The Christmas Clue. Delores Fossen

      Matt zipped his pants. “Or I could simply ask Dominic Cordova to hand her over to me.”

      It was an angle Cass had already anticipated, and she had a cautionary answer. “You could, but what happens if he refuses? The Justice Department won’t be on your side. You said so yourself. Dominic is their new best friend.”

      He paused a moment and then shook his head. “You’re asking the impossible. I can’t break the law. I’ve sworn—”

      “I know.” Best to nip the doubt before it could grow into a full-blown argument. “But if we think this through, we may be able to skip anything illegal. For starters, I know the head groundskeeper at the estate. He’s a semifriend, and he can hire us as part of the crew who’ll be decorating the estate for Christmas. That way we wouldn’t technically be breaking and entering.”

      “No. We’d only be stealing. Last time I checked that was still a crime even for former debutantes.”

      She hated that label and hated even more that it bugged her. And he knew it bugged her.

      “You have a right to your daughter,” she reminded him. “And Dominic obviously isn’t planning on just handing her over, or he would have already done it. If he didn’t know beforehand, he certainly suspects now that the adoption was illegal. It was all over the news, and the lawyer who handled Molly’s adoption was arrested.”

      “All of that could mean nothing.” But his body language told her that Matt knew she was right.

      Cass pushed a little harder. “Here’s my suggestion. You ask for some vacation time. If your boss wants to know why, you can say it’s some sort of family emergency. Which it is. Then, you borrow the jamming equipment, and we can leave immediately. If all goes well, you could be back as soon as the day after tomorrow—with your little girl.”

      “No,” he said, buttoning his shirt.

      Stunned, Cass replayed that one word, hoping she’d heard him wrong. “No? To what part of the plan?”

      “To all of it.”

      She replayed that, as well, and it didn’t sound any better the fifth time around. “But what about Molly?”

      He shrugged. “That’s what official channels are for.”

      Cass could have pointed out all the pitfalls associated with official channels, especially since Dominic was now part of those channels. However, Matt Christensen knew what was at stake here. He knew that Dominic could hide the child so that no one could get to her—ever. He knew what could go wrong, and yet he was obviously willing to risk doing this the official way.

      “Okay,” Cass mumbled. She took a deep breath and pushed her hair away from her forehead. “So, I guess this is goodbye. No hard feelings, I hope.”

      With that, she started for the door.

      She didn’t get far.

      He snagged her by the arm. “You think you’re leaving?”

      Since that sounded like a challenge, her chin came up. “I am leaving.” She tried not to sound hesitant.

      But she was. Heaven help her, she was.

      Special Agent Matt Christensen had been her best shot at clearing her name. Without him, she didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of doing that.

      “It’d be suicide for you to try to break into Dominic’s estate alone,” he pointed out.

      “I have insider help, remember?”

      “Yeah, and if that were enough, you wouldn’t have come here in the first place.”

      Touché.

      Yes, she had an insider, Hollis Becker, Dominic’s head groundskeeper and the man in charge of external security for the estate. Because she was paying him well, he was good at eavesdropping, keeping track of Dominic and taking the occasional picture for her. But Hollis wouldn’t be able to get her past the internal security system there. No, the best he could do was get her a fake job as a seasonal helper, give her a temporary place to stay and tidbits of information as to Dominic’s immediate whereabouts. That would give her, perhaps, an opportunity to sneak inside the basement of Dominic’s estate.

      Cass tried to move out of his grip, but he held on, latching on to her other arm as well. She really hated the idea of kneeing him in the groin, but if it came down to it, she would. If she stayed, she’d end up in jail and therefore, dead.

      “Once I’m inside the estate, I’ll do everything within my power to get your daughter out of there,” she explained, even though it was hard to deliver a calm explanation with her emotions doing a foot race inside her.

      He blinked. “You’d actually try to get the baby out?”

      “Of course.” Cass watched the surprise on his face. No, not just surprise. Shock. She frowned. “What, you think I’d leave a child there with Dominic if I had a chance to save her? You must really believe I’m a selfish bimbo.”

      The hold he had on her melted away, and he groaned and dropped back a step. Cass took it as the gift that it was. She retrieved both of her weapons, and she headed for the back door.

      She made it two steps.

      “Wait,” he said.

      Cass stopped. Held her breath. And prayed. Because even though she’d been willing to walk out that door, she knew without his help, she’d fail. Slowly she turned back around to face him.

      He opened his mouth to say something. What, she didn’t know. And she didn’t get a chance to learn because the phone rang again.

      Like before, he didn’t answer it. He stood there. Waiting. It didn’t take long for the answering machine to kick in.

      “Matt, it’s me, Ronald,” the voice said. She recognized it as the man who’d called earlier. Except his voice was a little different now. Not sleepy. Frantic. “I hope to hell you’re there listening to this. And I hope to hell I’m wrong.”

      Matt reached over and hit the speaker function on the phone. “What’s going on?” he asked the caller.

      “I don’t know exactly, but five minutes ago the communications guys at the central command post intercepted a Level Red threat.”

      Cass looked at Matt, silently requesting an explanation.

      He didn’t provide one.

      “I take it this Level Red has something to do with me?” Matt asked his friend.

      “It has everything to do with you. Your name is on it. So is a fugitive—Cassandra Harrison. They believe she’s there with you.”

      That caused Matt to curse.

      “What’s wrong?” Cass mouthed.

      Again he didn’t answer.

      “My advice is to get out of there fast,” Ronald McKenzie continued. “We’ve got backup on the way, but it doesn’t look like we’ll make it in time. These guys are five to ten minutes ahead of us.”

      With that ominous-sounding warning, Ronald McKenzie hung up.

      Matt didn’t waste any time. He snatched his weapon from the fridge.

      “What’s wrong?” Cass demanded. “What does Level Red mean?” And she held her breath because she knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.

      Matt Christensen latched on to her arm and got her moving toward the kitchen door. “It means we leave now. Someone sent assassins to kill us.”

      Chapter Four

      “I hate to say I told you so…” Cass grumbled under her breath.

      Yeah. Matt hated it, too, but hindsight wasn’t going to get them out of this situation.