Relentless. Jo Leigh

      Nothing except cops and EMTs and then, a woman. She was in a blue uniform and she had dark hair. Slim, tall—it had to be Kate Rydell.

      She glanced at the official vehicles, then walked calmly to her car, a beat-up old Toyota Celica. Nothing about her was rushed or panicked. Still, she wasn’t wearing a coat, which told him she hadn’t stopped to clock out or to go to her locker. She got her keys out of her pocket and opened her door.

      That’s when he saw her face. It was nothing like the picture on her driver’s license. Even though the security camera wasn’t the best, he could see she was a very attractive woman. Her hair had been pulled back, so he got a pretty decent look. She didn’t seem like a room service employee. Not with those cheekbones.

      “You know her?” he asked Phyllis.

      “Not really. I’ve seen her around, but we’ve never talked.”

      “No?”

      “She kept to herself. I’ve never seen her with anyone. Expect maybe Ellen.”

      Vince got out his notebook. “Ellen?”

      While Phyllis gave him the details about the housekeeper, he thought about Kate Rydell. She must have known something about the gangbangers who’d killed Tim. She’d gotten out so damn fast, he knew she was running, that she didn’t want anyone to know she’d seen the whole thing. She wasn’t about to cooperate, not willingly. But in the end, she would. He’d make sure of that.

      2

      THE MOTEL WAS AS nondescript as its name. The Sleep Inn had only twenty rooms, and the one she requested was on the second floor, on the end, with windows facing the parking lot and Van Nuys Boulevard. It cost thirty-nine dollars plus tax a night.

      She put the cardboard box on the small round table and looked around the room. A double bed with an ugly green bedspread, a TV bolted to a squat dresser. A phone she wouldn’t use. The carpet was worn and seemed recently vacuumed. The sink tile was cracked, but the water pressure wasn’t bad. She’d stayed in worse places. Lots worse.

      For the first time since she’d witnessed the murder, she let herself take a moment. In the past two hours she’d packed, loaded her car and gone by several other motels until she’d found this one. It was far enough from her old apartment that she felt relatively safe, but not so far she couldn’t hook up with the others.

      Seth and Nate were working on something big, tailing some high-level employee of Omicron—that was when they weren’t trying to earn a living with their private security business. They’d both been surveillance experts in Kosovo. When they’d gotten back, they’d spent every last cent setting up a trauma room in Harper’s basement. Just in case. Not only couldn’t they get regular jobs any longer, they couldn’t do half the things normal people took for granted. Go to a hospital, for example. At least not for the kinds of injuries they were likely to get fighting Omicron. Even she’d had to learn to shoot, and Kate had always hated guns.

      Harper worked at the free clinic in Boyle Heights, but she was always on call in case anything happened to any member of the team. They hadn’t had to use her services so far. She had been one of the doctors for the U.N. staff Kate had met in Kosovo. Harper had seen firsthand what Omicron had created in the Balkans. It had been her misfortune to be taken to the remote Serbian village that had been the testing ground for the gas. A nurses’ aide hadn’t been able to reach her family, so she’d asked Harper to drive with her to her home town. Everyone there was dead. Men, women, children. A town full of life, wiped out in one awful morning.

      Then Kate had met Tamara, a chemist who thought she’d been working to eliminate biological and chemical weapons, but in truth Omicron had tricked her and a lot of other scientists into creating a chemical agent of unimaginable horror. Tam had rebelled, and now she was one of them. One of the six who were hunted.

      But Kate hadn’t talked to either of the women in a long time. She was too busy trying to earn a living and trying to make sense of the poor photocopies from Kosovo. Her days swam by in dread and tedium. The fear never left. Never. It had become her second heartbeat. Now this.

      She didn’t have enough horror in her life? She would have screamed her outrage if she thought it would do any good. That poor man in the hotel, to die such an ugly death. She wondered if he’d been married. If he had children.

      She got her cell from her purse and dialed Nate’s number. It rang twice.

      “Yeah.”

      “I’ve got trouble.”

      “What?”

      “It’s not Omicron. But it’s bad. I witnessed a murder today at the hotel.”

      “Shit. Where are you now?”

      “At a motel in Reseda. I got out, left the apartment. No one followed.”

      “Okay, that’s good.”

      “What’s not good is that I saw them. Gangbangers. I can identify them.”

      “No, you can’t.”

      “Yes, I can. I saw their faces. And the tattoos, and their weapons.”

      “Kate, you can’t. The moment you come forward, you’re dead. You know that, right?”

      “There has to be a way. I can’t just—”

      “There is no way. I’m sorry. I know this sucks, but it’s not just you. It’s all of us. We’re getting close. We can’t afford to be identified. And you have to finish the paper trail.”

      She let her head drop down, so weary she could hardly breathe. “It’s not fair.”

      “Damn straight it’s not.”

      “Okay. Fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut. There’s another problem. I didn’t get my last check. I’m really broke.”

      “Damn. We just had a major outlay of cash. Not much left in the coffers. Let me see what I can do.”

      “Okay.”

      “Can you make it a week?”

      “If I have to.”

      “Sorry, kiddo. I mean it. I’ll figure something out.”

      “I appreciate it. What about getting me a new name?”

      “That, I can have for you by tomorrow. Give me a call in the morning.”

      “Okay. Thanks.” She turned the phone off but didn’t move. There were clothes to hang up, her files to go through. But first, that shower she’d been aching for. There’d been a time in her life when she’d adored showers and baths. She’d indulged in every kind of ointment and bath goody she could find. She’d had something for every mood.

      Now she carried a good soap with her because her face got too dry if she used the cheap stuff. That was it. Good soap. No lotions, no salts, no special conditioning treatments. Most days it didn’t matter. But man, today she’d kill for a lavender bubble bath.

      NATE DISCONNECTED and dropped the cell phone on the makeshift table in front of him. He leaned back and closed his eyes, willing himself to relax. He tried to remember how long it had been since he’d had a really good night’s sleep.

      His eyes popped open, and, momentarily panicked, he looked at his watch. Fifteen minutes. He’d lost fifteen minutes.

      He stumbled to his feet and took the ten steps to the bathroom. He turned on the cold water and splashed some on his face, then dried and looked at himself in the mirror.

      He had to admit he was looking a little gaunt. Who was he kidding? He looked like crap. Would you buy a customized security system from this man?

      He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Several times. He actually picked up the brush and made a moderate effort to look somewhat neat.

      Kate. He had to find