Guarding the Witness. Margaret Daley

from her face.

      With her client secured—at least as much as she could be with a possible intruder in the house—Arianna crept forward. She scanned each room as she made her way through the lower level. Another dull thump echoed through the air. She knew that sound—a silencer. Coming from the library. A muted scream followed almost immediately. Every sense heightened to a razor-sharp alertness.

      The couple who lived here with Esther was gone for a few days to a funeral. No one should have been in the place. Increasing her pace, she covered the length of the hallway in a few seconds and flattened herself against the wall to one side of the door that was ajar.

      Peering through the slice of space into the library, she spied a large man about six and a half feet tall standing over Thomas Perkins, who was bound to a chair with his hands tied behind his back and a gag in his mouth. He bled from the shoulder and thigh—a lot. Esther’s husband tried to scooch back from the towering man, moaning through the cloth stuffed in his mouth, his eyes dilated with fear.

      The assailant leaned down and removed the gag. “No whining. Just tell me where the ledger is or the next shot will be in your heart.”

      “There isn’t one,” Thomas Perkins said between coughs, still trying to move away from the man.

      “Yeah, right. I know you have one in case you needed to use it against me. Your mistake was talking about it to the wrong person.”

      She wasn’t paid to protect her client’s soon-to-be ex-husband, but she couldn’t stand by and watch an assailant murder him. Fortifying herself with a steadying breath, Arianna nudged the door open, pointed the gun at the attacker’s heart and said, “Drop the weapon or I’ll shoot.”

      The large man’s hand inched upward.

      “I don’t play around. I’ll only have to shoot you once to kill you instantly.”

      The man’s fiery gaze bored through Arianna. “You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life.”

      ONE

      Two months later, a helicopter banked to the left and descended toward the clearing where Deputy U.S. Marshal Brody Callahan’s new assignment, Arianna Jackson, was being guarded by three marshals. His team would relieve them, so he used his vantage point above the forest to check out the area. Knowing the terrain that surrounded the safe house had saved his life several times. The cabin backed up against a medium-size mountain range on the north and west while the other two sides were made up of a wall of spruces, pines, hemlocks and other varieties of trees that stretched out for miles. A rugged land—manageable only as long as the weather cooperated. It was the end of July, but it had been known to snow at that time in Alaska near the Artic Circle. He had to be prepared for all contingencies.

      As they dropped toward the clearing, Deputy U.S. Marshal Ted Banks came out of the cabin, staying back by the door, his hand hovering near his gun in his holster. Alert. Ted was a good marshal Brody had worked with before.

      The helicopter’s landing skids connected with the ground, jolting Brody slightly. Over the whirring noise of the rotors, he yelled to the pilot, “This shouldn’t take long.”

      With duffel bags in hand, Brody jumped to the rocky earth closest to the cabin while his two partners exited from the other side. Brody ran toward Ted, who held out his hand and said in a booming voice, “Glad to see you.”

      “Ready to see your wife, are you?”

      “Yep. I hope you’ve honed your Scrabble skills. This one is ruthless when it comes to the game. I’m going to brush up on my vocabulary with a dictionary before I play her again.”

      “I’ve read her file.” Arianna Jackson was the star witness for the trial of Joseph Rainwater, the head of a large crime syndicate in Alaska, because she’d witnessed Rainwater killing Thomas Perkins. The man had bled out before the EMTs arrived.

      “Doesn’t do her justice. I don’t have anything to add to my earlier phone report this morning. C’mon. I’ll introduce you two.” Ted peered over Brody’s shoulder at his partners, Kevin Laird and Mark Baylor, approaching them while carrying a bag and three boxes of provisions. Ted nodded to them before turning to open the door.

      As Brody entered, he panned the rustic interior with a high ceiling, noting where the few windows were located, the large fireplace against the back wall, the hallway that led to the two bedrooms and the kitchen area off the living room. Three duffel bags sat by the door. Then his gaze connected with the witness he was to protect.

      Arianna Jackson.

      Tall, with white-blond hair and cool gray eyes, she resembled a Nordic princess. Still, he could tell she was very capable of taking care of herself from the way she carried herself, right down to the sharp perusal she gave him. From what he’d read, Ms. Jackson had been a good bodyguard caught in a bad situation. Her life would never be the same after this.

      She tossed the dish towel she held onto the kitchen counter, never taking her gaze off him. She assessed and catalogued him, not one emotion on her face to indicate what she had decided about him. That piqued his interest.

      “These three are our replacements—Brody Callahan, Kevin Laird and Mark Baylor. This is Arianna Jackson,” Ted said. Then he headed toward the door, the tension from his body fading with each step. “It’s been quiet this past week except for a pesky mama bear and her cubs.” He shoved into Brody’s hand a sheet of paper with instructions on how to avoid a bear encounter.

      “Good. Have you seen anyone in the area?”

      “Nope, just the wildlife. We are, even for Alaska, out in the boonies,” Ted said, giving him a salute. “Hope the next time I see you is in Anchorage. Goodbye, Arianna.”

      Brody looked from Ted, almost fleeing, to Carla Matthews not far behind him, to Dan Mitchell, the third Deputy U.S. Marshal on team number one, who would be on vacation on a beach in Hawaii. Brody clenched his jaw, curling his fingers around the handle of his bag so tightly his skin stretched taut over his knuckles. Carla shot him a piercing glance before disappearing outside. Slowly, Brody released his grip on his duffel bag, and it dropped to the floor with a thud.

      Good thing Ted and Dan worked with Carla. He had once and wouldn’t again. He’d learned the hard way to never get involved with a colleague. In fact, she’d been one of the reasons he’d transferred to Alaska from Los Angeles. It had been a hard shock to find out she’d been recruited to be on the detail protecting Arianna Jackson. At least she would return to L.A. when this trial was over.

      Brody swung his attention to his witness, who watched team one leave. These assignments were never easy on anyone involved. The pressure was intense. Never able to let down your guard. And with Ms. Jackson the stakes were even higher because Joseph Rainwater was determined his crime syndicate would find her and take her out, along with anyone else in their way. And the man had the resources and money to carry out that threat.

      Her gaze linked with his. “The bedroom on the right is where you all can bunk,” Ms. Jackson said in a no-nonsense voice as she rotated back to finish drying the few dishes in the drain board.

      Patience, Lord. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need every ounce of it this next week. He was guarding a woman who was used to guarding others. He doubted she would like to follow orders when she was used to giving them.

      Brody nodded to Kevin and Mark to go ahead and take their duffel bags into the room assigned to them by their witness. Then Brody covered the distance between him and Ms. Jackson. “We need to talk.”

      She turned her head and tilted it. One eyebrow rose. “We do? Am I going to get the lecture about not going outside, to follow all your ord—directions?”

      “No, because you guard people for a living and you know what to do. But I do have some news I thought you deserved to know.”

      Her body stiffening, she faced him fully, her shoulders thrust back as though she were at attention. “What?”

      “Esther