“I’ll see what I can turn up, but a storm is shutting us down as I speak,” Bryn Bailey said. She looked at her watch and winced. She was already late for the Kirby clan dinner party, and the storm would slow her down even more, assuming she ever got on the road. “Whole city may be closed tomorrow.”

Bryn had been with the Bureau since graduating from college twelve years ago and could have been their poster girl—had they had one. Vigorous and driven, she was beautiful, but much less high gloss after a year in the wild, wild west. Her power suits had given way to designer jeans that were comfortable and collected an impressive collection of wolf whistles. The spiked heels were now snakeskin cowboy boots that had changed her walk from stabbing to kick-butt.

She told herself it was the wind that had softened her sleek, dark hairstyle, but her dark, less-steely gaze couldn’t be explained away by wind gusts. Bryn blamed it on Jake Kirby, a colleague and a friend, despite his choice to join the U.S. Marshals Service instead of the FBI. And riding herd on Dewey Hyatt. The two of them had managed to take the edge off her “take no prisoners” approach to law enforcement. She’d never expected to feel comfortable in a West she’d considered irretrievably chauvinistic. At first she’d put a penny in a jar every time someone called her “little lady,” but quit when she realized that it was a habit, not a put down. Inherent in their recognition that she was different from them was an appreciation for that difference that she liked. If she hadn’t partnered with Jake a year ago, she’d still be in DC, bitching her way through her usual cases.

She didn’t miss it. She liked that she didn’t have to act like a man to succeed here. Whatever perks she lost by being female were balanced by the benefits of being female. There was a growing satisfaction in doing her job without worrying about who was ahead of her and who was closing in from behind. Not long after she moved here, she’d felt a tectonic plate shift inside as she realized that having it “all” was driving her crazy, not happy. She now sang along with the country music station, the only thing her new SUV seemed able to pick up as she drove down the freeway, and she had learned how to “push her tush,” something Dani Kirby, Jake’s sister-in-law, insisted was the key to happiness.

After a few more assurances to the voice droning in her ear—why did men have to say the same thing three ways before they could move on?—she was able to ring off. The reports coming in on the lab strikes were brief, details scarce, but her gut, her instincts, were telling her there was more to this than the usual grandstanding. If only the facts backed her up. Phagan had told her he thought Green was planning an offensive for later this year, but hadn’t learned what. After six months, he still hovered on the outside of their magic inner circle. Outside that circle, Green operated in tight, isolated cells. It wasn’t clear which cell member was the contact with their control either. He was impressed with their security—and Phagan wasn’t easy to impress

Not the result she’d hoped for when she inched out on a limb for him a year ago. He’d contacted her online, inviting her into VR—virtual reality—as was his habit. That time, though, there’d been a difference. He came, not to court, but to ask a favor. A huge favor.

“I need access to Pathphinder,” he told her. Pathphinder was the Internet “handle” for his former partner in crime, Phoebe Mentel Kirby. Like Dewey Hyatt, Phoebe was on probation for those criminal activities. She was also Jake’s wife, and Jake wasn’t about to let any unhallowed contact with her former partners jeopardize her probation. He liked having her around too much.

“Yeah, Jake will let that happen,” Bryn said, “when real-time hell freezes over.” She added the “real-time” adjective because the last time she’d said this to him, he’d turned their VR world into a frozen-over hell. The guy had a puckish sense of humor. “The only time Dewey sees Phoebe is when he’s with one of us. You know contact with you would violate her parole.”

“That’s why you’ll have to be our go-between.”

“And why would I risk pissing Jake off like that?”

“Because it could be my ticket—and yours—into the inner circle of Green.”

Green. How had he found out she was investigating Green? For months she’d been trying to plant someone inside this elusive and crafty environmental action group. It was as if Green had a sixth sense for Feds. Or a contact in their office. She didn’t like to think it, but it had happened and would again. There was always someone who needed money more than their integrity. Maybe it was time to step outside the official box.

“If I help you, you’re in?” she asked, stalling as she reviewed the pros and cons. Pros were obvious. Phagan wasn’t a Fed. Cons were obvious, too. If he wanted access to Phoebe, it was her B&E—breaking and entering—planning skills he was after. Phoebe had earned her path “phinding” rep planning B&E for Phagan and Dewey. Her probation required her to stop illegal acts, not encourage them.

“Like flint,” he said.

“What’s the job?”

“You know I can’t tell you that, darlin’. You’d have to do something about it.” He gave her a virtually sincere look. “When the time is right, I’ll deliver the goods. Until then, well, you’ll have to trust me.”

Trust him. Like a wish before dying, the last two years of contact with him streamed through her head. Every taunt, tease, and love note. And with the teasing, had been solid leads to crimes committed by some very nasty characters. As if he followed her thought processes, a tiny angel of herself appeared on her right shoulder, with a diminutive devil on the other. She looked at the angel. It smiled in a very un-angelic way.

“You know you want to,” it said.

She looked at the devil.

“You want to bad.”

She looked at Phagan. His virtual smile was wide and hopeful, his teeth too white and glinting in the sun behind his head. It invited her to forget reason, to forget caution and listen to her heart. She’d never been very good at listening to her heart, but her reasonable, logical brain knew there was a time for caution and a time to leap into the abyss.

So Phagan and Phoebe had done some path “phinding”—with Bryn as go-between. It had been an education to see Phoebe go after a system. She had a genius for finding weak spots in security. She also had an instinct for finding the strengths of a system and using that against them. It was fortunate that Jake kept her on a very short leash. It almost drove Bryn mad that she couldn't tell who or where the system was housed. Phagan's VR world was stripped of all identifying marks.

And then nothing. As near as she could tell Green hadn’t used the information. There’d been no report of a break-in that remotely resembled Phoebe’s plan. So why hadn’t Green used the plan? Instead, everyone seemed to be in a holding pattern. Until tonight. Were Green operatives even now moving on an unsuspecting lab with information she’d helped provide? And where was Phagan? Since her last contact with him, he’d been ominously silent.

It wasn’t like him. He liked to touch base with her every day, even it if was just an email smiley. She hated to admit it, but she was worried about him. Could Green suspect him? They’d managed to smoke out every other person she’d sent against them, but this time she was the only person who knew Phagan was working with her. Six months had passed since Phagan began his online dance with someone called “Forest for the Trees,” and still no face-to-face meet with any of the Green leadership to show for giving Phagan her trust six months ago, except a few more wrinkles around her eyes. This was the first time she’d stepped outside the lines. If Phagan failed her, it could mean her career.

Out there, somewhere past her personal worries, her brain gnawed at the few facts she’d learned. Why had Green chosen tonight to act? In the past, their operations had coincided with environmentally significant days, like Arbor Day. Was there something else that she’d missed in her obsessive monitoring the past six months?

There was no way to know what this change in their usual modus operandi meant. Not with the paucity of facts she had and using a brain too tired to produce more than a boatload of unanswered questions and lots of unease. Her last cup of coffee had faded from her system a couple of hours ago. The clock sounded loud in the quiet, empty office. Somewhere there was someone on night duty, but not here where all the smart agents left for home ahead of the storm. Usually Dewey stayed until she left, but he’d had to report to his parole officer before they met for dinner with the Kirbys. It annoyed her that she missed him, that she liked having him working with her as a pseudo-partner.

To escape her thoughts, she grabbed her purse and rose to her feet in one smooth, determined motion. Moping around the office was as useful as hitting herself with a two-by-four. She could at least be with friends eating good food and great desserts. She snagged her coat as she passed the rack. Out in the hall, she hesitated long enough to hear the door click closed behind her. As she rounded the corner, she heard the elevator ping and picked up the pace, but checked when she saw someone waiting in the elevator. It was instinct to reach for the weapon in the holster nestled in the curve of her back, even as she recognized him.

Donovan Kincaid raised his hands above his waist, the palms out so she could see they were empty. “You’ve gone country. I wasn’t expecting that.”

And I wasn’t expecting you, she thought. She didn’t wonder how he’d gotten in the closed building. To be a specialist in keeping people out, you first had to know how they got in. She shrugged. “Stuff happens.”

“That it does,” he said. “I knew the storm wouldn’t scare you home early.”

Did he? Bryn arched her brows. “I’d planned to be, but something came up.”

“Something always does.”

Donovan Kincaid studied her without embarrassment, so she returned the favor. He still looked like Harrison Ford and had the charm—and a rakish air of mystery packaged with military bearing—to match the rugged good looks. He was a man who could make a woman feel feminine and fluttery, even when she was pointing a gun at him. She’d never understood the younger woman/older man attraction until she met Donovan. She’d been tempted, though not enough to join the parade of women that sighed after him. She remembered liking him, but not trusting him—because of what she knew about him and what she didn’t.

Back then, his dossier placed him in Vietnam as a sniper, but he wasn’t a loner and seemed to be free of “issues” and post traumatic stress disorder from his three tours of duty in Asia. He did have issues with peacetime, she recalled. He was a natural-born soldier with a romantic streak that helped him with women. He loved the life, the danger. No surprise he’d turned mercenary, selling his skills to those he perceived as the good guys in the world’s various conflicts. A few blank spots hinted at some CIA involvement. Then he turned up as a security specialist for a government contractor, which is how she’d met him. She believed that it was Kincaid who’d sent her the information that nailed his employer—once it became clear that that employer wasn’t on the side of the angels. He had to be on the right side, even if he wasn’t an angel himself.

She hadn’t kept track of Kincaid because of the flare of attraction that hummed below the surface every time she was around him. That might have been a mistake, she decided. Did his presence here mean he’d set up shop in Denver or was he just passing through?

“I like the new you,” he said with a smile that warmed the cold hallway. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“I’m late for a dinner appointment.”

“Really?” His smile turned intimate. “You have changed.”

A year ago, her hackles would have popped up, but after hanging with the Kirby men, her hackles were plumb worn out.

“I live in interesting times.”

His chuckle was sexy as hell.

You’d think that being interested in two men would give you some immunity, she thought ruefully, and wondering, for the thousandth time, how a pair of criminals had become yin to her oh-so-legal yang?

“How about I walk you to your car?” His manner was easy, but as she entered the brighter light of the elevator, she could see the worry in the back of his gray eyes that had a few more lines than she remembered fanning out from them. Snow still dusted his brown hair, which had been mixed with a bit of distinguished gray as long as she’d known him. He topped her by at least five inches. The navy coat he wore with casual confidence looked expensive. He smelled expensive, too, dispelling the odor of pizza and sweat that usually prevailed in the elevator.

She propped a shoulder against the metal wall, her arms crossed over her chest. She chose the defensive pose on purpose. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark, wool pants, his attitude that of the supplicant, which was a far cry from his usual take-charge approach. Which meant he was more than a little worried.

“What’s up, Donovan?” The clock was ticking in her head, but curiosity drowned it out.

He hesitated, as if not sure where to begin. “I could be crying wolf,” he admitted.

She didn’t state the obvious, that he usually was the wolf. He shifted, as if he felt claustrophobic in the small box.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning and move to the end?” She punctuated this with a pointed look at her watch. If he didn't get to the point, she’d miss dessert. She hated missing dessert.

He nodded. “I’m working for Merryweather Biotechnologies. The usual security consulting, only professional and personal this time. Their work is cutting edge, some of it top secret and under government contract. Earlier today, one of their top scientists, John Knight, collapsed and was rushed to the hospital. He died two hours ago.”

The elevator doors slid open. Bryn stepped out into the lobby and stopped, facing Donovan.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But—”

“It’s complicated.” He hesitated again, then said, “His daughter, Prudence, accompanied him to the hospital, but now she seems to be missing.”

His tone had changed when he said her name, though she couldn’t isolate just how. Bryn felt her instincts ramp up as his gaze avoided hers.

“According to the nursing staff, there was some kind of argument. She left looking—” he stopped.

“Looking?”

He hesitated. “Agitated. Real agitated.”

“And the father? How did he look?”

Donovan’s brows snapped together in a scowl. “Pleased. The nurse said he looked pleased.”

“That’s hardly a federal offense,” Bryn said, though her tone was gentle.

“I know.” He sighed, shaking his head. “And it’s a good reason to take a time out. But Pru—Miss Knight is more than his daughter. She’s his research assistant. And critical to his work. His highly classified, very valuable work. And she’s not the kind of person to ignore a page.”

“And your gut is telling you that something’s wrong?” Bryn had learned to appreciate the value of the twitching male gut, though she liked hard facts better.

“Her car's in the parking lot outside the hospital,” he said, his gaze avoiding hers.

Bryn looked out the lobby’s glass doors at the blowing snow. “Has she ever gone AWOL?”

His face told her that she’d hit on a question he didn’t want her to ask. He nodded again, this time reluctantly. “He keeps—kept her on a short leash when he was around, but he traveled a lot. Conferences and stuff. And she has some money of her own from her mother. When he’s gone, she takes off, too. Though not like this. She parks in a garage downtown and disappears in the mall, sometimes for several days.”

How did he know? She held back the question, sensing he wouldn’t answer it anyway. It was clear that he had more than a professional interest in Miss Knight. When a woman was involved, he usually did. Maybe that was what was making him twitch.

“I have some contacts in the DPD,” she said, thanks to Jake’s brother, Luke, who was a homicide detective. “I can ask a few questions. I might get some answers.”

Or she might not. It was too soon to know much and the storm would complicate more than Donovan’s problems before it moved east.

“Do you have a picture?”

He pulled a manila envelope out of a pocket and handed it to her. “Here’s her vitals, car stats and a picture.” He waited until she took it. “Also my personal cell phone number. Call me if—”

“Of course, but I can’t promise much, Donovan.”

“I know.” He held her gaze for a long moment. “Thanks.”

“Sure.” She tapped the envelope. “I’ll be in touch.”

She left him standing on the sidewalk, an improbably forlorn figure with the storm for his backdrop. In the garage, her SUV was cold and reluctant to start. As she waited for it to warm, she thought about her arrival in Denver with Jake just over a year ago. Her skirt—and her attitude—had been so tight, Jake had had to lift her into the cab of the truck he’d rented.

Donovan was right. She had changed, though not so much she waited to open the envelope. She was curious to see the woman who’d made Donovan Kincaid worry. She pulled out the sheets and found the promised vitals on Prudence Knight, along with a picture that was even worse than the usual driver’s license mug shot. Probably her company ID. She had that “deer in the headlights” look. Her stats put her at five-eight, but the unkind camera shrunk her a bit. Her hair, blonde, was pulled sternly back off her face, and she wore a pair of large, studious glasses perched on the end of her nose. According to her birth date, she was young enough to be Donovan’s daughter. Which had never stopped him in the past. Not his usual squeeze, though, unless she looked better in the flesh. From the picture, she could get no sense of who Prudence Knight was or how she felt about daddy’s short leash around her neck, but there must be something there. She’d not only managed to break free on occasion, she’d managed to lose Donovan, which Bryn knew from personal experience wasn’t easy.

That brought her back to wondering why Donovan had been following Prudence Knight? If she were so critical to her father’s research, why would he risk pissing her off? Without answers, all she could do was speculate, which she could do just as well at her destination. She stowed the information and backed out of her spot, then turned truck and self in the direction of the restaurant. With a little luck, she might make it in time for dessert.