Janie Crouch - In The Lawman's Protection

He had no doubts she changed clothes once she was inside the bar for whatever it was she was doing. Meeting other clients or contacts? Or maybe just having a good time. She tended to stay until well after midnight on the nights she was there.

Evidently the dead Mrs. Freihof didn’t require much sleep. Or partying, wining and dining were more important to her than rest. Either way, every time she left the bar, she was again changed into her nondescript clothes, her head was down and she was back on the bus.

The multi-million-dollar beach-front house was more along the lines of what Ren expected of Damien Freihof’s wife. The deed wasn’t in her name, of course, and the owners were also being investigated, although on the surface even Ren had to admit they looked clean.

The entire thing was smart. Savvy. Natalie had the weary bus commuter look down to a science. If Ren hadn’t known it was all fake—that she lived in the lap of luxury while assisting a monster who had made it his mission in life to kill innocent people—he might have felt sorry for her. Something about the tall, willowy blonde brought out his protective instincts.

But Ren viciously tamped that down. What brought out his protective instincts more? The need to stop a killer before he struck again.

They didn’t have a warrant to get inside the house, but that hadn’t stopped Ren from going in while others were following Natalie to work. He’d been disappointed in what he’d found in the house.

Nothing.

But what had he been expecting? Natalie had successfully convinced the world she was dead for six years. Omega Sector had only discovered she was alive by sheer accident. Their photo-recognition software—part of it programmed to run 24/7 searching for any known associates of Damien Freihof—had tagged her in the background of a newspaper photo. She’d happened to be walking out of a building when a photographer snapped a picture of a group of teenagers receiving a science award.

Ren hardly expected to find anything now that was going to provide irrefutable evidence that she was working with Freihof or providing him assistance. The only thing he’d seen that provided any evidence she’d been there at all had been the small indentation on the very edge of the king-size bed.

Natalie definitely wasn’t rolling toward the middle of the bed, reaching for her husband. Of course, Damien would have to be called her ex-husband since he remarried after Natalie’s “death.”

That poor woman had died in a car accident just a year later. Dead wife number two. When Omega had found out that Natalie was in fact alive, they had exhumed two grave sites. One coffin had contained a body. Natalie’s had not.

Legally, Natalie was no longer officially married to Freihof, due to his second marriage. Omega lawyers had already checked into that to make sure laws about testifying against one’s spouse wouldn’t come into play.

But married to him or not, if Natalie Freihof was helping Damien—which Ren had very little doubt she was—he would take her down.

Five days he’d been watching her, hoping she would slip up or get complacent and lead them to Freihof. The phones at the house were tapped, but she never used them. And if she had a cell phone, it was a burner that she didn’t use at the house. No cell signals ever came from there.

So they were basically at a dead end. A place Ren didn’t like to be and didn’t find himself at very often.

It was time to shake things up. If they didn’t put pressure on ex–Mrs. Freihof, she was never going to do anything reckless. It was time to force her hand.

Ren grabbed his phone and dialed a number. It wasn’t even dawn here yet, and Colorado was only an hour ahead, but Steve Drackett still answered and sounded like he’d been awake for hours. Given that the man had a new baby it was entirely possible.

“Ren. Any change?” The head of the Omega Sector Critical Response Division skipped all formal greetings.

“Nothing. And no sign that she’s going to do anything anytime soon. We need to prod her into action. Watching just isn’t cutting it.”

“I’ve had Brandon Han and Andrea Gordon-Han working on this. They’re both pretty adamant that Natalie may be a victim, not an accomplice.”

Ren glanced at the house again. Quiet. Almost deathly still. “Maybe.” He doubted it. “But either way she’s our best shot.”

“There’s something else you should know. Six of the canisters in law enforcement offices around Atlanta have gone missing.”

Ren’s muttered curse under his breath was foul. Saul Poniard, the traitor inside Omega Sector who had been working with Freihof, had planted biological weapons in law enforcement offices throughout the country. He’d come within seconds of releasing them all and killing tens of thousands of law enforcement personnel two weeks ago.

“I thought we’d gotten all the canisters back into safe hands?”

“Finding them all has been more tricky than we anticipated. These were scheduled for pickup. And they were picked up and signed for, just not by the agents who were supposed to get them.”

Ren cursed again. Six canisters of the biological contaminants was enough to take out half a city.

“The icing on the cake?” Steve continued. “Signed for by a D. Freihof. Bastard didn’t even try to hide it, Ren. And we got an affirmative ID on him from a traffic cam in South Carolina. I’ve got some of my best agents there now.”

Freihof with biological weapons was damn near the scariest thing Ren could imagine.

“We move tomorrow, Steve. We can’t wait any longer. I know it’s a complicated operation, but it’s our best bet.”

“Roger that. You still want Brandon and Andrea to talk to her? Keep you out of the picture? If so, I’ll send them out in a couple of hours. They can be at Natalie’s doorstep by this afternoon.”

“Yes.” Ren could feel all the details of the plan floating around in his mind. “I’ll watch from the surveillance truck. And I’ll have everything ready. If this plays out the way I think it will, Natalie Freihof will be running into my arms soon enough.”

Chapter Two

Natalie was getting home from work at two o’clock in the afternoon rather than two o’clock in the morning. Only seven hours of work rather than fourteen. She smiled wryly as she put the key into the lock of the beach house door. Practically a vacation.

And damn it, she was going to enjoy the beach. This house. Not let it make her feel panicked and trapped like last night. The sun was shining outside and she was going to revel in it. She’d fight the darkness tonight when it arrived.

She dropped the smaller backpack, the one she took with her everywhere, on the ground inside the bedroom door and opened the larger one resting next to it. She hadn’t unpacked any of her clothes here at the beach house, but then again, she didn’t have anything unpacked even when she stayed in her apartment. She’d trained herself to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

And if she was tempted even for a second to let her guard down, to unpack and get comfortable, all she had to do was stretch her arms out over her head and feel the ache in her shoulder from where Damien had dislocated it not once but twice during their marriage.

Or go up on her tippy toes and feel that one ankle couldn’t support her because of how it had broken when she’d fallen down the stairs, courtesy of her husband’s shove.

Burn marks on the inside of her arm. Scars from restraints on her wrists and ankles.

And the fact that she still couldn’t stand the snow.

Snow would haunt her until the day she died.

She ripped off her cleaning uniform of khaki pants and solid navy polo shirt, threw them over the back of the couch and put on a tank top and shorts. Damn it, Damien wasn’t here. Couldn’t hurt her. There was no snow. There was only California sunshine and a view of the beautiful Pacific Ocean. He would not steal this from her like he’d stolen so much. She would sit out on the deck and do nothing.