Hayes would hunt him, the FBI would hunt him, local law enforcement would hunt him, and they’d run him hard, catching glimpses, getting close, discovering he’d slipped away again, and when the assassinations hit, they’d be confused, because that’s what happened when you became so focused on finding the man, you forgot about the idea.

Anyone could be taught to vanish or fight or plan an ambush. Most anyone could even be good at it.

Not everyone could think ahead of the enemy.

Legerdemain. Mental prestidigitation.

That’s what Clare had always been after.

The only person within Hayes’s headquarters who’d figured out that Holden was working with them was sitting out this fight in front of a television.

And the only person within Hayes’s headquarters under whose leadership the war room operated at its most effective, cohesive best was sitting out this fight on the other side of the same house, away from the television.

And though Hayes could tap into unlimited manpower via official agencies, those requests came with paper trails, jurisdictional issues, and cover-your-ass political jockeying. His own outside-the-law shadow force had been nearly decimated tonight due to peak stupidity. What was left of that shadow force would chase him.

And they’d chase Jill passing herself off as him.

But Holden would make the kills.

Legerdemain.

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 37

Atoka County
Oklahoma, USA

KARA

SHE RODE WITH THE WINDOW DOWN, SUN ON HER SKIN, WIND IN her face, parsing memories with prairie and grassland as the miles rolled by. Jack was behind the wheel, just him and her now on the last of the long-ass drive from Pennsylvania.

They were both comfortable with silence. She liked that about him.

It’d been hours since they’d last spoken.

Another few minutes and they’d turn off State Highway 3, and another half hour and she’d be home—not the house of her childhood, the one she’d built for her parents years later. It’d been too long since she’d been back.

The more judicious choice would have been to return to headquarters, but she wasn’t ready, not emotionally, and not psychologically. She had contacted Hayes to let him know she’d been set free, had told him she wasn’t okay, that she needed time.

She’d expected an argument, perhaps recrimination.

Instead, he’d been conciliatory, told her that her job would be waiting when she got back, whenever that might be.

Clearly, she’d underestimated Jack’s promise.

The one he’d made right before he’d re-shackled her to that stupid chain.