Liam's Witness Protection. Amelia Autin
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laughed a little. “Anywhere but here, bro.”
“Caterina okay?” The concern in Alec’s voice was obvious. And just as obviously, his concern wasn’t all professional.
“Not a mark on her.”
“Keep her safe.”
“You know I will.”
There was silence on the other end. Then, “Call Cody when you get the chance,” Alec said.
“You read my mind. What’s the situation there?”
“Both shooters are dead, but you already knew that. No ID, nothing to say who they are. The serial numbers on the Uzis were filed off, but the FBI thinks they might be able to raise them—we might get lucky there.”
“What about the people they shot?”
“The lead prosecutor’s in the morgue, the other one’s critical. I think the marshals are going to make it. Hey, gotta go. The FBI’s bearing down on me again, and I don’t want them to hear this conversation.”
After Alec hung up, Liam’s thoughts kept circling back to the events as they had unfolded. Uzis in the courthouse, he reminded himself. He knew they were Uzis—the sound was unmistakable. This hadn’t just happened. Someone had plotted and planned very carefully. How did they get Uzis past the metal detectors and the guards? he asked again, still without an answer. At least not a palatable answer. Because the answer was—they couldn’t. That meant a conspiracy. A conspiracy that included someone with enough authority, enough clout, to smuggle the submachine guns in. Someone with a lot at risk. Someone who would do anything to keep Caterina from testifying.
Liam dismissed the idea that the prosecutors had been the targets. They were collateral damage, nothing more. Caterina was the one they wanted dead. He only knew the bare bones of the case she was testifying in, the few bits and pieces Alec had shared with him, but he knew one thing for sure—she was lucky to be alive. Damned lucky. And even luckier she’d fallen in with someone who could protect her now that her US Marshals bodyguards were out of the picture.
Liam had been driving in silence for fifteen minutes when he suddenly realized something and cursed softly. Despite the fact that Caterina had to be smothering underneath the blanket on the floor even with the SUV’s A/C blasting on max power, she hadn’t moved, hadn’t complained, hadn’t asked if she could come out from beneath the blanket yet.
In fact, Caterina hadn’t spoken one word since this whole thing began. Not a single word.
Cate had escaped into a self-induced fugue state. She’d learned how nine years ago, how to disassociate her mind from her body so that what was happening to her body was as remote as if it was happening to someone else. It was the only way she’d been able to survive those two years with Aleksandrov Vishenko. The only way she’d been able to bear the pain—mental and physical. The only way she’d been able to stay sane in a world that had gone sickeningly insane.
But she hadn’t had to escape this way for years. Not since she’d physically escaped Vishenko’s clutches, not since she’d regained possession of her own body...her own soul. But she hadn’t forgotten how. Just as she would never forget what Vishenko had done to her, she would never forget the coping mechanism that had allowed her to survive those two hellish years.
She floated in darkness beneath the blanket, remembering the rosebushes in the garden at her cousin’s house. How she’d envied her cousin living among all that beauty! Angelina’s mother’s prized rosebushes, which she’d nurtured as if they were all the other babies she could never have after Angelina was born. Red roses, yellow roses, roses with fancy blended colors and even more fanciful names, like Fire and Ice and Dream Come True. But Cate had always preferred the white roses. Plain. White. Pure. Like a young girl in her First Communion dress. Untouched. Cleansed of mortal sin.
She’d been that girl a long time ago. A lifetime ago. But she’d never be that girl again. She could never undo what had been done to her. Could never undo what she’d done to survive.
Suddenly she wasn’t floating anymore. Suddenly she was remembering what she’d long-ago sworn she would not remember, waking or sleeping. The memories her brain had successfully blanked out for years, until Alec Jones had erupted into her life and forced her to remember. Alec, who’d convinced her to testify against Vishenko and the others about what she knew, about the evidence she’d secreted away. Alec, who was married to Angelina now.
He hadn’t judged her. Not the harsh way she judged herself. Neither had Angelina. They’d treated Cate tenderly, lovingly, but with a matter-of-factness that allowed her to retain that mental disassociation from her past. As if those things had happened to someone else. Not to her.
Now that she was aware of her surroundings, Cate realized she could barely breathe beneath the blanket. It was hot, stuffy, smothering. She was also aware of the steady rumble and vibration caused by the engine and the SUV’s wheels as they ate up the miles. Putting distance between themselves and the men who’d tried to kill her. Vishenko’s men. She had no doubt about that.
The SUV slowed. Then veered to the right. Then stopped. Cate heard the driver’s door open and close, but she didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Suddenly the side door opened. “Sorry,” a deep voice said above her as the blanket was abruptly removed. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Strong yet gentle hands helped Cate rise and come out of the SUV to stand next to it, and for a moment the world swung dizzyingly around her as she regained her equilibrium. Then she steadied and was able to focus on the man in front of her.
He looked so much like Alec Jones that he could be his twin brother. But there were differences, and though Cate couldn’t have said exactly what those differences were, she knew in an instant this man wasn’t her cousin’s husband. He was tall and broad-shouldered, just as Alec was, with a muscular compactness that spoke of a man who kept himself in fighting trim. Close-cropped auburn hair, also just like Alec. And soft brown eyes. Is it his eyes that are different? she wondered distractedly. Not the color, no. But the expression in them. An expression that told her plain as words he found her attractive. Man-woman attractive. Alec had never looked at her that way. Alec had known she never wanted any man to look at her that way...ever again.
But there was something else in this man’s expression that bothered her even more. Gentleness notwithstanding, Cate knew he’d made a snap judgment about her...and found her wanting. It wasn’t obvious from his manner, but she had a sixth sense about these things.
“Who are you?” she asked abruptly. “You’re not Alec.”
“Liam. Liam Jones. Alec’s my brother.”
She glanced around now, taking in their surroundings. They were in a rest stop on the highway. Not deserted, but not overly crowded, either. There were no other cars in the parking area, but there were a couple of tractor-trailer trucks on the other side of the divider. “Why have we stopped here?”
He smiled ruefully, and Cate caught her breath. That smile changed his whole face from pleasantly masculine to something extraordinary. “You were so quiet I forgot you were under the blanket in the back,” he said in a deep voice that sounded like Alec’s in a way, but was also different somehow. “When I remembered, I was kicking myself for not letting you out sooner. I stopped the first chance I had.”
His hand went to brush back her tousled hair—a perfectly natural response under the circumstances—but Cate shied away. Then despised herself as a coward when the smile faded from Liam’s face.
“Sorry,” he said again, but there was a watchfulness in his eyes now. A guarded expression she couldn’t read. Not exactly. But she knew he hadn’t missed her reaction to his innocent gesture. His gaze dropped from her face to her dress and then to her arm, and when she