bittersweet.

Her father had just made deputy district attorney when she’d told him she wasn’t going on to law school after receiving her undergraduate degree. Instead she’d applied for, and had been accepted into, the FBI Academy.

She’d told him that she still intended to put her pre-law studies to good use, but in law enforcement. Mallory had explained that she had a hard time seeing herself stuck behind a desk for the next thirty years.

She’d always been a serious tomboy, with no time for boys, at least not in the boyfriend and girlfriend way—she’d been too busy competing with them both academically and physically. Despite that, she’d always had more male friends than female friends in high school and college. She just found it easier to relate to men. More often than not, her male friends considered her one of the guys, and she’d come to accept that that made her a better friend than girlfriend.

These days she had very few friends of either sex, though she still preferred the company of men—to a point. Because by both male and female agents she’d forever be known as that rookie whose brother-in-law murdered her sister. The one who pulled her gun and then fainted.

She’d spent most of the past seven years behind a desk, constantly passed over for promotions. But it turned out to be in the best interest of the two most important men in her life, and she couldn’t regret that. Putting herself in the line of fire and leaving her father alone and Ben an orphan was not an option.

Being a single parent came with its own set of rules and responsibilities.

More recently, however, she’d made her own opportunities and finally felt as if she’d put the past behind her. She’d become part of an evidence recovery and processing team.

It might not be the job of her dreams, but at least she found her work interesting and maintained special agent status. This also meant she did a lot more fieldwork these days and carried a badge and a firearm again, which Ben thought was kind of cool and she found comforting.

Goose bumps raised the hairs on her arms, and she shivered.

“Are you cold, Daddy?” She tucked the lap blanket around him.

“Cold, no. I’m not cold.” He took a moment to assess his surroundings. “Maybe a little.” He amended his answer.

Mal lost track of time as the afternoon sun faded into evening and the temperature dropped. A slight breeze blew through the umber and gold trees with their scattered leaves. The afternoon sun had warmed their earthy fragrance and she breathed in the crisp, clean scent as it clung to the evening air.

Halloween was just around the corner. Exactly one week from today.

She must remember to stop by the grocery store on her way home for the pumpkin she’d promised Ben.

Taking the remnants of stale bread from the bag inside her purse, she handed a slice to her father. They took turns tossing bits and pieces into the water. Whenever the honks died down, one or the other of them would toss out another bit of bread for the geese to clamor over.

Her dad used to take her and Cara to Wash Park—Washington Park—to feed the geese on days just like this.

If he had to be lost in his memories, she figured that would be a nice one to get lost in.

While it often felt as if she and her dad were having two different conversations, every once in a while they connected over something as simple as the weather and a flock of geese.

Brushing the crumbs from her lap, Mallory reached out to her father and just sat holding his fragile hand in hers. She listened to the familiar nuances in his voice while he talked as if she were away, studying pre-law at Colorado University in Boulder and her mother and sister were still with them.

Cara married to Nash and living in San Diego.

Their mother having no greater care than tending her rosebushes and vegetable gardens.

After Cara’s death, Margaret Ward had simply given up on life. Even a grandbaby couldn’t bring her back from the brink of despair. She’d needed pills to get up in the morning and then pills to fall asleep at night. She’d died of an overdose shortly after Nash’s conviction.

An accidental overdose. At least that’s what Mallory chose to tell herself...when she wasn’t blaming Nash for her mother’s suicide.

Mallory’s father was made of sterner stuff. Older than his wife by a decade, he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s nine years ago. Charles Ward had stubbornly controlled the onset of dementia with medication and had succeeded in having several lucid years after his diagnosis. Not so much lately, though.

Consigning him to an assisted-living facility, and then later the nursing home, had taken all the fight out of him. But it had been the right thing to do.

Mallory hadn’t been able to care for both her nephew and her father with his deteriorating mental and physical condition. Exhausted from trying, she came to a time when she had no choice.

She couldn’t take an afternoon nap or lie down at night without worrying her father might take the baby out for a walk and leave him somewhere, or give him a bath and then become distracted. Or worse, become confused and frustrated when he heard the baby crying.

Even as a twenty-three-year-old, she’d realized the baby’s safety had to come first.

Otherwise the consequences could have been tragic.

To her surprise, Nash’s mother never contested Mallory’s appointment as Ben’s guardian. Nor her subsequent adoption. Mallory supposed there wasn’t much the woman could do since her son had signed over Ben’s custody to Mallory on that day at Miramar. She tried never to think about that day or the days that followed.

The way Nash attempted to control the tremor in his hand as he signed papers relinquishing his rights as a father and making way for her to adopt his and Cara’s son...

The next day news broke in grizzly detail of Nash hanging himself with bedsheets, following a family visit—a custody hearing in San Diego being the excuse for Nash’s temporary transfer to the Level II facility.

Even though none of it was real, she still found it disturbing, watching the events unfold while she sat holed up in her hotel room. Even though she’d attempted to stay below the radar, the reporters had been relentless in tracking her down, wanting to know what she might have said or done to provoke his actions.

She’d known it was coming. Yet she hadn’t been prepared for the onslaught of questions. “What were Kenneth Nash’s last words to you, Ms. Ward? Did he confess? Did he leave a note? Your mother also committed suicide. Tragic coincidence? Suspicious circumstance? What’s the connection?”

She couldn’t leave the hotel room without microphones being shoved in her face. “How do you feel about the role you played in the arrest and conviction of your own brother-in-law and a decorated war hero? Are you aware your brother-in-law is being buried without ceremony in the Fort Leavenworth Military Prison Cemetery? Will you be attending the funeral, Ms. Ward?”

She’d been as unprepared for those questions as she had been for the profound feeling of loss that accompanied them. Another part of her had died that day. She’d lost her sister, her mother and to some extent her father.

What more did she have to lose?

Nash had taken everything that was youthful and innocent about her and destroyed it, irrevocably changing her and the direction of her life at twenty-two.

And yet she’d still mourned the brother-in-law she’d once known.

For a long time afterward, she felt as empty as the wooden crate lowered to the ground with nothing more substantial than sandbags to weight it down—assuming they’d weighted down his casket with sand. They could have interred an unidentified body for all she knew.

Cremation might have been easier but would have gone against the traditions of his faith.

Of course, most faiths had at least a moral objection to suicide and she was sure that included faking death. In any case, she did not attend the mockery of a funeral. The commander and several of Nash’s Navy SEAL buddies were there for the show...or perhaps some other reason.

His mother had also attended the service. To this day, Mallory could barely look the woman in the eye, knowing what she knew about Nash. At the time, she didn’t know how they’d kept her from claiming the body when she had every right to do so.

Prisoners did not have to be buried inside prison walls.

Later Mal discovered they’d simply handed his grieving mother a letter stating it was his preference—since he couldn’t be buried beside his wife or near his father.

If he had even tried to use the family plot next to Cara, Mallory would have had something to say about it. She didn’t understand canon law governing Jewish burial, but suspected not being able to be buried next to his father had something to do with suicide, which used to be the case with the Catholic Church until the pope declared it otherwise.

What did it matter? He didn’t commit suicide.

And though she might wish otherwise, he wasn’t dead.

As far as she knew anyway.

It had been years since that fateful phone call.

The man was a ghost. Not just the kind that haunted her past, but the living, breathing, deep-cover-operative kind. That thought alone was enough to raise the goose bumps on her flesh. Ghosts had a way of popping up when you least expected them.

God, she hadn’t thought about any of this in so long.

A hand curled around hers with surprising strength and she jumped. “Will you come back to see me, Meg?”

Mallory didn’t bother to correct her father even though the emptiness of it all squeezed at her chest. Meg was his pet name for her mother. “Of course I will.”

* * *

NASH WAITED INSIDE the house. In a working-class neighborhood, it was just as easy to break in during the day as at night under cover of darkness. He kept quiet upstairs while the young sitter and the boy moved around downstairs. The creaky, century-old house would have given him away if he was any less cautious and if the kids were more alert.

In the hall bathroom, he tended his torn sutures as best he could without running tap water. He could hear the babysitter moving around in the kitchen. The boy had settled into the front room with a video game. Something age-appropriate, he assumed, from the lack of bloodcurdling screams.

And because he was fairly certain Mal would curb the kid’s activities away from violence.

He didn’t know why he thought that. Maybe he was confusing what Cara would have done, and what he and Cara would have wanted, with how Mal was actually raising his son.

Truth be told, he didn’t have a clue how Ben was being raised. He wanted to believe the boy was growing up in a healthy and happy environment. One that wasn’t haunted by his mother’s murder and his father’s failures.

The smell of popcorn wafted up to him. Nash hadn’t eaten anything more substantial than a protein bar all day, and his stomach churned out a reminder. While he didn’t have much of an appetite, he did need to keep up his strength. Tugging his bloodstained T-shirt back in place, he zipped the equally dark hoodie over it as he left the bathroom.

On his way into the boy’s room, he knocked a photo frame off the dresser.

It hit the carpet with a soft thud.

Nash winced and waited for any indication the kids had been alerted to his presence. After several seconds, he uncoiled his tense muscles.

It wasn’t like him to be so careless.

Endless energy drinks were making him jittery.

For good reason.

Mallory should have been home from work by now. Even a quick stop at the grocery store or for a carry-out dinner shouldn’t have taken her this long.

He picked up the frame and found Cara smiling back at him from what was probably the last photograph he’d taken of her at Mission Beach. The digital photo frame changed from one picture to the next, flooding him with memories of happier times. It had been a lifetime since he’d seen the exact shade of his wife’s strawberry blond hair and green eyes. Images of her beauty had faded to soft-focus memory.

A look. A laugh.

The punch line of a joke she could never get right.

Not a day went by that he didn’t think about how much he’d loved her. How much he still loved her. How he’d failed to protect her as a husband.

And as a Navy SEAL.

The first rule to starting a new life was that you couldn’t take the old one with you even though the personal baggage always came along for the ride. This would be his second incarnation. Kenneth Nash was dead and buried along with his wife—if not literally, then figuratively. The man standing in their son’s bedroom was nothing more than a cold, empty shell.

Here to tie up loose ends. That’s all.

Having a picture of Cara wouldn’t bring her back.

Still he hesitated before setting her photo back on the dresser. There were others, none of them framed, tucked into holders and around the dresser mirror.

There were photos of Benjamin with each of his grandparents. The one with Margaret was taken when the boy was still a newborn. The one with Charles in a wheelchair looked recent, as did the one with Nash’s mother, which appeared to have been taken in New York City outside F.A.O. Schwarz around Thanksgiving. Last year if he had to guess. Had they visited the city for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? Done some Christmas shopping?

Spent Hanukkah with his mother?

Had the boy experienced both Hanukkah and Christmas last year for the first time? Or had he done so every year?

He and Cara had worked through those fundamental differences before marriage—or at least that’s what he’d thought.

Until Cara got pregnant and they found out differently.

He needed to believe they would have worked things out eventually.

They weren’t the first couple of different faiths to marry and have children. They would have found their Jewish/Catholic compromise, and their kids would have been just fine being raised with the diversity of two faiths. That’s what he believed.

But he hadn’t expected his wife’s side of the family to have anything to do with his side after his conviction. He’d asked his mother not to interfere with his unorthodox decision to allow his sister-in-law—his non-Jewish sister-in-law at that—to raise his son.

On a practical note, Mal was young. His mother was not.

He had other family, but he’d never even considered them when it came to raising Ben.

Mal would be on a constant lookout and was physically and mentally better equipped to handle trouble, which made her the best choice as Ben’s guardian.

But it had been more of an emotional decision. Mal was the closest thing he could give the boy to a mother, and she’d see to it that Ben grew up knowing Cara—even if that meant he would also grow up hating his father.

It was good to see Mal had kept in touch with his mother, but that relationship added another wrinkle to the current situation. He’d been operating under the assumption that Mal and Ben had no close ties to his family.

Yet oddly enough, there was even a picture of him in uniform in the photomontage, which included several more pictures of Ben with friends, his babysitter, his aunt Mal.

How old had she been the last time he saw her, twenty-three, twenty-four? Staring daggers at him from across that table in the interrogation room.

The clever and carefree girl from their youth—with flame-red corkscrew curls hanging down her back—was long gone. From the moment she’d stuck a gun in his face, lawyers had seen to it that they never got the chance to talk again before the trial. She wouldn’t even make eye contact with him while on the witness stand and wasn’t allowed to sit through the proceedings until after her testimony and the closing arguments.

But at one time they’d been more than family—they’d been friends.

Even after all these years, sadness still etched her smile and he bore the brunt of responsibility for putting it there. Beyond that sad smile, there were other changes to her physical appearance. For one, she’d straightened her hair, and she apparently wore dark designer suits these days, looking every bit the professional government agent.

A real G-man, government man. Or G-woman—person—as the case may be.

Kidnapping the kid would be difficult enough without dragging an armed and angry aunt along for the ride.

But he owed her that much at least.

No one else should have to die because of him. Humbled by the sacrifice Torri and Thompson had made, he knew he had to make his escape count. He had to save his family. And he had to honor the two marshals, and Cara, and countless others, by staying alive to testify.

He grabbed the boy’s backpack from the bed where Benjamin had dumped it after school. Nash stuffed a change of clothes inside, and then moved on to Mallory’s room, where he found her gym bag and then shoved some of her clothes into it.

It dawned on him that the gym bag’s presence was not a good sign. If it wasn’t a workout keeping her late, what was it?

He checked his watch again. It’d be fully dark soon. If she wasn’t here within the next twelve minutes, he’d have some tough choices to make.

Stepping into the adjoining bathroom, he grabbed her toothpaste and toothbrush. It struck him as odd that there was no sign of a man in her life. Not so much as an extra toothbrush to indicate a sleepover. But he didn’t have time to dwell on whether or not there was the complication of a boyfriend. Other than how unfortunate it would be for any guy who walked in the door with her tonight.

While he couldn’t account for every variable, he had to hope she didn’t spend Friday nights away from home—or at least not this Friday night.

Nash scowled at his reflection. While there was no love lost between him and his former sister-in-law, leaving Mal behind was not an option. If she wasn’t here by nineteen hundred hours, he’d find out from the boy where she was and they’d go get her.

Worst-case scenario, Bari or one of his henchmen had already gotten to her.

Just the thought was enough to send chills down his spine.

Ben’s safety had to come first. Not Mal, not his mother—not even Sari—came before Ben, and those were just the cold, hard facts.

But he’d have a hard time living with himself if anything happened to Mallory—or with any of the women on the periphery of his life—because of him. His conscience would demand that he go after her. His conscience was why he was here now instead of already on the road.

Back in the bedroom, he checked both nightstands looking for Mallory’s handgun.

Assuming she had more than one firearm, where would she keep them? Some place out of the kid’s reach. He scanned the room and then settled on the closet, where he found a fireproof lockbox on the shelf underneath some sweaters.

He felt along the dusty ridge of the doorframe inside the closet until he came across the key. The most logical place to look was usually the place to find what you were looking for. The lockbox contained her SIG Sauer and a box of 9 mm bullets among life’s important papers—birth certificates, death certificates, adoption papers.

Dead presidents.

Not the amount of cash needed to start a new life, but enough for a household emergency or a quick getaway. He didn’t think twice before shoving the money into his pants pocket.

Checking her unloaded gun, he grabbed the box of bullets. The 9 mm shells would fit both their weapons.

Tucking her SIG into his waistband at his back alongside his Glock, he wondered why she’d kept the weapon. There was no doubt in his mind the SIG Sauer was the same one he’d given her as a graduation present from Quantico. The one she’d pointed at him while reading him his rights.

A car door slammed. Nash drew the bedroom curtain aside to check it out. Mallory had just gotten out of her white Prius with a bag of groceries in hand and a pumpkin tucked under her arm.

The two agents parked across from the house approached her with a flash of agency badges. Nash couldn’t make out what they were saying, but Mal dropped the pumpkin and everything else she carried with a splat as she ran toward the house.

CHAPTER FOUR

MALLORY RAN UP the front steps. Fumbling for the right key, she unlocked the door and in her haste tripped over the threshold. “Ben, Benjamin!”

“Yeah?” He looked up from his video game on the big screen. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”

Her heartbeat slowed to normal at the sight of him playing his favorite video game. “Is there something I should know that you’re not telling me, Ben?”

“No.” He returned to Skylander Spyro’s Adventures.

Mallory turned to the two agents who’d followed her as far as the door. “Looks like we’re fine.” She kept her voice low so Ben wouldn’t overhear.

“We’ll be right outside.” FBI Special Agent Stanley Morgan set the groceries inside the door and handed over her pumpkin-gut-splattered Kate Spade handbag. The one she’d saved for six months to buy and then ruined in six seconds with the first words out of his mouth a couple minutes ago.

“When was the last time you had contact with Kenneth Nash, Ms. Ward?”

No contact. Ever.

He’d promised—a convicted felon was as good as his word, after all.

“Would you mind telling me what’s going on?” She took a step outside, backing the agents up onto her front porch. She left the door cracked behind her and kept a watchful eye on Ben through the picture window to the front room.

Stan, with his basset hound eyes and long overdue for retirement, exchanged a look with his young bulldog of a partner, an ex-marine named Christopher Tyler. Though not well acquainted with either of them, Mallory knew both men from the downtown office. Tyler even hung out on the fringe of her social group and had asked her out once or twice. But she gave dating him or anyone from the office a wide berth.

At the very least these two men owed her the professional courtesy of a response. “Guys?”

“Nash was in the custody of two U.S. marshals found dead early this morning,” Tyler said. “He’s a person of interest.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” She crossed her arms. “Are you saying he killed two federal marshals?”

Stan shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sure that’s what the Marshal Service would like to find out.”

“There’s enough ballistics and blood evidence to suggest he was wounded at the scene,” Tyler said. “They really want to find the guy.”

“Where was this?”

“Back East, somewhere.”

“That doesn’t tell me anything, Stan. New York? D.C., Virginia...? Where back East?”

“Mallory,” Stan said, sounding rather paternal as he ignored her question—he reminded her of her father and everything about him that she would miss once he was gone. “Kenneth Nash is considered armed and dangerous. He’s been a deep-cover operative for a while now. It’s not unheard of for these guys to turn rogue. If you come up against him, do not try to take him down alone this time. He’s not the same man you knew seven years ago.”

“The man I knew seven years ago killed my sister. I wouldn’t put anything past him.” She brushed back a loose strand of hair before tucking her hand back in her crossed arms. “Why was he in custody?”

“They didn’t tell us much,” Stan admitted. “Until we got the call a few hours ago, we were under the impression the guy was dead.”

“Suicide or something, wasn’t it?” Tyler’s watchful eyes became piercing. “Of course you must have known different?”

“I don’t know anything.” She ignored his subtle probing accusations and held his gaze as she offered up that half-truth. Deep down she’d known this day would come and had prepared for it. “Good night, gentlemen.”

She turned to step back inside the house.

“Mallory.” Stan stopped her from closing the door. “We can’t protect you and the kid if you don’t tell us what you know. Where is he?”

“What I know?” she said. “What I know is that you can’t protect us from him. But if he was here, you’d already be dead.”

She closed the door and then leaned against it with a resigned sigh.

“Ben, turn off the video game.” She forced a calm she was far from feeling into her voice. “I dropped the pumpkin. We need to run to the grocery store for another one or we won’t be able to carve it tonight. If we go now we can stop by the party store and pick up that Iron Man costume you wanted. Hurry up, okay?”

“’Kay.” His response lacked enthusiasm and she knew from experience it would be several minutes before he turned off the game. She needed those minutes to compose herself anyway. If Nash was coming from the East Coast, it would take him at least a day to get here, unless he hopped a plane. Assuming he’d avoid major airports, train and bus depots, he was mostly likely traveling by car. Assuming being the operative word.

She had no idea what Nash would or wouldn’t risk to get to them.

Only that he would get to them. Unless she managed to stay one step ahead of him.

She scooped up her purse and the bag of groceries by the door. She found Jess, Ben’s babysitter, in the kitchen, eating popcorn—iPod so loud she could hear the faint strains of music without the benefit of earbuds herself. It was no wonder the girl hadn’t heard Mallory calling for Ben.

Jess removed an earbud. “He got bored with my project.” She let the handful of orange-colored popcorn fall into the bowl.

“Thanks for staying late this evening, Jess.” Mallory dug out her checkbook, scribbled out the amount for the week with a sizable bonus and then tried not to appear as if she were rushing the girl out the door.

Stay calm, Ward. This is no time to panic.

“No problem.” Jess stuffed the check into the pocket of her strategically ripped jeans without so much as a glance at the amount, and then grabbed her hoodie off the wall rack on her way out the back door. “See you next week.”

Next week was too far into the future to think about when the next few minutes were all that counted. Mallory followed the girl to her car parked in the drive at the side of the house. Jess could just as easily have crossed the alley to her own yard, but try telling that to a seventeen-year-old in her first year of unrestricted driving. With one eye on the back door and the other on the car, Mal watched headlights fade as Jess backed around the Prius and then out onto the street.

It might very well be the last time they saw the girl.

For peace of mind, Mal had to make sure she left safely.

Darting a quick glance toward the unmarked car parked across the street, Mal hurried back inside and grabbed the keys to her father’s vintage Mustang off the same rack where they hung their jackets. She seldom drove the car except to keep the battery charged for the occasional Sunday drive with her dad. It was parked in the detached garage off the alley, which meant they could get to it before anyone stationed out front even knew they were gone.

A well-tuned muscle car had the added advantage of being fast.

“Ben!” she called out as she stepped back into the kitchen. Unpacking the groceries by rote, she paused to check her cell phone to see if she had any new messages. She’d taken the afternoon off to run her father to his doctor’s appointment, but she’d had her phone with her the entire time. No calls.

Nothing from Special Agent Galena. Or Commander McCaffrey.

If something was up, wouldn’t one of them have contacted her? She dropped the phone back into her purse.

For years now Nash hadn’t even been a blip on her radar screen. About a year after he’d been transferred to Guantanamo Bay, under an assumed name known only to a select handful of important people, three prisoners escaped. A fourth was shot in the attempt. Mal knew upon hearing the reports that Nash was among the escapees.

It was all hush-hush. As far as the public was concerned, no detainee had ever escaped from Gitmo.

Shortly after that, he appeared with wild hair and a full beard on the FBI’s Most Wanted list under the alias Sayyid Naveed. If it wasn’t for his eyes, she never would have known it was Nash. He was unrecognizable to the point she would have passed him on the street. The very thought gave her chills.

Shortly afterward she learned that asking questions invited trouble.

The commander himself came to debrief her. He even threatened to have her security clearance downgraded.

That’s when she realized she might need an escape hatch someday and began systematically socking away resources in storage lockers around the state. But Nash had never appeared on her radar again, until tonight.

“Ben, now,” she said in her best mom voice. That should get him moving.

“Coming.” His answering whine meant he’d heard the seriousness in her tone and would wind down the game. These next few hours, days—maybe even weeks and months—were not going to be easy for him to understand, so she’d allowed him this small rebellion. It wouldn’t be easy leaving everything behind.

If she’d known today was going to be the last time she’d see her father, what might she have done differently?

Don’t even go there, Ward.

It was going to be hard enough walking out the door and never looking back.

She’d spent that first year after Nash’s “suicide” looking over her shoulder, preparing for this moment. Panic set in now that her day of reckoning had come and she realized just how unprepared she really was. She should run up the back stairs and grab the stash of cash she kept in the lockbox.

But the hairs on the back of her neck kept her rooted to the first floor where she could see both the front and back door from the kitchen, while remaining within an arm’s reach of Ben.

No. There was no time to waste. She was already wearing her service revolver. And she had her badge and handcuffs, too.

Best to leave with as little as possible. They’d still need cash, but a single withdrawal from an ATM close to home would get them to their next destination. She’d planned this carefully enough so that no matter what direction she was forced to take, she and Ben would be able to start a new life.

Shoving the carton of broken eggs to the back of the fridge, she closed the door and then jumped. Nash stood on the opposite side of the refrigerator, looking scruffy in his ball cap with his overlong hair and five o’clock shadow.

“Hello, Mal.”

“There are two FBI agents out front.” She put the center island between them and picked up the butcher knife from the block of knives next to the cutting board. Reaching for the celery, which hadn’t made it into the crisper, she began chopping the bunch without washing or removing the rubber band. “I’ll give you a ten-minute head start before I scream.”

“I don’t need ten minutes. And you’re not going to scream.”

She didn’t scream as he moved right up behind her and stilled the knife in her hand with his hand. She let go and the butcher knife dropped to the cutting board. He picked it up and tossed it out of reach to the sink.

It would be futile to resist. She wasn’t about to challenge him in hand-to-hand combat—until she had to.

“They think you killed two marshals.”

He didn’t move from behind her. “What do you think?”

That he was capable of doing just that.

She ignored his loaded question as he reached inside her jacket for her gun. Her breath caught on the intake as his arm brushed the underside of her breasts and pinned her against his chest as he checked the safety on her firearm before tucking it into his own jacket pocket. “What are you doing here, Nash?”

“Smart move not going for the gun.”

He began patting her down underneath her jacket.

His impersonal check felt far too personal and she slid around to face him. With her back to the island, she groped for a steak knife and managed to get a good grip on one. He blocked the jab, took the knife and the whole block of knives and dumped them in the sink out of her immediate reach.

“Enough games, Mal. You and the boy are coming with me.”

He latched on to her elbow and she shook off his grip. “We’re not going anywhere with you.”

“We don’t have time for theatrics. Call him again.” He picked up what she recognized as her gym bag and tucked her gun from his jacket into a side pocket, and then picked up Ben’s backpack and tossed it over his shoulder as he nodded toward the back door.

“Ben.” She modulated her tone so there was little to no urgency in it, hoping he’d be too engrossed in his game to break away. Heart pounding, Mallory moved toward the living room as if to hurry him along. She flicked the kitchen light switch in passing.

Nash was no dummy. He hauled ass toward her with menace in his stride.

She stood there with her hands on her hips and made sure she had plenty of room to maneuver before picking a fight with him.

She was a trained professional. All she had to do was stand between Nash and Ben until two armed agents burst through the doors. If Nash dared to make a move in Ben’s direction, she would lay a world of hurt on him. Not even a Navy SEAL could easily get past a mama bear intent on protecting her cub.

“Can we get a big pumpkin this year?” Ben asked as he entered the kitchen. “I mean really big.” He held his arms out wide and then stopped just inside the doorway, frozen in his big pumpkin stance staring at Nash.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked.

The boy nodded. “You’re him. You’re my dad.”

From one heartbeat to the next, Nash swooped up Ben along with their bags, and then ran for the back door as Tyler burst through the front door, splintering it off its hinges. Mallory barely had time to react before Special Agent Tyler shoved her out of his way. She went down hard, hitting her head against the granite countertop.

“You all right?” He glanced back without stopping.

Dazed, she waved him off. “Go, go! He’s got Ben!”

But Special Agent Tyler was already gone and so far ahead he probably didn’t even hear her.

* * *

NASH CROUCHED NEXT to the boy as they took shelter in the overgrowth, waiting for Mal to come out of the house. They’d hopped the chain-link fence across the alley just ahead of the first agent out the back gate. The narrow space beside the detached garage, bordered by the six-foot wooden privacy fence on the other side, hadn’t seen a lawn mower in years.

Since both houses were third from the end, Nash had counted on the agents to assume that he’d run the short distance out the alley. But instead of trying to chase them down, the agent on their tail had stopped by the Dumpster behind Mal’s house and pulled out his walkie-talkie.

The younger agent caught up to the older agent as he was calling for backup. The two men argued. Nash mouthed the word ninja to the boy, who stared back at him with big eyes. A shot rang out and Nash covered Ben’s near yelp with his palm.

Thankfully, the boy hadn’t seen the incident so much as heard it.

Nash, however, had a perfect view. He kept the boy’s face turned away from the old guy slumped on the ground.

The young guy would have shot the older man again, but a dark sedan, not the same model as the one parked out front, came screeching around the corner. Instead of looking guilty, the young agent—if that’s what he was—started shouting orders to the driver. Something not right was going on here, and all Nash needed now was for Mal to step out her back door right into the middle of it.

Maybe he should be more worried that she hadn’t exited the house by now.

Nash kept one hand curled over Ben’s mouth.

The other on his Glock.

Finger on the trigger, he held his breath until the young agent bolted down the short end of the alley while the car drove up the other end and disappeared—but not before Nash had caught a glimpse of the sedan’s rental plate.

Removing his palm from the boy’s mouth Nash brought his finger to his lips, warning the boy to remain quiet.

Picking up a flat, chalky-white stone—a native form of limestone—he scratched the license plate number into the wood siding of the garage.

Ben crouched beside him, his panicked breaths coming in hard and shallow. The boy started to turn his head toward the downed agent again.

Nash pointed two fingers at his eyes. Eyes on me, not on him.

The boy turned his head back to focus wide-eyed on him.

Nash didn’t know if the kid understood SEAL sign language, but he’d always kept his signs simple enough that any BUD/S on his first mission would get their meaning.

The next thing Nash knew Ben was burying his face in Nash’s shoulder.

He wanted to put his arms around his son, offer him the comfort and reassurance he needed. But he didn’t allow himself the indulgence to pull Ben closer for that first hug.

He needed both hands free. Especially his shooting hand.

Nash shoved Ben behind him, making sure to put himself between the boy and whatever was coming. The boy kept his face plastered to Nash’s back—which was exactly where he wanted him to be. As they crouched in the weeds Nash felt himself growing queasier by the minute and it wasn’t from the blood loss. The boy was probably worried sick about his aunt—and so was he.

There’d only been the one shot, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been incapacitated. By the shooter or the driver. Or someone else. A silencer—even a pillow—could have muffled the sound of a gunshot.

Or a knife.

There was only one way to find out.

He was getting ready to pick up Ben again when Mal came barreling out the back gate. He didn’t immediately reveal their hiding place. But he did reach around to tap the boy so Ben could see his aunt was okay.

Now that they knew Mal was okay, he could get Ben to the SUV and let Mal catch up to them.

* * *

MALLORY FOUND STAN slumped against the Dumpster in the alley and hunkered down beside him. The agent was bleeding and barely breathing, but he wasn’t dead.

“Son of a bitch shot me.” Stan gasped for air.

“Shh...quiet, now. Keep pressure on it.” Mal pressed his hand to the wound at his gut as she looked up and down the alley.

No sign of Nash or Tyler. Or Ben.

She didn’t know how long she’d been out cold.

A few minutes, maybe?

Her head still felt woozy. She must have hit her head on the countertop harder than she thought.

When she’d tried to push to her feet to follow Tyler, she’d blacked out. The next thing she knew she’d heard the shot ring out. She managed to stumble to the back door and down the steps before tossing her cookies.

A concussion was the least of her worries right now.

Thanks to the static of Stan’s radio, she found it within easy reach under the Dumpster. “Did you call for backup?”

He offered a weak nod.

A curious neighbor stepped out his back door with a bag of trash and glanced their way.

“You,” she called to the elderly gentleman who looked as though he was about to head in the opposite direction toward another garbage bin. “Stay with this man until the ambulance arrives. Keep pressure on it.” She demonstrated before shoving the radio at her neighbor and reaching for Stan’s firearm.

Without hesitation, she wiped her bloody hands on the pants of her Ann Taylor designer suit for a better grip on the weapon. She hated to leave Stan like this, but Ben had to be her priority.

Stan latched on to her wrist. “Tyler—”

“Save your strength, Stan. Which way did they go?”

He pointed her in the right direction. Digging the Mustang keys from her jacket pocket, she raced the few feet to the garage. She stripped the drop cloth from the Skylight Blue exterior of the 1964 ½ classic, opened the door and sank into the blue and white pony leather. Blood from her hands stained the white leather steering wheel and gearshift as she backed out of the garage.

Assuming Special Agent Christopher Tyler was chasing Nash on foot, and that the ex-marine was in better shape than Stan right now, there was still a chance she’d find Nash hiding out in her neighborhood. Loaded down with a small boy and their two bags, he couldn’t have gone far. He wouldn’t try to outrun the agent—he’d try to outfox him. Maybe even lead him on a merry chase before circling back to wherever he’d parked his getaway car.

Which had to be around here somewhere.

Close. But not too close.

Not a car, an SUV. He’d want to blend in with the neighborhood.

She was wishing for the radio now or some way to communicate with the agent, but Stan had needed it more than she did. Why hadn’t she stopped to grab her cell phone? “Come on, Tyler. Flush him out.”

The average criminal wasn’t too hard to figure out. When he ran, you ran after him while your partner cut him off.

But Nash wasn’t your average criminal. He was better trained and he’d be familiar with their training.

But what he didn’t know was that she spent six days a week in the gym and had spent six long years studying everything she could about Navy SEALs in anticipation of this moment.

So if she was part of his plan A...

You and the boy are coming with me.

Somewhere in his contingency plan B, C or D, either he planned to leave her or, if she stayed visible and vigilant, he’d find her. Except she intended to find him first.

Mal never realized how many dark SUVs there were on her block until now. She rolled down the windows and opened the top of the old Mustang.

Listening. Praying there’d be no more gunfire.

Block after block she made her way in a crisscross pattern toward the highway. There were several on-ramps near her neighborhood, which bordered the park. Nash would have parked facing one of them. Somewhere he wouldn’t draw a lot of attention.

Somewhere familiar.

She backtracked toward the house where he’d grown up only to be disappointed.

Nash had the advantage over Tyler of knowing the old neighborhood. But maybe, maybe she had the advantage of knowing Nash. If she just put her mind to it, she should be able to figure this out. Unless of course he anticipated her trying to second-guess him.

“Where the hell are you, Nash?” She had to find him before he took off down the highway. Otherwise she might never see Ben again.

That bloodcurdling thought made her want to scream.

“Think, Ward. Think.” She prowled his old block tapping the steering wheel.

The street where Nash had grown up was catty-corner from their street.

One block up, one block over.

She was facing the direction of her house now.

Wait—what if he’d never left the alley? It was basically made up of a combination of wooden privacy fences and low chain-link ones. How hard would it be to jump a fence or break into a detached garage? There were two dozen backyards facing that alley. He could have ducked into any one of them. She glanced up the next block toward Jackie’s house.

Her persistence paid off; an engine roared to life down the otherwise sleepy street. Streetlights out. Headlights off. Directly across the alley from her house.

Exactly what she was looking for.

The driver pulled out just as Mallory entered the intersection.

She pulled a hard U-turn into its path. The driver slammed on his brakes, coming to a screeching stop inches from her driver’s-side door.

Mallory scrambled over the side of the convertible with her weapon drawn. She had Nash in her sights across the hood of his SUV.

Point-blank range. Finger on the trigger.

They stared at each other for a full second.

Nash revved the engine. All he’d have to do was roll forward and she’d be pinned between the two vehicles. All she had to do was pull the trigger to stop him. “Let him go!” She could hear sirens in the distance from the fire and paramedic station located right on the edge of the park. The police would follow. All she had to do was hold him off.

He leaned across the front seat and threw open the passenger door. “Get in!”

Ben’s dark head bobbed behind his father’s.

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