The Mind Thief

by Vicki Hinze

“What happened to the boat?” Amanda asked. “I missed that.”

  “It was parked by the fence. The wind blew the fire and things got a little out of hand.”

  “Right.” Kate snorted. “You’re a weapons expert and you’re telling me you couldn’t burn a mattress and some clothes without setting a boat, fence and storage shed on fire?”

  Maggie looked her right in the eye with a straight face. “Shut up, Kate.”

  A smile tugged at Kate’s lip. “But his car was too close to the house, right?”

  “Parked in the garage.” Thank God, or she might have burned it, too.

  “Slashed tires?” she asked.

  “All four.” Maggie snatched a doughnut, more to cover her disgust than because she thought she could actually swallow it. “He and Karen departed, riding on rims.”

  “Excellent.” Kate chewed and swallowed. “You got her car, too, then?”

  “Her car wasn’t there.” Genuinely grateful, Maggie licked frosting from her lip. “It was parked down the street at Winn-Dixie, so the neighbors wouldn’t notice she was there while I wasn’t.”

  “It survived?”

  “I heard it was stripped, though that was a secondhand report, so I don’t know if it’s true or not.” And grateful she was that at least that wasn’t on her conscience, too.

  “Good for you, Maggie. Victim no more.” Amanda grinned. “I do understand your style of justice.”

  “It wasn’t justice. It was temper,” she confessed. “At the time, I thought he could’ve walked anytime without incident. All he had to say is he wanted a divorce, and it would’ve been bloodlessly civil. But there’s no excuse for showing a spouse such a lack of respect. We reap what we sow. It’s universal law—immutable.” That’s exactly what she’d thought, and she’d been partially right. We do reap what we sow, and boy, had she.

  “I’m sure he wishes he hadn’t done it,” Darcy said. “Oh, yeah.” Kate snickered and brushed powdered sugar off her shirtfront. “Especially at tax time when he sees his dwindled net worth.”

  “I’m sure he does.” Maggie had refused to claim a single dime of the loss with either the insurance company or on income taxes. Right was right, and none of it had been an accident. To avoid being charged with adultery, and Maggie naming Karen as a correspondent in the legal proceedings, Jack had opted for a quiet little irreconcilable differences divorce and had eaten the loss.

  Amanda sat at the table. “So why does Karen call you to come for Christmas dinner?”

  Maggie hated talking about this. But the S.A.S.S. operatives were a tight unit and few secrets survived in such a close group. Better to get it all over with now since the morning was already ruined, talking about Jack and Karen.

  “Because, well, lately he’s taken to drinking. A lot. When he’s had too much, either he calls or he has her call. He’s sorry and wants absolution or help to get his life back together.” Which had to make Karen feel like dirt. She, unfortunately, was reaping, too.

  “Figures.” Kate plopped down at her desk. “I’d have to be drunk to call you for help, too.”

  “Shut up, Kate,” Amanda said. “Quit needling Maggie because she’s a rookie. You were one once, too, you know, and don’t you see this has her upset?”

  “Sorry.” Kate tossed Maggie a glance.

  Kate rode Maggie’s back all the time, and usually she stomached it because Kate was senior and Maggie was a rookie; it was expected until someone new came into the unit and became the rookie. But today, Maggie didn’t give a flying fig. She was tired of eating Kate’s dirt and in no mood to let her razor-sharp remarks slide off her back. “Save it until you mean it.”

  Kate stilled and stared at Maggie a long second. It was hard, but Maggie was just irritated enough to stare down the devil. Staring down Kate was just a shade harder. “It’s a darn shame you finally think I’m a worthy human being and it’s over the one thing in my whole life I most wish I could change.” Maggie debated then plunged headlong. “I did all those things to Jack and Karen—all of them. I was so angry I didn’t want justice. I wanted revenge. They’d hurt me. So much I didn’t know anyone could hurt that much and survive.”

  Maggie stepped away, turned, then faced them. “After they’d gone, I threw up. Then I stood in the yard watching the flames. I felt raw. Like someone had scraped all the skin and muscle off my bones and there was nothing left of me worth keeping.”

  “No, Maggie.” Darcy moved toward her.

  Maggie lifted a shaky staying hand, her eyes brimming with tears she hadn’t cried then and couldn’t cry now. “I had my revenge. But I pay for it every day of my life.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “You know what’s left inside me now, Kate?”

  “The satisfaction of seeing justice done?” Kate hiked a shoulder, but the glib expression on her face had turned sober.

  “I wish,” Maggie confessed. “God, how I wish.”

  “Well, what’s left, then?” Kate asked.

  “Shame.”

  Obviously Kate had no idea what to do with that, so did what she always did when something cut too close to the bone. She changed the subject. “Okay, then.” Nodding, she leaned back in her chair. “So, Amanda, when Mark asks, are you going to marry him, or what?”

  “Let’s just wait and see if he asks.” She honestly looked hopeful. “Maybe he won’t. I do and don’t want him to, you know?”

  “Good grief. You’re neurotic.” Kate huffed and dug into the doughnut box, this time opting for a long-john with chocolate frosting.

  Maggie grabbed a dart, still unnerved by the discussion and the phone call. How Jack could put Karen through that, she had no idea, but after hearing her crying in the background on a call last Christmas, Maggie had resolved not to take another call from either of them—ever. Woman to woman, she knew the pain of betrayal, and no way was she going to be a party to inflicting it on anyone else—not even on Karen. Though she couldn’t help but wonder why Karen tolerated this in Jack. It wasn’t her nature...or was it? Really, Maggie couldn’t figure out herself half the time, much less Karen.

  “Amanda,” Darcy said. “I just can’t believe it. You’ve been with Mark a year, for pity’s sake. You still don’t trust him?”

  “I—I love him. Of course, I do.” Her words came out in a rush.

  Darcy stared at her, quiet and still. “I didn’t say love, I said trust.”

  Amanda squirmed, then sighed.

  “What woman ever truly trusts men?” Maggie spared her and tossed the dart. It stabbed Thomas Kunz right in the schnoz. “We know they practice deceit for years, most of them from the cradle. By the time they become men, they’re so good they believe their own lies. Women don’t stand a chance. We have to doubt them.”

  Kate folded her arms back, behind her head. “Spoken like a bitter woman who doesn’t trust men and doesn’t trust her own judgment about them.”

  Bitter, yes. Because she’d allowed the worst in her to run amok. Maggie cocked her head. But how could she trust her judgment when she’d been so wrong about Jack? “You could be right, Kate.” Grouchy to point it out, but right. “Let’s just say I prefer working with women I can trust to throw their knives in my face but never stab me in the back.”

  Kate split her lips in a toothy grin. “Why I do believe that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “Considering how grumpy you are—” Amanda pulled out a file and cracked it open “—I can believe that.” Katherine Kane had more bristles than a hairbrush and about a thimble’s worth of faith in Maggie’s abilities. Typical anti-rookie bias, but seeing is believing, and her lack of confidence would resolve itself soon enough. Maggie had only joined the S.A.S.S. eight months ago and had just completed her initial training.

  Someone cleared her throat.

  “Colonel?” Darcy said, surprised.

  Everyone turned to look at the hallway door, including Maggie. Colonel Sally Drake had dyed her hair blood-red, which meant she was ticked to the g
ills about something, and her expression proved she’d been standing there awhile and had heard far more than she’d wanted to—especially considering there was a man standing beside her.

  A sexy-as-sin, gorgeous and unfortunately familiar man who was biting back what would be, at the moment, a very unwelcome smile, considering the women had been trashing his gender. In his mid-thirties, he wore steel-gray Dockers and a dove-gray shirt and tie.

  Maggie’s stomach clutched. Dr. Justin Crowe, owner and chief researcher for Crowe Pharmaceuticals. Now what in the world was he doing here? And why did he have to be here now?

  Crowe nodded in Maggie’s direction. Her stomach clutched again, knocking at her backbone. She knew a great deal about him. As one of the unit’s resident biological weapons experts, she monitored the bio aspects of his current Department of Defense programs. The DoD had awarded him a major contract and the brilliant doctor had successfully developed an antidote to DR-27, a black market lethal virus in Thomas Kunz’s arsenal. Only God knew what Kunz would do with it. Or what U.N.-sanctioned country he’d sell it to, to use against the U.S.

  Maggie’s face burned hot. Crowe and Colonel Drake had just heard her sound off about Jack and Karen, and her humiliating and shameful response, and she’d be lucky if the colonel ever assigned her to any mission.

  A lack of control was a detriment in a S.A.S.S. operative’s line of work. She swallowed hard. What had she done? Burning beds, slashing tires, and... Oh, God. Why couldn’t the floor be merciful and open up and swallow her before Colonel Drake bounced her backside right out of S.A.S.S.?

  Colonel Drake spared her and abstained from formal introductions. She knew they’d be moot. “Staff meeting. Conference room in two minutes.”

  Justin Crowe never let his gaze wander from Maggie. The embarrassment burned down her throat to her chest and up to the tips of her ears.

  “Dr. Crowe?” Colonel Drake urged him.

  No response.

  “Dr. Crowe?”

  “Yes, Colonel?” He spared her a glance.

  “The conference room is this way.”

  “Of course.” He turned a smile on Maggie that weakened her knees, then followed Colonel Drake into the hallway.

  They disappeared from sight.

  “Oh, my,” Darcy said. “Did you see the way he looked at you, Maggie? Give him a shot, and you just might change your attitude about men.”

  “Can’t let that happen.” Her lessons had been too painful and she’d learned them too well. Losing faith in Jack had been bad. But losing faith in herself had been worse. She’d been so caught up in her job that she hadn’t loved him enough or allowed him to love her enough. In top-secret positions, that was a hazard. One person, two lives. More often than not, it just didn’t work out.

  In the three years since, her assignment had changed and become even more secret. The job itself hadn’t changed, but she had. Now she felt the sadness and regret intimately. She stood in the bald light and saw herself and her part in her marriage breakup clearly. She now looked at men in that same light. And from the Intel reports on Dr. Justin Crowe, she knew far too much about him to dare to even be interested. He was like Jack. Rich, but a man who’d been caught red-handed cheating on his former wife, Andrea. And by all investigative accounts, his ex-wife had been a decent woman whose greatest crime was that she spent too much time at her garden club.

  Knowing that, Maggie falling for that killer smile or for the gorgeous man wearing it would be leaping from the proverbial hot pan straight into the fire.

  She was just hoping to God their common bio-warfare expertise didn’t force them to team up on any mission.

  Maggie grabbed a pencil and pad from her desk and walked toward the conference room, falling into step beside Darcy. “Why is he here?” Maggie asked. Regret’s location was top secret. The S.A.S.S. unit was a top-secret task force functioning under the Office of Special Investigations wing of the U.S. Air Force under Colonel Drake’s command. The unit had a Pentagon liaison, General Shaw, but it answered directly to the President. At the outside, only a couple hundred people in the world knew this S.A.S.S. unit existed and less than a couple dozen knew where it was headquartered. People not in S.A.S.S. were never brought here—at least, they hadn’t been until today.

  Kate, not Darcy, answered. “Dr. Crowe is on the DR-27 antidote project, right?”

  “Yes.” Darcy responded before Maggie could.

  “Then we’ve got to be in for bad news. Kunz has to be up to something god-awful or Crowe wouldn’t be coming to us at all, much less actually showing up here.”

  Darcy was the intelligence expert with total recall. If anyone in S.A.S.S. knew anything, it’d be her. Maggie looked over. “Darcy?”

  “Colonel Drake will handle the briefing,” she said, avoiding eye contact and sounding totally noncommittal.

  Oh, boy. This wasn’t good. Darcy had been in the kitchen waiting for news to come through to the colonel. It had, hence the briefing and likely Crowe’s presence. And that news, whatever it was, explained why Darcy was now as pale as the whitewashed walls.

  “Ten bucks says we’ve got a Code Three.” Kate let out a frustrated sigh. “At least a Three.”

  A Code Three was an extremely serious situation. The mission scale ran one to five and One was eminent death to masses. Maggie’s nerves began to tap dance.

  “I sure hope not,” Amanda said from directly behind Maggie. “The last Three we had left us with two dead FBI agents and contaminations HAZMAT is still cleaning up.”

  Hazardous materials brought all kinds of special challenges, short-and long-term, to the table.

  “Better hope again,” Darcy said, clenching her jaw. They all groaned in unison. December twenty-third and an active Code Three mission. This briefing would formally activate S.A.S.S. to prevent a major crisis threatening the public.

  Maggie grimaced, questions of where and what and how fired through her mind like rockets sucking hard on jet fuel. Since it was their S.A.S.S. unit being activated, the odds were nearly a hundred percent that the “who” was Thomas Kunz. That would be in keeping with the unit’s primary mission. An icy chill shot up her spine.

  “Well,” Amanda whispered under her breath. “Looks like we’re in for yet another merry Christmas.”

  “Bah humbug.”

  “Stop it, Kate,” Maggie said, still tense and irritated and embarrassed at all Crowe and Colonel Drake had overheard, and now even more worried sick about the crisis that would be revealed in the briefing.

  God, please. She silently offered up a little prayer. Don’t let this be a Christmas spent grieving and mourning, or with me hating myself. Please. I—I just can’t take another one hating myself.

  She shoved at the conference room door.

  Order your copy of Operation Stealing Christmas today!

  Thanks so much for reading The Mind Thief and the Sneak Peek of Stealing Christmas.

  In the Know

  I hope you enjoyed Darcy’s story, THE MIND THIEF, and will leave a review of your thoughts. For your convenience, the review URL is: The Mind Thief

  To stay IN THE KNOW on future releases, you can sign up for Vicki’s occasional newsletter at http://mad.ly/signups/82943/join.

  Follow Vicki on Amazon at:

  amazon.com/author/vickihinze

  Follow Vicki on BookBub at:

  https://www.bookbub.com/authors/vicki-hinze

  About the Author

  VICKI HINZE is the author of nearly forty novels, nonfiction books and hundreds of articles published in more than sixty-three countries. Her books have received many prestigious awards and nominations, including her selection for Who’s Who in the World (as a writer and educator), nominations for Career Achievement and Reviewer’s Choice Awards for Best Series and Suspense Storyteller of the Year, Best Romantic Suspense Storyteller of the Year and Best Romantic Intrigue Novel of the Year. She co-created an innovative, open-ended continuity series of single-title romance novels, an innovativ
e suspense series, and has helped to establish sub-genres in military women’s fiction (suspense and intrigue and action and adventure) and in military romantic-thriller novels. Hinze loves genre-blending and blazing new trails for readers and other authors. She is a former columnist for Social-In Global Network and radio host of Everyday Woman.

  Also by Vicki Hinze

  Clean Reads

  S.A.S.S. Unit Series

  Black Market Body Double | The Sparks Broker | The Mind Thief | Operation Stealing Christmas | S.A.S.S. Confidential

  Breakdown Series

  so many secrets | her deepest fear (Short Read)

  Down and Dead, Inc. Series

  Down and Dead in Dixie | Down and Dead in Even |

  Down and Dead in Dallas

  Shadow Watchers (Crossroads Crisis Center related)

  The Marked Star | The Marked Bride | Wed to Death: A Shadow Watchers Short

  Crossroads Crisis Center Series

  Forget Me Not | Deadly Ties | Not This Time

  Inspirational

  The Reunion Collection

  Her Perfect Life | Mind Reader | Duplicity |

  Lost, Inc.

  Survive the Night | Christmas Countdown |

  Torn Loyalties Inspirational

  General Audience

  War Games Series (out of print)

  Body Double | Double Vision | Double Dare | Smokescreen: Total Recall | Kill Zone

  The Lady Duo

  Lady Liberty | Lady Justice

  Military

  Shades of Gray | Acts of Honor | All Due Respect

  Paranormal Romantic Suspense