The Littlest Witness

He folded his arms over his chest but he nodded. “Agreed.”

Shelley understood no man, especially a soldier, liked taking orders from a woman, but she had a job to do. She’d already made the mistake of allowing a man to tell her how to do her job. She wouldn’t be doing that again. Not for anyone.

“Then we’re good to go. Are you and Tommy ready to leave?”

“Yes.”

She stood. “Let’s do it.”

“Where?”

She looked around the guesthouse, a haven, she supposed, for some. It had not been a haven for Caleb Judd. “I’ll let you know. Later.”

A knock at the door had her tensing. Reason told her that an enemy wasn’t likely to announce his presence that way. Still, she motioned Caleb to stay where he was. She withdrew her weapon, held it at her side as she answered the door.

A man in an austerely cut black suit, a starched white shirt, and a rigid bow tie stood on the front step and held an envelope. “Ma’am. This arrived for Mr. Judd. Mr. Alfred directed me to deliver it.”

After slipping on latex gloves she’d pulled from her blazer pocket, she accepted the envelope. “Thank you.”

Caleb joined her. “What is it?”

“It’s addressed to you. Make sure Tommy stays in the other room.” She started to open the envelope.

Judd stopped her. “My name. My responsibility.”

The stern gaze he sent her convinced her to let him open it. Before she could hand him a pair of gloves, he’d torn open the envelope.

Inside lay a copy of a newspaper clipping with the headline Boy Dies in Pool and the crudely printed words Back off or it could happen again.

Shelley quickly scanned the clipping, inhaling sharply when she saw that it referred to Caleb’s younger brother Ethan, who died before his second birthday. The accompanying note was a chilling warning.

She had taken this case because of Jake. But now that she’d met Caleb and Tommy, she was determined to protect them at all costs and go after the killers who had targeted them.

TWO (#ulink_31193c01-6b2b-583b-835c-3256fef41905)

Caleb was grateful that Shelley hadn’t interrogated him about the contents of the envelope, though he saw the questions in her eyes when she read about Ethan’s drowning.

He wasn’t up to explaining his role in the accident that had claimed his baby brother’s life. Not now. Maybe Shelley would chalk up his silence to his concern for his nephew at the implied threat.

Caleb wasn’t ready to relive the horror of that time in his life. He never talked about what had happened that day, the day that had changed his life forever. He shook away the memories and focused on the present.

Though her eyes had glittered with a take-no-prisoners ferocity, Shelley had remained calm and then called a friend at the Atlanta PD and explained the situation.

“One of my operatives will take the envelope to a friend in the Atlanta PD,” she’d said. “He’ll check for fingerprints, though I don’t expect there to be any, especially after it’s been handled by who knows how many people.”

After the operative had shown up to retrieve the envelope, Shelley had hustled Caleb and Tommy out of the guesthouse and into her car.

Shelley Rabb’s brown sedan was boring in the extreme.

Not so the woman, who couldn’t be boring if she tried. Despite the black pantsuit she wore and her understated makeup, she was striking with her sleek dark hair and intuitive gray eyes that seemed to see right through him and strip away the protective layers he’d built around his heart. A smattering of freckles across her nose belied her otherwise professional appearance.

Shelley Rabb was a walking contradiction—understated, graceful, yet athletic, and, given her Secret Service background, lethal when and if the circumstances warranted it. She was no bigger than a minute, but she made up for it in the sheer determination that radiated from her. The severe pantsuit revealed a toned and disciplined body, despite her small size.

It was obvious that she downplayed her looks, another leftover from her years in the Service.

Caleb liked what he saw, but it was the energy she carried with her that caught and held his attention. Her no-nonsense manner coupled with a fresh vitality was like a brisk breeze that swept all other impressions aside.

Her background was evident in the way she moved, her arms swung slightly away from her body, a sign of someone who wore a gun for a living. If anyone looked closely, he’d see the outline of the weapon she carried beneath her jacket, but it wasn’t bad camouflage. Caleb’s own weapon, a Glock, was tucked in the waistband of his jeans with his shirt pulled over it. He missed the heft of his Colt M4A, a mainstay of the Special Forces, but the Glock made an acceptable substitute.

He hadn’t missed her earlier study of him, the shrewd gaze which weighed words and expressions. Nor, he guessed, had his study of her gone unnoticed. It paid to know who you were working with, especially when lives were on the line.

Jake’s recommendation not withstanding, Caleb had done his homework on Shelley. He hadn’t realized that Jake was on his honeymoon until he’d called his buddy and Jake had suggested Caleb contact his sister. From all he’d learned, she was good at what she did. Great at it, if the glowing reports from clients posted on S&J’s website were any indication.

“Rabb delivers the goods,” one client, a CEO of an electronics company, had written.

Caleb returned his attention to the boring, nondescript car and wondered if she had chosen it precisely because it would attract little, if no, attention. A good choice for someone trying to become invisible.

Conversation was kept to a minimum. Caleb had a feeling that it had more to do with the lady’s preference than it did with the SDR she conducted. He’d been on enough protective details to recognize the employment of a surveillance detour route. Though tedious, SDRs were necessary to make certain no one was following them.

They left the city, heading north, thick woods bordering the ribbon of highway. Shelley kept to the speed limit, another tactic, he guessed, to avoid attracting attention. Everything she did was low-key. The flashy moves one might expect from a Secret Service trained bodyguard were conspicuously absent.

His approval rating of the lady climbed steadily. Even so, he wasn’t about to hand over the reins to a woman he’d just met. Shelley might call herself team leader, but when it came to Tommy’s safety, Caleb was in charge.

He refused to compromise on that.

When mile after mile had flown by, Caleb roused himself enough to ask, “Where are we going?”

“A safe house Jake and I bought a year ago. We keep it for clients who need to keep a low profile.”

“You mean clients with someone trying to kill them?” he asked dryly.

“Something like that.”

The heat of the day had abated, if only slightly, and the evening slid into a purple-hued dusk. Caleb glanced at Tommy, saw that the boy’s face was gray with fatigue. Caleb couldn’t deny that he was exhausted, as well. After chasing off last night’s midnight visitor, he’d spent the remainder of the night in Tommy’s room, watching over his nephew while doing some research on the bodyguard.

As though Shelley had read his thoughts, she pulled off the road at a bland motel that would never earn a five-star listing. At the registration desk, she asked for adjoining rooms.

Inside, Caleb looked about the cheaply decorated room. A television was bolted to the fake paneling of the wall. Carpet that might once have been a light green was now faded to a sickly yellow. The puny efforts of the room’s window air-conditioning unit scarcely made a dent in the late afternoon heat.

“Burgers and fries okay with you?” Shelley asked.

“Sure.”

Shelley returned within ten minutes and placed a white paper bag, redolent with the smells of grease-laden food, on the room’s one table.

“Thanks,” Caleb said.

“No problem.”