Protected Secrets. Heather Woodhaven

noticed. The man always double-checked doors were locked after someone entered, and the security key code would’ve alerted him to their presence. So who was here? How had they gotten in?

      And what had they come here to do?

      Bruce took a step toward the computer screen and tried to read the script.

      “What’s going on?” Nancy stood to his right and looked down.

      His stomach turned to lead. An unsanctioned update was uploading to all the bank systems that subscribed to their risk-analysis software. Bruce set down his coffee, leaned over and entered the administrator commands necessary to quit the process.

      “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A voice reverberated through the room.

      Bruce straightened. Nancy’s face blanched and coffee ran down her wrist and dripped onto the blue carpet. A man—short in stature, wearing a black T-shirt and jeans—held a gun in his shaking hand.

      Once Bruce managed to move his focus from the gun to the man’s face, he recognized Andy Williamson, one of his data analysts. Andy narrowed his eyes and steadied his aim on Bruce. “Move away from the computer.”

      He did, using the opportunity to slide in front of Nancy. “Andy, what are you doing? Put the gun down.” Bruce put one hand behind him and gestured for Nancy to get down. Instead, he felt her shaking fingers grip the back of his shirt. She tugged him backward. No doubt she felt some maternal instinct toward him, but there was no time to argue about who should save whom.

      “Don’t take another step,” Andy barked.

      The tugging on the back of his shirt stopped. Bruce didn’t know Andy as well as he did some of the other employees, but he’d seemed friendly. Maybe there was some sort of stress in his life that had made him snap. If he was a reasonable man, there was hope he could be talked down. “Andy, I can help you. Just put—”

      “You weren’t supposed to be here. If you’d just stayed away you never would’ve known.”

      “Known what?” Bruce asked. “What are you trying to do?”

      Andy raked his free hand down the side of his face but his weapon stayed trained on Bruce. “You need to turn around and walk away now. Don’t interfere and forget you ever saw a thing, for your own good. You don’t mess with the—”

      The stairwell door at the opposite end of the floor opened. Max was coming. Bruce couldn’t let him walk into an ambush. “Gun!”

      As Andy spun around, Bruce clutched Nancy’s wrist and pulled her downward into a crouch as he ran the two of them past the cubicles.

      A trio of gunshots rang out.

      He felt Nancy flinch at each ping of the bullets. Bruce looked over his shoulder just in time to see Max crumple to the ground.

      “No!” A sob escaped Nancy’s lips.

      Bruce pulled her around the corner to a darkened hallway. “Follow me.”

      He ran to the nearest door and placed his hand on the biometric scanner. Two beeps sounded, followed by a click. He wrenched open the door as Andy rounded the hallway corner.

      Bruce gave Nancy a gentle push so she’d step inside the server room first. Then he met Andy’s anguished but determined gaze as Andy raised the handgun. Bruce ducked behind the fireproof door and the bullets hit the steel in front of him. He pulled on the handle of the hydraulic door so it would close before Andy reached them. “Come on, come on, come on.” The lock clicked, but he had a hard time letting go of the handle.

      “Won’t he be able to get in, too?”

      “No.”

      “But we’re trapped.” Nancy’s voice shook. She didn’t wait for him to answer and held the phone to her ear. “Gunman shooting at us.” She rattled the address to what had to be police dispatch and stepped into the small space between the servers and the wall before sinking down to the ground.

      Bruce forced his fingers to relax and let go of the handle. He took one step back and watched the door. He stood inside the most secure room in the building, designed to withstand most hackers and thieves, but he didn’t remember “bulletproof” as being one of the selling points. The steel seemed to be holding up for now.

      At least Andy, as an analyst, didn’t have credentials to enter the server room. Bruce pulled out a keyboard from one of the racks and typed in the commands to shut down the outgoing update in midstream. He then turned off the network completely so Andy couldn’t try again.

      Their company provided risk-analysis software to 30 percent of the banks in the country. If Andy had been able to sneak malware in with an update, it was impossible to guess just how much damage he could’ve done both to the banks and to his company’s reputation.

      Another gunshot sounded. Bruce recoiled, remembering Max’s crumpled body out there. He couldn’t afford to think about him right now because Andy wasn’t giving up. Unless Nancy had a gun in her purse, he had no options for weapons. The room only contained racks of servers. Nancy’s hand reached up in the air. “We need to pray,” she whispered.

      He stared at her hand for a moment before realizing she was right. There was nothing else left for him to do. Bruce accepted her shaking fingers and sank to the floor. Nancy murmured pleas for protection and help so fast his brain couldn’t register everything she said. I agree, Lord. It was the only prayer he could manage. At a moment like this, all he could think about was his daughter. Would she lose the only parent who wanted her?

      The police couldn’t come fast enough.

      * * *

      Delaney Patton had joined the US Marshals almost three years ago to run from her mistakes. She didn’t think she’d be sent right back to face the past.

      The rental car idled while she stared at the nondescript blue house she’d once called home in Ames, Iowa. Later, it was the place where she’d gotten the news that her boyfriend, and fellow police officer, had died. The police chief had told her while she’d fought to keep a brave face. She hadn’t been strong enough. She’d broken down, and then her water had broken.

      Most days, the memories didn’t feel real, more like recalling a bad dream. Early labor had followed the tragic news, and in her grief and despair, she’d decided to give the baby up for adoption. Her little girl deserved better than a single mom who couldn’t cope.

      Delaney sucked in a sharp breath. Her appearance still looked relatively the same—long brunette hair always pulled back in a ponytail—but she was a different person now. If given the opportunity to do it all over again, she wouldn’t make the same choices. But life didn’t offer do-overs.

      It did no good to wallow. The Marshals had transferred her back to the Southern District of Iowa because Delaney knew it like the back of her hand. And while the base of operations was located in Des Moines, it was possible she’d be sent to Ames occasionally.

      Delaney shifted the car into Drive. She’d found out what she needed to know. She could handle being in Ames, even on this street, without breaking down. Now she just had to work up the courage to let her parents know she was back in the state.

      Her phone rang. “US Marshals. Deputy Marshal Patton.”

      “Welcome home!” The deep boisterous voice could only belong to her previous police chief, Stephen Bradford, now the newly appointed US marshal for the Southern District of Idaho.

      “Thank you, sir.” She tried to sound enthusiastic, but it fell flat. It was hard to shake the feeling that her new boss knew too much about her. He had, after all, been the one to hold her as she’d cried all the way to the hospital.

      “Listen, I know you just flew in last night. I wanted to give you the weekend to get settled but—”

      “Urgent case?” Hope blossomed. Going after a fugitive case that would take her across the state sounded like the