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sound of a food cart rattling down the hall woke her like the ghost of Christmas Future. She lifted her head, dazed, and scrambled for comprehension.
    Nighttime had surrendered to the sun, and it trumpeted into the room like pure oxygen, reviving and full of joy. Lacey felt hollow and raw in the face of such brilliance. She went to scrub her face and her arm caught.
    Handcuffs. Oh yeah. She closed her eyes, longing for the oblivion of unconsciousness, even as her brain wrapped around ideas for escape. Micah may have deserted her, but she was going to go down kicking. And they’d have to catch her first. She examined the cuffs.
    She hadn’t forgotten all of her training.
    A knock at the door. She turned away, her back to the food service. The last thing she needed was prying eyes on her pain. Besides, anything she put in her stomach would return in an ugly rush.
    The door clicked open. “I’m not hungry,” she said in a voice she hoped barked, “get out.”
    “That’s good, because I don’t have any food.”
    Even as she turned, disbelief washed over her, dislodged her heart, and swept it clear away.
    Jim Micah stood in the doorway, appearing big and bold and fierce, the cutting edge of handsome in a leather jacket, a gray shirt, and black jeans that doubled his stun power. Even from six feet away, she could feel a seductive power in his presence, one that made her feel at once both weak and uncannily safe. The materialization of her every dream.
    Except for the fact that he looked about as happy to see her as he might his executioner. His gray green eyes drilled through her, and the grim set of his mouth held no welcome.
    She dredged up a smile. “Hi.”
    “You’d better not be lying to me or so help me, Lacey, I’ll find a way to convict you and see that you hang myself.”
    Nope, not thrilled to see her. But he’d shown up, hadn’t he?
    Lacey couldn’t help but smile.

    Micah still didn’t believe her. He resolved that to himself as he stared at her, feeling his heart rip from its moorings just a little. She looked … awful. Her penny red hair in stringy ringlets, her face red-streaked from the coarse pillow. Her left arm had been slung tight to her thin body. The other was shackled to the bed. It twisted his gut to see it, even if she deserved it.
    Believing that part still took his breath away. He ground his feelings to a nub and gave her a hard look, hoping to match his voice to it. “I mean it, Lacey. If you’re lying—” he shook his head—“what am I talking about? I know you are.”
    “You don’t believe that.” Her gunmetal gray eyes held the texture of hope, and he knew he’d just made a serious mistake. Either that or the fatigue of hopping in his car and flooring it eight-plus hours from Tennessee to Missouri had left him with his defenses on idle.
    “I do,” he managed.
    “Then why are you here?” Her smile could still knock him to his knees, and she wielded it now with painful accuracy.
    “Because … well …” Okay, yes, I want to believe that you have been telling me the truth. “If you’re on the level, then I owe John.”
    Her voice dropped, devastatingly soft. “Deep inside, you know I could never lie to you.”
    He stalked to the window, where he looked out at the parking lot. The sun glinted against pools of rainwater. “I don’t have time for your games. If you want my help, you have about five minutes to convince me before your bodyguard returns from the little boys’ room.”
    He heard her sigh, as if giving up on their past, and for a moment, he longed to let her run her litany by him again, just once, to see if there was something in it he could grab on to. Some shred of unturned evidence that might help him unravel the truth. He ached to believe something other than what he’d seen with his own eyes.
    “I was pregnant with John’s baby in Kazakhstan,” Lacey said. “I didn’t tell anyone, and I begged the CIA to keep it hushed.”
    “Obviously.”