Keeping an innocent witness close...too close

Silver Valley P.D.’s most dangerous case yet

When Portia DiNapoli accidentally witnesses a deadly crime, she becomes the Russian mob’s most wanted. But she’s not running anywhere—she’s teaming up with undercover agent Kyle King to protect the small town she loves. But what blooms between them is an instant, lethal attraction that could be the love of a lifetime. Or one they won’t survive...

Former naval intelligence officer and US Naval Academy graduate GERI KROTOW draws inspiration from the global situations she’s experienced. Geri loves to hear from her readers. You can email her via her website and blog, gerikrotow.com.

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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Snowbound with the Secret Agent

Geri Krotow

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09354-5

SNOWBOUND WITH THE SECRET AGENT

© 2018 Geri Krotow

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 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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Version: 2020-03-02

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To Michelle Mioff-Haring.

Thank you for your friendship and

your tireless support of Silver Valley.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Something was wrong in Silver Valley, Pennsylvania, but Portia DiNapoli couldn’t put her finger on it. It wasn’t the weather, which had been hellacious since Christmas. She couldn’t remember such a cold, snowy winter since her childhood. And it wasn’t the stress of putting together the town’s largest charity event, the gala to raise funds for the library she ran and the homeless shelter where she volunteered many hours. If she thought about it deeply enough, the sense of doom had more to do with the story she’d read in the Harrisburg newspaper that proclaimed the area was under siege from Russian Organized Crime. Silver Valley had been named as the center of ROC’s efforts to move everything from illicit drugs to weapons. It struck at her heart, because Silver Valley was where she’d lived her entire life.

Although right now, having to dress in several layers to go anywhere in town, it was hard to believe even ROC could run criminal operations from here. Silver Valley had turned into a frozen tundra from the relentless winter.

She’d arrived three hours before opening to work at the Silver Valley Library. She needed the time to work on the gala, which was now less than a month away. And she loved the quiet of the historical building, the way it always felt like a warm hug, even in the January predawn hours. Pennsylvania remained gripped by the tenacious hand of a polar vortex; arctic air had mercilessly swept the state and frozen everything in its wake. More surface area of the Susquehanna River was frozen than ever previously recorded.

It took her a full two minutes to unwrap from her layers of winter protection. She’d opted to walk the few blocks from her small apartment, even in the cold. Portia loved the four seasons and especially winter, but even she was relieved to be inside the warm building and not on the icy streets.

As she settled into her spot behind the main circulation desk, she tried to let the library’s familiarity soothe her, but to no avail. What was different this Monday morning from all the others she’d spent in the facility? Her week had started out great with her usual walk to work, she’d had a great cup of coffee at the local shop in the building next to her apartment and there weren’t any pesky emails from the central library staff demanding her attention. But she couldn’t shake the sense of danger, the feeling that made her skin crawl and her stomach churn.

This had to stop.

Besides reading about ROC, she’d spent too much time learning about the fight Pennsylvania was waging against the heroin epidemic, finding out that Silver Valley had more than its share of opioid ODs and near-ODs. Since one of her closest friends from high school had become a victim of a lethal dose of heroin laced with fentanyl right before Christmas, Portia had questioned everything about her life and the community she held dear.

She resolved to get lost in the more positive aspects of her job and clicked open the gala files. Reviewing the guest list to date led to perusing the silent auction items, which always buoyed her spirits. The generosity of the average Silver Valley citizen touched her pragmatic heart.

“Portia.”

Portia jumped in her seat, startled by the sudden appearance of Brindle, her assistant.

Brindle had joined the staff while still pursuing her undergraduate degree at Penn State, Harrisburg and now was on to postgraduate work.

“What are you doing here so early? And, ah, good morning.”

Brindle’s mouth twisted into an apologetic grimace. “It’s not that early.”

Portia looked at the clock. She’d been here for two hours already?

“Sorry to startle you, but I had to get out of my sister’s house. Her baby was up all night, and I have two exams this week. I’ve been at the diner since four, and I was hoping you were in early today. I left my car in their lot and walked over.” Brindle knew that Portia came in early many days, especially in January, during the weeks before the gala.

“No problem. As you can see, I came in for the quiet, too.” Brindle was taking night and weekend classes to achieve a master’s degree in library science, and she also knew from firsthand experience how stressful working full-time and pursuing a degree was.

“I’ll use one of the study rooms if you prefer.” Brindle seemed truly sorry to intrude upon Portia’s space.

“No, that’s not necessary. I just boiled water for tea, or rather, I did when I came in. It’s in the insulated pitcher. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.”

They settled into their respective workspaces and Portia’s mind wandered yet again. She’d been doing a lot of this lately. Drifting when she should be getting something done, like finalizing the list of items to be auctioned off for the gala. Instead she’d scared herself half to death.

Robert hadn’t helped. She’d dated the local politician, helped him organize the personal details of his campaign. She was vehemently opposed to most of his platform, so no way would she help him with the actual campaign events. If she dug deep enough, she had to admit that she’d hoped to change him. Make him at least see her point of view on many issues. But it had never happened. When had trying to change someone else ever worked for her? A snort escaped her and she tried to cover it by sipping her tea. Brindle looked up at her and offered a smile.

“Sorry. Thinking out loud.” She raised the ceramic mug as if she hadn’t spent another sleepless night tossing and turning, wondering where ROC’s next victim would show up.

Robert hadn’t supported anything that helped drug addicts, including the fund-raiser she’d done for Silver Valley’s homeless shelter, where she volunteered at least one evening or day per week. She was glad she’d dumped his sorry butt. Unfortunately she’d also found out he’d been messing around with one of his supporters, a local lawyer. Her logical side demanded that his cheating ways would make the breakup that much easier, but it hadn’t. She’d talked it out with her best friend, Annie, and decided to take a break from men for the time being.

Shoving thoughts of her cheating ex aside, Portia skimmed the morning emails, all the while regularly checking the one monitor dedicated to library security. There were five security cameras in the building, one on each floor and one at each entrance. The back entrance was employees-only and in fact only used as an emergency exit. The screen was divided into quadrants and she’d so far been able to help a senior who’d fallen in the back corner of the cookbook section, break up several different teenaged couples who were clearly aroused by the smell of paper and last fall she’d ushered out a raccoon who’d smelled the tray of cider donuts intended for the toddler Halloween story time.

But she’d never seen a person completely dressed in dark clothing from head to toe, fully hooded, trying to pry open the back door of the building with some kind of instrument. In broad daylight. Well, if not complete daylight, dawn, as the sun was climbing over the Appalachian Mountains.

Portia shot out of her chair and made for the back. “Do me a favor and keep an eye on the back exit’s security screen, Brindle. If it looks like anything serious, call 9-1-1 for me.”

Brindle’s eyes widened and she got up from the worktable and walked over to the monitor. “Will do.” Portia would have laughed at her obvious trepidation but she had to get to the back door and tell the person to knock it off. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to chase interlopers away from the back door. It was an easy place for teens to hang out, next to the 24/7 diner and two buildings down from the pharmacy.

Even so, she couldn’t remember ever having to stop someone from trying to pry the door open before. The images of the headlines about ROC flashed through her mind and she forced herself to take a deep breath. Yes, Silver Valley was under fire from an established crime ring, but what were the odds that ROC had any interest in the town library?

Ludmila Markova couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, but it was nothing she wasn’t used to. Whether the police or FBI or one of her superiors, someone was always keeping tabs on her.

So be it. Right now she had to make sure she delivered the goods to the library so that the other worker would know where to find their delivery.

She’d gained many points with Ivanov, ROC’s local leader, when she’d come up with the communications plan. Because their cellular phone calls were always in threat of being monitored, and the same with email or SMS, they’d needed a way to pass information back and forth. The transportation manifests were complicated, especially the ones involving shipping heroin. Exact instructions were needed for each delivery; each pickup and every gram of product had to be accounted for.

Let the American law enforcement groups search her group’s technological devices. They’d never find what they were looking for. She was the best, trained by the Federal Security Service, or FSB, in Russia. It had earned her a visa to the US under an assumed identity.

She hoisted her backpack up higher, walking quickly to the library’s back entrance. At this hour, with the building still closed for another twenty minutes, she’d get in and out with no fanfare. The only problem was the security camera, which she couldn’t risk disabling because she wasn’t certain if it was tied to the local police or not.

No matter, this was why she wore a ski mask. The camera would never capture her face, not with enough detail for identification. Someone would have to be in her personal space to see her eyes and her mouth, and even that wasn’t always enough. Besides, if anyone got that close, she’d eliminate them. She never left a witness alive. It could spell too much trouble down the road.

She had to keep this job with Ivanov, her current boss. For just one more operation. Anything was better than going back to Russia and having to be at her government’s bidding again. A one-nighter with an oligarch led to the slick deal that got her here.

She planned to keep herself out of Russia for the rest of her days. Whether she found a quiet life under an assumed identity in the US or Canada didn’t matter to her. She wanted freedom from the constant killing, always having to take orders from above without question. Whether she’d be able to give up the life that she was the best at in the world was a valid question she needed to address, but not now. For now, she had to remain the trained assassin that she was, the best that ROC could ever hope to have on its side.

Only one more mission and she’d disappear, go somewhere where no one would find her. Start the free life she’d always dreamed of. Before her own government had killed her family.

The lock on the door would be an easy pick, but she preferred the much quicker muscle method. She pulled a long knife from her backpack and wedged the thin end into the line that separated the steel door from its frame. Using her body weight as leverage, she began to break into the Silver Valley Public Library. In three more minutes, she’d deposit the laptop where the next operative would find it, where she’d told them to look. It would take them all of thirty seconds to download the information onto a USB stick. If library personnel caught them, they could play dumb and claim they’d forgotten to sign the computer out at the front desk.

Her plan was foolproof, as was everything she did. Two more shoves and the door would open. She was three minutes from completing this part of her mission.

Portia’s breathing ramped up as she passed row upon row of books, DVDs and then periodicals, making her way to the stairs, where she sped down to the children’s level. The exit door was at the base of the stairs and the stairwell reverberated with the sound of metal on metal. The unknown person was still at it, working on the door.

What the hell?

Portia pushed the long bar handle in, shoved the door open and squinted against the bright motion detector light. The sun had begun its rise behind the building, as well; it was a sharp contrast to the stairwell’s dim interior.

“Excuse me, can I help you?”

The person straightened, and the first thing Portia noticed was the cold emotion in the glacial blue eyes under the winter facemask. The second thing was that the person—a woman, judging from the figure under her jacket, the makeup on her eyes and lipstick on her very red mouth—was holding one of the library’s dozen laptops. Portia knew it was a Silver Valley Library computer from the identification stickers on its cover.

“Hey, our laptops are for in-house use only. Why are you—”

Before she finished, the woman shoved Portia in the chest, knocking her backward. The assaulter whirled around and ran toward the railroad tracks that divided the library property from the rest of downtown Silver Valley.

Portia scrambled to her feet, and against the voice in her brain that screamed for her to wait for the police, she took off after the laptop thief. Silver Valley Library had mysteriously lost ten laptops in the past six months. It ended with her, today. Now. Without hesitating, she took off after the assailant. She hadn’t lettered in track and field at Silver Valley High for nothing.

Kyle King swore under his breath, the interior of the beat-up truck he was hunkered down in filling with the crystallized vapor. He couldn’t run the engine and heater while he was trying to blend in. He had to make it look like the truck was empty, parked behind the Silver Valley Diner. Right next to the town library, where he’d patiently waited for ROC’s thug to show up. He hoped to figure out how the hell they were passing information on illegal drug shipments.

As an undercover agent for the Trail Hikers, a secret government shadow agency, second to none and headquartered in Silver Valley, he knew how critical it was to stop ROC’s trafficking of illegal cargo, especially heroin and other drugs, into Pennsylvania. Silver Valley was a short fifteen-minute drive from the state capitol, Harrisburg, and the epicenter of transportation logistics for the entire US Eastern Seaboard.

Typical of ROC’s blatant disregard for law enforcement, they’d set up their distribution headquarters in the shadow of a nondescript, medium-sized, everyday American town. Of course ROC had no clue about Trail Hikers, but it was public knowledge that Silver Valley and the surrounding county had succeeded in defeating the most heinous criminals over the last few years. Including an ROC human trafficking ring. Which made the fact that ROC still wanted to stake a claim here stick more deeply in his craw. The latest intel from Trail Hikers and FBI indicated that the criminals were somehow using the local library as a way to pass critical information about their local ops.

Kyle had operated on countless global missions for Trail Hikers over the last several years, after a short stint in the Marine Corps. After two tours to Afghanistan, he knew he wanted to continue serving, but in a different capacity. The offer to become a Trail Hiker agent had been too good to pass up.

That was seven years ago. The ROC op had brought him to Silver Valley three months ago to provide much needed support. He’d welcomed the switch and enjoyed being in an American town for longer than the usual few days his other ops had given him.

Fact was, Kyle was tired of the global travel and wanted to find a place to call home in between Trail Hiker ops. He didn’t think it would be Silver Valley, though, as he was born and bred in California and missed the West Coast. He’d purchased land in California while he was still a Marine, needing to know he had someplace to go if he ended up out of the Corps and without a job. But anyplace in the United States was a good place after the rough places he’d been. If he hadn’t been so tied up in this op against ROC, he might have enjoyed Silver Valley a bit more.

Kyle wanted to be the agent to smash apart Ivanov’s reign of terror so badly that he could taste it. The current gang ROC had sent to Silver Valley was responsible for dozens of heroin ODs in this part of the state, and upwards of thousands nationally. After he solved this case, Kyle was due for time off, a full month. He planned to use it to go back west, see if the property he’d been paying taxes on could become home. The director of Trail Hikers wanted him out there for a bit to set up a West Coast office for the agency, so it all dovetailed neatly. Kyle liked things neat.

It’d be sweet if he could crack open this case sooner than later. Pennsylvania winters were colder than he’d imagined. The last weeks since the polar vortex had dipped down had proved brutal. He’d broken down and bought himself foot and hand warmers for the long hours outside, staking out the library, where he’d confirmed the information drop point was. In classic ROC fashion, they used something that seemed so obvious. Most criminal organizations held meetings or passed information in more clandestine spots, places that were difficult to figure out. Not ROC. By somehow passing information in the library, they’d hidden their methods in plain sight. He just hadn’t figured out exactly how yet. The computers were the most likely tools but the Trail Hikers systems forensics expert hadn’t found anything unusual on the desktops. Kyle had done a lot of his own recon inside the library, too, hoping to determine a pattern of behavior or repeat patrons who might be up to no good. He’d used different disguises to avoid any kind of recognition. Not just from Markova or her worker bees, but from the library staff.

The librarian in particular. A woman he’d found himself fascinated with. Portia DiNapoli.

But the librarian he’d also happened to monitor the last several weeks wasn’t going to make his goal of catching Markova in the act possible. Not today, anyway. As an undercover TH agent, he had to avoid any contact with civilians as much as possible while trailing a target. And Markova was a big one. As he watched, he saw that the librarian was engaging Markova. Portia DiNapoli didn’t know Markova was an ROC operative, though.

“Damn it, Portia DiNapoli. Why are you so good at your job?” And why was the town librarian so damn hot? More importantly, why was his dick paying attention at all when he was supposed to be tracking the movements of potential ROC thugs in the library, not Portia’s attractiveness?

You’re lonely.

Damn it, he wasn’t lonely. Okay, he’d appreciate the loving of a good woman right about now, but he was too entrenched in his work to add another concern to it.

Portia DiNapoli was the epitome of distraction. The fact that he was spending mental energy on her when dating her, or anyone else, wasn’t in his best interest or the woman’s, raised his internal alarm. He needed to get it through his thick skull that he had a job to do that a woman, Portia or whomever, would only complicate. He’d had his share of committed relationships over the years but none had stuck. It always came down to him having to put his career first, and there was the added danger of anyone he was involved with becoming a target of the bad people it was his job to take down. Portia DiNapoli’s nearly constant presence in his current surveillance had stirred something in him, though. He probably ought to at least think about dating someone again.

The thing was, he hadn’t been tempted by any of the women he’d had the opportunity to flirt with, dance with, talk to at the local bar scene in Harrisburg. And he’d been out so rarely, the case taking up all of his time.

His casual interest, and that was all it was, a fleeting second glance, in Portia, was complicated. It wasn’t because she was beautiful, and she was. Big brown eyes with long lashes, a full mouth with lips he’d fantasized doing a lot more than smile at her patrons. She wasn’t short, but at least a head shorter than him. The perfect size to pull her in close and lay a kiss on her rosy lips. She always wore rose lipstick, or maybe that was her natural color. Her eyes dazzled behind oversize glasses and her curvy figure was stunning in her sexily delicious pastel cardigans. Portia seemed to have a collection of those, from what he’d noticed. She was all woman, all sexy curves. It might be a record-breaking cold winter, but the sight of Portia each time he’d gone to the library had warmed him up quicker than any wood stove. Today she wore leggings under a body-conscious, curve-hugging dress. The binoculars in his hands were the best technology on the market, but he didn’t need them to know the shape of her sweet ass under her clothes. Not that he’d meant to notice it. But when she’d bent over to shelve books the other day, well, he’d happened to catch a glimpse of her sexy rear.

Let it go, man.

She probably had a zillion dudes lining up to take her out. He didn’t know, because his physical observation of her began and ended with the library. After he’d found out her apartment was in the one next to his, he’d taken extra care to avoid running into her, using his back entrance almost exclusively. She favored the front, and liked to get a cup of coffee at the shop his apartment was perched over. He knew she wasn’t married. And not just from the confidential dossier he’d run on her at Trail Hikers. From her bare left hand to the hours she kept, coming in before the library opened and staying well past closing, Portia DiNapoli was a dedicated career woman. With no commitments outside the Silver Valley Library, except the local homeless shelter. He’d felt no guilt investigating her. He’d had to; when the center of an ROC op was taking place in her library, he’d had to rule her out as a suspect.

Not that his background check on her or anyone was ever considered conclusive. The best bad guys, and girls, were good. Really good. They wouldn’t leave any clues that they were doing anything more than visiting a library.

Portia’s stance shifted and he recognized the defensive posture—he’d seen her use it last week with a patron who was angry about overdue fines.

But now she wasn’t confronting a disgruntled library patron, but an ROC operative, a fully trained, lethal agent. His gut tightened and a distinct discomfort filled his chest. The thought of Portia being hurt by ROC was unthinkable.

Now it looked like the dialogue between Portia and Markova was getting heated. At least, Portia’s face was turning red and he’d bet it wasn’t from the frigid January temperatures.

“Fuuuudge,” he said to himself in the truck, where he’d had his binoculars trained on the library’s back entrance since he’d followed Markova here two hours ago. She’d driven from the drab mobile home she kept on the outskirts of town, parked her car behind a restaurant two buildings down and then walked the rest of the way to the library. Kyle figured he was lucky she’d never even looked toward the banged up truck he huddled down in. She never seemed to care about her surroundings but Kyle knew it was all part of her training, to appear as if she were any other civilian—not a trained assassin who didn’t miss details others never noticed.

It was freaking freezing and he couldn’t risk alerting her to his presence by turning on his engine. Parked behind the 24/7 diner, his vehicle looked like many of the other patrons’ wheels: nondescript and dirty from the overdose of salt on the icy roads.

He’d determined that ROC was using the library somehow to pass information but he didn’t know how. And he couldn’t directly ask Ludmila Markova, the woman whose file he’d committed to photographic memory months ago. She had to be caught committing a crime before he could tip off SVPD to arrest her.

As he watched, Markova hadn’t been successful in getting the back door open, which he found surprising, as well as amusing. The thugs Ivanov employed were top notch and knew their way around locks of all kinds. And they usually were smarter than to attempt to sneak into a public building in broad daylight. But nothing was usual for ROC. They did whatever had to be done to accomplish their jobs, whether that was moving kidnapped underage immigrant women into sex slavery and trafficking illegal drugs, or laundering money made from all of the above.

He watched Portia DiNapoli speak to Markova and a cold sense of dread blanketed him. Emotions weren’t allowed during his missions, but he never ignored his intuition. This could go south so very quickly, so very badly. Markova had at least the long knife she’d used to try to pry the door open, and she was adept at using it according to the profile he had on her. Besides her current work for ROC, a number of assassinations were included at the top of the long list of grim accomplishments in her FSB history.

By comparison, Portia DiNapoli’s record was as squeaky clean as they came, and reflected an average American who did her job well and contributed to the community with her entire heart. People like Portia were why the Trail Hikers’ work was so important. She was not someone who deserved to bleed out in the library parking lot because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time with a trained ROC killer.

Kyle eased himself out of the truck’s passenger side, using a car parked next to his to shield his movements. His breath steamed in the frozen air and he kept his movements slow and steady. If luck was on his side, Markova would turn and leave without harming Portia.

Kyle never relied on luck. He listened to their conversation, which was taking place no more than ten yards away.

“Excuse me, can I help you?” Portia’s voice, normally gravelly and sexy, sounded angry as she shouted at Markova. Making like he was walking toward the diner’s back entrance, he hoped to be able to shout and startle the criminal, forcing her to leave the library parking lot.

But the word laptop got his radar up.

“Hey, our laptops are for in-house use only. Why are you—” From Portia’s tone, there’d be no working it out. He heard it and so did Markova, apparently, who turned and fled. But not before she shoved Portia, who disappeared into the open exit.

Okay, that made it easier, at least. Portia would be safe.

Except that she’d decided the library laptop wasn’t going to disappear on her. To his surprise and consternation, Portia was back on her feet and out the door in a blink. He watched her long legs stretch out, her arms pumping, and did what any reputable, competent undercover agent would not do. Kyle ran after Portia.

Portia followed the woman up and onto the railroad tracks, her feet screaming that her simple leather oxfords were no replacement for sneakers or snow boots in the frigid temperatures. Snow crunched under foot and her lungs burned with no scarf to help warm the air.

What was so important on the laptop that the woman would rather risk being criminally charged for taking it than just simply turning it back in and then checking it out again the next day? And why was she running from Portia? Why had she shoved her?

Portia’s mind raced with the possibilities, but right now she needed to get the woman, get the library’s computer. She was gaining on the woman and gave it ten more strides. As she drew close enough to touch her, she reached for her hoodie and tugged. The woman turned and faced her, still holding the laptop in her arm. Shooting Portia an evil grin that was revealed by the curve of bright red lips in the mouth opening of the knitted mask, she brandished a knife with menacing intent, and the winter sun flashed off the blade.

Portia drew up short, barely stopping herself from falling on the woman—and her knife. She felt the wooden train ties under her thin-soled shoes, her legs trembling, no, quaking. But not from the cold. From the shock, the sheer terror of facing down her own mortality. Before Portia could pull back, run from the knife, she saw the woman’s eyes glint, narrow, focused on something behind Portia. Her lips curled upward again, as if the laptop thief liked what she saw. Without further threats, the woman jumped off the tracks and ran into the woods on the other side of town. Too late, Portia realized the pounding of her feet on the railroad track wasn’t what made the frozen wood ties shake. It was a train. The sound of its whistle blowing was the last thing she remembered before being hit sideways by an overpowering force.

Chapter 2

Kyle chased after Portia as he watched the train bear down on the pair in his peripheral vision. He’d seen it pass through the commercial district several times. A lot of times it slowed to a crawl, and then a complete stop as the tracks were switched to allow the container shipments to go to the other part of town that housed many national distribution centers. But this train didn’t slow down, the conductor showing no sign of seeing the women on the tracks as it kept going, way too fast for a local. Kyle figured he had thirty seconds, tops, to prevent Portia from catching up to Markova, or worse, before the train hit them both. Because if Portia caught Markova, the knife blade plunging into her body was the last thing she’d feel.

Kyle couldn’t believe that neither Portia nor Markova had noticed the train as he ran toward them. Portia continued her pursuit of the woman she thought was a mere thief, clearly ignorant of how lethal an encounter with her would be. ROC didn’t put up with interference of any kind and made it a trademark to never leave a witness alive. No matter how trivial the crime, it left no one living to tell their tales. It was what made them so powerful, enabling their insidious network of crime to reach into the most seemingly solid communities.

He ran in a perpendicular line to the tracks, knowing he risked Markova seeing him, wondering if he was law enforcement, but he didn’t care. He had to save Portia. The op would still be there—as far as Markova knew, he was either a Good Samaritan or a friend of Portia’s who’d witnessed their altercation. Or even an undercover cop. Let ROC come after him. He’d be damned if they would add an innocent Silver Valley librarian to their tally of victims.

By the time he was within a few feet of the tracks, the women faced one another, the knife in Markova’s hands poised to do maximum harm. He ran toward them and opened his mouth to shout a warning, anything to distract the knife-wielding criminal. But it was futile against the roar of the train engine, the wheels of the old cargo car squealing in protest as the engineer applied the brakes. Too late, though, to save either woman if they didn’t get off the tracks.

He’d practiced so many dangerous scenarios in both his Marine Corps and Trail Hiker training, and experienced countless more in his work as a Marine Scout and then as an undercover operative for the past seven years. There were no surprises as he measured the situation, decided on his course of action and followed through just in the nick of time. Markova jumped the tracks a second ahead of him. As he hit Portia sideways, tackling her off the tracks and holding her as they rolled down the embankment, the roar of the train drowning out all other noise, he had only one surprise.

He hadn’t screamed “look out” or “stop” or even “train.” The word, the name that had scraped past his throat, dry from the cold air, had been the name of someone he’d never met, not in the conventional way.

Portia.

Portia was aware of a very heavy weight on top of her, her face smooshed against a thick winter coat of some type, the scents of tar, train exhaust, and something else mingling and filling each breath she gasped for. The click of the train-car wheels across the track oddly comforted her, a definite sign that she hadn’t been flattened by the engine but in fact had been knocked off the tracks.

“You with me?” A low, rumbling voice filled her ears as much as she felt it through her very center. Her shuddering, shock-affected center.

“Y-y-yes.” The chatter couldn’t be helped, no matter how hard she clenched her jaw. But it wasn’t hypothermic shivers that ran through her; it was so much more.

The weight shifted and she realized someone lay atop her, a very large, lean person, on the ground next to the railroad embankment. An involuntary moan left her lips. Did the man hear it? Did he think she never wanted him to leave her?

“I thought you were a goner back there.” He gently rolled them both to their sides, still holding her protectively. Bright eyes filled her vision, a gloved hand cupped her chin.

“Who?” She couldn’t manage more than the one syllable; the question who are you? really didn’t matter, as she was still here, alive, intact. And yet it mattered a whole hell of a lot. Who was this savior?

“Here.” Strong arms on either side of her, the weight gone, the sense of being lifted higher, higher, but in reality the man had only shifted her into a seated position on the ground, sitting next to her, his arm still wrapped around her shoulders. “Give yourself a few breaths before you try to stand up. Assess if you’re hurting anywhere.”

She listened to his voice, acknowledged she could listen to it all day, any day, and never grow bored of it.

“Are you in any pain?” He reiterated his concern as the last few cars passed, revealing a row of Silver Valley PD police cars on the other side of the tracks, back in the parking lot that stretched behind the library, diner and several other Silver Valley businesses.

“No. I’m...I’m okay.” She wiggled her toes, her fingers, and mentally moved up her anatomy. Her butt and shoulders were sore on the left side—the large man had somehow cushioned the rest of her from the impact upon stony ground, but since he’d saved her life, she was inclined to agree with him.

“Who are you?” At least her voice sounded stronger. She’d never met him, she was certain, but there was something familiar about him, as if they did know one another. Suspicion stole into her sense of security. Did he know the laptop thief—was he part of some kind of criminal network?

Gray eyes narrowed, thin lines fanning out from their corners. “I’m someone you can trust.”

She wiped a shaky hand over her mouth. “That’s something after almost being—” She cut off abruptly. Shudders started to wrack her body and tears spilled onto her cheeks. She’d been that close to dying. To losing it all, forever.

In one moment the importance of her worries and hopes to raise money for the library, to expand its services, her homeless shelter efforts—they all evaporated into what she’d almost become. Oblivion. She looked around her and vowed to never take another day for granted, no matter how cold or how aggravated she was by a laptop thief. It could all be gone as quick as she could say “choo choo.”

“Come on.” He lifted her to her feet and hugged her to his side. Only when he motioned with his free arm did she notice the pair of police officers who’d walked up to them, followed by EMTs.

“This woman is on the verge of shock.” Her rescuer’s voice held a note of steel she hadn’t noticed as he’d made sure she’d survived their tumble. She turned to thank him but he was gone. Her brain felt like she was thinking in a fog and Portia didn’t argue as the EMTs each took an arm and carefully walked her back to the parking area. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut when they had to briefly traverse the tracks again, but at least it wasn’t more than a few paces.

As she received first aid for a couple of cuts and bruises and then was taken to the ER against her desires, as a safeguard, her equilibrium returned. Portia had a lot to do when she got back to the library, but what she wanted to know more than anything was who the man was who’d saved her. And why she could still feel the imprint of his hands, his arms around her as they fell through the air and hit the hard ground, hours later. The matter of the person who’d led her so close to death didn’t elude her. Portia wanted to know who she was and wanted the woman to face full criminal charges for all she’d done. But the overarching curiosity that kept her from drowning in the shock and despair of almost dying wasn’t over the laptop thief. It was all about her rescuer, the man whose arms made her feel like no one could ever hurt her again.

And his eyes—the color of the Susquehanna in January. But unlike the cold slate of the river that ran through central Pennsylvania, where Silver Valley was nestled, the man’s eyes had a warmth in them. And a sadness.

It must have been the shock, as he described it, that made a myriad of emotions assault her as she mentally replayed what had just happened. Because what else explained the instant, white-hot zap of attraction she’d felt for the man, her train-wreck savior?

And who was he?

Ludmila Markova wasn’t happy. She’d have to circle back, in disguise this time, and drop the laptop off through the front door of the library, to leave it on the circulation desk. The book slot was too small for the computer, no doubt for added security. She’d have to act like a dopey kid who’d accidentally taken the laptop from the library property by accident.

Then she’d kill the librarian. Portia DiNapoli. She’d kept one eye on the bitch each time she’d entered the library, mostly just as herself, since this ignorant American town seemed to have a lot of library patrons. It made it easy for her to blend in.

She swore as she made herself down an entire quart of kefir. The protein was necessary to keep up her strength, and she missed the tang of her mother’s homemade drink.

The thought of her mother, gunned down next to her brothers and sisters and Papa, brought tears to her eyes. She viciously swiped at them. No more. After this mission, she’d be free and have the funds to go wherever she wanted. Not back to Russia—never.

Using the tactics ingrained into her by the former KGB official who trained her, she shoved her worthless emotions aside and focused on what the rest of the day would look like. First a stop to the library. Then find the librarian and eliminate the worry of her testimony, no matter how unlikely.

“What do you mean you were almost hit by a train? I thought you were working the ROC distribution network case?”

Silver Valley PD detective Josh Avery looked at Kyle as if his colleague was a new recruit. Kyle’s liaison with SVPD was a necessary part of working an op targeting criminal activity in Silver Valley. ROC was a menace to Silver Valley and instead of eradicating the crime ring’s reach with the takedown of a human trafficking ring, they’d found themselves looking down the barrel of ROC setting up Silver Valley to be its epicenter of heroin distribution in central Pennsylvania, Maryland and parts of New Jersey. Several of the SVPD detectives and officers were cut into Trail Hiker ops on a need-to-know basis, and often a Trail Hiker agent was paired with a single point of contact at SVPD to minimize leaks and maximize both law enforcement agencies’ ability to solve cases. Kyle came into SVPD to debrief Josh, after he was sure Portia was okay and being taken care of by the EMTs. Again, his focus was too heavy on the Portia side for his agent liking.

“I was. I am.” Kyle weighed what to say next, even though Josh was his SVPD liaison for this particular Trail Hiker case. But they were working as a team. “I was conducting surveillance, the same kind you do every day, on the library’s back entrance. Another agent had the front door covered. When trouble showed up in the way of an intruder—Markova—trying to pry open the locked exit-only door, I paid attention. I never expected the librarian to take off after the assailant, though.”

“It’s not like we can warn civilians about top-secret ROC details, not if we want to keep our covert ops secret.” Josh’s face revealed his concern.

“That’s the double-edged sword of this work, isn’t it? Providing safety for all by tracking the bad guys we can’t talk about.” Kyle leaned back in the chair across from Josh’s desk, in the detective’s office. “Who knew a librarian could run that fast?”

“I haven’t seen the official report come across yet. Are you sure it was the head librarian, Portia? Or one of her assistants?”

“It was Portia. And we’re lucky Markova didn’t knife her on the spot at the library.” No sense pretending he didn’t know who Portia was. “You know Portia?”

“She’s my fiancée’s best friend.” Josh grinned. “Don’t get sucked into any librarian stereotypes. Portia doesn’t take crap from anyone.”

Two strikes against his attempts at staying unseen today. He avoided public venues with any law enforcement agencies, or LEAs, as much as possible while doing his initial surveillance of Markova and ROC. But both Portia and Markova had seen him on the railroad tracks. Portia might believe he was a simple Good Samaritan, as could Markova. But a former FSB agent operated on the belief that there were no coincidences. Chances were that Markova suspected she’d been marked. His days in his undercover guise as a homeless man were numbered now, because Markova was as good as an enemy agent got. She’d put him with his disguise with little trouble. “Hell. Can’t one go anywhere in this town without running into another connection.”

“It’s not that bad. We’re bigger than you think, not just because we’re over twenty thousand last count. And you could run into the same people in a city of millions, especially in our profession. It happens.”

“But it’s not supposed to. Not if I’m doing my job right.” Kyle’s mission was to stay under the radar of a casual observer. He knew that Portia probably hadn’t noticed him in the library. He wore various disguises whenever he went there, to keep himself free to be himself during off-hours. He should have worn a disguise this morning, too, but with daylight surveillance, he wasn’t as worried—it was easier to pass off someone as inconsequential, normal, during busier working hours.

Josh nodded. He got it—he was an SVPD detective, yes, but also a Trail Hiker Agent as needed, per case. Right now they were using all agencies and means available to eradicate the crime through which ROC had infiltrated Silver Valley.

Kyle happened to have drawn the case of the stolen freight shipments, which amounted to millions of dollars of lost high-end technology goods in the past six months. Televisions, luxury audio systems and scores of top-of-the-line computer systems had been stolen. It’d blossomed into more when he discovered that heroin shipments were part of the ROC clandestine network, too. “I’ve narrowed down the place where they exchange possible hits and heroin drops to the library. I just haven’t spotted them doing it yet.”

“You still think it’s with the library’s computer internal system?”

“I did. But now, I’m not so sure. I’ve sat surveillance on Markova and the library for almost three weeks with no new leads.” The lack of movement on the case had given him too much time to think about Portia.

He wondered if she’d needed stitches, if she was released from the ER yet.

Not your problem.

Josh shook his head. “This is the hardest part. Waiting out the losers to make a wrong move so that we can put all of us out of our misery.”

“Yeah.” Kyle didn’t know Josh that well but knew that he’d recently been involved in a big sting against ROC. “How long did you wait before you saved all those Ukrainian women?” He referred to the human trafficking ROC had conducted in Silver Valley last year. Josh had also been instrumental in helping the wife of a notorious ROC operative get out of a domestic violence situation. He’d told Kyle about it in one of their many liaisons like today’s.

“It felt like forever but it came together quickly, once things started falling in place. You know the drill—hurry up and wait. And then be ready to go full throttle.”

“Hmph.” Kyle tried to review the work he’d done the past weeks, most of it surveillance, but he couldn’t stop the image of Portia’s big brown eyes watching him earlier. If he weren’t committed to remaining single, putting his career first, always, she’d be...no. He couldn’t go there. If he did decide to date someone, as he’d been considering, it couldn’t be Portia. Portia was too dangerous, because he barely knew her and couldn’t shake her.

“You’re still thinking about Portia, aren’t you?” Josh’s grin rankled Kyle but not as much as his uncanny ability to read him. Few could.

“Why do you ask?”

“I think it’s the same expression I had on my face, oh, about six months ago. When I realized Annie was more than a childhood friend.”

“Doubtful. I don’t know anything about Portia DiNapoli except that she’s the town librarian, and also volunteers a lot of time at the Silver Valley homeless shelter. I can only hope she doesn’t recognize me the next time I’m there. She’s making my job more difficult.”

Josh slapped him on the back. “You are so full of crap. You had to have done a quick background check on Portia as part of this case,” Josh called him out without hesitation.

Kyle felt his face redden. “Of course I did. But what I mean is that I don’t know her personally, at all.”

Josh laughed. “You’ll figure it out. It’s nothing a pro like you can’t handle, Kyle.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to pass as a homeless person a few times a week.” Contrary to his words, though, he’d learned more from his undercover work at the shelter than what the case demanded. He’d realized that Portia was a very compassionate, dedicated woman. The kind of woman a man didn’t play with romantically.

You’re undercover at the shelter for the case, not Portia.

“When are you going back in?” Josh referred to the Silver Valley homeless shelter.

“Tonight. I’ll look nothing like this, of course.” He motioned to his jeans and flannel shirt. “The other night, I found out that there are three new dealers in town. I need their names. Then I can track down their supplier more quickly with triangulation.” And hopefully directly link it to ROC, but he wasn’t holding his breath. ROC was notorious for its ability to evade law enforcement. But ROC wasn’t used to the state-of-the-art technology and techniques employed by the Trail Hikers. ROC thought they were up against SVPD and the FBI, tough enough adversaries. “I’ve also got to get into the library to do a thorough search for evidence.”

“I’ve seen your getup. You’re right—you don’t look anything like the homeless person you use for your cover.” Josh paused. “You’ll need a search warrant for the library, though.”

“Unless we can convince the local librarian to let me in for a look-see.” Kyle drummed his fingers on the table, alongside his coffee mug.

“Kyle, you can tell me to mind my own business, but what did you do before TH?” He’d lowered his voice, as the secrecy of the agency meant that the majority of SVPD officers and employees had no idea of its existence. They all thought Kyle was a visiting detective from out of state.

“I was a Marine.” He wasn’t going to spell it out—Josh wasn’t stupid.

Josh’s eyes narrowed. “I knew it. The US Marine Corps—it explains how cool you are, no matter what.”

“And my lack of patience while conducting civilian stakeouts.”

“Forget about that. What do you think they’re passing in the library?”

“I don’t know but from all indications, ROC sends thugs from New York into the library to drop intel for a local operative. Then they split. The local person in charge comes in, gets the information, then passes the information to their local network. It’s what TH has put together after collecting information from all available agencies and sources.”

“You think there’s a tip-off going down soon, for certain?”

“I do. It makes sense, as it’s been ten days since the last rash of trailer thefts.” Two truckloads of computer equipment and one of wide-screen, high-technology televisions.

“I’m glad they’re not doing anything more than knocking out the truck drivers,” Josh said, expressing what worried Kyle. It was only a matter of time before ROC left behind their use of chloroform and used weapons that would leave more permanent wounds. Or worse. Escalation was part of ROC’s methods. The minute one trucker didn’t go down easily with a chloroform-soaked rag, they’d up the ante to let the other truckers in the region know they’d better give up their goods without a fight. His mind flashed back to the image of Portia facing down Markova, and the former FSB agent’s knife. He hadn’t ever felt that frightened for someone he didn’t know. Hell, when was he going to admit to himself that Portia had gotten under his skin?

“You and I both know that they’re used to making smaller PD’s roll over and get out of their way. They’re not afraid to hit at officers as needed. They don’t like the press attention, but when it comes down to it, they don’t really care. To them, money and power is what matters.”

“Not on my watch,” Josh said, expressing how Kyle felt.

“I have to admit, Josh, I never know what I’m going to find when I walk into a new PD. Silver Valley PD is solid,” Kyle said without thinking and realized he was speaking from his heart. He took a long, hot gulp of coffee. For over a decade, he’d either been a Marine or Trail Hiker, protected the highest officials of government, conducted clandestine ops and never thought much about his dang heart. But since this morning, and coming head-to-head with Portia, he’d—

“Officer Avery? Portia DiNapoli is here to give a statement and she wants to talk to you.” The receptionist stood at Josh’s desk. “Should I bring her back here or tell her to wait?”

Josh looked at Kyle. “You okay with her seeing you here?”

Kyle wanted to see Portia, know she was okay. It was an unreasonable level of concern for someone he wasn’t personally acquainted with. Best stop it before it began.

You’re already done for.

“Naw, I’ll take off before you talk to her.”

“Can you have her wait a few, and I’ll come get her?” Josh said to the receptionist.

“Sure thing.”

After she was out of earshot, Josh looked at Kyle. “I know you’re undercover for TH, but Portia doesn’t have to know that. She could think you’re a contractor or other LEA, working with SVPD on the ROC case, in general. It’s no secret that we’ve got ROC problems in Silver Valley.”

“I know. It’s the details that are classified, not the big picture.” Kyle’s gut clenched. It’d be too easy to let Portia know what he did, that he was someone she could trust, as he’d told her. “But unless she absolutely has to know—”

“I hear you. And I’d do the same.” Josh confirmed the conservative approach all undercover agents employed. It was always better to stick to the tightest parameters of operational security possible. Then you could loosen up as needed. But once the cat was out of the bag, i.e., a civilian such as Portia DiNapoli found out you were doing something classified or law enforcement related, you couldn’t put it back.

Kyle stood. “I’ll check in after my stint at the shelter tonight. Tomorrow morning work for you, unless something important happens?”

“Sure thing. By the way, Kyle? You’re doing it again.”

“What?”

Josh didn’t say anything for a moment while he grinned at him. Kyle braced himself for what he knew was coming, and it wasn’t unwarranted.

“One word, Kyle. One woman. P-o-r-t-i-a.”

Fuuuuuudge.

It took most of the morning for Portia to be cleared by the medical staff at Silver Valley Hospital, so she wasn’t sure if Josh would be in when she showed up to file a report at SVPD at lunchtime. Annie was engaged to Josh and Portia knew that they enjoyed lunches together during the workweek. She suspected the “lunches” were sexy liaisons, but never pressed her friend on it. Not too much, anyway.

Holding her driver’s license up to the security camera, she pushed the button outside the station entrance. She’d had tours of the police department with the library’s murder mystery book club and remembered the protocol for civilians.

“Come on in, Ms. DiNapoli.” The receptionist’s quick acknowledgment didn’t surprise her. Portia had been instructed to go straight to the station after she left the hospital, to file her report.

“Hi. Thanks for letting me in so quickly—it’s still pretty cold out there.” She began to unbutton her coat in the warm entryway. The receptionist nodded.

“You’re here to see Detective Avery?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know where his office is?” Portia noticed that the entryway had a lot of people coming and going.

“I do.”

“Great. Just pass your bag through the scanner and step through the metal detector.”

Portia turned to the security guard who led her through the procedure, clearing her to enter the main building.

Portia walked back to Josh’s desk once the receptionist cleared her. She didn’t have a lot of business at SVPD, except to ask Josh, a high school classmate, if he’d read to the elementary school students when she’d been working at Silver Valley Elementary. And even then, she called or emailed him, didn’t pay the police department a visit. The bustle and sense of many different officers and detectives in constant motion hit her. It matched what she’d read: Silver Valley was in the midst of a crime wave unlike any ever seen before.

A tall man at the end of one of the long corridors made her stomach flip in ridiculous anticipation. Walking away from her, toward the back exit, he could have been anyone. But her body sensed it was the man from the tracks. He was tall, with an angular build that only hinted at his sheer strength—the kind of power that enabled him to knock her out from an oncoming train. Short, military-style hair, a sandy blond. Her gaze travelled down his length. He carried a parka in one arm, the same color as the man who’d saved her wore. Without the extra goose down padding his frame seemed all the more impressive. His butt was all muscle in worn jeans, and his stride in his boots bespoke of stealth. It might not be him, but then he threw her a quick look over his shoulder. His eyes—silver like a wolf she’d seen once, visiting a wildlife preserve. He gave her a curt nod. As if he knew she’d been there all along. Her stomach leaped and she increased her pace, but he disappeared around the corner before she reached him. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk to her. She paused right before she got to Josh’s office. She’d been through a lot today, and she might be seeing things, seeing someone wherever she looked. What were the odds it was the same man who’d saved her from the tracks? The man who’d held her, made her feel safer than she had in a long, long time?

“Hey, Portia. Come on in.” Josh Avery’s smile was as genuine as his quick, warm hug. He kept a hand on her upper arm after he pulled back and peered into her eyes. “You okay? Really?”

Realization struck her yet again that the morning’s events hadn’t been a dream, or an almost-nightmare. She’d indeed missed being flattened by a locomotive, with no more than a second or two to spare.

“I’m good.” She raked a shaky hand through her curls, not caring what she looked like. “I have some bruises that are going to be pretty ugly, but the man that knocked me off the tracks also protected me from the brunt of the fall, and the hard ground.”

Josh motioned for her to sit in one of the seats in front of his desk and sank into his chair. “Did our receptionist get you any coffee or something else to drink?”

Portia waved her hand in dismissal. “No, I’m okay, really. I’m so wired from the adrenaline rush that I’m sure any more caffeine would launch me to the moon.”

“Okay.” Josh tapped on his keyboard and she watched as his eyes tracked the information on the screen.

“Thanks for making time to take my statement. I know the other police officers are just as able to, but I’d feel better talking to you.” And she wouldn’t have to explain her hunches—Josh had known her since they were kids and had never patronized her.

“Are you kidding? Annie would have my hide if I didn’t take care of this. Besides, it’s part of an ongoing investigation I’m working on.”

“Really? You mean figuring out who’s stealing our library laptops, or something bigger?”

“We’ll never figure out who took all of your laptops, Portia. I’m afraid we don’t have enough man-hours. But if you can find evidence on your security footage, you know to bring it in.”

And she did, but their tapes had been wiped. “Um, speaking of that.” Heat rode up her neck, over her face. “The recordings were erased. My staff and I tried to replay the last several weeks’ worth, only to discover there was nothing there.”

Josh’s brows slammed together. “What do you mean ‘nothing there’?”

“There’s a file on the drive that only I have access to, and I open it up for the staff to watch regularly. We fast-forward through it, pause when we see something suspicious. So far we haven’t had any luck figuring out who lifted three computers back in October, and the more recent thefts are even more confusing, as we locked our laptops up overnight. In the mornings, they were gone.”

“Yes, I read the reports.” Josh kept typing on his computer, taking notes. “Did you say you were able to retrieve the security footage back in the fall?”

Portia nodded. “Yes. But these last two weeks, even after double-checking the camera equipment, doing a trial run on the system, we still lost it all. There’s no footage of the library for almost three weeks.”

“And yet the video feed is still good? From the cameras to the monitor?”

She nodded. “Yes. Our security specialist monitors the feed all day long. And we have it set for Record, always. Something goes wrong during the archival loop.”

Josh frowned. “If anyone understands the information technology around this, you do, Portia. I’m damned sorry this is happening at the local library. Have you noticed anything else unusual?”

She shook her head. “No. Except this morning, when I saw the woman trying to break into the back employee entrance. I should have called SVPD instead of taking her on myself.” She inwardly cringed at her transgression. If she’d told Brindle to immediately call 9-1-1, the woman might be in custody.

And you’d never have met the dream man.

She squirmed in her seat. She’d met no one, knew no one.

“Can you give the sketch artist a good sense of the woman—you’re sure it was a woman—who took off for the tracks?”

“Only her eyes—they were blue. And her mouth had bright red lipstick.”

Josh paused in his note-taking. “I see why you think it’s a woman.”

“I can’t be positive, Josh, but I’ve seen that woman before. And the fact that she had one of our laptops means she’s been in the library at least once before.”

Josh paused, as if weighing something crucial. “Look, I don’t want to alarm you, but we’re working against some bad apples right now.”

“You mean ROC? Russian Organized Crime?”

Josh’s stern expression broke into a chuckle. “You’ve been reading the local paper.”

“Of course. As well as the police blotter reports on social media. But laptop theft hardly matches the kind of crime ROC participates in, doesn’t it? I mean, they’d steal a shipment of computers, I’d imagine. There isn’t enough money in a paltry laptop from a local library.”

“I’m not going to discuss details of any case other than yours, Portia. What I’m trying to explain is that there are some very unsavory types running about. It’s inevitable with the heroin trade and opioid epidemic. And that makes people unpredictable. Paranoid. If the woman you ran after has any suspicion that you might be able to identify her, that might put you at risk. I’m suggesting you be very careful. Don’t travel alone anywhere at night.”

“You mean the usual way a single woman lives, Josh?” She couldn’t help but tease him. “I’m not getting a buddy to walk around Silver Valley—that’s ridiculous. But I will be more aware of my surroundings, I promise.”

“And you’ll call in anything out of the ordinary, no more facing down a criminal on your own?”

“Guilty as charged. For the record, I told my staff to call 9-1-1 if they saw the situation go bad.”

“Which they did.” Josh’s eyes narrowed. “We weren’t able to get anything from the security footage, though. The woman knew what she was doing, with a hood and ski mask. I’m not doubting what you say you saw, Portia. But you were under duress, to say the least.” Josh paused. “I know you saw a woman, but I can’t tell you why I know. Not yet. It’s part of the process of taking your report to question what you remember.”

Portia nodded. “I get it.” She rubbed her upper arms as if to ward off a chill in the well-heated office. “After she shoved me, and I took off after her, yes, but I was calm when we spoke outside the library, at the back exit. I saw red when I saw her on the security camera, trying to open it with a tool of some sort. Now I realize she seemed familiar to me, but of course she had that mask on, so I guess I could be wrong. I’m frustrated that I couldn’t get the actual serial number of the laptop. We’re missing more than one and it would be helpful to know which one the woman had. Each laptop has different storage capacities and software applications. If we knew which it was, it might help to know why she was trying to sneak into the back with it.” The numbers were on the inside of the cases, along with library-specific bar codes. She leaned forward. “You know me, Josh. You’ve watched me grow up, for Pete’s sake. If you’re doubting my powers of observation, ask Annie.” She had him and didn’t feel the least bit bad about it. Portia had been the one to encourage Annie to reconnect with Josh on more than professional matters last summer.

“I’m not faulting your judgment, Portia. I’m questioning what you’ve just been through, how it may have altered your recollection.”

“It hasn’t, or else I’d still be in the ER, and you’d be questioning me there.”

“True.” Josh paused from typing in her account and leveled a look at her. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

Portia nodded. “Absolutely. The person, the man who...who saved my life, he bore the brunt of the fall.” The memory of being in his arms wrapped around her, and it wasn’t frightening. The woman who’d have happily left her to be hit by the train, that was scary. But the stranger...he was more.

“By the way, Josh, I was hoping you’d be able to help me out. The man who saved me—he wouldn’t give me his name. At the very least, I owe him an apology. Do you know who it was?” She was counting on SVPD’s stellar reputation that they’d questioned everyone at the scene, and the man had been the one to hand her over to the EMTs, who arrived after SVPD. But her memory of that was foggy—Josh was right, she’d had a shakeup.

“Aww, Portia, it sounds like a Good Samaritan.” Josh’s gaze slid from hers, and if the day hadn’t already been confrontational enough, she’d call her old school buddy on it. But not now.

It didn’t matter. If the man wanted her to know his name, he had plenty of opportunity to tell her. And she wasn’t as obtuse as Josh might believe—Annie had told her that there were always cases and law enforcement operations that Josh couldn’t talk about. Maybe the man was part of that.

Or maybe she just had a special place in her heart for a hot man, around her age, who had saved her life.

Chapter 3

Portia ignored the ER doctor’s suggestion to take it easy for the rest of the day and went back to the library for the rest of the afternoon, after she left SVPD. Sure, the almost-being-killed scene on the railroad tracks had shaken her up for a bit, but there was work to be done at the library, and she had to pull her shift at the homeless shelter tonight. With the record-breaking low temperatures, the fifty-bed facility had been overflowing for two weeks solid. As exhausted as she imagined she was going to feel by later this evening, she knew she had a warm bed to go back to, a roof over her head from any snow flurries. The homeless of Silver Valley and surrounding Harrisburg area had few choices. Silver Valley Homeless Mission was one of them.

The reminder of her empty bed stung in a way it hadn’t since she’d broken up with Rob. She had her own bed to sleep in, her own place, but it was always more fulfilling to share it with someone. Rob had been the only man she’d lived with for a short time. The other men she’d dated had, like her, enjoyed their own apartments when they weren’t spending time together. Sometimes she wondered if she was destined to be single her entire life. She’d never met a man who’d made her feel she wanted to be with him, live with him, make a lifelong commitment.

Which was another reason why the train track rescue dude intrigued her. How was it that a man she’d never met had left more of an impression on her than guys she’d dated for months at a time?

She grabbed a quick dinner at the local diner, next to the library, before heading to the shelter. It was no more than twenty-five feet to the restaurant and yet she found herself looking over her shoulder, paying extra attention to the patrons entering and leaving the establishment. And she hated the laptop thief for stealing her sense of safety.

Immediately her mind flung back to the stranger, how he’d appeared from nowhere and disappeared as easily.

“Hey, Portia. How are you, honey?” The diner’s lead waitress greeted her and grabbed a menu. Molly was a Silver Valley mainstay, the woman who served up hot soup or Belgian waffles when you needed them most. Molly sat her at a single booth, knowing how Portia enjoyed eating in the back corner of the diner, with a table to spread her books out on. “I heard you had a little excitement today.”

“I did, and it’s over.” Portia shrugged out of her parka and hung it on the hook adjacent the bench seat. “I called my parents right after, so that they wouldn’t find out on social media or the online paper.” Molly knew her parents, the entire DiNapoli family in fact.

Molly waited for her to sit. “That was smart. I’m surprised your parents aren’t here with you now.”

Portia smiled, still too worn out to laugh. “Trust me, I had to convince my mother that I’m totally fine. I promised her I was coming here to eat, then spending time at the shelter, where the other volunteers are like my second family.”

“It’s turned out okay, but honey, you were almost killed. Don’t treat it so lightly, give yourself a little time to process. I’m so glad you’re okay. That’s all that matters.”

“I appreciate that.” And she did, but she couldn’t keep dwelling on the frightening part of the situation or she’d never feel safe in Silver Valley again. “I see the chef made a batch of pepper pot pie.” She referred to a local central Pennsylvania dish, which was actually a beef or chicken soup with square noodles, not a pastry-crust pie with filling.

“He did, and it smells divine in the kitchen tonight.”

“I’ll take that, and my usual.”

Molly laughed, shaking her head. “I envy your ability to consume grilled cheese so regularly and not gain an inch.”

“I’m on my feet all day.” And today she’d earned all the comfort food she could manage to eat. She’d never forget how close she’d come to death, nor the enigmatic man who’d saved her life.

“Do you want hot tea, honey?”

“Yes, please.” Molly walked away and Portia counted her blessings. Her parents were still in the area and she saw them fairly regularly, but her two siblings had moved away to Boston and Austin, Texas, respectively. Her brother worked with the FBI and her sister was a medical researcher. Their family times were great when they happened, but they were infrequent. It was nice to come into a diner and be treated like she belonged. Just like it was great to look forward to going to the homeless shelter tonight. Since her high school friend Lani had OD’d, Portia had found herself craving more human connection than what work provided. She wondered if her need to be with others would only intensify after her near-death experience today.

Certainly her obsession over her rescuer indicated she might need more human contact.

As she ate her pepper pot pie and sandwich dripping with Gouda and cheddar, she studied her handheld tablet. In a medium-sized town like Silver Valley, charities often combined events to help individual nonprofits to raise exponentially more cash. Since she’d been the one to suggest marrying the homeless shelter’s fund-raising efforts to the library gala, Portia knew her professional reputation was at stake. If the gala raised the same amount as last year, that meant less money for the library, as they’d agreed to give the homeless shelter 25 percent of the funds raised. There was less than a month left, and so far they had sold the same number of tickets as last year. She needed to figure out how to sell more by the RSVP deadline, two weeks away. The gala was to be at the end of the month, and would include a Silver Valley ice sculpture festival and contest. She was grateful for five weeks in January this year.

The homeless shelter was a short ten-minute walk from the diner, but it was located at the end of town, where the buildings thinned and the northern wind was a force to lean into. She’d traded her shoes for snow boots and wore her warmest down parka, but nothing seemed enough to stay warm in the sub-zero windchill.

The shelter was a modest craftsman-style home that had been converted to a fifty-bed mission by an anonymous donor three years ago. The porch and entry, usually full with patrons waiting until the last minute to go in for the night, stood empty. It was totally because of the cold, no question.

Still, a shiver raced up her spine and Portia knew a moment of sheer terror as she stared into the dark shadows of the porch. And then made herself look at the windows, aglow with light and promising warmth.

But she couldn’t shake the frigid snare of fear that stabbed at her previous sense of safety, of surety about Silver Valley’s place in the world. Would she ever regain it?

Kyle hoped tonight’s surveillance at the homeless shelter would lead him to whomever might know when and by what means the next heroin shipment was coming in. On a cold night like this, addicts who normally avoided the shelters for fear of getting arrested for carrying illegal substances were sure to come in. He wanted to know who the newest dealers were, and where to find them.

Kyle checked in early to the shelter, well before the time he knew Portia normally showed up. Just in case she did. He’d expect her to go home and take the night off, after what she’d been through today.

Who was he kidding? Portia would no more likely bail on a volunteer shift than he’d quit an undercover op. Wasn’t one of the things that he found so attractive about her the dedication she appeared to have to her work, her community? He tried to mentally brace himself to focus on finding someone else to date, to be with. Yet his gut instinct seemed to laugh at him, as if what he felt toward Portia were predestined, beyond his control.

He tried to breathe through his mouth, to not inhale the scent of his unwashed clothes. Part of his successful capture of intelligence regarding ROC’s heroin and illegal-goods shipment operation was blending in, no matter the circumstance. As a homeless man, that meant stinking as if he’d been on the streets for several days.

He’d refuse to bathe here, unlike most of the men and women who gratefully accepted a hot shower. He couldn’t risk anyone seeing him without the dirty wig or baggy clothes. He promised the intake person that he’d shower before bed. The mission also offered gently used but clean pajamas, to change into and wear so that their dirty clothes could be washed. Kyle found it easiest to play the role of the reluctant shelter-seeker. No one bothered him, save for the social workers who always tried to convince him to let them help him.

He’d found an old, scraggly wig at a used clothing store and wet it thoroughly, doused it with dirt, rubbed it around the attic of the house he rented, until it was sufficiently matted. No one would recognize him as the man who’d knocked Silver Valley’s librarian off the local train tracks, in front of an oncoming train, just hours ago.

He scratched his head, hating the wig, and wished he hadn’t shaved and had his hair cut. He’d had to, in order to hang around the library and not draw unwarranted attention. He’d needed to blend in, which he did by wearing different types of clothing each day, his wardrobe flexible to accommodate the needs of a farmer, teacher, professional or what he really was. An undercover agent.

After pouring a cup of hot coffee from the urn set up in the dining room area, he settled into a worn sofa and prepared to listen and learn. Observe. It was his job to do so.

A gust of polar air rushed into the room as the front door opened with a bang. His nape tingled and he silently swore to himself. It wasn’t a premonition or anything portending danger. It was what he’d labeled his Portia Radar. He’d had to call it something, because as a good undercover agent, he couldn’t afford to ignore how he reacted to people.

Before her shiny brunette hair that curled around her face and hung to her shoulders appeared, before the overhead lights reflected off her doe-brown eyes, before her confident, super-feminine laughter bounced off the dining room walls, he knew Portia was here.

A sense of urgency to get the ROC op wrapped up, Ludmila Markova locked up, gripped him. It wasn’t so that he’d feel free to pursue Portia, because Kyle didn’t do anything long-term, and Portia DiNapoli wasn’t the one-night-stand type. Rather, she wasn’t his one-and-done type. She was the woman that came to mind on the rare occasion he imagined what his “forever” woman would look like, if he were the type to settle down.

Hell. He had to get out of Silver Valley as quickly as he could. Something about this place had wrapped around him, gotten under his skin.

And they’d never been properly introduced.

“Here you go, Mr. Turner.” Portia handed the neatly folded pile of bed linens and towels to the man, still bundled up in his worn puffer down coat that she’d bet was from circa 1995. But it still kept him warm, and that was all that mattered. Still, she was glad he was at the mission tonight.

“Thank you, Portia. You’re very kind.”

“Just doing my job.”

“They give you a raise yet?” He winked at her from behind his thick eyeglasses as he turned to head to his assigned bed. Mr. Turner, as well as most of the clients, she’d assume, knew who the volunteers were. The paid shelter workers included a social worker and counselor, as well as an accountant and grant writer, and were the ones who could get prescriptions filled as needed, medical care when warranted.

As much as Portia remained committed to her time here, she knew her vocation was in library science. Neither social work nor grant writing appealed to her. Her passion lay with seeing patrons find the book that they’d searched for, or a child figuring out that a novel was way better than the film version of their favorite story.

When she walked through the dining room, en route to the library, she couldn’t escape the feeling she was being watched. Plain silly, as of course there were several pairs of eyes on her. Several different groups of people gathered around the family-style tables, drinking coffee or tea or hot chocolate. Alcohol and illegal drugs were strictly prohibited at the shelter, but she wouldn’t be surprised if some of the hot drinks were spiked.

Portia ignored the urge to sit at one of the tables and find out more about the clients. Her shift was more than half over and she hadn’t even started on the library. Before she left the dining area, though, she decided to get a cup of tea. The hot water urn was too tempting to pass up on such a cold night. Even with the house heated, the modern heating units couldn’t keep up with the windchill. She pulled a bag of ginger tea from her pocket, ripped open the envelope and dunked the sachet into a thick paper cup. As she watched the boiling water turn golden, the creepy sense of being observed crawled up her back, her neck, and made her scalp tingle. This wasn’t her introverted self being aware of the night’s clients watching her. It was more.

Portia kept her back to the dining area, where at least twenty people sat around. The hum of their conversations hadn’t waned, so it wasn’t as if everyone had gone quiet and was staring at her, waiting for her to turn around and face them for an unknown reason. She heard the rush of liquid through the overhead piping, indicating that several overnight visitors were taking advantage of hot running water. Yet she couldn’t shake her awareness of being watched in an unfriendly way.

Keeping her movements as casual as possible, she squeezed the tea bag with the paper envelope and threw it out. Hot drink in both hands, she turned carefully toward the door. As she neared the library’s entrance, she risked a quick glance about the room. First she swept the dining room at large. No one paid her any attention. Same with the people chatting in various easy chairs and sofas around the perimeter of the room.

Except for one man, who was sitting in the club chair next to the library entrance. He wasn’t looking at her now; in fact, he’d looked away the second her gaze hit him. But not quickly enough. Not before she saw the flash of familiar gray eyes that gave away more than the fact they were watching her.

Her stomach flipped and her body froze. The man who’d rescued her was sitting Right. Here. Right. Now.

Impossible. This man in front of her had shaggy, dirty hair. He appeared filthy, from his worn clothing to the grime under his nails, lying casually atop the chair’s upholstered arms.

Yet he had the same cut to his chin, the cleft almost as mesmerizing as his unusual eyes. Portia tried to make her legs move, tried to think and get herself to where she needed to be. But the shelter library’s usual lure of a peaceful couple of volunteer hours was nothing compared to figuring out how the hell the man who’d rescued her this afternoon had managed to invade her every thought.

She shook her head and blinked. Forced her gaze elsewhere. Moved one foot in front of the other until she was in the safety of her beloved books. And away from the man who’d rattled her.

She set her tea down and noticed her hands were trembling. So not like her. Maybe she’d hit her head and didn’t remember it? But the EMTs, and then the ER staff, would have found a lump during their examination of her, wouldn’t they have? Unless she’d had no swelling but in fact had a concussion, or maybe even a hematoma. That was it—she had a hematoma and was about to have a brain bleed.

What else could explain the way her body had reacted to a complete stranger earlier today, a stranger who’d saved her freaking life? And how else to explain her reaction just now, to a homeless man who had nothing to do with what she’d been through? Self-recrimination slammed against her conscience. It was one thing to indulge in harmless fantasy at her own expense. But she’d just mistaken a homeless patron of the shelter, someone who came here out of extreme need, someone with a backstory that had to be pretty ugly to bring them to this point in circumstance, for a man she had an inexplicable draw to. A man she didn’t even know.

Portia began to sort and stack the piles of books that were laid out on the few tables scattered around the small room. Maybe keeping her focus on what she knew would bring her sanity back. Otherwise she was going to have to return to the ER. And what would she tell them? That an unexpected attraction to a complete stranger, at the most terrifying moment of her life, was messing with her normally organized, methodical thoughts?

Kyle thought once, twice, three times about giving up and walking into the shelter’s makeshift library and telling Portia DiNapoli who he was, what he was doing. Or at least offer a more broad-stroke explanation and tell her he was working with SVPD. ROC’s presence in Silver Valley wasn’t classified, and in fact only the details of his case were. But he stopped himself. Portia had been through enough. She was an innocent civilian in all of this, and any further contact with her invited trouble. He’d never forgive himself if her involvement with him in any way led to harm, or worse. This was an aspect of the case he’d not counted on: finding out that he cared for a woman he barely knew. And it wasn’t just a sexual attraction, though that was front and center. There was something potent between him and Portia, something he’d never experienced with anyone else.

She’d recognized him, he was certain. And worse, by the way she’d halted midstep and locked her attention on to him, he suspected she felt it, too. The most surprising and intense awareness that seemed to connect them in a way he sure couldn’t explain.

He grabbed another cup of coffee and headed to the middle of the dining room. He may as well use his time as he always did: listening for any indications of another heroin drop, or notice that another large commercial goods shipment was en route. As he pulled out a chair, he saw a dark shape flit across the frosted windows that lined the back wall of the room. Normally they overlooked a well-kept garden and yard, judging from the photos he’d found online. But in the current winter, it looked like a frozen tundra. The other night, he’d marveled at the way the moon reflected across the crystalline snowpack. But tonight the windows were foggy from the large amount of folks and need for increased heating in the shelter. The motion detector lights had lit up, allowing him to see the quick-moving shadow. His gut raised the alarm, clenching as it always had in Afghanistan, telling him that an attack or explosion was imminent. He’d never questioned his body’s third eye of sorts—it was something he’d had as a kid, growing up in a less than desirable neighborhood in San Jose until his father bought an almond farm, and had only grown sharper with his Marine and then Trail Hiker training.

His sensitivity to danger was on full alert. He’d bet his powers of observation that the shadow was Ludmila Markova’s, or another thug sent by ROC. The only room accessible from the backyard was the library, which was in fact the former screened-in porch. It’d been built up and insulated to become the library, but the door remained.

An entry point for someone with nefarious intent.

He didn’t hesitate. He excused himself before he ever sat down, and headed straight for one of the private restrooms. Once locked inside, he used his phone to alert Josh at SVPD and his boss at TH Headquarters. They’d know to call in backup for him, and to keep it on the down-low until he relayed further information.

He left the restroom and went into the shelter’s library, closing the door behind him. Portia jerked up from the pile of books she was bent over, her eyes widened from hearing the door click shut. She opened her mouth, and he saw her chest rise, and he concluded in a split second that she wasn’t about to offer a friendly greeting.

Portia was about to scream.

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