Page 64 of Be Courageous

Shifting her head on the pillow, McKenzie checked her bedside clock. It was 2:00 A.M., and no one had attempted to kill her yet.

A good sign. Maybe the man with the camera hadn’t been singling her out, like the guy with the cell phone in Omaha or the man in the alley in Portland. Except instinct warned her she was still in danger.

Restless, she rolled out of bed and padded to her kitchen.

As always, she took in the tiny bungalow she called home with contentment. She’d painted a mural on one wall of each room—nothing personal enough to betray her identity. If forced to move again, the landlord would paint over all of them, since the bungalow wasn’t really hers. Having graduated from the Savannah School for the Arts, painting murals inspired by her late mother’s garden was her dream job.One day, I’ll paint them for a living. No more cleaning hotel rooms or inspecting cans on the assembly line or soothing panicked animals.

She heated a mug of water in the microwave. Steeping a bag of chamomile tea in the hot water, she carried the mug into her living room to brood.

In the dark room that surrounded her, not a single object was a memento from her past, except, perhaps, the mural of her mother’s favorite camellia bush. The shawl she wrapped around her slim shoulders only resembled the one her mother used to use before they’d gone into witness protection together. Genevieve had died in her sleep later that summer. Since then, McKenzie had been on her own, without a single relic or photo of her mother, her past, or even…

Memories of Miles drenched her mind like snow melting on the first sunny day in spring. The recollection of his toe-curling kisses made her stomach swivel pleasantly.

She would never forget the day she had stumbled on her mother’s journals and realized their incriminating information could free her from her father’s dominion. Giddy with relief, she had kissed Miles, thinking he was just their gardener—handsome, clever, and only eighteen years old. Half in love with him already, she’d had no idea he was a twenty-six-year-old undercover agent working in the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division.

Falling in love with Miles had changed her life, but not in the way she’d hoped. Yes, her father and many of his associates had gone to jail. But Miles’s and her relationship had been nipped in the bud. Communication between them was forbidden. As always, to comfort herself, she replayed their last shared words when he’d stuck his head into the back seat of the U.S. Marshal’s vehicle.

“Once I’m sure it’s safe, I will find you again. I promise, McKenzie.”

She had thought that day would have come by now. Only, it wasn’t here yet.

Did she still love Miles, whose youthful features she could scarcely recall? Her heart said yes. But to expect that he would wait all this time was just naïve. After three long years, he had surely moved on with his life, found someone else to love.

The thought deepened the chasm in her heart.

Resolved to try and sleep again, McKenzie plodded back to the kitchen with her half-empty cup. She had just placed it in the sink when a flicker of movement made her spin toward the moonlit window, where the silhouette of a man leapt onto her lowered shade.

McKenzie startled back, and the man disappeared.

Had she just imagined him?

A scratching at her back door nixed that optimistic hope. Someone was attempting to break in! In the next instant, her home security system started to wail.

Recalling Higgins’s advice, McKenzie scuttled to her bedroom. She snatched up her purse and her cell phone, then headed straight for her closet, where she felt inside for the tiny button that triggered the door to her safe room. With a hiss and a glow of ultraviolet light, the door slid open.

She dived into the four-by-six-foot space, hit another button, and sealed herself inside.

The supplies at her feet, the retractable latrine, and the mat all meant she could survive here for up to a week if she had to, but it wouldn’t come to that. The alarm would bring the U.S. Marshals to her rescue in half an hour, at most.

Higgins had told her to call him if her alarm went off.Let him worry a bit.Her pounding heart rocked her. He should have taken immediate action to protect her.

Through the ventilation shafts that tunneled under the house, she heard her alarm go abruptly silent. They had to have gotten inside to turn it off. Putting her ear to the steel wall, McKenzie strained to hear anything over her shallow breaths. Muffled voices reached her, sounding like they were being spoken under water.

“She’s not here.” The deep voice summoned an image of a large man.

“You sure this is the right place?”

The first man said something about following her home.

So, shewasfollowed. She gulped against a dry mouth.

“Look under the bed. She has to be here.”

They’ll never find me.

“Call that number you got from her friend. Let’s see if her cell phone rings.”

What?Jamila would never have given her number to a stranger—oh yes, she would, if the man resembled Prince Charming. Hands trembling, McKenzie set her phone to Do Not Disturb.

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