Her Forgotten Betrayal(8)

Curvy, leggy, drop-dead-gorgeous Shaw Cassidy.

His shared childhood with her had helped land him a spot on Dawson’s team and this assignment, which he would carry out as flawlessly as he had all the others he’d taken on in his career. He certainly wasn’t going to let what he and Shaw had once been to each other get in his way. He’d convinced everyone who mattered that he felt no lingering attachment to the Cassidy family. He’d come damn close to convincing himself. Which had been easier to do months ago, when he’d thought this would remain a long-distance, hands-off exercise. That had all changed the moment he’d been ordered to Atlanta.

Sure, he couldn’t stop staring at the mansion, but he was simply being thorough. No way was he angling for a reason to slip closer to a woman who was officially off-limits. She wasn’t supposed to know she was being watched or that a federal task force team had Cassidy Global under investigation. He might nap during the day so he could track Shaw’s slow progression through the Victorian each night. But only because it was his job to report if her routine or behavior patterns changed significantly, possibly indicating that she was remembering more than she was letting on. The task force and the U.S. Attorney needed to know who was selling top-secret government research developed at Cassidy Global, and Shaw’s shooting was the closest they’d come yet to a breakthrough in the case.

Meanwhile, she continued to behave exactly as she had since regaining consciousness in the hospital. She was terrified. She was sleep-deprived. She was running on adrenaline and determination—and away from the memory of whatever had damaged her mind.

Staring up the hill, Cole caught a hint of movement in the night. He squinted out the window, searching for the blip that had appeared at the edge of his vision. It had only been a blur, backlit by the Victorian’s homey glow. But for a second there’d been something out there.

Something that was now gone.

He flicked off the single lamp he’d left on in the cabin and reached for his infrared binoculars, blinking into the darkness, giving his vision time to adjust and refocus. Without looking at the gauge, he tweaked the scope’s range, then brought the device to his eyes. He scanned the dense forest between his house and the mansion, looking for whatever had caught his eye.

Nothing.

His laptop on the kitchen’s butcher-block table remained silent. The perimeter hadn’t been breached. Yet. But the razor-sharp instincts that had kept him alive during his years undercover knew differently.

He retrained his focus onto the Victorian. The nocs’ sensors corrected for the light streaming across the backyard from the mansion’s kitchen, adjusting instantly. Through the open door to the storage room, he caught a glimpse inside. Nothing moving. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Sensors blared from his receiver across the room.

Someone was out there, all right, the movement heading away from the mansion. Shaw? He was suddenly certain the blur he’d seen had been her fleeing into the night. He scanned the woods for long hair and a willowy athlete’s body. A graceful, strong woman any unsuspecting man would die to protect. A woman on the edge of losing her sanity for good.

Where had she gone? What the hell was she doing? He caught another rush of movement and tightened his scope. There!

Shaw stopped in a terrified rush on the path through the woods that led to his cabin, her frightened expression making Cole’s stomach clench. Then she stumbled and sprawled to the ground, her curling hair flying madly around her.

Her scream split the winter night.

…

Shaw couldn’t shut out the sound of footsteps heading toward her through the dark forest. The faceless man who’d shot her was coming closer. He was no specter. He was real, he’d found out where she was, and he was coming to finish the job of killing her. She couldn’t just lie here and wait for that to happen!

She scrambled to her hands and knees from the pile of dried leaves she’d landed in. She shoved her hair out of her face, but still couldn’t see. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Sick to death of the crippling fear that each nightmare brought, she could only careen deeper into the freezing night, away from the danger that no one else believed existed.

Or was she running closer to it? Or maybe she was finally, completely losing her mind.

Because it felt oddly as if she were racing toward something now. The same something a silent part of her had sensed had been out there all along. Or someone. A very obstinate someone she couldn’t remember. A dangerous someone who’d once made her want and need and believe—emotions she instinctively knew she’d fought her entire adult life to banish. Yet a part of her still wanted to trust in them, in him, as she once had.