Marta Perry - Twin Targets

Guilt gnawed at him. He’d been relieved that Jade’s tearful breakdown at the news of her sister’s death enabled him to get her safely away without any further delays.

She shook her head, sobs twisting her body. He clamped his teeth together, hands tight on the wheel. The sensible thing to do was to keep driving, get her home as swiftly as possible.

But he couldn’t bear to watch her grieve without trying to comfort her. Maybe that wasn’t the professional response, but it certainly was the human one.

“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered. Neither of them really believed that, but she needed to hear it right now.

A complicated mix of tenderness and protectiveness flowed through him. He shouldn’t be doing this…shouldn’t be caring about her.

But he didn’t regret it for an instant.

Protecting the Witnesses:

New identities, looming danger and forever love in the Witness Protection Program.

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has written everything from Sunday School curricula to travel articles to magazine stories in more than twenty years of writing, but she feels she’s found her writing home in the stories she writes for the Love Inspired lines.

Marta lives in rural Pennsylvania, but she and her husband spend part of each year at their second home in South Carolina. When she’s not writing, she’s probably visiting her children and her six beautiful grandchildren, traveling, gardening or relaxing with a good book.

Marta loves hearing from readers, and she’ll write back with a signed bookmark and/or her brochure of Pennsylvania Dutch recipes. Write to her c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, e-mail her at marta@martaperry.com, or visit her on the Web at www.martaperry.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Marta Perry for her contribution to the Protecting the Witnesses miniseries.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou are with me, Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.

—Psalms 23:4

This story is dedicated to my Love Inspired Suspense sisters who worked with me on this project. And, as always, to Brian, with much love.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

MEMO: TOP SECRET

To: FBI Organized Crime Division; U.S. Marshal’s Office

From: Jackson McGraw, Special Agent, Chicago Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Date: January 3, 2010

Re: Martino Chicago crime family

An informant has come forward since the recent announcement that Salvatore Martino, notorious former head of the Martino crime family, is near death. The woman refuses to give her name or connection to the Martino family, but to this point her information has been extremely accurate.

The informant has thus far consented to speak only to Special Agent McGraw and is carefully concealing her identity. She is apparently between fifty and sixty, about five feet five inches tall, approximately 150 lbs. Her speech is educated and unaccented. Her motives and identity are unknown.

In her most recent conversation, she passed on a vague rumor that Vincent Martino, currently the acting head of the Martino family and his father’s heir apparent, is planning an unknown, but probably bloody, tribute to his dying father. Please contact Agent McGraw with any information as to the woman’s identity or the possible intent of this supposed tribute.

The woman’s body lay on the cold, dirty concrete floor of the garage, a few feet from her car. She’d probably been trying to run to it when the murderer caught up with her. Her hands reached toward it, the right one smeared with dirt, in a silent, futile plea for help.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Micah McGraw forced down the sick feeling in his gut. A law enforcement professional couldn’t get emotional about crime victims. He could imagine his police chief father saying the words. Or his big brother, the FBI agent. They wouldn’t let anything as soft as emotion interfere with doing the job.

“Pity.” The local police chief grunted the word, but it sounded perfunctory.

Natural enough. The chief hadn’t known Ruby Maxwell, aka Ruby Summers. He hadn’t been the agent charged with relocating her to this small, supposedly safe environment in a small village in western Montana. He didn’t have to feel responsible for her death.

Bless her, Lord. Speed her soul’s journey straight to Your hands.

The brief prayer helped to center him. Shoving aside all distracting thoughts, Micah leaned over the body, studying the wounds. One shot to the chest, a second to the head. Her killer wanted to be sure Ruby was dead.

“Her apartment was tossed, too. Might have been a robbery, but nothing’s missing that we can tell.”

“I’ll have a look before I leave.” He’d been in Ruby’s apartment a couple of times when he’d come to check on her.

“This looks more like a professional hit than a robbery gone bad.” Chief Burrows made it sound like a question.

“Yeah.”

He knew only too well what was in the man’s mind. What would a professional hit man be doing in the remote reaches of western Montana on a cold January night? Why would anyone want to kill this seemingly inoffensive woman who’d been waiting tables at the Village Café for the past year?

And most of all, what did the U.S. Marshals Service have to do with it?

All good questions. Unfortunately he couldn’t answer any of them. Secrecy was the crucial element that made the Federal Witness Protection Program so successful. Breach that, and everything that had been gained in the battle against organized crime would be lost.

He straightened, brushing his hands together even though he hadn’t touched anything. “My office will have a team here in a couple of hours. Until then—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Chief Burrows let annoyance show. “Cordon the scene, don’t touch anything, don’t say anything to anyone.”

“That’s about it. Sorry,” he added.

He was sorry, though Burrows probably didn’t believe it. Brownsville was the chief’s town, and he was responsible for keeping the people in it safe. Burrows probably hadn’t had a murder in this sleepy place in years, and now that there was one, the feds were brushing him aside.

Micah’s father, a police chief in a Chicago suburb before his death, would have felt the same way about a crime on his turf.

His cell buzzed, and he turned away from the disgruntled chief to answer it. “McGraw.”