Hidden Twin. Jodie Bailey
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me. Deputy Sam Maldonado. Are you in a secure location?”
Amy shook her head before it registered that the deputy US marshal on the other end couldn’t see her. “Not exactly, but I can get to my office.” She turned and headed up the breezeway at a quick clip, feeling as though a million eyes watched her and safety was too far away. She could lock herself inside her office, close the blinds and wait for whatever came next.
“Is Deputy Marshal Edgecombe with you?”
“No.” She stopped at the glass doors to the building, her fingers on the handle. If they’d sent a marshal to pick her up, then this wasn’t good news. This level of caution and urgency could only mean one thing—her identity was compromised. Her stomach twisted as chills swept her skin. Danger was heading her way, and this was a college campus. If Grant Meyer’s people came looking for her with guns blazing...
Her brain wouldn’t even consider what might happen to the innocents around her.
Amy slowed and turned on her heel, staring in the direction of the parking lot. Cradling the phone between her shoulder and her ear, she ran her finger absently across the face of her watch, the cracked crystal rough against her finger. “I can’t go to my office. There’s no way to protect any students on this campus if someone decides they’re in the way. And I don’t see Deputy Edgecombe.” She’d recognize the man anywhere. He stood out in a crowd. At well over six feet, his laughing dark eyes and ready humor belied the seriousness of his job as her contact with the US Marshals’ Witness Protection Program.
Along with Deputy Maldonado, Deputy Edgecombe was her first point of contact and had never failed to answer her call or be by her side if needed. If he was supposed to be here, he’d be here. Then again, he was the kind of man to operate under an abundance of caution. It was possible he was waiting in the parking lot for her to exit the building so he could escort her out without causing a scene or raising suspicion. “What’s going on?”
“I’m two minutes from your location. Get into your office and get secure and I’ll pick you up there.”
Maldonado was coming for her? Amy’s knees threatened to give way and drop her to the sidewalk. They’d met on multiple occasions, the first only a few months ago when she’d nearly compromised her own identity. It had been her fault that time, for trying to leave Georgia against WITSEC rules. Through a series of coded communications she never should have been involved in, she’d learned that Grant Meyer had gone on the rampage. He’d been hunting down anyone who could testify against him or his human-trafficking ring, including Amy and another witness she’d hidden herself, a young woman in the country illegally who refused to talk to the authorities.
Amy hadn’t gotten very far.
Deputy Sam Maldonado was a retrieval specialist, part of the elite team that had been sent to find her and bring her back to safety, fighting to keep her alive so she could testify against Grant Meyer. Since that day, he’d been right beside Deputy Edgecombe, always there and watching, as though he and his team didn’t trust her not to run again.
She’d learned her lesson. When Layla Fisher hadn’t been at the house Amy had secured for her in Virginia, Amy had panicked. She’d left herself cut off with no protection and no idea of whether or not she’d been discovered. Sam and his team had found her and brought her back to safety.
If Sam was on his way, the Marshals Service was more concerned than his calm voice would ever let on.
“I’m not staying here. It’s too dangerous to others for me to be on campus.” With quick steps, she headed to her car, fear for her own safety evaporating with the need to protect the students roaming the area around her. “I’m going to my apartment. It’s only a few minutes away. You can meet me—”
“For your safety, do as I say.” The last four words were heavy with emphasis.
Amy kept talking, her eyes landing on a dark green four-door sedan sitting next to hers. The band around her chest released. “I see Deputy Edgecombe’s vehicle. It’s parked next to mine. He’s here.” She killed the call and jogged toward the vehicle, her muscles weak with relief, even as she acknowledged it was only temporary. She was about to be on the run for her life again.
Her feet slowed as she neared the car, the back of her neck prickling with an unease that refused to be ignored. Something was wrong. The deputy marshal didn’t exit his vehicle to approach her the way he usually did when they met, always acting cheerful and friendly, as though they were two friends meeting for a social visit. Even then, Amy had read his eyes multiple times and seen them scanning the area for threats.
This time, he stayed in the car. The glare of the late afternoon sun off the windshield tinted the glass red and prevented her from seeing inside, and the driver’s side window appeared to be rolled down.
She scanned the line of cars as she drew closer. None of the other reflections off the cars seemed to have that red tint to them.
Her feet rooted to a spot between a sports car and an SUV only a few feet away from Deputy Edgecombe’s car. Bile pushed into her throat and almost gagged her. No. No, no, no. She clapped a hand to her mouth to hold in the scream as realization hit. That couldn’t be blood. It couldn’t be. She was rooted to the spot. She should check on Deputy Edgecombe. She should run. She should—
A man stepped from behind her small SUV, his blue eyes locked onto hers, his jaw a hard line as his mouth curved into a slight smile. In his hand, he held a pistol, the barrel pointed directly at Amy’s heart.
Amy froze, her eyes on the weapon. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t even blink. This was how it ended, in a Georgia parking lot in the chill of late autumn. This was the price she would pay for doing the right thing.
The man stepped closer and Amy inched one step back. “I wouldn’t run if I were you.” His voice was low, deep and controlled. “You take off running or try to fight me and you won’t be the one I shoot.” He kept the gun low, and when Amy tore her eyes away from it to his face, he was eyeing a group of students several rows of cars away.
A sob leaked past her fingers as he closed the space between them, his hand wrapping around her wrist and making her hand throb with the pressure. “You walk with me like we’re old friends or I make sure your marshal friend over there isn’t the only one who bleeds today.”
* * *
“I’m thirty seconds out.” Deputy US Marshal Samuel Maldonado spoke into his radio and prayed he wasn’t too late. He ignored the horns blaring at him as he slowed for a red light then blew through it, hanging a left turn into the parking lot of the small community college where Amy Naylor taught biology.
The past chased him, urging him to push the pedal farther down, to shave away precious seconds. The one time he’d been too late, twenty seconds would have made all the difference.
He couldn’t let hesitation wreck another life. Never again.
“Don’t call attention to yourself.” His team leader, Deputy Marshal Greg Hayes, was typically a man who kept his cool no matter what the situation. His strained voice in this moment dug into Sam’s already frayed nerves. “You have no idea if she killed the phone call or if someone killed it for her. You blaze into that parking lot on two wheels and anyone who’s waiting for their moment to snatch her will panic.”
As much as it gnawed at Sam to hear it, Hayes was right. They already had one deputy marshal who wasn’t responding, even though Amy Naylor had confirmed Edgecombe was on-site. There was no telling what the truth of the situation was.
Sam eased up on the gas pedal and kneaded the steering wheel with both hands, fighting every instinct to move faster. He’d worked with Deputy Elijah Edgecombe for several years, and they’d worked closely for several months, ever since they’d tracked down and reacquired Amy Naylor in Virginia. The woman had actually thought she could take off for a few days on her own. She’d been none too happy when Sam and his team had tracked her down and brought her back to Georgia, and she’d been tight-lipped about her reasons for