Liam's Witness Protection. Amelia Autin

trod quietly over to the bed, hesitated for a second, then touched her arm lightly. “Cate.” She jumped as if he’d shot her, jerking upward so quickly Liam was startled back. “Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to tell you dinner’s ready.”

      She pushed her hair away from her face and blinked at him. Then she rubbed her eyes—tired eyes, he saw now. Sad eyes. Ancient eyes that were the window into a soul in torment. How had he missed it before? “It’s okay,” she said finally. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was just resting my eyes, and...” She stared at Liam through the shadows in the room. “Thanks for waking me. I wouldn’t want to miss dinner.” She smiled, a slight movement of her lips that came and went so quickly it almost couldn’t even be called a smile. “I’ve been smelling that roasted chicken for hours, it seems.”

      Any other woman Liam would have offered a hand to help her off the bed. But Cate wasn’t any other woman. And now that he knew—well, he didn’t know exactly what he knew, but his imagination was working overtime, supplying details he didn’t want to think about. Not about Cate, or any woman. So no way was he going to touch her. It made sense now why she hadn’t wanted him to touch her before. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t Liam Jones she was rejecting—she didn’t want any man touching her. And he didn’t blame her. Not one bit.

      * * *

      Dinner wasn’t the silent affair Liam had expected. The agents, who went by the last name of Morgan, carried on a conversation between the four of them by sheer will. They refused to let Cate withdraw within herself, and asked a series of innocuous questions designed to put her at her ease. She answered haltingly at first—as if she wasn’t in the habit of carrying on dinner conversation—then with increased confidence. And Liam was convinced that whatever else she was, whatever else she’d been, she was well-read. Self-educated? he wondered. Cate let something slip that made him suspect libraries were her only recreational outlet...in large part because they were free.

      Liam answered when questions were addressed to him, but in between he watched Cate. Surreptitiously. He remembered watching her that morning—was it only that morning?—arguing with the prosecutors. Her hand gestures graceful and fluid. Now he watched her hands close up, fascinated by everything she said and did. And that’s when he saw it. It wasn’t obvious—just a slight darkening of the skin. But it shouldn’t have been there. Not twin bands circling both wrists in almost exactly the same location. And suddenly he knew what they were. And how she’d gotten them.

      Scars. Scars left by something bound tightly around her wrists, bindings she must have fought against until her skin was raw and bleeding. Repeatedly. Then he heard Alec’s voice saying, “...Made me sick to my stomach. Literally. Then I wanted to cry. For her...”

      Bile welled up in his throat as his stomach churned violently and he wanted to cry for her too, despite his deceased father’s long-ago strictures on crying. But more than that he wanted punish the man who’d done this to her. He wanted to pummel him into a bloody pulp, wait a few minutes, then come back and do it again. And again. Until the man had paid for those scars, and what they had to mean. As if he could erase his own mistaken thoughts about Cate by exacting two years’ worth of vengeance. For her.

      Shaken more than he cared to admit, Liam swallowed hard and glanced away. His eyes caught those of Dave Morgan across the table, and knew the other man had spotted the same thing he had. Was having the same kind of reaction any decent man would have to the knowledge that Cate had been abused. Bound. And most likely raped—repeatedly.

      Guilt slammed into him again. Guilt that he’d judged her from the beginning, that he’d wondered how and why she’d become a prostitute. That he’d been baffled by his attraction to a woman of the streets, even one who looked like her.

      Now he knew that whatever she’d done, it hadn’t been by choice. She hadn’t chosen her life any more than she’d chosen to have those scars inflicted on her by Aleksandrov Vishenko. Has to be him, he reasoned. Who else it could be? No wonder she despises him. No wonder he’s afraid of what she’ll say on the witness stand and tried to have her killed. And no wonder Alec wishes he could exact a little vigilante justice. I do, too.

      Liam’s new cell phone suddenly shrilled, startling him out of his reverie. The ringtone wasn’t his usual one, so it took him by surprise. He quickly excused himself from the table to answer the call.

      “Yeah?”

      “It’s me. Cody. Just wanted to let you know we were right. The agent you gave your cell phone to used it, on my orders, just to see what would happen. And sure enough, someone in the FBI was triangulating on the signal.”

      “Shit.”

      “No kidding. Doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad. Could be they’re just trying to locate you to bring you in for routine questioning in the shooting—you’d be cleared of course, but they have to follow procedure. Get your statement and match it to the statements of the other witnesses, not to mention Alec’s statement. Do ballistics tests on your gun. The whole nine yards. Or it could be they just want to bring Caterina in for safekeeping—she’s still a key witness in the conspiracy trial. On the other hand, it could be someone trying to track down the two of you...for Vishenko.”

      “Yeah, I get that.”

      “So D’Arcy wants to change the plan a little. We’ve got Alec and his wife in protective custody—and boy, the FBI was pissed about that, especially when D’Arcy refused to divulge their location to them. We want to ensure the same for Caterina and you—but the FBI knows about the agency’s safe house in Fairfax. Don’t ask how—it’s a long story. So D’Arcy wants to move you to another safe house, one outside Fayetteville, North Carolina. If you leave now you can be there in just under five hours.”

      Liam was tired—he’d had a long drive yesterday from New York to DC, today had been another long day and his body had used up its store of adrenaline already—he wasn’t looking forward to a five-hour drive. But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Safety was the primary concern. Cate’s safety.

      Cody was still talking. “Don’t use your credit cards to get there—pay cash. The Morgans will give you enough cash for anything. And new identification and credit cards for both of you will be waiting at the next safe house, just in case we have to move you again. Oh yeah, and swap GPS units with the Morgans.”

      Surprised, Liam blurted out, “They can track us by my GPS? I didn’t think that was possible, not without—” He stopped abruptly, realizing that law enforcement was constantly coming up with new and improved surveillance techniques, some of which the public was completely unaware. And if it could be done at all, the FBI would know how.

      Silence at the other end. “Think about it,” Cody said finally. “But don’t think too long. We want you out of there in the next fifteen minutes.”

      “What do I tell Cate?”

      “At this point I think you’re going to have to tell her the truth. At least some of it.”

      “I already told her about the death of the other witness.”

      “I told you not—”

      “She knew,” he said flatly, cutting Cody off. “She figured it out, so there was no reason not to confirm it.”

      “How’s she holding up?”

      “She’s keeping it together, at least on the surface. I don’t know what she’s feeling inside, but it can’t be good.”

      “She’s still planning to testify, right?”

      Liam grunted. “Don’t worry. Whatever Alec told her, it must have resonated. So yeah, she’s still planning to testify. No matter the cost.”

      * * *

      They drove through the night, a night that—thanks to the full moon and the steady stream of traffic—wasn’t all that dark. But it was anonymous, and that’s all Cate cared about. She hadn’t hesitated