Cast of Characters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogue
Carol Ericson
He lifted one eyebrow. “Is that what you think this is all about? Protection? Securing a witness?”
The pulse in her wrist ticked up several notches. Could he feel it? “I’m the only witness you have right now.”
He chuckled in the back of his throat, and the low sound sent a line of tingles racing down to her toes.
“The SFPD is not in the bodyguarding business. We’re not going to put you in the Witness Protection Program. Everything I’ve done for you has been off the books and off the clock.”
She twisted her own napkin in her lap as she tilted her head back to take in his imposing figure. “Why’d you do it?”
“Do you have to ask?”
CAROL ERICSON lives with her husband and two sons in Southern California, home of state-of-the-art cosmetic surgery, wild freeway chases, palm trees bending in the Santa Ana winds and a million amazing stories. These stories, along with hordes of virile men and feisty women, clamor for release from Carol’s head. It makes for some interesting headaches until she sets them free to fulfill their destinies and her readers’ fantasies. To find out more about Carol, her books and her strange headaches, please visit her website, www.carolericson.com, “where romance flirts with danger.”
For Elise
and childhood imaginations
that run wild.
He wanted to kill her.
“Elise.”
The whispered name floated along the fog, mingled with it, surrounded her.
Her eyes ached with the effort of trying to peer through the milky white wisps that blanketed the San Francisco Bay shoreline, but if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her.
And she planned to keep it that way.
A foghorn bellowed in the night, and she took advantage of the sound to make another move toward the waves lapping against the rocky shore. If she had to, she’d wriggle right into the frigid waters of the bay.
She flattened herself against the sand, and the grains stuck to her lip gloss. It now seemed ages ago when she’d leaned over the brightly lit vanity at the club applying it.
“Elise, come out, come out wherever you are.”
His voice caused a new layer of goose bumps to form over the ones she already had from the cold, damp air. Her fingers curled around the scrubby plant to her right as if she could yank it out of the sand and use it as a weapon.
If he caught her, she wouldn’t allow him to drag her back to his car. She’d fight and die here if she had to.
The water splashed and her tormenter cursed. He must’ve stepped into the bay. And he didn’t like it.
She drove her chin into the sand to prop up her head and peered into the wall of fog. The lights on the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge winked at her. The occasional humming of a car crossing the bridge joined with the lapping of the water as the only sounds she could hear over the drumbeat of her heart.
And his voice when he chose to speak, a harsh whisper, all traces of the refined English accent he’d affected outside the club gone.
What a fool she’d been to trust him.
Another footfall, too close for comfort. She held her breath. If he tripped over her, she’d have to run, find another place to hide in plain sight. Or at least it would be plain sight if the fog lifted.
The damp cover made her feel as if they were the only two people in this hazy world where you couldn’t see your hand two inches in front of your face.
Who would break first? The fog? Her? Or the maniac trying to kill her? Because she knew he wanted to kill her. She could hear the promise in his voice.
“Elise?”
She wanted to scream at him to stop using her name in those familiar tones—as if they were old friends. Instead of predator and prey.
She didn’t scream. She pressed her lips together, and the sand worked its way into her mouth. She ground it between her teeth, anger shoving the fear aside for a moment.
If this guy thought she’d give up, he’d picked the wrong target. The Durans of Montana were nobody’s victims.
A breeze skittered across the bay, and debris tickled her face. White strands of fog swirled past her, and for the first time since she’d hurled herself from the trunk of her captor’s car, she could see the shapes of scrubby plants emerge from the mist.
She swallowed a sob. When she’d least expected or wanted it, the cursed San Francisco fog was rolling out to sea.
A
