“This is my case.”
Cutter’s eyes flashed. “This is whomever’s case I see fit to assign it to.”
“I built it from the ground up—”
“You slept with your witness!” Cutter snapped. “You screwed it up and I have no intention of letting you do it again.”
“You know I’m the best man for the job,” Jake ground out.
“I know you’re too personally involved to be effective.”
Jake’s heart was pounding. He wanted to believe it was anger ricocheting through his body. But he could feel the fear pumping through him with every frenzied beat of his heart. He didn’t want to ask about Kelsey. He didn’t want to think about her or feel anything for her. But he did, and those emotions were tearing him up. He had to know if she was okay. Every agent who’d been in that room knew Rasmussen was going to go after her. He couldn’t bring himself to think about what would happen if he found her.
“Is she all right?” he asked.
“As far as we know.”
“What the hell do you mean as far as you know?”
The other man’s jaw flexed and Jake got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “This is bigger than just Kelsey James,” Cutter said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone hacked into the Witness Security Program database.”
Disbelief and a deeper, darker fear reared inside him. “No way.”
“This hacker has names and addresses. Every agent I’ve got is scrambling. Every witness who’s ever gone into the Witness Security Program is in danger. We’re trying to prioritize, but how the hell do you prioritize when you have more witnesses than agents?”
Jake felt as if he’d been punched. “Rasmussen?”
“I don’t know, but the timing of it points to him. He certainly has the resources.”
He stared at his superior, his mind reeling as the repercussions of what he was being told hit home. “Where’s Kelsey James?”
Cutter looked away.
“For God’s sake, you don’t know, do you?”
“I had an agent check her apartment as soon as we heard. CNN just broke the news. She must have heard about Rasmussen and left before we could make contact.”
Jake swore. That sounded like Kelsey. Head-strong. Stubborn. Willing to take on the world all by herself if she had to. But she had to be running scared, and with good reason. If Rasmussen got his hands on her…
The thought made Jake break into a cold sweat. His protective instincts kicked in with a vengeance. “At this point it’s probably safe to assume he has her name and address.”
“This is not your case, Jake. I need you here. There are administrative—”
“Screw administrative!” Another curse burned through the air. “I’m not going to let him get her, Sean.”
“I’ve got another agent en route.”
“Come on! You’ve got two hundred federal witnesses to protect and twenty agents! Do the math!”
“We’re working with the U.S. Marshals Service to contain all the witnesses.”
Jake cursed.
“I need you here, Jake. But I need your head screwed on straight. If you can’t keep it together you need to walk away.”
“I’m not going to let him kill that young woman,” Jake ground out.
“She knew what she was getting into six years ago.”
“She knew. But so did we, didn’t we, Sean?”
“Don’t go there, Jake. You did your job, and so did I.”
“Yeah. Maybe a little too well.” Jake scrubbed a hand over his face, a harsh sound breaking from his throat. “Where is she?”
Cutter stared at him, his face as hard as a piece of granite. “Don’t make the wrong decision, Vanderpol. I covered for you last time this woman got under your skin. I won’t do it again.”
“Is that the way this is going to go down?” Jake asked.
“That’s the only way this can go down.”
Never taking his eyes from the other man’s, Jake removed his MIDNIGHT identification from his wallet and laid it on the conference table. Reaching beneath his jacket, he withdrew his government-issue service revolver and laid it next to the badge.
“Now you don’t have to cover for me,” he said, and then walked out the door.
A SLATE-GRAY PREDAWN SKY spat sleet as Leigh Michaels lugged her suitcase into the second-floor motel room and locked the door behind her. Fear had been her constant companion since fleeing her apartment in Denver.
She’d always known this terrible moment would come. Rasmussen was too powerful a man, his resources too far-reaching for any prison to contain him permanently.
Shaking, Leigh pulled the sleek H&K semiautomatic pistol from her waistband and set it on the night table, within easy reach. She didn’t bother unpacking, because there was always the chance she would be leaving quickly. She didn’t want to have to leave behind what few clothes and toiletries she owned.
She walked to the television and turned it to a cable news channel, hoping to hear that Rasmussen had been captured. The anchor immediately dashed her hopes. “An unidentified source has informed us that the database of the Witness Security Program was hacked into over the weekend. Over two hundred names of high-level federal witnesses have been stolen….”
Leigh felt each word like a vicious punch. For an instant she couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t think. She could feel the terror building inside her.
Ian Rasmussen had to be behind the theft of the database records. Even if the television wasn’t reporting the connection.
“Oh, God.” Standing abruptly, she put her hand to her stomach and choked back a sound of pure terror.
Ian Rasmussen knew her new identity. He knew her name. Her address.
For an instant she considered calling her old contact at the U.S. Marshals Service office in Boulder. Then she remembered what had happened the last time she’d put her trust in a government agency and nixed the idea.
The image of Jake Vanderpol flashed in her mind. She saw dark, intelligent eyes. Military-short hair. A lean face and chiseled mouth. A body as hard and breathtaking as the Rocky Mountains themselves.
She’d trusted him with her life. She’d given him her heart. Her body. A piece of her soul. He’d taken all
