She could still see the faces of the men who had killed Chase. Though her testimony had already helped bring down a portion of the smuggling organization, the authorities knew that they had yet to identify the mastermind behind it. In fact, the evidence suggested that Phoenix was just one of the many cities the smuggling was going through.
When her house sold, her belongings were sorted through and either packed away or sold by the FBI so that it looked like Christal Jones had simply moved. Though she had been allowed to go through her things before they were packed away, anything with markings identifying her previous school, her year-round swim club or where she came from was taken from her. She had wanted to keep a few items that would link her to her past, but only the hidden photo went unnoticed by Pratt.
Royal University had been chosen by the FBI for a reason. A high-priced, private university in Virginia, it was attended primarily by students from the east coast. Pratt had insisted that she not attend with anyone from Arizona or Colorado. Now she could understand why.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Matt said, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” Shaye looked out the window at the trees along the side of the road. She missed the wide open spaces of the west. Mostly she missed the desert sunsets, the way the sky would turn orange, red, and pink against the western mountains. She had often eaten dinner on their patio with her father just to watch such a sight.
“Are you thinking about your family?” Matt asked softly.
Shaye nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me about your dad before?” Matt persisted.
“I don’t know.” Shaye shrugged. “I guess it’s still hard for me to admit he’s gone.”
Matt studied her for a moment before speaking. “Your situation must take homesickness to a whole new level.”
Shaye nodded. “So many things changed so quickly. Losing my dad, starting college, moving east.” She paused, gazing into the dense trees, many of which were now without leaves. “Sometimes Virginia feels like a whole different country.”
“What do you mean?” Matt asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s like a whole different lifestyle here.” Shaye turned to look at him. “People tend to stay indoors more. Out west, everyone I know spends most of their free time outside, even if it’s just cooking dinner on the grill.”
“I think that just depends on who you hang out with,” Matt told her. “After all, we were outside a lot this weekend.”
“Maybe that’s why I feel so comfortable with you,” Shaye admitted. “You live the kind of lifestyle I came from.”
“I would imagine you’d have to stay inside a lot during the winter though.” Matt watched her for any reaction.
Shaye realigned her thoughts, remembering she was supposed to be from the Rocky Mountains in the west, not the Saguaro Desert. “We adapt pretty well. During the winter we ski or snowmobile, and during the summer we swim, play tennis, ride horses—you name it.”
When they approached campus, Matt insisted Shaye accompany him back to his apartment. He promised to fix her dinner, and Shaye wondered wryly about the accuracy of his sister’s description of his culinary talents—or the lack thereof.
Matt showed her around the small apartment, grateful that the sketches of Shaye were already safely in his art teacher’s possession. Moments after Shaye and Matt walked in, Brandon returned home from Virginia Beach. He was barely in the door before he was insisting it was Matt’s turn to cook.
“Come help me decide what to make,” Matt told Shaye. He took her hand and led her into the kitchen.
The refrigerator was practically barren, so Shaye started looking through the kitchen cabinets. She pulled out some tuna, a can of soup, and some macaroni. “Do you have any cheese?”
“Yeah, I think there’s a little left.” Matt pulled out the remains of a block of cheddar.
“How about tuna casserole?” Shaye suggested, lining the ingredients up on the counter.
“I thought I was going to cook for you.”
“I have a feeling that most of the cooking you do involves dialing the phone.” Shaye grinned and nodded toward the empty pizza boxes stacked next to the garbage can. “Where’s a pot?”
Matt opened a lower cabinet and handed her a casserole dish.
“I’m going to need that too, but I need something I can use on the stove.” Shaye shook her head, wondering how Matt would manage if the phone stopped working.
“Oh, one of those metal things,” Matt teased. He gave her the pot she needed and leaned against the counter as she filled it with water.
“What do you eat besides pizza when you aren’t at your parents’ house?” Shaye asked.
“The basics. You know—frozen dinners, sandwiches. Sometimes we even get energetic and make soup,” Matt told her, looking somewhat lost in the kitchen.
“No wonder Amy didn’t want you in the kitchen this weekend.” Shaye put the water on to boil.
“Amy cooks worse than I do. She can’t even make toast without setting off the fire alarm.” Matt folded his arms across his chest.
“I see.” Shaye raised her eyebrow, trying to picture Matt actually creating anything edible in the kitchen. “Does that mean you can make toast?”
Matt nodded proudly. “Yep. I had Mom set the control on the toaster before I moved down here.”
Shaye laughed. “You’re impossible.”
“Yeah, but you love me anyway.” Matt grinned. He leaned across the tiny kitchen and kissed her cheek.
Shaye smiled weakly, but she felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She did love him, though she had yet to voice the words. Her brow creased with worry as she continued the familiar routine of cooking dinner. She couldn’t fight the feeling that this might be the last time she would be with Matt. Once she left his apartment, Pratt could easily forbid her from coming back.
Matt took his position next to the counter again, watching her pour noodles into the boiling water. “How do you know how much to put in?”
Shaye shrugged. She doubted Matt realized that she had been making this dish for nearly ten years. “How do you know when to swing at a pitch?”
“Beautiful, and she can cook.” Matt stepped up behind her and slipped his hands around her waist.
“This isn’t exactly brain surgery,” Shaye insisted as she drained a can of tuna. “Anyone who can read can cook.”
Brandon walked in and laughed. “I think you have to want to cook. Matt is definitely lacking in that area.”
“Look who’s talking,” Matt retorted, releasing Shaye and leaning against the counter again.
“Hey, I can call for pizza with the best of them.”
Shaye laughed. “And you guys call yourselves returned missionaries? Didn’t you have to learn to cook?”
“That’s what companions are for.” Matt grinned.
Shaye shook her head in disbelief, finally shooing both of them out of the kitchen so she could finish their meal. Twenty-five minutes later, she set dinner on their wobbly kitchen table. They all served themselves and settled down in front of the TV.
“This is really good,” Brandon said after finishing his first bite.
“Thanks, Brandon, but it’s only tuna casserole.” Shaye smiled at him, wondering if too much pizza had ruined his taste buds.
“No, it really is good,” Matt agreed. He leaned over and whispered, “Jenna tries to cook for us all of the time.”
“That’s why we order a lot of pizza,” Brandon admitted.
Shaye laughed, wishing she could have many more evenings just like this one. She wished she could predict her future, but the only thing she could see in it was the inevitable argument with Pratt. How could she continue to see Matt without constantly putting herself in jeopardy?
After dinner, Matt took Shaye back to her dorm. He carried her bag up the stairs in her building, then set it beside the door. Taking her hands in his, Matt leaned forward and kissed her ge
ntly. His lips lingered, as though he too didn’t want the weekend to end. Shaye let the sensations wash over her, hoping fervently that this wasn’t truly good-bye. With a last squeeze of her hand, Matt retreated down the stairs.
Shaye opened the door to her room to find Colleen pacing.
Chapter Twelve
“Where have you been?” Colleen demanded.
“Don’t you look like the mother hen.” Shaye set her bag down on her bed.
“Well?” Colleen folded her arms across her chest. “I got home last night and you were nowhere to be found. I was about to call the police.”
“I went home with a friend for the weekend.” Shaye sat down on her bed and looked at her roommate. “Why did you come home early?”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Colleen looked determined. “None of this changing the subject. Who did you go home with?”
“If you must know, I spent the weekend in Great Falls with the Whitmores,” Shaye told her, hoping she wouldn’t have a clue who the Whitmores were.
“As in Matt Whitmore?” Colleen’s eyes widened.
Reluctantly, Shaye nodded.
“Senator Whitmore’s son asked you to spend the weekend with his family?” Colleen stared at her with disbelief.
“Matt found out I wasn’t going home for the holiday, so he invited me to spend it at his house.” Shaye watched Colleen’s mouth drop open. “Honestly, Colleen, I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it.”
“Shaye, you landed the most eligible bachelor on campus, and you didn’t even tell me! It’s always the quiet ones.” Colleen spread her arms out with disbelief. “I saw you walk in with him the other night, but I thought you were just studying together or something.”
“We were just studying together, and I didn’t ‘land’ him,” Shaye insisted. “So why did you come home early?”
“Dad had to leave on a business trip today, so they brought me back early.” Colleen filled her in on her weekend and continued to ask about Shaye’s. Shortly after Colleen left to get some dinner, Shaye pulled her cell phone from her coat.
“I’m back in my room,” she told Pratt, not bothering to exchange greetings.
“How did the rest of the weekend go?”
“Fine until this morning. I found out one of Charlie’s friends is from Arizona, and apparently he thinks he recognized me.”
“What?”
Shaye took a deep breath to calm herself, then began a recitation of the basic facts. “At brunch this morning, he was talking about me. He’s convinced that I’m the swimmer who disappeared last summer. I thought you said no one would notice.”
“Maybe he read an article somewhere. The people who killed Chase may have planted one so that more people would be looking for you.”
“What do I do now?” Shaye asked softly. She braced herself for the worst.
“We have a couple of options. One, we can relocate you right now.” He paused for a moment. “The other possibility is to put you under surveillance and see what happens.”
“What do you mean ‘surveillance’?” Shaye asked, knowing her life was getting complicated yet again.
“I’ll send a couple of agents out to keep watch around campus and make sure no one is looking for you,” he told her. “I have to be honest with you, though. We are breaking protocol if we do this. The only reason to try surveillance is to hope we can catch someone else in the organization.”
“You want to use me as bait?” Shaye asked warily.
“Basically, yes,” Pratt admitted. “The problem with relocating you is that you wouldn’t be able to swim again—at all.”
“Why not?” Shaye began pacing the room.
“We can’t pull a top athlete twice without someone noticing. The only reason we got away with it the first time was because you had only competed once in national competition, and then it was only in breaststroke.” He paused before dealing her the final blow. “In the meantime, you need to call things off with the Whitmore kid.”
Shaye’s heart sank, even though she had tried to prepare herself for this possibility. “Isn’t there another way?”
“No matter what we do, you can’t see him anymore. He’s just too much of a risk now,” Pratt insisted. “Really, the safest thing is to relocate you. I’ve got a bad feeling about leaving you there.”
“I want to stay here.” Deflated, Shaye dropped herself into her chair. If she stayed, at least she would be able to see Matt from afar. “I can’t give up swimming too.”
“I’ll put together a surveillance team and get back to you.”
“Thanks so much,” Shaye said sarcastically. She flipped her phone off and plugged it in to charge.
She then gave in to her tears and buried her head in her pillow. Her instincts had told her that today was the end of her relationship with Matt, but she had so hoped she was wrong. Now she would have to break up with him, and he would never know how much she was hurting. She wished he had never told her that he was in love with her. Somehow ending a casual relationship would have been easier. Why had she ever agreed to go home with him?
Expecting that Colleen would return soon, Shaye grabbed her jacket and her phone and went outside for a walk. She headed away from Matt’s apartment, though he was heavily on her mind. How could she break up with someone she had fallen in love with?
When her phone started ringing in her pocket, Shaye stepped into a grove of trees so that she wasn’t visible from the street.
“Hello?” Her voice was raspy, and she hoped Pratt couldn’t tell that she had been crying.
“I’ve got that team put together,” he told her. “Doug Valdez will be contacting you. He’s the lead agent.”
“When will he be here?” Shaye asked, leaning against a big oak tree.
“Tonight, but you probably won’t hear from him until tomorrow morning.” Pratt hesitated a moment. “One of his main objectives is to make sure you and Matt Whitmore end the relationship with an understanding. He’s just too big of a risk for us.”
“Us?” Shaye let the sarcasm drip from her voice. “I thought I was the one whose life was on the line here.”
“Let’s not forget what we’re after,” Pratt reminded her sternly. “A lot of people are working full-time to bring down this organization. You’re an important piece of it, but you are still only part of a very large team.”
“I don’t know of anyone else who’s having their lives dictated to them,” Shaye mumbled.
“Don’t trust anyone right now,” Pratt insisted. “Agent Valdez will call you on this number to set up a meeting.”
Shaye hung up with him and slipped the phone back into her pocket. She looked around warily when she stepped back onto the sidewalk, and she quickened her pace on the way back to her dorm. The phone in her room was ringing when she walked inside, but she ignored it. If it was Matt, she knew she couldn’t talk to him now. First she had to think of a way to somehow break things off without hurting him.
As she knelt down in prayer that night, she realized that never before had she prayed for so much guidance on how to lie to someone. Yet Shaye knew the Lord understood her situation as well as how much she was hurting right now. She hoped He would be willing to help her try to spare Matt’s feelings as much as possible. She also hoped that someday her heart would heal too.
* * *
Doug Valdez made his way through Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C. with long strides. He kept his gait just short of hurried, though he would have preferred to run. He sidestepped a woman pushing a stroller, then brushed past a family of six who were apparently unaware that they were congesting the entire walkway.
His only luggage was the bag slung over his shoulder. When Agent Henry Pratt had called him just hours before, his plans for a quiet evening watching a basketball game had been exchanged for ten minutes’ worth of packing and a quick trip to the Dallas airport to catch his flight.
Now he turned the corner toward the subway station, grateful that
the train was just arriving. He stepped on, noting the appreciative glance a long-haired brunette cast his way. Doug flashed her a grin, effectively transforming the compelling hard lines of his face into something almost approachable. His dark eyes flashed with humor under equally dark hair.
The brunette gave her incredibly long hair an artful toss and maneuvered to the seat in front of him. Doug tightened his grip on his bag, and two stops later, exited the train without a second thought.
Minutes later, he was on a train heading for Quantico. When he disembarked shortly thereafter, he turned away from the small station and headed out to the gravel parking lot. The blue Mustang was right where it was supposed to be, as was the hidden key behind the rear fender on the passenger side.
After dumping his gear in the trunk, Doug unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel. He leaned over and removed the plain manila envelope stuck to the underside of the passenger seat. He opened it, sliding out the contents.
The girl in the photo was just that—a girl. The bio sheet indicated she was only nineteen, and Doug shook his head in disgust. What kind of kid would get herself so tangled up in organized crime that she would have to go into the Witness Protection Program? He scanned the cover story and then perused the police reports included.
Surprise crossed his face when he realized that this girl was just an innocent bystander, a true case of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, it was amazing she had survived to testify against the two men Jimmy Malloy had sent for her boyfriend.
As he read her bio sheet in more detail, Doug shook his head in disbelief. He started the car and shifted it into gear. He made his way to the freeway, wondering how this innocent little girl had gotten herself into such a mess.
Chapter Thirteen
Matt never heard his alarm go off on Monday morning. When he first opened his eyes, the digital clock next to his bed showed 7:35. He quickly showered and dressed before running to his first class. As he rushed through the front doors of the fine arts building at 8:02, he abruptly stopped cold in his tracks.
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