still her head was shaking, and he could feel the softness of her pixie cut brushing against his fingertips.
“Look, I get it,” he said. “I really do.”
“No, you really don’t,” she said. “I don’t think I can identify the Imposters. I can’t remember what their faces look like...”
Welcome to the first book of my new Stolen Identities series. I hope you enjoy it! The best part of writing the True North Heroes and True North Protectors series was getting to know the characters better as I watched their lives crisscross each other’s stories. Now I’m excited to do it again in this new witness protection series, while bringing back both Liam Bearsmith and Seth Miles for more adventures.
I wrote this book while recovering from a concussion. During the slow recovery, I realized my usual way of sitting down and writing a book wasn’t working, and so I had to come up with new strategies. I owe a huge debt of thanks to my editor, Emily Rodmell, and agent, Melissa Jeglinski, for their patience and help in getting my writing back on track.
I hope that whatever you’re going through, you are surrounded by people who support and love you. And that when needed, God will help you find those people and bring them into your life.
Thank you again, as always, for sharing this journey with me.
Maggie
The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars.
—Isaiah 9:10
To Zachary. Thanks for the left hook.
Contents
Note to Readers
It was a week until Christmas, and the early morning sky was every bit as cold and gray as the icy waters of Lake Ontario and the concrete loading docks that surrounded the car now transporting Corporal Holly Asher to her new life in witness protection. Her eyes flickered to the passenger-side mirror as another car came into view on the empty road behind them.
A tremor of warning brushed her spine.
“That looks like the same car I saw parked outside the safe house this morning,” Holly said. “I think we’re being followed.”
Officer Elias Crane, the gray-haired witness protection officer in the driver’s seat beside her, cut a glance to the rearview mirror. He frowned. “It’s fine.”
No, it really wasn’t. Her gut told her something was wrong—very wrong—and after surviving two tours of duty overseas on a combination of faith and intuition, she wasn’t about to start ignoring either now. Something about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detective had had Holly on edge ever since Elias had woken her up at the safe house before dawn and given her exactly five minutes to get into the car. She’d done it in four, including an external sweep of the vehicle, which he’d told her wasn’t necessary considering it was unlikely “anyone would go to too much trouble to stop someone from testifying in some government inquiry about a handful of misplaced weapons.”
That was the moment she’d first felt her jaw set. It had been far more than just a handful of weapons and they hadn’t been misplaced so much as illegally
