he rocked back and forth. “Better?”
“Much.” She took a huge gulp of air.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“I already did. I told your buddy, Agent Levine.”
“Number one, he’s not my buddy. Number two, why didn’t he offer to put you in witness protection?”
“I turned it down,” she said.
“Emily, do you know how dangerous Frankie Wynter is?”
“I’ve been researching Wynter Corp for over a year,” she said. “Their smuggling operations, gambling and money laundering are nasty crimes, but the real evil comes from human trafficking. Last year, the port authorities seized a boxcar container with over seventy women and children crammed inside. Twelve were dead.”
“And Wynter Corp managed to wriggle out from under the charges.”
“The paperwork vanished.” That was one of the bits of evidence she’d hoped to get from James Wynter’s computer. “There was no indication of the sender or the destination where these people were to be delivered. All they could say was that they were promised jobs.”
“This kind of investigation is best left to the cops.”
She separated from him and rose to her feet. “I know what I’m doing.”
“I’m not discounting your ability,” he said. “You might be the best investigative reporter of all time, but you don’t have the contacts. Not like the FBI. They’ve got undercover people everywhere. Not to mention their access to advanced weaponry and surveillance equipment.”
“I understand all that.” He wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already figured out for herself.
“You’re a witness to a crime. That’s it—that’s all she wrote.”
She braced herself against the dresser and looked into the large mirror on the wall. Her reflection showed her fear in the tension around her eyes and her blanched complexion. Sean—ever the opposite—seemed calm and balanced.
“Can I tell you the truth?” she asked.
“That would be best.”
She made eye contact with his reflection in the mirror. “I didn’t actually witness the shooting. I saw Frankie with the gun in his hand. He screwed on a silencer. I heard the gunshot, and I saw the bullet holes...and the blood. But I didn’t actually witness Frankie pointing the gun and pulling the trigger.”
“Minor point,” he said. “A good prosecutor can connect those dots.”
“The body that washed ashore five days later was too badly nibbled by fishes for identification.” She splayed her fingers on the dresser and stared down at them. “I was kind of hoping he was someone else, someone who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, but Agent Levine matched his DNA.”
“To what?”
“I’d given a description to a sketch artist and identified the victim from a mug sheet photo. His name was Roger Patrone.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know him.”
“He was thirty-five, only a couple of years older than you, and made his living with a small-time gambling operation in a cheesy strip joint. Convicted of fraud, he served three years.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“Never married, no kids, he was orphaned when he was nine and grew up with a family in Chinatown. He speaks the language, eats the food, knows the customs and has a reputation as a negotiator for Wynter.”
“Roger sounds like a useful individual,” Sean said. “I’m guessing the old man wasn’t too happy about this murder.”
“Yeah, well, blood is still thicker than water. The FBI brought Frankie in for questioning, but one of the other guys in Wynter Corp confessed to killing Patrone and claimed self-defense. He took the fall for the boss’s son.”
Sean left the bed and came up behind her. His chest wasn’t actually touching her back, but if she moved one step, she’d be in his arms.
In a measured tone, he said, “You’re telling me that Frankie’s not in custody.”
“No, he’s not.”
“And he knows there’s a witness.”
“Yes.”
“Did you write about the murder?”
“Agent Levine asked me not to.” But she had written many articles about the evil-doing of Wynter Corporation.
“Does Frankie have your name?”
“No,” she said. “I write under an alias, three different aliases, in fact. And I have two dummy blogs. Since my communication with these publications is via the internet, nobody even knows what I look like.”
“Smart.”
“Thank you.” Her reflection smiled at his. So far, so good. She might make it through the night with no more explanation than that. There was more to tell, but she didn’t want to get involved with Sean. Not again.
He continued. “And you’re also smart to have left Frankie and the other thugs behind in San Francisco. Hazelwood Ranch seems like a safe place to stay until this all dies down.”
Unfortunately, she hadn’t come to visit Aunt Hazel for safety reasons. Her gaze flickered across the surface of the mirror. She didn’t want to tell him.
He leaned closer, whispered in her ear. “What is it, Emily? What do you want to say?”
The words came tumbling out. “Frankie is here in Colorado. The Wynter family has a gated compound over near Aspen. I didn’t come here to give up on my investigation. I need to go deeper.”
He grasped her upper arms. “Leave this to the police.”
From downstairs, there was a scream.
“Aunt Hazel!”
Though Emily’s immediate reaction was to run toward the sound of the scream, Sean only allowed her to take two steps before he grabbed her around the middle and yanked her so hard that her feet left the floor. This was why he’d been hired.
He dragged her across the bedroom. There was only one thought in his mind: get her to safety. In the attached bathroom, he set her down beside a claw-foot tub.
“Stay here,” he ordered as he drew his gun. “Keep quiet.”
“The hell I will.”
Though he hated to waste time with explanation, she needed to know what was going on. He spoke in a no-nonsense
