She didn’t think Samantha was paranoid. The memories seemed too real. The fear too real.

Which meant her client was telling the truth. She’d been kidnapped nearly twenty years ago, escaped…

And now she believed, it seemed, with all her heart, that someone was hunting her.

CHAPTER SIX

Agent Thomas Sawyer walked briskly up the mountain road, pushing his baseball cap back as he sidestepped the puddles in the trenches adjacent to the asphalt. His long legs stretched over the ground faster than his two babysitters with Seattle PD could keep up with.

He scratched at his chin, feeling six days of untended, and unintended, stubble along his jawline.

“Well?” called a voice behind him. “Agent Sawyer? What do you think?”

Tom paused by the caution tape, glancing from one of the orange traffic cones to another. He looked over his shoulder, expressionless, as he regarded Sergeant Alice Faber and her partner, Detective Robert Lopez.

They were neat, clean-cut, and well dressed in a city cop kind of way. For his part, Tom was wearing flannel, a baseball cap, and old, dusty jeans. He’d been stopped twice on his way up to the crime scene. Still, a small price to pay to avoid a suit and those infernal ties. Ties, in Tom’s opinion, were like the flip-flops of the neck. Useless, dangerous, and—at worst—a weapon in a capable aggressor’s hands.

Tom allowed the glance back to serve as sufficient response to Sergeant Faber’s calls, and then, ignoring his entourage completely, he ducked under the caution tape, his eyes now fixated on the body next to the broken down Camry.

A couple of forensics people were making their way through the crime scene, murmuring to each other or going on their haunches to examine the vehicle or the corpse.

Before Sawyer got too close, he paused, indifferent to the eyes on him. He stood still, eyes closed for a moment, crossed himself, and offered up a small prayer his mother had once taught him. “Receive her soul, oh Lord,” he murmured.

Then, still indifferent to the attention around him, he now focused, his gaze zeroing in on the body.

“Agent Sawyer?” came the gasping voice of Sergeant Faber.

This time, he didn’t even afford her a glance.

“Excuse me, Tom!” she insisted.

He grunted.

“They haven’t cleared the scene yet,” Faber said, still breathing heavily. “Couldn’t you wait just another ten minutes so the lab guys can make sure—”

Agent Sawyer glanced back at Sergeant Faber now, giving her a long look, and she trailed off with a frustrated little sigh. If stubborn had a color, it would match the green of Sawyer’s eyes. His hair, on the other hand, was going prematurely silver. Though he was only thirty-five, the streaks of gray had moved from his temples and now dusted his hair, which he kept tucked beneath the Oakland A’s baseball cap.

He tugged the brim of the cap, still not speaking. He didn’t like speaking too much. Found it mostly a waste of air. Most of anything that needed saying usually could be communicated with action. And most of everything actually said usually could be left unspoken entirely.