Witness Protection gave him a new start—and a family.

But now his past is calling him back…

Living in witness protection won’t stop Travis Stone from shielding two orphaned children whose grandmother was just attacked. But when his former partner, Detective Jessica Eddington, asks him to help bring down the group that sent him into hiding, agreeing could put them all at risk. Can he watch Jessica’s back and protect the children?

A Protected Identities Novel

MAGGIE K. BLACK is an award-winning journalist and romantic suspense author with an insatiable love of traveling the world. She has lived in the American South, Europe and the Middle East. She now makes her home in Canada with her history-teacher husband, their two beautiful girls and a small but mighty dog. Maggie enjoys connecting with her readers at maggiekblack.com.

Also By Maggie K. Black

Protected Identities

Christmas Witness Protection

Runaway Witness

Witness Protection Unraveled

True North Heroes

Undercover Holiday Fiancée

The Littlest Target

Rescuing His Secret Child

Cold Case Secrets

Amish Witness Protection

Amish Hideout

Military K-9 Unit

Standing Fast

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Witness Protection Unraveled

Maggie K. Black

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90711-2

WITNESS PROTECTION UNRAVELED

© 2020 Mags Storey

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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A bang sounded from somewhere to her right. Jessica grabbed another door handle and threw it open.

And for the first time in years, laid eyes on Travis.

Her heart caught in her throat. Her former partner had his back up against the wall, with a handgun pointed to the side of his head. His attacker wore a bulky orange reflective jumpsuit and a creepy bug-like silver respirator mask.

Travis’s dark brown eyes met hers over his attacker’s shoulder, somehow looking so achingly familiar and yet completely new in ways she didn’t have time to process.

Somehow she knew exactly what he wanted from her.

Not rescue, but a distraction.

She nodded. I got it.

“Hey, you! Stop!” She yanked her weapon from her ankle holster. “Right now! Drop your gun!”

The figure glanced toward her and Travis struck, knocking him sideways. The figure stumbled toward her. Then came the light—sharp, bright and blinding. A fist struck out.

“Jess!” She heard Travis’s voice calling her name.

But she couldn’t see where he was. She couldn’t see anything at all.

Dear Reader,

When Rescuing His Secret Child came out, I got a lot of letters from readers about my valiant little soldier, five-year-old Zander. They were really wonderful to read and I wish I had space here to answer them all. I’m sorry I couldn’t find a way to sneak Zander into this book, but as his daddy Nick reports, he now has a little sister.

Many of you asked how I’d come up with Zander. Well, my secret writing weapon is my twelve-year-old daughter. She was only six weeks old when I sold my very first book and grew up watching me write around her. She has a brilliantly creative mind and is one of the very best people to bounce ideas off of.

She helped name baby Fitz from The Littlest Target and Eve from Protective Measures, and it was her idea for K-9 dog Queenie to play “doggie doggie who’s got the phone?” in Standing Fast. For this book, I asked her to help me invent another child character and so Willow was created.

I hope one day she writes her own stories.

Thank you again for all of your amazing letters. They encourage me so much and spark so many wonderful ideas. You can message me online at www.maggiekblack.com or find me on Facebook and Twitter under MaggieKBlack.

Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

Mags

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

—Luke 12:6–7

To all the found family who are now in my life and all those who I have yet to find.

Especially my brother-friend-colleague George Luke and his HEA, Karen.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Dear Reader

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

Extract

About the Publisher

ONE

Travis Stone sprinted down Main Street in the small town of Kilpatrick, Ontario, ignoring the fact that Detective Jessica Eddington, the one and only woman his damaged heart had ever really cared about, was now relentlessly calling his cell phone.

The late June evening was warm around him. The air was thick with the threat of rain. He was fifteen minutes late to pick up the two most amazing little kids in the world, and their grandmother, Patricia, needed him to take them so she could close up her store for the night and rush off to her book club. Right now, that was what mattered.

When he’d gotten them from Patricia’s and dropped them off at school in the morning, five-year-old Willow had told him she’d had a nightmare about a “shiny man” with a flashlight standing outside her bedroom window. Travis figured it was probably just part of her dealing with the tragic death of her police officer parents six months ago, shortly after Willow’s baby brother was born. They’d both been killed when a drunk driver had panicked and accidentally careened through the impaired driving checkpoint they’d been manning. Still, not giving Willow or her grandmother any reason to worry mattered more right now than stopping long enough to take Jess’s call.

Even if, after four long years hiding in witness protection, he still missed Jess so much that even just seeing his former partner’s name on the screen made his chest ache to breathe.

Travis and Jess had worked over fifty cases together and, according to her message, Jess was calling to get his advice about one more for “old times’ sake.” Considering the dangerously unhealthy workaholic he’d once been, he didn’t want to risk getting sucked back into the career that had almost destroyed him. Not one case. Not one call. Even though hearing her voice on his voice mail a few days ago had almost been enough to make him call her back to say he’d help with the case.

Lord, help me be strong enough to not get mixed up in whatever case Jess wants my help on and to put my life as a detective behind me forever.

The final operation he and Jess had worked together—taking down an international crime lord known only as “the Chimera”—had led to a disastrous personal failure that had forced Travis into witness protection for his own safety. It had felt like the death of everything he’d cared about but had led instead to his slow and painful rebirth as a new man in this close-knit Ontario community. He was now a better man. One who showed up for the people who mattered. One who didn’t toss back coffee and caffeine drinks to stay awake all day and then pour obsessively over files or pace crime scenes at night like an irritable and jittery insomniac. He no longer laughed off belief in God or snapped at anyone who irritated him.

He was now a man people cared about and relied on. He couldn’t give that up.

Not even for Jess. No matter how much her dazzling blue eyes and determined smile might still float at the edges of his mind some nights.

The phone stopped ringing as he passed Harris’s Bakery. He waved a quick hand at the couple sitting on a bench by the front door. The new kindergarten teacher, Alvin Walker, had his arm around Harris Mitchell’s daughter Cleo. That was new, and likely to be the most exciting gossip Kilpatrick had seen in weeks, especially since Cleo’s last boyfriend, Braden, had been a particularly nasty piece of work.

“Hey, where’s the fire?” Alvin shouted to him.

Three years since Travis had joined Kilpatrick’s voluntary firefighter brigade and still the joke never got old.

“Got to pick up Willow and Dominic for dinner so Patricia can close up the store,” Travis called without letting his footsteps falter. “And I’m running late!”

Alvin laughed. “Well, you’d better hurry then.”

He was. Travis reached Tatlow’s Used Books and Café with its tiny apartment on the second and third floor that Travis called home. The red and white sign in the front window had already been flipped to Closed but the front door was still unlocked. He pushed the door open, as chimes jingled.

“I’m here!” he called. “Sorry I’m late! Someone called the volunteer firefighters about a baby skunk caught in a smoothie cup. Took me forever to coax him out—”

He froze. The store was empty. No gray-haired Patricia wagging an understanding finger at him from behind the front desk. No Willow leaping up from a spot on the multicolored carpet where she’d been “reading” her baby brother a picture book and then charging into his arms. And yet the lights were on. Stained-glass lamps cast a gentle glow over an array of mismatched furniture, well-worn shelves stacked high with books and the long side counter that sold flavored coffees and pastries. An unexpected chill ran down his spine. Where was everyone?

“Patricia?” The front door swung shut behind him. “Willow?”

Then he heard a crack, soft and muffled like a firecracker going off inside a blanket, followed by the faint clink of something metal hitting the floor. No matter how many years he spent in civilian life, he’d never forget those sounds. Somewhere inside Tatlow’s Used Books someone had fired a handgun with a silencer and the bullet casing had fallen to the floor.

I don’t know what’s going on here, Lord. But I need Your backup right now.

The undercover detective he’d once been knew without a doubt that if he didn’t proceed cautiously he could put himself in the line of fire. But the man he was now—part-time landscaper, unexpected babysitter and volunteer firefighter—knew that he’d gladly take a bullet for Patricia and her grandchildren.

What had started out as a simple landlady and tenant situation when he’d first rented the apartment above the bookstore had found him unexpectedly blessed by a family. It had been Patricia’s son and daughter-in-law, Geoff and Amber who’d practically hauled him through the rough patch of starting his life all over again, even though he’d never been able to tell them why he’d come to town and that he’d once also worn a badge. When Geoff and Amber had then been struck and killed, leaving elderly Patricia alone in the world and orphaning the children, Travis had vowed he’d do whatever it took to keep them safe. He wasn’t about to break that promise now.

“Willow?” he shouted, scanning the main room rapid-fire before moving into the next one. “Anyone there? Shout if you can hear me!”

A crash sounded that seemed to shake the walls around him and his hand reached instinctively for the weapon he no longer carried. He made his way through the bookstore then pushed through a door into the back hallway. To his left was the staircase leading to his second-floor apartment. Straight ahead was the door that led outside. He turned right and ran into the back storeroom.

And saw his landlady’s lavender-clad pant legs and sensible shoes sticking out from behind a pile of boxes.

“Patricia!” He dropped down on the floor by her side. “Are you okay? What happened? Where are the kids? I heard a gunshot.”

Sweat soaked her short white hair and her face was pale, but he didn’t see any obvious injuries or blood.

“Travis…” Her eyes were open but as she tried to sit, pain flooded her face. “I saw a bright light…and I… I think I fell…off the ladder.”

Had she? A rolling ladder lay just a few feet away and he knew how stubborn she was about doing things herself instead of waiting for help.

“A light?” he repeated. “Like a gunshot or flashlight?”

Like the “shiny man” from Willow’s nightmare? It had been just a nightmare, right? There hadn’t actually been someone outside Patricia’s remote farmhouse shining a light in the little girl’s window, had there?

“It was like…” Patricia’s voice faltered. “Like a camera flash.”

A portable video baby monitor lay on the floor by her side. The screen was shattered.

“Where are the children?” he asked again.

“Upstairs. Asleep.”

He reached for his cell phone and dialed.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?” The voice was male and crisp. Travis quickly gave him the address and the details. The dispatcher confirmed paramedics were on their way. His phone rang again but he ignored it as Patricia’s eyes fluttered closed.

“The children are safe upstairs?” Travis repeated.

Patricia nodded faintly. “In your apartment. Dominic was napping and Willow fell asleep reading to him. I was watching them on the monitor.”

“Okay,” Travis said. He’d set up a few baby monitor screens around his apartment and the store, so the adults could be in another room while the kids napped. “Paramedics are on their way. I’m going to run next door and get someone to come wait with you while I go check on the kids.”

He turned to go, but felt Patricia grab his hand. He spun back.

“Promise me you’ll take care of my grandbabies,” she said. There was a weight to her words he couldn’t grasp. “No matter what. Promise me.”

“Of course,” he said. He squeezed her hand gently and let it go. “I promise.”

Then he ran back outside as fast as he could push his legs to go. Seconds later, he was back with Alvin and Cleo, who’d immediately leaped to their feet and agreed to help. Once he was sure they were settled with Patricia, he pelted upstairs. He was almost at his apartment door when his phone rang again. This time he answered. “Hello?”

“Hey Travis? It’s…Jess… Um, Detective Jessica Eddington.” Instantly her face swept into his mind, her long blond hair tied up in a bun at the nape of her neck and her perceptive blue eyes on his face. “I know this is unexpected but—”

“Is this a secure line?” Travis cut her off before she could finish her sentence.

“Yes—”

“Has my witness protection file been compromised?” he asked.

“No,” Jess said and he appreciated how direct her answer was.

“Are you sure?” he persisted. “Is there any way the Chimera knows I’m still alive?”

Known only by his alias, “the Chimera” was believed to be from Eastern Europe and had managed to amass a cruel and vicious international operation due to one simple principle: no one who’d ever seen his face or left his employ lived to talk about it. When Travis had gone undercover to take down his North American operation, with Jess as his behind-the-scenes partner, they’d successfully located and dismantled his cover business, arrested his entire team and freed every person he’d trafficked.

But one thing had gone disastrously wrong. They hadn’t arrested the Chimera or successfully identified him. Yet Travis had seen his face. He’d even had the man set in his sights, but his hands had been shaking so hard from lack of sleep plus caffeine withdrawal, he’d failed to make the shot. No match had ever been made for the police sketch Travis had been able to supply. The Chimera had set a fifty-thousand-dollar bounty on his head, and the man Travis had once been had disappeared forever.

“We’ve had absolutely no indication of any kind that your identity has been compromised,” Jess said.

“The entire RCMP witness protection database was stolen by criminal hackers at Christmas,” Travis reminded her. “Over a dozen files were auctioned off.”

“And your secret identity file wasn’t one of them.”

“Yeah, I know,” Travis said. He’d fielded over half a dozen calls from RCMP officers in the months since then, both reassuring him of that fact and offering him a new identity if he wanted one. But he hadn’t been about to leave Kilpatrick.

He reached the top of the stairs and unlocked his apartment door. “So you all say. But I’m dealing with a potential situation and I need to know if it could be connected to me, my past, my identity, criminals we took down together, the Chimera, any of it?”

There was a short pause, as if Jess was confirming something before responding. From the background noise, it sounded like she was in a car. When her voice came back, she was all cop.

“No,” she said, “there has been absolutely no suspicious activity anywhere online related to you.”

He breathed a prayer of thanksgiving.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Hopefully nothing.

“My landlady fell,” he said. One of the two children he’d babysat might’ve seen a “shiny man” with a flashlight outside Patricia’s farmhouse and mistaken it for a nightmare. And he was still really sure he’d heard a gunshot even if he didn’t know where or how. “I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

He hung up before Jess could answer, his heart still reeling from having heard the sound of her voice, and ran through his front door, down the hallway and into his study. Dominic’s crib was empty as was the little cot beside it that Willow sometimes napped on. Warm June wind rushed through the open window that led out to the fire escape.

The floor creaked behind him. Travis felt a blow, swift and hard on the back of his head. He fell forward, dropping his phone as it rang. The last thing he saw before being jumped from behind was Jess’s Caller ID.

Detective Jess Eddington stared down at her cell phone where it sat mounted on the dashboard of her car. Her hands shook as she tightened them on the steering wheel. Hearing Travis’s warm and deep voice down the phone line had unexpectedly stirred something inside her, like how hearing a snatch of a song could take her back to a place and a time she’d loved long ago. She glanced up at the blue-and-white sign welcoming her to the town of Kilpatrick. Travis still had no idea she was here.

“Well, you tried to warn him we were coming.” The lackadaisical voice of hacker Seth Miles rose from the seat beside her. He had two laptops balanced on his long, skinny legs plus at least two cell phones. “I can’t believe he actually hung up on you. That’s gotta sting. Remind me again why we drove six hours across the province to recruit a man for an operation who clearly doesn’t want to talk to you?”

She pressed her lips together and drove. Seth was teasing her and she didn’t have to rise to the bait. But that didn’t stop the answer to his question from circling through her mind. Because she was about to take on the riskiest mission of her life to unmask the vicious crime lord who’d forced Travis into witness protection and didn’t want to do it without him.

Travis had been one of the best she’d ever worked with, in the grueling and exhausting work of taking down those who preyed on the most vulnerable. While he’d worked too long hours and was frequently worn down from forgetting the basics like eating or sleeping, he’d also been relentless and thorough, and had this way of having her back that made her feel invincible.

The sheer relief and elation she’d felt four years ago when they’d finally taken down the Chimera’s entire Canadian operation had led to heartbreak when somehow a fluke missed gunshot had led to the crime lord himself getting away and escaping the country, forcing Travis to fake his death and give up his life in law enforcement for good.

But things had changed since then. She’d been part of forming an elite, off-the-grid team that had worked hard to undo the damage of the theft and sale of the witness protection files. They’d gotten smarter about protecting people’s identities and one of their own, Seth, was himself in witness protection. With the right tactics and new location, they could completely hide Travis from the Chimera, too, while he helped her stop him once and for all.

“Because we could use someone like Travis,” she said eventually, trying and failing to keep her thoughts to herself. “He’s the best I’ve ever worked with. He risked everything to take down the Chimera. We thought the crime lord had escaped the country and gone underground for good, until his name popped up in your dark web data analysis of the secret identity file auction. If I’m going to track the Chimera down and stop him for good this time, I need Travis. I know he can’t ever go undercover again, but he can still be my handler back at headquarters with you.”

Was she reminding herself? Reminding Seth? Or practicing out loud what she was going to say to Travis? When he hadn’t replied to her voice mail, she’d assumed he might not think the phones were secure, and so had decided to come to him in person.

Everything had fallen into place with the Chimera operation at rapid speed. Seth had identified his cover operation as a holiday complex in Victoria three days ago. She’d applied for a job as a hostess the next day and was set to start her cover life there on Monday. Everything was in place. All she needed was Travis. She glanced to the clouds above and prayed he’d say yes. He just had to.

“Why are you so set on this guy when it’s his fault your first mission against the Chimera failed?” Seth asked.

Something bristled at the back of her neck. “The mission didn’t fail,” she said. “The Chimera’s entire operation was taken down, all of his henchmen went to jail and dozens of women he’d trafficked were freed.”

“Travis’s file says he had the Chimera in his sights and missed the shot.”

“The file doesn’t know him,” Jess said. “I do. We worked fifty-two cases together.”

“How did he miss the shot?” Seth asked.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.” Which was a bit of a cop-out answer, considering she’d been in his earpiece at the time. “I didn’t have eyes. The Chimera ran. Travis took the shot and missed. It could’ve happened to anyone.”

Seth shrugged. “The file says it was officer error.”

“And your file says you used to be a criminal,” she shot back.

Seth snorted. “People change. Or so I’ve heard.”

She knew he wasn’t the slightest bit offended at being reminded of his past. Seth was like a duck that way. Everything rolled off his back. Yet she was slightly irked at his good-natured banter and wasn’t sure why. She’d worked with Travis for years and had no doubt he’d beat himself up to no end about missing the shot. Besides, she was giving him a chance to redeem himself by finally taking the Chimera down for good.

“His file also says he racked up a whole lot of speeding tickets,” Seth added.

She ignored him. Seth didn’t say anything for a long moment. Instead the former criminal hacker now mostly reformed member of her team, kept typing away furiously on the laptop balanced on his knees. Then he frowned.

“Please, tell me we’re heading straight to Tatlow’s Used Books and Café,” Seth said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because I just picked up an ambulance dispatch to that location,” Seth said. “Elderly woman, potential fall.”

“Yeah, Travis had mentioned his landlady had an accident.”

“Plus there’s this.” Seth pushed a button and a small child’s voice filled the car.

“Maynaise. Maynaise.” The voice was young and scared, but also very determined. “This is Willow Tatlow with my brother, Dominic. We’re in Uncle Travis’s apar’ment. Uncle Travis has been captured by the Shiny Man. Send rescue. Over.”

Jess gasped. “What is that?”

The town ahead grew closer. Seth played the little girl’s voice again on repeat.

“I don’t know, that’s all I’ve got,” Seth said. “It sounds like she was sending it on a very short-wave radio signal and then changed to a different channel looking for a response. I’m guessing a walkie-talkie or baby monitor. Tell me you know what that was about.”

“Not a word.” She could see the bookstore ahead on her right now. An ambulance was parked by the front door and a small crowd had gathered. She pulled up a few doors down and watched as an elderly woman she recognized from her intel as Travis’s landlady, Patricia Tatlow, was wheeled out the front door on a stretcher, flanked by a couple she didn’t recognize. Her eyes were open, which Jess took as a good sign. A tall, winding fire escape crawled up one side of the building, facing the bakery next door. She glanced up. There were windows open on both the second and third floors.

“I’m going in,” she said. “You’re coming with me. So stash your computers and grab us both an earpiece.” She yanked her long, blond hair free from its ponytail and shook her head so that it fell around her shoulders almost all the way to her waist. She didn’t normally wear her hair down. At five foot two, with the type of eyes people sometimes called “baby blues,” adding natural blond hair to the mix made people assume she was more of a peppy cheerleader than a veteran RCMP detective. Came in handy for hiding earpieces though.

“Need I remind you our entire plan was not to blow his cover,” Seth said.

“I’m not going to blow his cover,” Jess said, taking the earpiece the second it appeared in his hand. “We’re going up the fire escape.” Thankfully, Seth was tall enough to grab the bottom rung of the fire ladder and pull it down, so she wouldn’t have to jump for it. “If anyone asks, I’m an old friend, you’re my brother and we’re coming to surprise him. Now, come on.”

They exited the car and strode down the sidewalk, weaving their way through the gathered crowd and then slipping into the alley between the bookstore and bakery. Seth yanked the fire ladder down and they started up. The first second-floor window they reached opened into a kitchen. She glanced at Seth. “I’ll take this floor, you take the third. Got it?”

Seth nodded and ran past her, his footsteps clanking as he went. She slid through the open window and entered a narrow kitchen. Two chairs, one with a booster seat, sat at a small table, along with a high chair. The wall was covered in pictures, taped up in every possible space. Most were colorful splattering and scrawling done no doubt by a child. But a few were more artistically sketched drawings of a woman with long, flowing, blond hair, her face completely turned away from the person drawing her. Jess felt her heart stutter a beat. Even without a face, the woman in the picture looked an awful lot like her.

Jess slid through the door and came out into a hallway. More doors stood to her left and there was a staircase to the third floor on her right.

“I’ve got the kids!” Seth’s voice crackled in her ear. “They’re safe.”

Jess thanked God. She could hear a child’s voice babbling in the background.

“Willow says she saw Uncle Travis on a monitor screen being attacked by the Shiny Man,” Seth added.

“Just keep them safe,” Jess said, “and hang tight.”

A bang sounded from somewhere to her right. She ran back into the hall, grabbed another door handle and threw it open.

And, for the first time in years, laid eyes on Travis.

Her heart caught in her throat. Her former partner’s back was up against the wall and there was a handgun pointed to his head. His attacker wore a bulky, orange-reflective jumpsuit, like a construction worker, work gloves and a creepy, buglike silver respirator mask with large bulbous filters on either side of his face.

The figure in reflective gear shouted at her in an electronically distorted voice that he’d put a bullet through Travis’s head if she so much as moved.

Travis’s dark brown eyes met hers over his attacker’s shoulder, somehow looking so achingly familiar and yet completely new in ways she didn’t have time to process. And as she read all the conflicting emotions flickering through his gaze, it was as if all the years they’d spent apart were ripped away like unwanted pages from a book.

Somehow she knew exactly what he wanted from her.

Not rescue, but a distraction.

She nodded. I got it.

Don’t blow my cover. His eyes seemed to plead.

I won’t.

“Hey, you! Stop!” She yanked her weapon from her ankle holster and held it up with both hands. “Right now! Drop your gun!”

The gunman glanced toward her and Travis struck, smashing his palm into the side of his face and knocking him sideways. The man stumbled toward her. Something small flickered in his other hand. Then came the light—sharp, bright and blinding—searing her eyes and robbing her of her vision. A fist struck out at her, catching her off guard and sending her stumbling.

“Jess!” She heard Travis’s voice calling her name.

But she couldn’t see where he was. She couldn’t see anything at all.

TWO

The light was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, blinding her eyes so suddenly and completely that all she wanted to do was press her hands over them. Instead she closed them, tightly. Her heart pounded wildly as, for a moment she stumbled, fighting the urge to drop her weapon in case it misfired.

Then a pair of strong hands grabbed her shoulders and she felt herself being pulled into a muscular chest.

“It’s okay, Jess.” Travis’s voice was in her ear, firm and reassuring. “Just breathe. I know it hurts and it’s scary, but it’ll pass. Now, I’m going to take the gun from you, just for safety’s sake.”

“Thanks.” She let him take it. She didn’t know how he knew that was what she’d been most worried about, only that somehow she knew what he’d be most worried about, too. “Willow and Dominic are safe upstairs with my colleague, Seth.”

The long sigh of relief she felt move through his core told her she’d been right.

Then she heard him pray and thank God. Huh? The Travis she used to know had given up on his faith long ago and used to roll his eyes whenever she’d prayed.

“How do we contact their parents?” she asked.

“Their parents are gone,” Travis said. “They were friends of mine. Geoff and Amber Tatlow. Both cops. Amber went back to work part-time eight weeks after Dominic was born. They were both working at a roadside impaired driving checkpoint on the highway, just pulling drivers over to make sure nobody’s drunk, overtired or impaired, like cops do across the country every long weekend. One drunk driver apparently panicked and tried to drive around the road stop, injuring three people in the process and killing Geoff and Amber.” She felt Travis shrug. “Their grandmother, Patricia, is all they have now.”

And him apparently.

“I saw Patricia being rolled out on a stretcher and into an ambulance,” Jess said. “She looked conscious. I think a man and woman got in the ambulance with her.”

“That was probably Willow’s new kindergarten teacher Alvin and the baker’s daughter Cleo,” Travis said, and there was something both coplike and familiar in how he was giving more detail than was necessary. “One of them will contact me as soon as there’s news. They’ll know I’m with the kids and Kilpatrick is the kind of town where people keep everyone else in the loop.”

She heard him set her gun down on the desk. Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. She wasn’t sure if the hug was because she’d been blinded or if he was happy to see her.

“You said there was no active threat against me,” he said, an edge to his voice that belied the softness of his hug. “You said my identity hadn’t been compromised.”

“There wasn’t,” she said. “It hadn’t.”

“Are you sure?” he asked and, even with her eyes closed, she could sense him searching her face.

“Yes.”

“Then how…why are you even here?”

“You weren’t returning my calls,” she said, “so my colleague Seth and I drove out to see you.”

“The same Seth who’s with Willow and Dominic now?” Travis asked.

It was bizarre. He was grilling her and holding her at the same time.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Seth Miles, the hacker. Remember hearing about him? He only hacked criminals, there was a warrant out for his arrest, he got hunted by really bad guys and then ended up in witness protection.”

Travis blew out a long breath. Yeah, she wasn’t surprised Travis remembered the man’s name, considering the stir he’d made a few years back. Not that he probably had any idea who Seth had become since then.

“Now he’s my team’s tech guy,” she said. “He’s like an obsessive savant when it comes to all things online and he picked up a distress signal Willow sent through the baby monitor’s short-wave.”

“Whoa,” Travis said.

She pulled back out of his arms slightly, tried opening her eyes and saw nothing but a wall of white swimming with indistinct dark shapes. She gritted her teeth. So much for hoping she could do anything for a moment other than stand there helplessly and pray Travis was right about the light thing.

“Your turn,” she said. “Who’s the Shiny Man? Where did he go? What does he want? And what did he hit me with?”

“I don’t know who he is or what he wants.” Frustration filled Travis’s voice. “He showed up when Patricia was closing the store, confronted her in some way and then ran upstairs where I found him. He went down the fire escape and he hit us both with some kind of high-brightness tactical flashlight. Illegal, I’m guessing, but temporary. His whole get up, from the reflective gear to the respirator mask, could’ve easily been slapped together from an online tactical gear store.”

“So, probably not a pro. And much sloppier than anyone the Chimera would ever hire, so I expect there’s no connection there.” Jess opened her eyes again, thankful to see less white and more splotches. “But apparently the kind of criminal to plan ahead, considering he was in disguise. Did he steal anything?”

“No.” Worry moved through Travis’s voice. “My laptop and tablet computer are all still here, along with some emergency cash I had in a jar on my desk.”

There was a matter-of-fact dryness to his tone. It was reassuring, and Jess suddenly realized how much she’d missed it. There’d often been a sharpness to his voice, too, that other people had thought of as rude. Maybe it had been a little intense, but she’d liked the fact it was direct and to the point. He’d never been one for compliments or affection. He’d never even hugged her, until now.

Travis stepped even further back, her hands slipping down his arms and coming to rest just below his elbows. She felt the strength of muscles under her fingertips. His chest had been unexpectedly strong, too.

The Travis she’d known hadn’t exactly been weak but, with the exception of his time on undercover assignment, he’d definitely been a desk jockey. But this new Travis felt like he could fell trees with an ax. Her mind flickered back to the sketches of the woman on the kitchen wall. Was he now an artist, too?

She looked up into Travis’s face and blinked as slowly it came into focus. His eyes were worried and his strong jaw was clenched. He reached for her hand and took it in his. While she knew it was only to guide her, somehow that didn’t stop the warmth of his touch from spreading through her limbs. She tapped her earpiece to keep herself from focusing on it.

“Seth, I’ve got Travis. He was attacked by someone who got away by shining a tactical light in my eyes. How are the kids?”

“Good.” Seth’s voice came back in her ear. “I’m sitting in the playhouse, holding Dominic while Willow is telling me about all her favorite books. Apparently one of them has the cover on upside down.”

“Willow really loves books,” Travis said, and Jess realized he was leaning in close enough to pick up Seth’s voice in her earpiece.

“We’re on our way.”

Travis picked up her gun, removed the clip and helped her slide it back into her ankle holster. Then Travis straightened and took her hand. When she pulled it out of his grasp, he didn’t question it. Her vision still wasn’t great, but she’d rather use the walls for guidance if need be than be led around.

They walked out of his study and back into the hallway.

“There’s a lot of people gathered downstairs,” Jess said as they started up the stairs to the third floor. “It’s like the whole block turned out to make sure Patricia was okay.”

Travis paused halfway up the stairs, as if a new thought had just hit him. “Please tell me you didn’t blow my cover.”

Jess shook her head. “No, we came up the fire escape. Though the Shiny Man might’ve heard you call me ‘Jess’ and definitely knows I was carrying a gun.” Although she’d done her best not to sound like a cop when she’d pulled it.

They kept walking, reached the top of the stairs and entered a wide attic that had been converted into a living room with mismatched furniture and slanted ceilings cutting down in corners on all sides. An empty playpen sat beside a large window bow filled with pillows. A large pink-and-purple wooden playhouse, about four feet tall, stood against a wall on the far side of the room. The door was closed, but when Travis crouched in front of the playhouse door and knocked three times, it swung open.

Seth’s six-foot form sat cross-legged and folded sideways on the floor, with a sleeping baby, about eight or nine months old, curled up in his arms. The baby’s eyes were closed and he was sucking on a blue pacifier with a tiny yellow duck on it.

“You must be Seth,” Travis said. “You look nothing like your reputation.”

Seth snorted. “You don’t much look like yours.”

“Uncle Travis!” A small girl with long blond hair and huge green eyes crawled out from around Seth. She slipped from the playhouse and barreled into Travis’s arms. “You escaped the Shiny Man!”

“Of course I did!” Travis swept her up into his arms as she clasped them around his neck. “There is nothing for you to be scared about, Willow. I will always keep you and Dominic safe. I promise. Your nan had a little fall, but she’s going to the doctor’s now and they’ll take good care of her.”

Willow took his face in her hands and turned it until he was looking directly into her eyes.

“I saw the Shiny Man outside my window at night with a flas’light,” she said, seriously.

Travis nodded. “I know. And I’ll make sure he never bothers you again.”

Jess knew as he said the words that he had no idea how he was going to make good on his promise to the little girl, but that he’d do everything in his power to figure it out. She’d heard him make similar promises to victims they’d known only through photos or videos on their screens back when they’d worked special victims cases. And no matter what it had taken, how many hours he’d had to work, or what kind of evidence he’d needed to go through, Travis had always come through for them.

Willow’s face spread into a wide and trusting smile. Unexpected tears rushed to the corners of Jess’s eyes. Was it because she’d never imagined Travis as the kind of man who’d have a family? Or because it was rare in her line of work to see little children being so protected, cared for and loved?

A wail filled the air. The baby was awake. She glanced past Travis to Seth, who still sat holding Dominic like the little boy was a very fragile bomb he was working very hard to keep from exploding. She wondered if the hacker had ever even held a baby before. In a single, smooth and seamless motion, Travis shifted Willow into one arm, bent low and scooped Dominic from Seth’s arms with the other hand. The baby’s tears faded almost as suddenly as they’d started. Then Travis stood, cradling both brother and sister in his arms, bent his head low over theirs and hugged them both for a long moment, prayers of thanksgiving slipping quietly from his lips.

And Jess realized she had no idea who Travis was anymore.

Seth stood slowly and ran his hands down his jeans.

Travis glanced up over the children’s heads, from her to Seth. “Are you both positive my i-d-e-n-t-i-t-y hasn’t been c-o-m-p-r-o-m-i-s-e-d?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Seth said. “I give you my word.”

Willow wriggled in Travis’s arms and, without being asked, he set her down.

“Seth is my new friend,” Willow told Travis, seriously. “He likes books, too. He has a sister work friend who talks in his ear.”

A sister work friend? Yeah, that would do. Her small off-the-grid witness protection team definitely felt like an ad hoc family.

Willow looked up at Jess, her little brows knit. Then she pointed past her and Jess followed her gaze to a colorful painting of a woman. It was the same woman as the one with long, flowing, blond hair she’d seen sketches of in the kitchen. Even with her face turned away from them, the figure was unmistakable.

The little girl asked what Jess was thinking, “Is that you?”

Travis felt heat rise to his face and the fact that Jess wasn’t meeting his gaze made it even worse. What could he say? He’d been a broken man when he’d moved to Kilpatrick, having lost something he couldn’t tell anyone about. It had felt like a death. Only, the one he’d lost was himself.

When after too many nights of not sleeping, he’d then fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed his tree into a car, the children’s dad, Geoff, had suggested he join an art therapy group. Travis hadn’t even known what to draw to represent the aching hole inside him. Somehow in the lines his fingers had sketched across the empty sheets of paper and painted on the canvasses had turned into Jess, again and again, even though he’d never once sketched her face or anything that would identify her, let alone told anyone her name or who she was.

“My name is Jess,” she told Willow, saving him from having to come up with an answer. She crouched down until she was eye level with the girl. “I’m your uncle Travis’s friend, and I’m Seth’s sister work friend.”

“I’m Willow.” The little girl stuck out her hand and Jess shook it. “Dominic’s my brother. He’s a baby.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Dominic,” Jess said. She reached for Dominic’s tiny hand and pretended to lightly shake it, as well.

“Clearly we have a lot to discuss,” Seth said. There was a mildly amused tone to his voice Travis couldn’t quite place. “I want to go over your entire security system, for the bookstore, your apartment and the house where Patricia and the kids live, as well as whatever your internal baby monitor video system has recorded. Everything for the past months.”

“It doesn’t actually record more than twenty-four hours,” Travis said, feeling almost foolish as he did so. “And Patricia’s farmhouse doesn’t have any security.”

He wasn’t even sure she had a front door lock that worked, considering he’d never seen anyone in Kilpatrick lock their doors the whole time he’d lived there. And while Kilpatrick had a district police chief, Gordon Peters, he and Travis had definitely gotten off on the wrong foot, thanks to Travis’s minor car accident. The cop had made no secret of the fact he wasn’t Travis’s biggest fan and wasn’t sure Travis was responsible enough to be a volunteer firefighter. Probably hadn’t helped much that whoever had created Travis’s new identity police file for witness protection had given him more than a few fake traffic tickets and citations. Not that Travis himself hadn’t racked up just as many in his real life.

Travis closed his eyes for a moment and prayed. God, I’m thinking too much like a Kilpatrick resident right now and not a cop. Help me get my head back into the game, without losing my sanity in the process.

He opened his eyes and turned to Seth.

“Obviously, we can all agree I need to keep my c-o-v-e-r,” he said, reminding himself that while a lot would go over Willow’s head, there were certain words he didn’t want her repeating to anyone. “My top priority right now is taking care of these kids and waiting on word about their grandmother. Also, I really need to head downstairs, as there are probably a dozen people inside the bookstore and no one working the counter.”

Not that he expected anyone was about to steal anything. It wasn’t that kind of town. When Cleo Mitchell had come home from college with her foul-mouthed, abusive ex, Braden Garrett, the whole town had practically risen like a wave to repel him and let him know that his kind of behavior wouldn’t be tolerated. When Cleo had asked Patricia for help, the elderly woman hadn’t just called both the police and Travis, she’d also pulled her hunting rifle on Braden and told him she’d shoot if he ever came around pestering the poor girl again. Knowing Patricia, the gun might’ve even had bullets in it.

“Considering your skills, I imagine you know your way around a phone camera,” Travis added and Seth chuckled. “If you don’t mind doubling as our c-r-i-m-e s-c-e-n-e photographer, that would be awesome, as well as gathering whatever you can from the limited camera systems. Not to mention, I’m sure you know how to track online purchases. Every part of the guy’s getup looked like something you could easily buy online. Maybe we’ll be fortunate and you’ll happen upon someone who bought a mask, jumpsuit, tactical flashlight, work gloves and an electronic voice distorter online and had them all shipped here.”

Seth nodded. “On it.”

“Great,” Travis said. “You can use my laptop to access the security camera and baby video monitor footage. It’s clean as a whistle, I have nothing to hide and the password is Tatlow3.”

Travis felt Willow’s hands on his leg. He looked down into the little girl’s huge green eyes.

“The bad man is not a const’uction man, Uncle Travis,” she said. “He’s the Shiny Man.”

Her eyes were so serious, Travis felt the weight of her trust weighing in his chest. She’d gone through so much already. He would not let her down.

“Whoever he is, we’ll stop him,” he told her, mentally kicking himself for not taking the little girl’s fears more seriously earlier. He glanced at Jess and Seth. “Right, guys?”

“Right,” Jess said, her eyes locked on Willow’s face. “We’re really, really good at stuff like this.”

Yeah, she was. Better than he’d ever been.

“Now, can you show Seth how to close the playhouse door and take him downstairs?” Travis asked Willow. “I’ll meet you downstairs in the kitchen in one minute.”

Willow nodded and Travis watched as the little girl walked over to the big hacker and very seriously showed him how to do the three little pink-and-purple flower-shaped latches Travis had built on the outside of the door. Then he stepped back and gestured for Jess to join him.

“I want you to stick with me,” Travis said. “If that’s okay with you? I want someone to have a second pair of eyes on these kids.”

“Absolutely.” She nodded then her arms crossed. “Are other people going to be asking if I’m the woman from the pictures? I saw the sketches in your kitchen, too. Also, your file didn’t mention anything about you having children in your life.”

He wasn’t sure which one was going to be easier to explain, so he started with the first.

“People in this town think she’s my ex-fiancée,” he said. “I’ve never confirmed the gossip or told anyone her name, but rumor is I moved here when she left me at the altar. It’s…it’s very hard to have any kind of secrets in a town where everybody knows everyone else’s business.”

And he’d never done anything to dissuade the rumors or to shoot them down. It was as good a reason as any as to why he walked around like a man whose world had ended. He’d needed a cover story and the town’s rumor mill had created one for him.

Yet, as he watched, shock and confusion filled her eyes. Then her lips twitched slightly and, for a second, he almost thought she was going to laugh.

“You have no idea how devastated I was when I moved here,” Travis said. “I felt like I’d died or that someone I loved had. I was depressed and snapped at everyone. I stopped eating, sleeping at night or showering. I practically lived on coffee. I was basically the worst version of me you’d known dialed up to a hundred. I even fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree.

“But Willow and Dominic’s parents were there for me. They dragged me out to church, board game parties and Bible study with them. Patricia made sure I ate. I needed to come up with something to explain what I’d lost. This mystery woman and the rumors people constructed around how I’d lost her, became like a metaphor for that.”

The hint of a smile dropped from her lips. She wouldn’t understand. How could she when he couldn’t even begin to understand it himself? Yet, as her eyes held his for a long moment, he felt something tighten in his chest.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Willow’s voice tugged his attention away from Jess. Willow was now leading Seth down the stairs, back toward the main floor, holding his hand tightly, and something in Seth’s bewildered gaze left Travis with the sneaking suspicion the hacker had never held a child’s hand before.

Yeah, he remembered that feeling all too well. It hadn’t been that long ago.

“I want to show him my paintings,” Willow called.

“Okay, but then Uncle Seth’s got to go do another job and we’ve got to close the store and go home for supper,” Travis said.

Willow nodded and disappeared down the stairs and Travis was thankful that her skill at finding new friends had temporarily distracted her from the Shiny Man or the fact that her nan was with the doctor.

“She likes people and people like her,” Jess said, only something about the way she’d said it made it sound like a cop observing a target.

He bristled. “You make it sound like that’s a suspicious thing.”

“No, it’s an interesting thing,” Jess said. “Because if the Shiny Man was outside her window, that means there’s someone in this town who’s willing to scare her to get what they want.”

Whatever that was. He paused a second, shifted Dominic higher in his arms and started toward the stairs.

“You had a duty to inform witness protection that you lived with children,” Jess said.

Even though he’d ignored her earlier comment about the kids, she clearly hadn’t forgotten it.

“I don’t live with them,” Travis said. He started down the steps and she followed. “They live with their grandmother at her farmhouse.”

“Don’t play games,” she said. “Not with me. You’ve got a playpen in your office, a second playpen in your living room and both a high chair and a booster seat in your kitchen. You know full well you’re supposed to report any significant relationships including minor children.”

“Need I remind you that my original witness protection officer is dead—” Travis felt his voice sharpen “—after conspiring with criminals at Christmas to steal and sell witness protection identities. So forgive me if I haven’t been in a hurry to return the calls of the next witness protection officer who got my case, especially since all he seems to want to do is convince me to leave this town and this life, and start again somewhere new. Judging by your voice mail, you were apparently so suspicious of the broader RCMP that you and some colleagues created your own little task force that’s been scrambling to pick up the pieces ever since the auction. Right?”

Jess stopped partway down the steps. He turned and looked back. She was almost at his eye level and her lips were pressed together tightly, like she was holding words back to keep from saying them.

“Right,” she said. “Within minutes of the theft, three colleagues, Seth and I met together, in secret, and formed an elite off-the-grid team to stop the criminals, despite the fact they started trying to kill us almost immediately. But we not only stopped the auction of witness protection files, we’ve been working around the clock to locate, protect and resettle every single witness whose identity was compromised. Scoff all you want about the RCMP witness protection program after what happened, but my team and I are very good at what we do.”

He hadn’t exactly been scoffing. But she was talking so quickly now, she wasn’t about to let him point that out.

“What people don’t know, is that when those secret identities went up for auction on the dark web, hundreds of criminals showed up online to bid on them, leaving some of our worst enemies vulnerable and exposed.” Fire flashed in the depths of her eyes, like flint striking against stone. “Because the moment those criminals slipped out of the shadows and showed up online to bid, Seth was able to extract their data and gather a treasure trove of information about them. It’s the kind of vital intel that you and I could’ve done so much good with back in the day and I wasn’t about to let it slip through our fingers. We could use someone with experience dealing with nasty criminal organizations. So I went to bat for the one person I knew had the skills and ability to take these people on and win—you.”

His heart stopped. He might’ve guessed she was calling about more than her message had implied, especially as she’d showed up in person. But was she actually offering him a job to work with her on her team? “I thought you just wanted my advice on a case.”

“Not advice, a partner.” Her arms crossed. “Specifically, I wanted my old partner back. And not a case. The case. The case that ruined your career and got you stuck here in Kilpatrick. Thanks to the secret identities auction, I found the Chimera.

“He’s back in the country and reopening a new operation this summer on the West Coast. It’s under the front of a holiday complex and timed for when school lets out. Summer is a prime hunting time for a criminal like that who presses vulnerable people into illegal work. I’m going in undercover as a hostess. This time, I’m going to be the one who locks eyes on him and identifies the man behind the alias, once and for all. And when I do, I won’t miss my shot.”

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