Cindi Myers - Rocky Mountain Revenge стр 3.

A piercing whistle rent the air. He had his gun out of his shoulder holster before he even had time to think.

She stared at the weapon with an expression of disgust. Are you going to shoot my tea kettle?

He put the gun away.

Lets go into the living room, she said. She pulled a robe from a hook on the closet door and wrapped it around herself, but not before he took in the full breasts rounded at the top of her black lace bra, the narrow waist fanning out to slim hipsand the scar on her lower back.

Your tattoos gone, he said. Shed had the words Nil opus captivis at the base of her spine, in delicate script. Take no prisoners. The motto of a woman whod been determined to wring everything she could from life.

I had it removed. They told me I shouldnt leave any identifying marks.

She led the way into the living room, going first to the kitchen to turn off the burner beneath the kettle, then to the front window to pull the blinds closed. He

sat on the sofa, expecting she would sit beside him, but she retreated to the chair, her arms wrapped protectively around her middle.

How did you find me? she asked.

I still have friends at the Bureau. People who owe me favors.

No one is supposed to know where I am. They promised She broke off, her lips pressed together in a thin line. He could read the rest of her thoughts in her eyes. This wasnt the first time the government had broken promises to her. What about all the promises hed made?

I never meant to lie to you, he said. I was trying to protect you.

You didnt do a very good job of that, did you?

He clenched his hands into fists. No. Tell me what happened after I left. I heard you turned states evidence.

If youre still with the FBI you should know all this.

Im not with the Bureau anymore.

She raised her brows. Oh? Why not?

Officially, I was retired on disability.

And unofficially?

Unofficially, they thought I was too much of a risk.

Because of what happened with my father?

That, and...other things. Hed committed the cardinal sin of developing an intimate relationship with a person he was supposed to be investigating. Not that Elizabeth Giardino had been the target of his investigations, but she was close enough to her father to raise questions about Jakes integrity and his ability to perform his job. Tell me what happened after I was shot, he said.

My fathers goons did try to drag me away, but they didnt know you had the place surrounded. When the cops broke in, everyone was too focused on keeping my father safe to worry about me. Someone hustled me into a car and took me downtown.

He tried to imagine the scene. Shed been covered in his blood, wild with fear. Theyd have put her in an interrogation room and turned up the pressure, grilling her for hours, trying to break her. At one time he would have said she wasnt a woman who could be broken, but now he wasnt so sure. They wanted you to provide evidence against your father.

They didnt have to persuade me. After I saw what he did to you...I wanted to make him pay.

Was it because of him, really? Or because her father had destroyed her trust? In one blast of gunfire shed gone from pampered daddys girl to enemy number one. It must have made her question everything.

I laid all the familys dirty secrets out in public and he swore hed kill me, she continued. He stood there in court and cursed me and said I was dead to him already. She swallowed, and he sensed the effort it took for her to rein in her emotions.

After that it was too dangerous for you to remain in New York, he said.

She nodded. It was too dangerous for me to be me. Within a month my father had escaped prison and disappeared, but we all know hes still out there somewhere, and he hasnt forgotten anything. The feds gave me a new identity. Elizabeth Giardino died in a tragic boating accident in the Caribbean and Anne Gardener came to Rogers, Colorado, to teach school.

I never imagined you as a schoolteacher.

I had a degree in English from Barnard. The Marshals Service pulled a few strings to get me my teaching certificate. They found this job for me, and this house. She looked around the room. The plain, old-fashioned furniture was as unlike her hip Manhattan apartment as he could have imagined. I suppose they thought this place was as anonymous as a town could be. Her gaze shifted back to him. Yet you found me.

I had inside information.

Other people can pay for information.

Other people being her father and his goons. I knew about this place. That it was on a list of possible hideouts. I persuaded a former colleague to let me take a look at the accounting records for the period after you disappeared and I found payment to a Colorado bank. I was able to trace that to this house.

But you still didnt know I was here.

I looked online, through the archives of the local paper. I saw the announcement last summer about the new teacher. The timing was right, and I thought it might be you.

You make it sound easy.

Not so easy. There are a lot of layers between you and the feds. Layers I helped design.