Battle Tested. Janie Crouch

who had listened and believed her.

      Until she received an anonymous email the next day with a link to a drug called succinylcholine. A drug that in a large enough dose caused heart attacks but was virtually untraceable in a victim’s system.

      Detective Johnson’s death had been no accident.

      Neither had the mechanic’s—a man named Shawn who had been super nice and repaired Rosalyn’s car at a deeply discounted rate a month ago in Memphis. She mentioned to him that she was on the run. Didn’t want to say more than that, but he asked. Shawn’s sister had an ex who had turned violent and terrorized her. Shawn recognized some of the same symptoms in Rosalyn. He pressed and Rosalyn gave him some details. Not all of them, but enough. He invited her to his mother’s house for dinner, explaining the importance of not going through something like this alone.

      Rosalyn, almost desperate for a friend, agreed. When she came back to the shop that night, she found the place surrounded by cops.

      Shawn had been a victim of a “random act of violence” as he was closing up his garage. He was dead.

      She still had the newspaper clipping that had been slipped under her door the next morning.

      Rosalyn rubbed her stomach against the burn. She hadn’t spoken to a single person about the Watcher since that day. She’d just kept on the run, trying to stay ahead of him.

      He’d found her again. Pensacola was the sixth town she’d moved to in five months. He always found her. She wasn’t sure how.

      Exhaustion flooded her as she grabbed her tote bag and walked toward the door. Jessie gave her a small wave from behind the servers’ station and Rosalyn smiled as best she could. She was almost to the entrance when she stopped and turned around, walking back to Jessie.

      The girl looked concerned. For Rosalyn or because of her, Rosalyn couldn’t tell. Rosalyn took six dollars out of her bag.

      “Here.” She handed the money to Jessie. “Paying for my meal was very kind and I’m sure it will get you karma points. But I know you’re working hard, so I’ll pay for my own meal.”

      “Are you sure?”

      No, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she couldn’t take a chance that something would happen to this pretty young woman because she’d spotted Rosalyn six dollars’ worth of salad and chicken.

      “Yes.” She pressed the money into Jessie’s hand. “Thanks again, though.”

      Rosalyn turned and walked out the door feeling more lonely than she had in...ever.

      She couldn’t do this anymore.

      What good was it to run if the Watcher was just going to find her again? What good did it do to talk to people if any ties she made were just going to get them hurt?

      And at what point would the Watcher stop toying with her and just finish her off? Rosalyn had no doubt her death was his endgame. She just didn’t know when or how.

      Maybe she should just save him the trouble and do it herself. At least then she would have some measure of control.

      She looked down the block toward the beach. She would go sit there. Think things through. Try to figure out a plan.

      Even if that plan meant taking her own life. That had to be better than allowing innocent people to die because of her. Or living in constant fear with no end in sight.

      She began walking toward the beach. She would sit on the sand, watch the sunset. Because damn it, if this was going to be her last day on earth—either by her own hand or the Watcher’s—she wanted to feel the sun on her face one last time.

      Beyond that, she had no idea what to do.

       Chapter Two

      Steve Drackett, director of the Omega Sector Critical Response Division, was doing nothing. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

      And even more so, he was doing nothing in a tiki-themed bar on the Florida Panhandle. In flip-flops.

      He was damn certain that had never happened.

      It was his first real vacation in ten years. After his wife died twelve years ago, there hadn’t been much point in them. Then he’d become director of the Critical Response Division of Omega—an elite law enforcement agency made up of the best agents the country had to offer—and there hadn’t been time.

      But here he was on the Florida Panhandle, two days into a weeklong vacation for which his team had pitched in and gotten for him. Celebrating his twenty years of being in law enforcement.

      And to provide him with a little R & R after he was almost blown up last month by a psychopath intent on burning everything and everyone around her.

      Either way, he’d take it. Home in Colorado Springs could still be pretty cold, even in May. Pensacola was already edging toward hot. Thus the flip-flops.

      Steve sat at the far end of the bar, back to the wall, where he had a nice view of both the baseball game on TV and the sunset over the ocean, along with an early-evening thundershower that was coming in, through the windows at the front of the bar. It also gave him direct line of sight of the entrance, probably not necessary here but an occupational hazard nonetheless.

      The cold beer in his hands and an order of wings next to him on the bar had Steve just about remembering how to unwind. Nothing here demanded his attention. The bar was beginning to fill up but everyone seemed relaxed for the most part. The hum of voices, laughter, glasses clinking was enjoyable.

      As someone whose job on most days was literally saving the world, the tiki bar was a nice change.

      Then the woman walked through the door.

      He glanced at her—as did just about every pair of male eyes in the bar—when she rushed in trying to get out of the sudden Florida storm. Another couple entered right behind her for the same reason, but Steve paid them little attention.

      She was small. Maybe five-four to his six-one. Wavy black hair that fell well past her shoulders. Slender to the point of being too skinny. Mid-twenties.

      Gorgeous.

      Steve forced his eyes away, although his body stayed attuned to her.

      She didn’t belong here—he had already summed that up in just a few moments. Not here in a tiki bar where the patrons were either on vacation or trying to just relax on a Sunday evening.

      She wasn’t wearing some flirty skirt or shorts and tank top or any of the modes of dress that bespoke enjoying herself on a Florida beach in mid-May. Not that there was anything wrong with how she was dressed: khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt. No flip-flops for this black-haired beauty, or any other type of sandals. Instead she wore athletic shoes. Plain. White.

      Her bag was also too large for a casual outing or catching a couple of beers for an hour or two. And clutched too tightly to her.

      This woman looked ready to run. From what or to what, Steve had no idea.

      Steve had been out of active agent duty for the last ten years. His job now was behind a desk on most days. A big desk, an important one. But a desk nonetheless. He didn’t need to be an agent in the field to know the most important thing about the woman who’d just walked into the bar: she was trouble.

      Since trouble was the very thing he was trying to get away from here in flip-flop Florida, Steve turned back to his beer and wings. Back to the game.

      But as he finished his food, he found his eyes floating back to her.

      She was obviously over twenty-one, so it was legal for her to be here. If she wanted to take off in a hurry—with her oversize tote-type bag—as long as she wasn’t doing anything illegal, it was her own business.

      She didn’t want to buy a drink—he