Page 34 of Rescued By the Operative

“You keep your wire on at all times,” Carl warns me.

“I will.”

He shoots me a look, and we both know what he’s getting at.

We make a plan to touch base again in a few days, and I go inside the safe house through the back door.

Joaquin is big and not the friendliest. Quite the opposite of the men I usually meet in Darling Creek. Not a whiff of cowboy about this guy. He’s clearly not from here, because he’s neither a cowpoke nor a polygamist.

If the Bureau hadn’t already told me everything about him, I would wonder what the hell he’s doing in Darling Creek. But this hit man doesn’t need to know I know everything.

“Your keys,” he says after giving me a quick tour of the most depressing set of rooms I’ve encountered outside of the cult compound. He gives me a rundown of the house rules, and that’s when I meet the other housemate, Jefferson, who, thanks to the Bureau’s dossier, I also know is a local bounty hunter.

There’s a woman snuggled up next to him on the green sofa in the office/front room. She seems skittish, and her head is buried in Jefferson’s shoulder.

I don’t want to know what’s going on there, so I don’t ask any questions and instead turn my attention to Joaquin.

“Thanks,” I say. “You don’t happen to have a first-aid kit here, do you? I gotta change a bandage.”

The woman on the sofa attached to Jefferson stirs, but I ignore her.

“Do I have a bandage?” Joaquin laughs, pushing back from the desk and going to a footlocker in the corner. He kicks the lid open with one oversized boot.

I marvel at the contents. “You rob a hospital or something?”

The man on the sofa murmurs to his girlfriend, “What is it, Georgie?”

Georgie. He said Georgie.

But no, that can’t be who I think it is.

But when I see the girl’s face, I know it’s her.

My prisoner.

Georgeanne.

Quickly, I turn away and focus on Joaquin. I don’t need her staring and figuring out who I am. In the meantime, I need to find a new safe house before I get taken off this assignment. Before she blows my cover.

Joaquin roots through the state’s largest first-aid kit, then helps me replace my bandage over the stab wound.

All patched up, I thank Joaquin for his help and pull out my phone to text Carl.

“Wynella?”

I wince. This isn’t good.

Finally, with a sigh, I turn around. “Yep.”

The girl eyes my tight jeans, boots, and low-cut top. I look different, but there’s no point in denying it.

“Care to explain yourself?” Georgeanne asks.

“No,” I answer.

“You two know each other?” Joaquin and Jefferson say at the same time.

I’ll let Georgeanne answer that, but she’s suddenly gone mute.