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stairs. “You’re preaching to the choir. I want your cookies.
    Hang on a sec,” she yelled through the door as she deactivated several locks. Both cylinder and electronic.

    The day she’d moved in she’d replaced the front door with a metal, high-security model. No peephole.
    The door was too thick. But she’d had five locks installed, as well as a reinforced plate on either side to mount the strongest security chain she’d been able to find.

    “Victory,” she muttered as the last lock disengaged and she opened the door the six inches the sturdy chain allowed.

    Because she was expecting a little girl, it took her a second to compute the large male standing in the gently eddying white fog of her tiny front porch. Her heartbeat kicked into high gear, and her mouth went cotton dry.

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    Stupid.

    Stupid to open the door like this.

    Maybe fatal.

    Schooling her features to be nothing more than politely blank, Heather met his gaze in the narrow space between the door and the jamb. His eyes were ink dark, intense.

    As authoritative as he looked, she recognized immediately that this guy was not a police officer. He was intimidatingly tall and broad. Despite the chilly January weather, he wore nothing more than jeans and a black T-shirt. He was unsmiling, his eyes a cross between dark blue and teal. His nose was straight, his lips clamped, his jawline slightly darkened by a five o’clock shadow. At three in the afternoon.

    He looked…mean.

    That was all it took. Her heart started to pound, and an icy cold shower of fear washed over her.

    Run.

    Too obvious.

    She drew in a deep breath of cold foggy air touched with a faint hint of male. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Can I help you?” she asked politely, wishing she’d grabbed her gun before coming downstairs.

    Running scared, buying the gun, had been her last-ditch, back-to-the-wall, no-other-choice defense.
    She’d bought it in San Cristóbal where she’d gotten her fake IDs, after someone had tried to run her car off the road.

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    The gun was guaranteed not to set off airport security, and it never had. It was smaller than her palm.
    For months she’d been practicing, over and over again, to fit the tiny component parts together. She could do so in the pitch dark, in mere seconds, and under every adverse condition she could think of. But that damn practice couldn’t pay off if she was here and it was in her closet.

    “Heather Shaw?”

    Her heart dive-bombed, and a spill of sick dread suffused her body. Oh, God! It had taken time, but they’d finally managed to find her.

    How? She’d been careful. She’d— Don’t panic, she told herself firmly as a familiar surge of fear made her heart manic, and her palms sweat.

    Taking a deep breath, she met his eyes with effort, and said politely, “Sorry. No.” When she tried to close the door, she realized the guy had his enormous foot blocking the way. Her breath came out in a strangled whoosh. “Hey! Move that foot. Now. ” Fear made her voice shake. She put her weight against the solid surface of the door. But it wasn’t going to shut.

    “My name is Caleb Edge, Miss Shaw. I want to talk to you about your father.”

    Therewas a word that put the fear of God into her. “My father died years ago. I’m not the person you’re looking for. Get lost or I’ll call the police.” Yeah, right. Like she’d be dumb enough to do that. All she needed was one person to suspect she wasn’t who she said she was, and she’d be on the run. Again.

    And here he was. The devil incarnate’s errand boy.

    “You’re not in any danger from me, Miss Shaw. Just tell me where your father is, and I’ll leave you alone.”

    “This is Hannah Smith at 3249 Front Street,” she said firmly, out of his visual range behind the solid Generated by ABC