food online and the marshal assigned to her picked up the goods and delivered the load to her. Though she had a small SUV for emergencies, she did not leave the property and put herself in a position where someone might see and remember her.
Anything she needed, the marshal took care of.
The SUV parked next to the house was equipped with all-wheel drive since she lived out in the woods on a curvy mountain road. US Marshal Branch Holloway checked on her regularly. She had a special phone for emergencies and for contacting him. He’d made her feel at ease from the beginning. He was patient and kind. Far more understanding than the first marshal assigned to her had been.
For this she was immensely grateful.
Yes. She had married an evil man. Yes. She had been a fool. But she hadn’t set out to do so. She had been taught to believe the best in everyone until she had reason to see otherwise.
Two years. Yes, it had taken a long time to see past the seemingly perfect facade he had built for her, but she was only human. She had loved him. She had waited a very long time to feel that way again after her first heartbreak at the age of twenty-one.
“Get over it,” she muttered to herself. Beating herself up for being naive wasn’t going to change history.
This—she surveyed the bare trees and little cabin—was her life now. At least until the trial.
In the movies witness protection was made to look like a glamourous adventure, but that could not be farther from the truth. It was terrifying. Justice depended on her survival to testify in court, and her survival depended upon the marshal assigned to her case and on her own actions. The FBI had shown her how much bigger this case was than just the murder of her husband and the small amount of knowledge she had absorbed. The Armones had murdered countless people. Drugs, guns and all sorts of other criminal activities were a part of their network. She alone held the power to end the Armone reign.
No matter that the family was so obviously evil, she still couldn’t understand how a father could murder his son—his only child. Of course, it was Harrison’s own fault. He had been secretly working to overthrow his father. The old man was nearing seventy and had no plans to retire. Harrison had wanted to be king.
Instead, he’d gotten dead.
She shuddered at the idea that his father—after murdering him—had intended to take his widow as his own plaything.
Sick. The man was absolutely disgusting. Like his son, he was a charming and quite handsome man for his age. But beneath the surface lived a monster.
Once the trial was over, she hoped she never had to think of him again, much less see him.
Staying alert to her surroundings, she unlocked the back door and sent Bob inside ahead of her. He was trained to spot trouble. She wasn’t overly concerned at this point. If anything had been amiss, he would have warned her as they approached the cabin.
The dogs were a new addition to the witness protection family. She hadn’t had a dog at the first location. It wasn’t until she’d arrived here and had Bob living with her that she’d realized how very lonely she had been for a very long time. Since well before her husband was murdered.
She locked the door behind her, taking care to check all the locks. Then she followed Bob through the three rooms. There was a small living-dining-kitchen combination, a bedroom with an attached bath and the mudroom–laundry room at the back. Furnishings were sparse, but she had what she needed.
Since cell service was sketchy at best, she had a state-of-the-art signal booster. She had a generator in case the power went out and a bug-out bag if it became necessary to cut and run.
She shivered. The fire had gone out. She kept on her jacket while she added logs to the fireplace and kindling to get it started. Within a couple of minutes, the fire was going. She’d had a fireplace as a kid, so relearning her way around this one hadn’t been so bad. She went back to the kitchen and turned on the kettle for tea.
Bob growled low in his throat and stared toward the front door.
She froze. Her phone was in her hip pocket. Her gun was still in her waistband at the small of her back. This was something else Marshal Holloway had insisted upon. He’d taught her how to use a handgun. They’d held many target practices right behind this cabin.
A creak beyond the front door warned that someone was on the porch. She eased across the room and went to the special peephole that had been installed. There was one on each side of the cabin, allowing for views all the way around. A man stood on the porch. He was the typical local cowboy. Jeans and boots. Hat in his hands. Big truck in the drive. Just like Marshal Holloway.
But she did not know this man.
“Alice Stewart, if you’re in there, it’s okay for you to open the door. I’m Sheriff Colt Tanner. Branch sent me.”
Her heart thudding, she held perfectly still. Branch would never send someone to her without letting her know first. If for some reason he couldn’t tell her in advance, they had a protocol for these situations.
She reached back, fingers curled about the butt of her weapon. Bob moved stealthily toward the door.
“I know you’re concerned about opening the door to a stranger, but you need to trust me. Branch has been in an accident, and he’s in the hospital undergoing surgery right now. No matter that his injuries were serious, he refused to go into surgery until he spoke to me and I assured him I would look after you, ma’am.”
Worry joined the mixture of fear and dread churning inside her. She hoped Branch wasn’t hurt too badly. He had a wife and a daughter.
She opened her mouth to ask about his condition, but then she snapped it shut. The man at her door had not said the code word.
“Wait,” he said. “I know what the problem is. I forgot to say ‘superhero.’ He told me that’s your code word.”
Relief rushed through her. She moved to the door and unlocked the four dead bolts, then opened it. When she faced the man—Sheriff Tanner—she asked, “Is he going to be okay?”
The sheriff ducked his head. “I sure hope so. Branch is a good friend of mine. May I come in?”
“Quiet, Bob,” she ordered the dog at her side as she backed up and allowed the sheriff to come inside before closing the door. She resisted the impulse to lock it and leaned against it instead. Holloway wouldn’t have trusted this man if he wasn’t one of the good guys.
Still, standing here with a stranger after all these months, she couldn’t help feeling a little uneasy. Bob sat at her feet, his gaze tracking every move the stranger made.
“Is there anything you need, ma’am? Anything at all. I’ll be happy to bring you any supplies or just...” He shrugged. “Whatever you need.”
The kettle screamed out, making her jump. She’d completely forgotten about it. “I’ll be right back.”
She hurried to the kitchen and turned off the flame beneath the whistling kettle. She took a breath, pushed her hair behind her ears and walked back into the living room.
“Thank you for coming, Sheriff, but I have everything I need.”
“All
