Page 70 of Stalked

Rosalyn knew if that happened, they might never find him again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“I’ll keep hunting him, Rosalyn. We know he’s here in the Colorado Springs area because of the note at my house. But I don’t think you should leave.”

“I don’t want to leave you, Steve. We just found each other again. But I have to. We can’t be together.”

Even knowing the words were fake—an act of theater put on for the Watcher’s benefit—Steve didn’t like them.

They were about a mile away from the Omega offices. Nothing blocked the transmitter now. The Watcher should be able to hear everything they were saying.

Rosalyn sat inside a café. In the very back corner in a booth. She was huddled down near the table as if she was cold, but really she’d been told to keep her head down in case the Watcher decided to change his MO and take a shot at her.

There were three exits in this café—a front door, a window in the bathroom and the back delivery door. Every person in the building, from the waitstaff to the cooks to the customers, were Omega Sector employees. Not all were active agents, but all were trusted.

Steve wasn’t sure exactly how they’d gotten the café completely emptied in the three hours since they’d finished their planning in the conference room. Steve had asked Joe for a favor, something he’d never asked Joe in the six years he’d known him. He’d asked Joe to use his money and connections to find them a building to pull this off in a ridiculously short amount of time.

Joe hadn’t even blinked an eye. He’d called Deacon Crandall, Joe’s sort of jack-of-all-trades, and next thing Steve knew, they had a café that could be used for the next week for anything Omega needed. Maybe Joe had used some of his millions of dollars and bought or rented the place; maybe he had just smiled prettily for the owner; who knew? Joe had a way with people. And Deacon was just a man who got stuff done.

Steve wanted to control as many circumstances as he possibly could. He already had a bad feeling in his gut about this situation. But maybe he would have that in any situation that might jeopardize a pregnant civilian.

The building was surrounded by four snipers. Ashton Fitzgerald, by far the best long-range shooter Steve had ever known, had the restaurant in his sights. He wouldn’t let anything happen to Rosalyn there.

Steve couldn’t be in the café with her. This had to be a telephone call between them for it to work. They didn’t plan on it being long enough for the Watcher to get a bead on her location right now. Just enough to get him here tomorrow, when they’d be ready for him. Steve was watching the entire scene from multiple camera angles at the home base inside Omega. But still he itched to be there with Rosalyn. Didn’t like having her so far out of his reach.

But he trusted his team.

“You don’t need to leave.” Steve continued their scripted conversation. “I’ll track him down. Just give me more time.”

“I can’t risk you, Steve. He almost killed you on the motorcycle. If you hadn’t turned in time—”

The emotion in Rosalyn’s voice was real. And he could see it on her face in the monitor.

“But I did. And I’m okay.”

“But how long before the Watcher tries again? I can’t take the chance. I have to go.”

“No, Rosalyn, just tell me where you are. Where you’ve been for the past two days.”

This was part of the plan. To assure the Watcher they didn’t know about the transmitter in her tooth. To make sure Omega wasn’t part of his thought process.

“Just at a hotel.”

“You’re not safe at a hotel. He might find you.”

“I’m not safe at your house either, Steve. He found me there.”

Steve pulled from his own frustration at not being there next to Rosalyn and put it in his tone. “I can protect you. The Colorado Springs Police Department can protect you.”

Steve and Rosalyn realized that they had never talked about Omega outside the Omega building itself. Therefore, the Watcher would not know Steve worked for the multifaceted law enforcement agency. They would convince him Steve was just a member of Colorado Springs PD.

A lone member with no real backup.

“Did you tell your bosses there about the Watcher?”

Steve waited a beat. “Yes.”

He could see Rosalyn stir her coffee on the screen. “They didn’t believe you, did they?”

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