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to tell her to forget about tomorrow night, to say there was another way. But there wasn’t. He’d already gone over all his options. Without Jane he had no backup—and the very fact that she’d dropped off the grid was a very bad sign. It suggested that al-Jihad’s conspirators had shut her down, maybe even killed her, as he’d said to Chelsea.
    What he hadn’t said was that if Jane was gone, he was locked in a deadly race. He needed to find the traitors and figure out who he could trust to take them down, before they found and dealt with him. And now he was adding another layer of complication: he had to keep Chelsea safe.
    He’d kissed her. There was no way he could consider her collateral damage now. He was a cold bastard, yes, but he wasn’t completely bloodless.
    Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact that he needed her help.
    Making the only decision he could under the circumstances, he nodded and headed for the kitchen door, and the shadows beyond. He trusted his training and instincts to get him out even if the second cop had gone around to the back of the house. With the state forest so close to the back door, it would be easy—too easy if you asked him—for him to slip away, unseen.
    He turned in the kitchen doorway. Chelsea’s eyes met his, and when they did he felt a punch of heat that was sharper, edgier than it’d been when they kissed. This heat was less about lust and more about territoriality and protectiveness, which were two things he absolutely couldn’t afford on this mission.
    “See you tomorrow,” he said softly. And left.
    But no matter how fast he slipped through the shadows and away, no matter how fast he drove the car he’d boosted and filled with stolen provisions, he couldn’t escape the knowledge that he’d just made this operation far more complicated than it had been, far more complicated than it ought to be.
    He only hoped he could pull it off, because if he couldn’t, if al-Jihad succeeded in gathering his forces and launching another terror attack, Fax knew the deaths would be on him.
     
    B Y THE TIME Chelsea arrived at work after a mostly sleepless night, with her police detail shadowing her until she was safely inside, she had pretty much convinced herself she’d gone a little crazy the night before.
    She’d allowed Fax to enter her house and escape again, even though he was a wanted felon. She’d agreed to help him in an investigation that might or might not be legitimate. She’d kissed him and would’ve offered more than a kiss. But the surveillance team had interrupted to check that she was okay, having thought they’d seen a man’s shadow in one of the windows.
    She’d definitely lost it.
    After dumping her coat and bag in her small cubbyhole of an office and pulling fresh scrubs on over her street clothes for the day ahead, Chelsea went in search of her boss. If anyone would have a levelheaded perspective on the situation, it’d be Sara.
    Sara was in her larger, windowed office, frowning over a mountain of paperwork. But when Chelsea knocked on the door frame, she looked up and smiled, her expression tinged with concern. “You’re here!”
    Chelsea frowned. “Shouldn’t I be?”
    “Of course, I just—” Sara broke off, shaking her head. “Never mind. You’re right. I wouldn’t want to be sitting home alone after what you went through. Better for you to be here, working. Keeping your mind off things.”
    “Exactly,” Chelsea said. But the strange thing was, she realized, she didn’t totally want to keep her mind off what had happened. She wanted to really think about everything that’d happened, dissecting the memories not just for the flush of heat brought by thoughts of Fax, but also so that she could think about what the other men had said and done during her abduction, and what it might mean.
    Fax had said al-Jihad had people inside federal law enforcement. What if she could actually do something to help identify the traitors, and