Bulletproof Seal. Carol Ericson

a small room. He pointed to a green screen and said, “Stand in front of that. I’ll get your picture first. Everything else is ready to go.”

      As she took a step toward the screen, Baily tugged on her sleeve. “Business first.”

      Rikki pulled a wad of cash from her pocket. Those thieves on the street would’ve hit pay dirt with her—well, except for the fact that they’d picked a CIA operative, trained in self-defense and street fighting, as their target.

      She counted out the agreed-upon sum, and Baily got to work.

      Thirty minutes later, Rikki had a Canadian passport and a birth certificate for one April Thompson. She studied the passport with the Jamaican stamp. “I heard you were good, Baily. These better not let me down.”

      “Never had a problem yet.” He cocked his head in a birdlike fashion. “Girl like you in trouble with the Babylon?”

      “Babylon?” She stuffed the documents into the manila envelope he’d handed to her.

      “De law.” He waved his hands in a big circle. “De system.”

      “You could say that.” She stuck out her hand. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

      He shook her hand and then yelled, “Darien!”

      Rikki jumped, jerking her hand from his grip and placing it over the newly acquired knife in her waistband.

      Baily placed one finger against the side of his nose. “No worries. Darien just my boy. He’ll take you back.”

      A skinny young man poked his head into the room, his dreadlocks bobbing and swaying. “Yeah, Daddy?”

      “Take this young woman wherever she wants to go. Don’t stop anywhere.”

      Darien grinned. “Sure ting.”

      After thanking Baily, Rikki followed Darien outside.

      He turned sideways and scooted between two of the houses along the alley. A chain clinked and rattled, and Darien pushed a scooter out in front of him. “Hop on de back.”

      Clutching her fake documents to her chest, Rikki climbed on the back of Darien’s scooter. He zoomed through the streets of Montego Bay as she shouted directions in his ear over the buzzing sound of the bike.

      A block away from the resort, she tapped Darien’s shoulder and pointed to the side of the street.

      The bike sputtered to a stop, and he leaned it to one side as if it were a mammoth Harley instead of a putt-putt scooter. Rikki slid off the back and handed Darien a folded bill.

      His gaze darted from the outstretched money to her face. “Daddy would smack me in da head if I took that.”

      “Daddy doesn’t have to know.” She tucked the cash beneath his fingers curled around the handlebar of his scooter and twirled away. She made a beeline for the resort and didn’t slow her pace until she walked through the front entrance.

      “Good evening, Miss Rikki.”

      “Hey, George.” She waved her manila envelope and scurried out the side door and across the pool deck, where drunken tourists had gathered for one last nightcap.

      The damp foliage brushed her skin, and she inhaled the sweet, heavy fragrance of the white bellflower as she tromped down the path to the cottage. When she was inside, she leaned against the front door, closing her eyes and hugging the fake documents to her chest.

      “Did you get what you needed, Rikki?”

      Rikki opened one eye and dipped her chin to her chest. “I did. Thanks, Chaz.”

      Her stepfather winked. “I’ve been on this island a long time. I know important people in low places.”

      Her mother floated into the room behind Chaz, her long gray braid hanging over one shoulder. “Are you sure you want to do this, Rikki? You don’t owe them anything, and as far as they know, you’re dead. You and Bella could live here with us for as long as you like.”

      Rikki rolled her eyes. “I would go stir-crazy here, Mom. Besides, I have to do this. I have important information.”

      “They don’t deserve it.” Mom sniffed.

      Bella cooed and gurgled from the other room, and Rikki dropped the manila envelope on a table and hurried toward the bedroom. She leaned over the crib and scooped up her baby girl, holding her close and breathing in her baby-powder scent.

      “She’s going to miss you.”

      Rikki glanced at her mom, who stood with her shoulder wedged against the doorjamb, and blinked the sudden tears from her eyes. “I’m doing it for her, Mom. I have to get my life back for both of us.”

      “Does that mean seeing him?”

      “I have to start with him, see what he knows, maybe use his contacts.”

      “You don’t have to tell him about Bella. She’ll be safe with us until you can return and reclaim her, reclaim your life.”

      Rikki bounced her daughter in her arms, burying her face in Bella’s soft ginger hair. “I’ll see how it goes. I plan to use him to get what I want, and if that means telling him we have a daughter, I’ll do it.”

      “He doesn’t have a right to know about her.”

      “Lizzie.” Chaz had come up behind his wife and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Let Rikki handle this herself...and let her have some time alone with the baby before she has to leave.”

      Chaz ushered Mom out of the room and blew Rikki a kiss before shutting the door.

      Rikki collapsed in the rocking chair, cuddling Bella in the crook of her arm. As she sang softly to her baby, Rikki let the tears spill onto her cheeks.

      She didn’t know what she’d do when she came face-to-face with Quinn McBride—the man who’d tried to kill her and had gotten her locked up in a North Korean labor camp.

      The man she still loved.

      * * *

      QUINN STUMBLED INTO his apartment and made his way to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He banged his shin on the coffee table and scowled at it. “Who put you there?”

      He yanked open the fridge door and studied the sparse contents as he swayed on his feet. Giving up, he slammed the door, and the condiment bottles rattled and clinked against the beer bottles.

      His stomach growled. The taxi driver had refused to wait for him outside the restaurant where he’d wanted to pick up some food, and Quinn didn’t want to get stuck walking home through the streets of New Orleans lugging a bag of food, especially without a weapon at his side.

      And he didn’t trust himself with a weapon right now—not in his condition.

      He fumbled in his back pocket for his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts. If he couldn’t get to the food, he’d make the food come to him.

      His thumb swept past Rinaldi’s Pizza and he backed up. Rikki’s name jumped out at him, grabbing him by the throat. As he hovered over her name, his finger shook, and it had nothing to do with the booze coursing through his veins.

      He’d kept her number on his phone and had even called it once or twice just to hear her low, sultry voice caress his ear. But the last time he’d tried to call it, the harsh tones of an automated operator told him the cell number was out of service, and he had no business trying to contact the woman he’d sent to her death.

      Dropping his chin to his chest, Quinn smacked the cell phone against his temple. If only he’d shown more restraint out there on the DMZ. He could’ve taken out both of the soldiers holding Rikki. She would’ve responded in an instant, would’ve been able to take appropriate evasive action.

      She’d been one of the best damned operatives in the field.

      The CIA and navy had