“What are you doing?” he asked.
She shushed him with a kiss. He couldn’t speak. He wasn’t allowed to speak.
But he didn’t know the rules. “Clarise?” he said, fear pushing past the opium, creeping into his voice, making it waver as she set the tip of the stiletto against his chest.
She felt a flash of regret.
Clarise. She liked that name a lot. It was a shame that she would only be Clarise for a few moments longer. She couldn’t use that name again. And she wouldn’t. She was too smart to make that mistake.
“This has gone far enough,” he said, trying to hide his fear behind an air of authority. “Release me now, Clarise.”
She smiled and leaned on the whisper-thin blade, sliding it deep into his heart, setting him forever free.
“KILL HIM.”
Domino’s order came before John Miller had reached the warehouse doors, and the gunshots—four of them in rapid sequence were amplified deafeningly through his headset.
Tony.
Tony was dead.
Miller knew it. He had no chance of saving his friend.
He had this tape, though, this tape of Domino giving the order to off a federal agent. He had enough evidence to put Domino on death row. Blasting his way through that warehouse door at twenty to one odds would only get himself killed, too.
He knew that as well as he knew his own heartbeat.
But the heart that was pounding in his chest wasn’t beating with a recognizable rhythm. And the red cloud of rage that covered his eyes didn’t obscure his vision, but rather made it sharper, clearer.
Tony was dead, and the son of a bitch who ordered it done was not going to make his escape in a powerboat, losing himself in South America, outside of the FBI’s jurisdiction. No, Alfonse Domino was going to burn in hell.
Miller hit the warehouse door at full run, bringing his gun up and into position at his hip, shouting in rage at the sight of Tony’s crumpled body lying on the cold, blood-soaked concrete, shooting the surprise off the faces of Alfonse Domino and his men.
SHE HAD HER AIRLINE TICKET all ready, under an assumed name, of course. A temporary name.
Jane Riley. Plain Jane. Plane Jane. The thought amused her and she smiled. But only briefly. She knew she had a noticeable smile, and right now she had no desire to be noticed.
Her hair was under a kerchief for the occasion, and she wore a dowdy camel-colored jacket she’d picked up at a secondhand store downtown.
She took nothing of Clarise’s with her. Nothing but the money and her collection. Nine locks of hair.
She traveled light, boarding the plane to Atlanta with only a tote bag that held several novels she’d picked up at the airport shop and two hundred thousand dollars in cash. The rest of the money was already in her Swiss bank account.
In Atlanta, she’d catch a train to who knows where. Maybe New York. Maybe Philadelphia.
She’d catch a show or two, take her time deciding exactly who she wanted to be. Then she’d get her hair cut and colored, shop for a new wardrobe to match her new personality, pick a new town in a new state, and start the game all over again.
And then she’d have ten locks of hair.
Chapter One
JOHN MILLER’S HEART WAS pounding and his mouth was dry as he awoke with a start. He stood up fast, trying hard to get his bearings, reaching automatically for his gun.
“John, are you all right?”
Christ, he was in his office. He’d fallen asleep with his head on his desk, and now he was standing in his office, with his side arm drawn and his hands shaking.
And Daniel Tonaka was standing in the doorway watching him. Daniel was expressionless, as he often was. But he was gazing rather pointedly at Miller’s weapon.
Miller reholstered his gun, then ran both hands across his face. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just fell asleep—or something—for a second.”
“Maybe you should go home and go to bed.”
Bed. Yeah, right. Maybe in some other lifetime.
“You look like hell, man,” Daniel continued.
Miller felt like hell. He needed a case to work on. As long as he was working, the dreams weren’t so bad. It was this damned in-between time that was unbearable. “I just need some more coffee.”
Daniel didn’t say anything. He just looked at Miller. He was relatively new to the bureau—just a kid. He was hardly twenty-five years old, with a young handsome face, high cheekbones and deep brown, exotically shaped eyes that announced his part-Asian parentage. Those eyes held a wisdom that extended far beyond his tender years. And true to the wisdom in his eyes, the kid always knew when to hold his tongue.
Daniel Tonaka could say more with his silence and maybe a lift of one of his dark eyebrows than twenty other men could say if they talked all day.
Miller had had half a dozen new partners since Tony, but Daniel was the only one who had lasted for any length of time. Next week it would be, what? Seven months? The kid deserved some kind of award.
Miller knew quite well the reputation he had in the bureau. He was “The Robot.” He was a machine, an automaton, letting nothing and no one get in the way of his investigation. He was capable of putting everyone around him into a deep freeze with a single laser-sharp look. Even before Tony had died, Miller had kept his emotions to himself, and he had to admit he’d played his cards even closer to his vest over the past few years.
He was aware of the speculation about his lack of close friends within the bureau, the whispered conversations that concluded he was incapable of emotion, devoid of compassion and humanity. After all, a man who so obviously didn’t possess a heart and soul couldn’t possibly feel.
Some of the younger agents would go well out of their way to avoid him. Hell, some of the older agents did the same. He was respected. With his record of arrests and successful investigations, he’d have to be. But he wasn’t well liked.
Not that a robot would give a damn about that.
Daniel stepped farther into Miller’s office. “Working on the Black Widow case?”
Miller nodded, gazing down at the open file on his desk. He’d been studying the photos and information from the latest in a string of connected murders before he’d fallen asleep.
And dreamed about Tony again.
He sat back down in his chair, grimacing at his stiff muscles. Christ, everything ached. Every part of him was sore. He desperately needed sleep, but the thought of going home to his apartment and sinking into his bed and closing his eyes was unbearable. The moment he closed his eyes, he’d be back outside that warehouse. He’d dream about the night that Tony died, and he’d watch it happen all over again. And for the four thousandth time, the choppers would never come. For the four thousandth time, Miller would arrive too late. For the four thousandth time, blowing Domino’s ass straight to hell still wouldn’t make up for the fact that Tony’s brains were smeared across the concrete.
God, the stab of guilt and loss he felt was still so sharp, so piercing. Miller tried to push it away, to bury it deep inside, someplace from which it would never escape. He tried to put more distance between himself and this pain, these emotions. He could do it. He would do it. He was, after all, the robot.
Miller took a swig from a mug of now-cold coffee, trying to ignore the fact that his hand was still shaking. “The killer did her last victim about three months ago.” The coffee tasted like something from a stable