Secret Obsession. Robin Perini

and raced through the main entrance to her building. She trudged up the stairs, acutely aware of each squeak. A baby cried in apartment 219. At the sound, Lyssa paused, her hand instinctively reaching for the brass doorknob. A wave of despair nearly propelled her to her knees. A shush and a coo, and the baby quieted.

      She squeezed her eyes shut against the burning wells in the corners. She couldn’t think about the past, or her loss. She had to stay focused.

      With careful placement of each step, she padded across the floor, knowing the location of each creak, a skill she worked to perfect every single day. She needed to move silently, invisibly.

      Finally, she stopped in front of the small apartment the Justice Department had arranged for her. So-called Witness Security. She wasn’t the best witness. She’d only heard the whispers of a madman, but had never seen him. And she certainly wasn’t secure.

      She was simply the sole survivor of a man who’d killed dozens.

      The walnut door to her temporary home appeared exactly as she’d left it, down to the small slip of paper she’d wedged near the hinge. A trick she’d learned. Few would notice it, and as long as the paper didn’t move, Lyssa could be confident no one had opened the door.

      Safe at last.

      She slipped the key into the dead bolt. As she tried to turn it, the key resisted in the lock ever so slightly. At the slight deviation from normal, she hesitated, her instincts firing.

      The cold. It could be the cold. The temperature had plummeted twenty degrees today.

      It probably was the cold.

      One hand slipped into her pocket to the phone she carried with her. She hesitated. She couldn’t call Gil again. She’d contacted her WitSec handler three times this month already. All false alarms.

      The last time, after he’d rushed over to her place, she’d witnessed irritation in his eyes, though he’d tried to hide his reaction. He couldn’t understand. She’d been in Chicago almost a year. Too long. She knew in her gut time was running out.

      She flipped open her bag with her free hand and gripped the butt of the black-market .45 in her purse. Gil may have read the file, but he didn’t comprehend the minute-by-minute fear that stalked her. Archimedes wasn’t a typical serial killer. He was smart. He was thorough, and for some reason he had Lyssa in his sights.

      Hand tight on the weapon, trigger finger ready, she shoved open the door and stepped across the threshold of a place she could never call home.

      The coppery scent of blood strangled her belly.

      Gil Masters lay on the ground, dead, in a pool of blood.

      Archimedes had found her.

      She forced herself to look at Gil’s face. Someone had gouged out his eyes. Empty sockets stared unseeing at her, accusing. She didn’t want to look lower, but she had to. His shirt had been ripped open, a frame for Archimedes’s handiwork.

      She froze, unable to look away from the horrifying, familiar symbol carved into his belly.

      Infinity.

      The curves of the sideways eight dripped with rivulets of blood streaking down his abdomen along his torso, pooling beneath him.

      Archimedes had found her.

      “No. God, no.”

      She lifted the gun and froze in place.

      No sound. No movement. No creak of the floor.

      No one was there.

      She slowly turned, the muscles in her arms, legs and neck all at the ready.

      Waiting.

      Waiting for the attack to come out of nowhere. Waiting to die.

      Each second became an hour. Each inch of movement felt like a mile.

      But nothing happened. No heaving breaths, no hand over her mouth. No sadistic whisper in her ear.

      She couldn’t tell how many seconds had passed when she realized she wasn’t going to die. At least not in this moment.

      He really wasn’t here.

      But his message was.

      She might not know what meaning infinity had for the killer, but she could read these words.

      Blood smeared the wall, the promise indisputable.

      No one will come between us. You will be mine.

      Her gaze whipped around the apartment, her throat tightened in panic. What if he was watching, just waiting for her to let her guard down?

      She had to get out.

      She raced into her bedroom and grabbed the jewelry box from the top dresser drawer, digging through it until she pulled out a thin gold chain threaded through her diamond engagement ring. She slipped it around her neck.

      Gil would have called her a fool. She didn’t care. She wouldn’t leave the ring behind.

      A door slammed down the hall.

      No more time. She yanked open her closet and grabbed a small duffel. The bag she kept packed. Always.

      Lyssa heaved it over her shoulder and clutched the ring. “Help me, Jack.”

      She ran past Gil’s body. Guilt pounded in her head. He had a family, a wife, two kids, five and seven years old. A girl and a boy. Witness and handler weren’t supposed to get to know each other, but over a year, she had learned things about the man who watched out for her.

      “I’m sorry. So sorry,” she murmured. She closed her eyes in regret, tore down the stairs and hurried out of the apartment building. She wouldn’t be coming back.

      Speeding past end-of-the-day commuters, she tried to tame her panting breaths. She rushed up the stairs to the L platform and hopped onto the first southbound train. Her trembling legs refused to hold her. She sank into an empty seat.

      The image of Gil’s face, the void where his eyes should have been, battered into her memory. She’d never forget.

      Lyssa clutched the duffel to her. She had to push Gil aside, cold and heartless as that was. She had to concentrate. She had to survive.

      The train rumbled beneath her, the iron supports whizzing past, each second taking her farther from the body of the man who had sworn to protect her, further from the life she’d lived for almost a year.

      She knew one thing; this wouldn’t be a repeat of the last time Archimedes had found her. This time she would dictate the rules.

      She caught sight of an ad for the Atrium Mall from the train’s window. A lot of people. Open late.

      She had no idea how much time had passed when she walked into the huge shopping center. Crowds milled around her. She let herself breathe again. Archimedes didn’t kill in public. Or he hadn’t yet. She found a corner table in the food court, near a wall, out of the way. She shoved her hand into her pocket and grabbed the unused, prepaid cell phone.

      She dialed but couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. She hated the response, hated the show of vulnerability. Somewhere inside she had to find the strength to do what two years ago she could never have imagined doing.

      She didn’t bother with 911. They couldn’t help.

      She dialed a number she’d memorized a year ago.

      “Nichols,” the voice barked.

      The one man she trusted not to betray her.

      “He found me again.”

      * * *

      NOAH BRADFORD VAULTED onto the edge of the roof from the ladder propped against his father’s house. The brisk morning air would make it easy to stay alert. He scaled the pitched tile using techniques not so different from an escape he’d engineered in Kazakhstan. At least this time bullets weren’t flying past