she said, her voice shaking, but the dog was already bounding away, barking wildly, the bright orange vest it was wearing glowing in the beam of Esme’s light.
It took a second for that to register.
The vest.
The dog.
A search team. Either her uncle’s henchmen or the police.
Looking for her.
She jumped out of the canoe, dragged it back toward the water, her heart slamming against her ribs as she tried desperately to escape whoever was on her trail.
* * *
The lady was back in the water, tugging the canoe out of the shallows. She probably thought she could escape again, but Esme Dupree was about to be disappointed.
Ian Slade sprinted the last few yards that separated him from his quarry, his K-9 partner, King, barking ferociously beside him. Esme had to know they were coming, but she didn’t glance back, didn’t stop, she just kept dragging the canoe, splashing through the green water, alerting every predator in the area that prey was moving through.
He grabbed her arm, was surprised when she swung around, a bowie knife clutched in her free hand.
King growled low in his throat, a warning that Esme would be wise to heed. The Belgian Malinois was trained in protection. Smart, agile and strong, King had a bite as vicious as his bark.
“My partner,” Ian warned, “doesn’t like when people threaten me.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” She tried to pull away, but after three days of tracking her, there was no way Ian planned to let her go.
“What would you call it?” he replied, dragging her back a few steps.
“Defending myself.”
King growled again, and Esme’s gaze shifted, her attention caught just long enough for Ian to make his move.
He disarmed her with ease, grabbing her knife arm and twisting it until she dropped the weapon. Even then, he didn’t release his hold.
Sure, her record was clean. She made a living planning weddings...pretty aboveboard, from the looks of it. But Esme was a member of the Dupree crime family, cut from the same cloth as her brother—a man who killed first and asked questions later.
Ian knew that more than most.
She yanked against his hold, forcing her arm into an angle that had to be painful. He might not trust her, but he didn’t want to hurt her.
“Calm down,” he said, shifting his grip. “I’m Agent Ian Slade. With the FBI.’”
“And that’s supposed to be comforting?” Esme ground out as she continued to tug against his hold.
“More comforting than staying out in the middle of nowhere with your uncle still on the loose.”
“He wouldn’t be loose if your team would focus on apprehending him rather than me.” She yanked hard, her boots slipping in the muck.
She’d have gone down if he weren’t holding on to her.
She didn’t seem to realize that there was no way she was going to escape. Ian was a well-trained federal officer, part of an elite group of agents. He was also a head taller than she was and seventy pounds heavier. Maybe more. Her bones were small, her wrist tiny, his hand circling it with ease.
As battles went, this wasn’t a fair one, and he almost felt bad for restraining her.
Almost.
He knew what her family was capable of.
Until she proved differently, he had to assume she was capable of the same. Even if he’d been one-hundred-percent certain that she wasn’t, he wouldn’t have let her go. Protecting her was his assignment. Keeping her alive until the case against her brother went to trial was what he’d agreed to do.
Despite the fact that she was a Dupree.
“Do you have any other weapons on you?” he asked, his fingers curved around her wrist. She’d stopped tugging. Maybe she’d finally realized she couldn’t get away.
“If I did, I’d have used them already,” she spat.
“On a federal officer?” he asked.
“I didn’t realize you were a federal officer at first. If I had, I wouldn’t have pulled the knife.”
“Good to know. Mind if I make sure you’re telling the truth about weapons?”
“Yes. I do.”
He could have forced the issue, but there wasn’t any point. She might try to run, but he didn’t think she’d attack him to do it. She had a clean record, no history of violence or trouble.
“All right,” he said, releasing her.
“Thanks.” She started walking to the canoe as if she thought he’d let her leave.
“I’m not checking for a weapon, but I’m not letting you leave, either.”
“It would be easier on both of us if you did.” She turned to face him, the darkening evening wrapping her in shadows. He couldn’t see her expression through the gloom, but he could see the pale oval of her face, the tension in her shoulders.
“That would defeat the purpose of me and King spending the last three days hanging around Long Pine Key Campground waiting for you to show up.”
“I didn’t ask you to come looking for me. As a matter of fact, I would have preferred that you didn’t, Agent Slade,” she responded.
“Ian. We’ll be spending a lot of time together. We might as well be on a first-name basis.”
“I’m not going back into witness protection.”
“That’s fine. We’ll work something else out.”
“I guess I should have been more clear. I’m not going back into any kind of federal protection. I’ve been on my own for a few months now, and I’ve been doing just fine.”
“Until your uncle tracked you down,” he pointed out, and she stiffened.
“I was tracked down long before I came to Florida,” she responded. “Or have you forgotten that poor woman who was murdered because she was in the same state you’d hidden me in?”
He hadn’t forgotten.
None of the members of the team had.
Information about Esme’s location had been leaked to the Dupree crime family, and a woman who’d looked a lot like her had been killed. “I’m sorry that happened. More than I can express, but I’m not part of the witness protection unit. I work for the FBI Tactical K-9 Unit.”
“It
