For two decades, he’d beaten the system by being careful. Keeping a distance. Made sure that no one who knew much about him stayed alive. His techniques had been honed over time, based on mistakes he saw others making. Again and again, people fell into patterns. Even the criminals got careless. Got too close. Let it become personal.

Is this personal?

He considered that. If it was, he needed to walk away. Start to care, and it all went to shit. The world was a game board. You couldn’t win if you valued your pieces too much. They were just means to an end.

For years he’d followed Laney’s career. She was his tech stock— he’d bought her cheap, and her value just kept rising. Another couple of years, she might have been doing features, raking in the big money, and he could have come after her for a lot more. Which made the mess he was dealing with salt in his payday wound. Plus, sure, it was annoying that they’d outplayed him at the mall.

But did he care? Not the way other people meant the word.

So it wasn’t personal. But it was still a risky situation. And there were always other opportunities.

But then, the clock was a factor. Homeland Security, the FBI. All those smart boys with expensive toys looking for him after that FUBAR in Chicago. It was time to move operations. Somewhere warm, with a nice corrupt government. Mexico, maybe. A lot of money flowing through those cartels. It would be easy for a careful, well-funded man to siphon off a fortune.

Unfortunately, you’re only one of those things right now.

Bennett pulled on gloves and strolled up the driveway of Sophie’s house. It took less than a minute to pop the locks on her front door.

The house was cool, air-conditioning running steady. He sauntered down the hall, glancing at the photos. Sophie in fragments, slivers of a life framed and hung like butterflies on a board.

Her bed was made, that neat way only women seemed able to manage, the duvet smooth, pillows spilling from the headboard. But her closet door was open, the light on. Bennett looked from one to the other, shook his head. Damn.

He went into the master bathroom to confirm it. The towels hung from the rack, and he remembered Sophie’s expression as he had held one out to her, the way she had known what he was doing. She’d stared, naked and dripping—she had a killer body for someone her age—and then taken what he gave her.

Bennett opened the medicine cabinet. Lotions and potions and creams and powders. Four kinds of hair chemicals, but organic deodorant. Bikini Zone and tweezers and a couple of prescription bottles, Lunesta and Prilosec and Allegra. Vitamin supplements. Expensive hand cream. Advil.

No toothbrush. No toothpaste. She’d run.

He left the bathroom, walked into the kitchen. Coffee mugs in the sink. The pot was still on. How much had he missed her by?

There was a phone on the wall, and he picked it up, dialed *69. A pause, and then a recorded voice. “We’re sorry, but directory information is unavailable for that number.” A payphone or a disposable cell. The happy couple had thought to warn her.

She hadn’t just run; she was hiding.

Her office was off the back, a small space splashed with sunlight. There was a slim retro desk of pale blond wood, a filing cabinet, a shelf full of books. Not law volumes, he noticed, actual books, novels. He skimmed the titles; her tastes ran to National Book Award winners.

Like everything else in the house, the desk was clean and neat. An inbox held bills and a couple of issues of Variety. There was a rice-paper lamp, a jar of pens, a stapler. A fax machine, but no computer; she would have taken that. He opened the file cabinet, thumbed through the neat tabs until he found her bank statements.

Huh. Should have been an entertainment lawyer.

Bennett placed the latest in the fax machine, pressed copy. He added recent bills from the three credit card accounts he found. Her auto insurance policy and cell phone bill. Last year’s tax return. By the time he was done, the stack was a quarter-inch thick. It would take the machine a few minutes.

He walked back to the kitchen, opened the fridge. Half a sixpack of Red Hook sat on the top shelf, and he pulled one of them, found an opener in the drawer by the sink, popped the top. Took a long, cold swallow.

Would they go to the police?

When he’d first approached Laney, he’d played it carefully, presenting her with a cocktail of lousy fates. Humiliation, yes, but also damage to her career, legal consequences, and the real motivator, the way she could expect her husband to look at her. The timing had been key, of course. He smiled to remember her expression when he’d sauntered into the spa. There was the fabulous Laney Thayer, celebrated legs spread wide so a woman could dab hot wax on her pussy. The—what did you call a waxer? Vaginal Design Specialist?—had started to yell, and he’d shushed her, said, “We’re old friends.”

The look on Laney’s face had been priceless, but she’d known enough to calm the woman, ask for a moment alone. Then tried to keep her dignity as wax cooled on her naked pubes.

After that, it had been a simple matter. Part of the art of breaking someone was offering what looked like a way out. Laney could afford to pay; she couldn’t afford to risk the police.

Would the scene at the Farmers Market change that? He didn’t think so, but both Daniel and Laney had been more erratic than he liked. Probably should clarify things for them.

The fax machine beeped, and he walked back to the office, rapped the stack of papers to even them, then replaced the originals in the file cabinet. He went down the hall and out the front door, papers in one hand, bottle in the other. The day was shaping up hot, and the cold beer tasted wonderful.

Back in his truck, he took out his cell phone and dialed.

5

The water scalded her calves and thighs, brought a gasp at her belly and breasts. But by the time Laney Thayer was submerged in the bathwater to her neck, the heat had already started to enter her, and she could feel her muscles relaxing, that leaning back ahhh moment. She’d poured complimentary bath salts under the running tap, and the water smelled of citrus and sage. The marble caught the heat of the water, bounced it back, and quickly she couldn’t feel where her skin ended and the bath began.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. You’re no longer Belinda Nichols. You’re Laney Thayer. And wow is it good to be home.

It wasn’t that simple, she knew. But it felt wonderful anyway. Ever since the moment Bennett walked back into her life, it had been one misery piled on another. The fear, the shame, the fights, Daniel’s terrible reaction, the panic of flight, her faked death and assumed lives, her half-baked plan to hunt Bennett down and kill him. Each had been worse than the last, and it was nice to call a time-out.