Bounty Hunter Honor. Kara Lennox

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      “You can touch it,” she said. “It’s already been analyzed. No prints but mine. Common photocopy paper, Canon Inkjet ink. Nontraceable.”

      “I thought you didn’t go to the police.”

      “I didn’t. I work in a research lab. I did the analysis myself.”

      “Ah.” He tried not to show his surprise. He wouldn’t have pegged this delicate, fairylike creature as a hard-nosed scientist, though he ought to know by now not to let anyone’s outward appearance surprise him. His last stint in Korea should have burned that message into his brain once and for all.

      He read the note, which set forth the terms she would have to meet if she wanted to see her daughter alive again. She would be required to deliver a package to a certain place at a certain time, then leave. The package would be picked up, the contents verified. Only then would the child be released at an undisclosed location. She would be notified after the fact.

      If she agreed to these terms, she was to go today at 3:00 p.m. to the Forest Ridge Mall food court wearing a red shirt and wait at least fifteen minutes, after which she would be contacted as to where and when to make the drop.

      Peter Danilov obviously liked cloak-and-dagger games. Such an affinity for drama could be used against him.

      Rex asked Nadia the obvious. “What does Peter want from you?” The note simply referred to a “package,” which Rex assumed meant Nadia knew what it was.

      “I can’t tell you that.”

      “And I can’t win this game playing with only half a deck.”

      “I can’t tell you without breaching the security of the United States,” she said quietly. “But suffice it to say, it’s something very dangerous. I could never put it into Peter’s hands. Which is why I need you to get my baby back.”

      National security? Dangerous?

      “Whoa, wait a minute. You don’t by any chance work for—”

      “JanCo Labs.”

      Ah, hell. JanCo Labs was a huge facility tucked away in the piney woods of East Texas a few miles from Payton. The lab worked almost exclusively on top secret government contracts—everything from gene splicing to weapons technology.

      Rex was intrigued despite himself.

      “Do you have any way to contact Peter?”

      “No.”

      “Do you have any idea where he might have taken your daughter?”

      “No, I’m sorry. I’ve had no contact with him for months.”

      “Do you believe he will actually harm Lily?”

      She hesitated. “He never physically hurt her before. But I do know one thing. If he suspects even for a moment that I’ve come to you or anyone for help, he will spirit Lily off to Russia with him, and I will never see her again.”

      NADIA ENDURED the next hour of tedious questions solely because she knew Rex Bettencourt was her only hope.

      She hadn’t been too sure when she’d first walked up to the First Strike Agency. She’d read of his impressive success rate in a national magazine and had considered it an extremely lucky break that the bounty hunter was based in her own backyard. But when she’d seen his place of business, with its faded, tattered awning and grimy windows, she’d been less than impressed. First Strike was in a bad area of town to begin with, sandwiched between a bail bondsman and a pawnshop. But even if the neighborhood hadn’t discouraged her, the office itself would have.

      Narrow and deep, the office housed a half-dozen mismatched desks scattered haphazardly around the room. There didn’t seem to be a reception desk, or anything to welcome a walk-in customer. In the back corner was a home gym setup and some free weights.

      As she tiptoed across the ripped indoor-outdoor carpeting toward the only occupied desk, she’d taken in the gallery of Wanted posters with darts protruding from the faces and the stacks of magazines—Soldier of Fortune, Guns & Ammo, Fast Car—decorating the desks.

      The only computer in the room was a big, beige clunker grimy with fingerprints.

      But then she’d seen Rex. Although his face had not appeared in the magazine article she’d read, she’d somehow known instantly that the man seated behind a desk at the back of the room was Rex Bettencourt. With military-short, sun-bleached hair and a deep tan even in the dead of winter, his posture had communicated the sort of supreme confidence she was looking for. And from the moment he’d opened his mouth to speak, she’d known he was the man who could get her little girl back safe and sound. His impressive muscles made him look dangerous, but the intelligence behind his green eyes assured her he was also capable.

      “You haven’t given me much to work with,” Rex said when he’d run out of questions. “A description of a woman who smokes with a rodent face and an accent isn’t much help. Are you sure you’ve never seen this woman before?”

      “I know I’ve never met her. But now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, to go over it in my mind, she seems familiar somehow. I may have seen her before—at a party, in a crowd.”

      “She might have been following you.”

      Nadia shivered at the idea of being watched. Her Russian grandmother had risked her life to come to this country, where she could be free, where her movements were not constantly monitored or her motives challenged. Nadia had been raised to appreciate her freedom, her relative safety.

      Peter had taken that away from her.

      “I know I haven’t given you much,” Nadia said. “But someone will be at the mall to spot me. Maybe it will be the woman again. You could follow her.”

      “If you spot her. Or if he doesn’t send someone else, someone you wouldn’t recognize.”

      “When he contacts me again, then,” Nadia said.

      “Peter probably won’t send another messenger with a piece of paper. He’ll try something different this time, maybe a phone call from a throwaway cell phone.”

      “He’s bound to drop some kind of clue,” Nadia said. “And if he doesn’t, you can follow whoever picks up the package after I make the drop.”

      “If you aren’t planning to give Peter what he wants, what will you put in the package?”

      “Something that will look real enough that it will fool him for at least a while. He’ll have the contents verified, but it will take some time. We have to find her before he discovers the truth.”

      “We’ll do the best we can.”

      She searched his eyes, hoping to find reassurance there. But his expression was grim. “You’re thinking he might have already hurt her.”

      “We have to consider all possibilities.”

      Nadia’s eyes swam with tears. She did not want to hear this, yet she knew Rex spoke the truth. Peter was not honorable. He was a spy, a traitor СКАЧАТЬ