Liam's Witness Protection. Amelia Autin
hold for now, with one prosecutor dead and another in intensive care. The judge granted the prosecution a one-month continuance.”
“What about the marshals who were wounded?” Liam asked. “Alec said he thought they’d make it. Do you know anything more?”
“Holding their own, that’s the last I heard.”
“Better than nothing. Thanks for checking. Keep me posted if you hear anything.”
“Sure thing. And, Liam...be careful, okay? I don’t want to be the one to tell my wife her brother’s dead and I knew it might happen.”
Liam smiled to himself. “Don’t worry. I’m a big boy. And you should talk. You and Keira both. There’s no bullet out there with my name on it.”
After Cody hung up Liam sat staring into space for a few seconds. Thinking about what Cody had said...and what he hadn’t. Then he glanced over at Cate, who was watching him with blue eyes so pale they looked gray inside the SUV’s shadowed interior. Who was sitting still as a statue in the seat next to him—he’d never known a woman who could be as still and silent as she. And he wondered exactly what—out of all the things Cody had said—he was going to tell her.
But that wasn’t all he was wondering. Be honest, he told himself. You’re wondering what the hell Alec knows that she doesn’t want you to know. You’re wondering how a woman like her—good background, intelligent, obviously educated—ever ended up as a prostitute. And knowing that about her, you’re wondering why she acts as if she can’t bear being touched by a man. By you.
The last one hurt. He didn’t know why, but it did. Badly.
A nondescript SUV was waiting for them in the church parking lot Cody had directed Liam to, and it took only a few minutes to make the swap. “So what will you do with my SUV?” he asked the agent as he moved his GPS and emergency overnight case into the agency’s vehicle and they exchanged keys.
“We’ll take good care of it, don’t worry,” the man assured Liam. “It’ll be ready and waiting for you the minute you need it. And we’ll deliver it to your doorstep, no charge.”
Liam eyed the replacement SUV dubiously, wondering about its roadworthiness given the exterior, and the man said, “It looks a little worse for wear on purpose. The agency doesn’t like its vehicles to attract attention. But it’s got brand-new tires and everything under the hood is new, too, so don’t worry about that. And the plates are untraceable.”
“Good deal,” Liam said. He handed over his cell phone and took the replacement offered. After he’d tucked it in his pocket, the agent handed him something else—a zippered case. “What’s this?”
“Maintenance kit and ammo clips. Fully loaded. SIG SAUER P229R, right?”
Liam hadn’t been expecting it—but maybe I should have, he thought. The agency was damned efficient, and he might need the additional firepower—he was already operating on his spare clip after the firefight this morning. And his own maintenance kit had been left with his luggage in his hotel room. He took the case in his left hand and shook the other man’s hand with his right. “Thanks.”
“No problem. Good luck,” the agent added sincerely.
* * *
They’d driven for ten minutes, following the automated voice of the GPS, when Cate suddenly said, “I have nothing with me. No clothes other than the ones I’m wearing. No purse. I don’t even have a toothbrush.”
Liam glanced over at her for a second, realizing she was right. She didn’t have her purse with her. She must have dropped it in the courthouse, and of course he hadn’t been worrying about that then. He returned his gaze to the road and said, “I doubt that will be a problem. If I know Cody, everything we need will be at the safe house, including clothes.”
“How will they know my size?”
Liam laughed abruptly, thinking about the ammo clips the agency had provided him with at the same time he’d been given the SUV and new cell phone. Ammo clips that were a perfect match for his SIG SAUER. “You’d be surprised what the agency knows.”
A long silence followed. All of a sudden, Cate said, “She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Liam was instantly on alert. Cody had told him not to mention it. “Who?”
“The other witness.” Her voice was soft, and he caught the faintest trace of an accent that reminded him of Princess Mara of Zakhar, whose bodyguard he’d been for six months in Colorado. But Cate’s English was less formal than the princess’s, more idiomatic. Maybe because she’d spent eight of the past nine years in the US. And despite the softness, there was a layer of steel beneath it, just like the princess. This woman was no pushover, either.
When Liam didn’t answer, she explained, “The woman who was going to back up my testimony. She’s dead. That’s why the trial was delayed. That’s why the prosecutors were so insistent this morning I needed to come in for another prep session with them this afternoon, even though we’d already spent so many hours preparing last week I was sick of it. That’s why your brother said, ‘She dies, this case dies, too.’ So the other witness must be dead.”
It was the longest speech Liam had heard Cate make to date. He made a judgment call, then admitted, “Yeah. Cody told me a little while ago.”
“Vishenko murdered her.” A flat, cold statement.
“Maybe. There’s no proof of that. Not yet.”
“There may never be proof. But I know.” She tapped a hand against her breastbone. “I know it here. Just as I know he’s the one who tried to have me killed. He is ruthless. Amoral. An animal. He’ll do anything to prevent me from testifying.”
“But you’re going to testify anyway. Why?” he asked, curious to understand what drove her to take the risk when so many men had refused to flip on Vishenko in the past.
“Because Alec and Angelina are right. He is evil, and he must be stopped. No matter the cost.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as if she was reciting an oft-repeated mantra, so that Liam had to strain to hear her next words. “‘I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.’”
He recognized the quotation with a sense of shock, mentally adding the last sentence, “And by the grace of God, I will.” The entire thing was carved in wood over the fireplace mantel at home, a maxim his parents had instilled in all their children from an early age. It was the driving force that had led him and all his siblings into the US Marine Corps and then into public service. “Edward Everett Hale,” he said blankly. “How do you know that quotation?”
She drew a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Your brother said that to me. I was afraid—so terribly afraid I ran and hid for six years. Then Alec found me. He is such a good man, your brother—I could not let him down. He made me realize I have a duty to do whatever I can do to stop Vishenko. ‘I am only one.’ But if all the ones band together, we can defeat him.”
Liam was shaken. Cate had divined the kernel of wisdom out of the quotation, had pinpointed his own raison d’être—his reason for being. Yes, he was only one. But sometimes one person could make a difference.
Right and wrong. Good and evil. He couldn’t remember a time when the differences between these things weren’t important to him, same as they were for Alec. For all his siblings. Maybe it was old-fashioned nowadays. Maybe the dividing lines had become blurred for many. Not for him. But that didn’t mean he saw the world only in black-and-white. It didn’t mean he didn’t recognize and accept that a thing could be both right and wrong.
He’d killed a man today.