NIKO HYND STOOD outside the sedan with the door open, looking over the rounded valleys of Claire Rhodes’s adopted town. Her home was far below him to the left. There were still police lights flashing in the woods near the ridgeline where the man disguised as a U.S. Marshal had been killed. He’d been working for Hynd. The police wouldn’t find any trace of his true identity.
Vera sat behind the wheel with the window open.
He had warned the man in the truck to follow Claire only, not to engage. He couldn’t handle her. Few could.
“I told him to wait,” he said.
“He thought he had her,” Vera replied. “She’s on the move now. Do we take her?”
There was providence in this, and Hynd was glad he hadn’t killed her at the house.
“Let her go.”
“What?” Vera asked.
He thought of what he knew about Claire, how anger drove her to violence, short-circuited any self-control.
“She may not understand how, but she’s on our side. Let’s go.”
The real work was just starting. And the men who paid Hynd wanted results.