CHAPTER 1
THERE ARE FOUR ACKNOWLEDGED WAYS of meeting your maker: You can die by
natural causes including illness; you can die by accident; you can die by another’s hand; and
you can die by your own hand.
However, if you live in Washington, D.C., there is a fifth way of kicking the bucket: the
political death. It can spring from many sources: frolicking in a public fountain with an exotic
dancer who is not your wife; stuffing bags of money in your pants when the payer
unfortunately happens to be the FBI; or covering up a bungled burglary when you call 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue home.
Michelle Maxwell was currently stalking the pavement in the nation’s capital, but because she
wasn’t a politician, that fifth choice of mortal exit was not available to her. In fact, the lady
was focused only on getting so wasted she’d wake up the next morning with a chunk of her
memory gone. There was much she wanted to forget; much that she had to forget.
Michelle crossed the street, pushed open the bullet-pocked door of the bar and stepped inside.
The smoke hit her first, some of it actually from cigarettes. The other aromas were rising off
substances that kept the DEA jacked up and in business.
Brain-piercing music crushed all other sounds and would provide an army of hearing
specialists with lucrative business in a few years. While glasses and bottles clinked, a trio of
ladies ground it out on the dance floor. Meanwhile, a pair of waitresses juggled trays and bad
attitudes, all the while prepared to slug anyone attempting to grab their ass.
The bar’s collective attention turned to Michelle, the only WASP in the house this or
probably any other night. She looked back at them with enough defiance that they returned
to their drinks and talk. That status could change because Michelle Maxwell was tall and
very attractive. What they didn’t realize was that she could be nearly as dangerous as a
bomb-wrapped terrorist and was looking for any reason to put her foot through someone’s
front teeth.
Michelle found a corner table in the back and wedged in, nursing her first drink of the night.
An hour and more drinks later, the woman’s rage began to swell. Her pupils seemed to grow
dry and harden, while the rest of the eyeball eased to a blood red. She lifted a finger at the
passing waitress who satisfied her thirst one last time. Now all Michelle wanted was a target
for the fury that had laid claim to every square inch of her.
She swallowed the last drop of alcohol, stood and whipped her long dark hair out of her face.
Michelle’s gaze zoned the room grid-by-grid looking for the lucky one. It was a technique
4
the Secret Service had pounded into her head until that instinct of observation became the
only way she could look at anything or anyone ever again.
It didn’t take long for Michelle to find the man of her crystallizing nightmare. He was easily a
head taller than anyone else in the place. And that head was chocolate brown, bald and
beautifully smooth with a column of gold rings stacked in each thick earlobe. His shoulders
spanned about a mile. He wore baggie camouflage pants, black military boots and an Army
green shirt that showed bare arms full of knotted muscles. He stood there sipping his beer,
swaying that big head to the beat of the music, mouthing trash lyrics it was impossible even to
hear. Definitely her kind of guy.
Michelle shoved aside a man who stepped in front of her, walked up to this living
mountain and tapped him on the shoulder. It felt like she was touching a block of granite;
he would do very nicely. Tonight, Michelle Maxwell was going to kill a man. This man, in
fact.
He turned, slipped the cigarette from his lips and took a swig of beer, the mug barely visible
in his bear paw of a hand.
Size did matter, she reminded herself.
“What’s up, baby?” he said, idly blowing a smoke ring to the ceiling and taking his gaze off
her.
Wrong move, baby. Her foot connected with his chin, and he staggered backward, knocking
down two smaller men. The impact sent a shock wave of pain from Michelle’s toes to her
pelvis, so hard was his chin.
He tossed the mug at her; it missed, but her slashing front kick didn’t. He bent over as air
was torn from his gut. Michelle next slammed a vicious kick to his skull with such force she
could almost hear his vertebrae screaming over the apocalypse of the music. He fell back,
one hand pressed against his bloody head, eyes wide in panic at her raw power, at her speed
and precision of attack.
Michelle calmly eyed both sides of his thick, quivering neck. Where to hit now? The
trembling jugular? The pencil-thick carotid? Or perhaps the chest cavity, throwing his
heartbeat into a fatal misfire? And yet it looked like the fight had gone out of the man.