Page 19 (1/2)

"You don’t have a clue what I’," I said

"It’s all on its way"

Maybe she does "It’d better be He knows I hate DC, and thisone for the teaent Lindy Bad joke But after what happened to Salvatore Cattone in the nineties, theto come anywhere near DC This is the safest place for you"

"A bacteria breeding see facility?" I asked Hyde wasn’t fazed, and she didn’t respond I looked up and sighed "How is he?"

She only offered one word "Sore"

I looked down, angry thattoo drae offrom the tip onto Stella’s pink and brown polka-dotted footie pajan to me Now, it was all I could see that the Carlisis had split up and were closing in They had traveled with the intention of assassinating Thoroup had been traced to Quantico, the other to California Travis’s hit that had been planted and circulated back in his undercover days when he was just an ad exec to the rest of the world, but it was only a matter of time until they tracked him to Illinois

Fifteenassassinated in our front lawn Snipers were in place when the car ca down the road As they sprayed the front of our house with bullets, one sniper blew the back of the rented Nissan Altieted Thomas’s vest My husband went down, and he stayed there until the aht after a twenty-ents in pursuit finally tackled theun, and he was shot and killed The others were arrested Thomas couldn’t have executed a more perfect plan

I could still feel his lips on mine frooodbye, not knowing if it was real or not, or for how long Possibly forever But Benny was dead, and we’d finally cornered one of his as ga down small-time strip clubs for Benny, who happened to be Abby Maddox’s estranged father Mick Abernathy was now in custody Abby had handed over a six-inch stack of intel on her own father, giving hi Carlisis We knew they wouldn’t stop without blood It was our hope that Benny’sand keep Travis or

I could have planned a lifetime and still never prepared unned down in our front lawn That an to fall, and they hadn’t stopped

After a specific knock on the door, Hyde did a quick check, sidearent in plain clothes, holding large plastic bags "Afternoon, Agent Hawkins"

He nodded to Hyde and then ent Maddox"

"Lindy," Hyde corrected hi over his words "I thought …"

I could only shake rier each time Where was that pheno cried out?

Thomas had proposed to me several times, but that wasn’t in the plans, and I always stuck to the plan The day Stella caht not be so bad after all The next tiain, he’d pro in the sky, no flowers, no Eiffel Tower or any other theatrics, but we had a new plan I just had to ent Hawkins laid out a thin blanket and began unpacking the plastic bags "The queen size sheets and cos, and Lysol The sheets have all been laundered The crib sheets with the detergent you requested"