Page 3 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name

He wasn’t a customer. He wasn’t a creep. He was something far worse.

And he was there for her.

She climbed down off the pole as gracefully as she could in six-inch Lucite heels. Then she gave up on grace and fled the stage.

She pushed her way past the other girls backstage, yanking off her shoes as she went. But the man with the badge had been fast on his feet because he was already waiting for her beside her locker. He flashed his ID wallet in her face and said, “Ma’am, I suggest you put some clothes on. You need to come with me.”

Jessica bristled at the order but caught the way his gaze stayed on her face, not dropping below her neck. Like he was trying very hard not to look anywhere else. She considered doing the exact opposite of what he said and hightailing it out the side exit. But then she thought better. You didn’t run from a U.S. marshal. Because if you did, you didn’t get very far. Hunting people down was what they did for a living.

Jessica knew that better than most.

“What’s going on?” She tried to keep her voice calm, but there’d been an audible tremor in it.

The marshal’s voice was steady. “Get dressed. There’s been a break-in at your house.”

* * *

Her house was only a short drive from the strip club, yet it had felt like an eternity. The world outside the marshal’s car appeared blurry and distorted as anxiety clouded her vision through the backseat window.It’s just junkies, she’d told herself, repeatedly.Looking for cash or valuables.

When he pulled to a stop on her street, she saw multiple police cruisers parked in her drive. Their red and blue strobe lights were bouncing off the white walls of her house.

She clambered out of the marshal’s car and ran across the yard. Several officers had been milling about on her porch, but her attention went straight to her front door. Or to what was left of it. The old wood had splintered around the handle and lock, leaving a semi-circular hole. Someone had clearly kicked it in with considerable force.

She climbed the porch steps in a daze. “What the…?”

Waiting inside for her was another deputy marshal. This one was a petite redhead with a pale, freckled complexion. A heavily pregnant belly protruded over her gun belt.

Jessica had recognized her immediately. Her name was Inez Sharrow, and she’d been Jessica’s sole liaison with the U.S. Marshals Service for the ten years she’d lived in southwest Florida.

“A local PD unit reported the break-in,” Sharrow said, leading the way down the hall. Progress proved difficult; broken ceramic shards and soil from a shattered pot plant littered their path. “They spotted your door hanging off its hinges from the road. They entered the premises to investigate, but the intruder was already gone.”

Jessica didn’t respond; she’d been too preoccupied with the sight of her belongings reduced to rubble underfoot.

Nothing she owned was especially valuable. She lived a flatpack existence, accumulating nothing that couldn’t be broken down or abandoned at short notice. Still, seeing what she did own abused in such a way hit her like a physical blow.

Ahead of her, Sharrow paused in the door to her bedroom. “It’s a bit of a mess in there too, I’m afraid.”

Jessica stopped beside her. The red painted eye had stared down at her from above her bed.

Her stomach dropped, along with her hopes. Not just junkies then.

Sharrow had been speaking, and Jessica tried to tune her back in.

“—you need to pack a bag, just the essentials, and be ready to leave in ten minutes?—”

Jessica returned her attention to the new mural decorating her wall. The graffiti eye seemed to watch her.

A cube of cold fear slid down her throat.

The Marshals Service had promised she was safe here. That she was invisible. That no one would ever find her.

They were wrong.

TWO

Jessica waited by the curb,arms crossed tightly over her chest, as the male marshal loaded her suitcase into the trunk of his car. The night air was thick and still, carrying the scent of asphalt and distant rain. Sharrow appeared beside her, phone pressed to her ear, her brow furrowed in concentration.

Sharrow ended the call and nodded toward the other marshal. “This is Deputy U.S. Marshal Ryan Inglis,” she said. “From the Two Rivers Violent Fugitive Task Force.”