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crackers and
raisins.
     
    * * *
     
    Malachi had a dazed
expression on his face Jules wasn’t used to seeing, and it puzzled
her. They finished their small dinner in relative silence. He kept
his wicked looking weapon close to his side and kept himself
between her and the door at all times.
    Jules wasn’t used to being
so obviously protected. She hated it; it made her feel so horribly
vulnerable.
    She shivered as she opened
the lid on another bottle of water. They’d been provided with two
types of drinks, bottled water and bottled beer. The room had grown
steadily colder, at least to Jules. It must have dropped twenty
degrees in the past two hours.
    Malachi surprised her by
wrapping the blanket around her shoulders. She didn’t protest; she
was still freezing and the headache she’d woken with had tripled.
She felt progressively worse as the day went on.
    Finally, she couldn’t take
it anymore. The mattress beckoned and she curled up in the middle
of it. She gave up—at this point, the headache was much worse than
the threat of danger.
     
    * * *
     
    Malachi watched her all
afternoon, hoping he was wrong. Only when she nearly collapsed on
the mattress did he accept the truth. It wasn’t just Georgia and
half of Hellbrook’s team that had fallen victim to the
flu.
    Julia looked far from good.
He leaned over her, brushed the hair off her forehead. Pretty eyes
blinked up at him. Feverish eyes. “Oh Julia, you never make things
easy, do you?”
    “ Don’t call me Julia,
please. Only Rick did.” The words were a sad whisper as her eyes
drifted closed. He continued to stroke her hair. “It makes me
remember.”
    Her skin burned beneath his
hand. She was ill, they had the one thin blanket between them, and
no access to the outside world.
    Malachi had felt fear
before, both on and off the job. None of that compared to the
terror gripping him right then.

Chapter
Eleven
* * *
    He’d spent sixteen months
planning out every move he would make against Malachi, in this—the
final portion of their game. He hadn’t planned on incompetence of
his pawns.
    These fools cost him the
game, and he would not forget that.
    The news had wasted no time
on reporting about the missing FBI hotshot Dr. Malachi Brockman’s
disappearance.
    Or that of one of the
nation’s best forensic pathologists.
    The woman hadn’t been part
of the game. She was an unknown variable, one that he was not
prepared for—nor happy about. Because of her, Malachi would once
again triumph.
    His plan to keep Malachi
for weeks, until the man died from simple starvation and wasting
away of perfection was finished. He hadn’t counted on a second
person being in the room with Malachi, especially one with whom he
took no issue.
    He’d met the woman and
respected her a great deal. He hadn’t wanted to harm her.
Therefore, Malachi would be the winner of this game by
default.
    He fondled the two chess
pieces he’d altered to suit his needs. It was from his favorite
chess set, one that he’d been given as a gift when he was no more
than eleven years old. Malachi’s mother had purchased it, and he’d
treasured it for decades.
    Now he would be sending the
last two pieces to Meredith’s son…
    Would the other man get the
significance? Or was he just insignificant to Malachi?
    He placed the pieces in the
envelope and wrote in a neat, block letter style, the name of the
third unintended victim of those idiots.
    He would have it delivered
to her hospital room within the hour, along with a personal note of
apology.
    And then he’d have to begin
a new game, one that was set specifically on this new game board,
with more significant pieces than he’d used before. At times, he’d
doubted Malachi recognized the significance of the pawns and pieces
he’d chosen to use before. But in this new game there would be no
question that it was he and Malachi on the board.
    And only one of them would
come out the winner.

Chapter
Twelve
* * *
    Alessandra was exhausted
and