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he’d tested her by taking sudden random corners, by speeding up and slowing down, by sailing through yellow lights and stopping at green. She’d matched every maneuver.
    Yep, he was being tailed—by an idiot.
    It would have been laughable if his knee weren’t howling and his life clinging to the edge of an abyss.
    She was probably a reporter, another vulture eager to pick over the carcass of his naval career. He scowled, that familiar python of frustration wrapping around his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs.
    Damn it!
    The media shitfest was finally settling down. They were able to step off base without being mobbed by the press. Yeah, this hiatuswould disappear if the DOJ decided to launch a criminal investigation, but for the moment they’d been given some breathing room. The last thing they needed was another opinionated piece hitting the papers, or airing across the networks.
    A molten ice pick stabbed through his knee and he exhaled a tight curse, shifting to take the pressure off his leg. When the pain didn’t lessen, he dug his fingers into the protesting joint. He should have eased back on the bike, but he’d wanted to work his body to the point of exhaustion.
    His mind shifted to Kait Winchester, to long aristocratic fingers and a waterfall of sleek, pale hair. With luck his body wouldn’t have the energy to react to the hour of torture he’d signed it up for.
    Grimacing, he groaned. Christ, this visit was a bad idea. There was a reason he’d avoided Kait for the past five years. But he didn’t turn the truck around. Apparently his need for a miracle overrode his sense of self-preservation.
    The last thing he wanted, though, was to bring the press down on Kait’s door, so when he arrived at her apartment complex he drove past. He’d dump his tail and circle back to keep his appointment. Of course, his tail would just attach herself to him again, later. Or maybe she’d fixate on Rawls, or Zane, or heaven help them—Beth. Zane would blow a gasket if some whack job started tailing Beth. He might as well put an end to this woman’s game and send her on her noisy way.
    With that in mind, he pulled into the restaurant parking lot for Coronado Ferry Landing Shopping. His tail had to wait for several cars to pass before she could follow. He cruised around the center parking aisle and picked a space on the far left. The woman pulled into a slot in front of the sidewalk, which ran the length ofthe restaurant strip. Perfect, she’d have to cross the entire parking lot to reach him, giving him plenty of time to assess her approach.
    He hit the latch to the glove box and the compartment fell open, exposing his Glock. After stashing the weapon in the waistband of his jeans, he slid out of the truck, doing his best to ignore the slivers of ice piercing his kneecap. The hot breeze brought a whiff of barbeque and his stomach growled. Too bad all this unwelcome attention had made him late for his appointment, that barbeque smelled damn good.
    He doubted the woman was dangerous, but it never paid to trust one’s life to assumptions, so he tucked his T-shirt behind the Glock for easier access, and watched her slam the rusted door of the sedan and start toward him.

    Marcus Simcosky was better looking in person than he’d been in the newspapers or on the television. There was a cold intensity to the flesh-and-blood man that the digital and print images lacked.
    Jillian Michaels shoved her hands into the pockets of the poncho she’d liberated from a clothesline south of Portland, Oregon. Even with the summer sun overhead and the heavy wool shielding her, she couldn’t seem to warm up. She’d been freezing for months.
    She studied the man she’d come thousands of miles to kill—or at least, one of the men—as she headed across the parking lot. His face was guarded, watchful. It had been a miracle she’d recognized him when his truck passed her stakeout point along Silver Strand Boulevard. She’d been