She found an understated convenience store and stepped in under the blinding fluorescent lights. The air-conditioning grew colder as she moved deeper inside the building. In the back she found what she was looking for. She favored a turkey and cheese over tuna and discovered an apple that didn’t look half bad. And since the water coming out of the tap at her hotel tasted like dirt, she grabbed a big bottle of water.
“Someone as beautiful as you shouldn’t be eating that piss-poor excuse for dinner.”
The words registered, and Olivia turned to find a pair of blue eyes staring her way. The guy was twenty-five, tops. The sunburn on his face and the way he wasn’t completely steady on his feet suggested he’d been out day drinking and continued the party into the night. His eyelids closed halfway and had a hard time opening back up.
The man wasn’t interesting enough to even respond to.
Olivia turned away from the refrigerator and toward the checkout.
“Wow, not even a hello?”
She kept her eyes forward and didn’t look back.
He was still behind her when she set her stuff on the counter.
Her neck tingled, and she looked toward the open doors.
“Is this all?” the clerk asked her.
She offered a tired smile and one quick nod. From her back pocket she removed a twenty-dollar bill and handed it over. All the while the hair on her arms stood up. Much as she wanted to look behind her, she didn’t.
She accepted the plastic bag and her change and started toward the door.
The man who’d been watching let out a low whistle.
Let it go, Olivia.
She made it a block outside the store when the chill on her neck made her stop and turn around.
Her spidey sense ratcheted up another ten notches when she didn’t see the object that was watching her.
The streets were loud, with people everywhere and cars cruising the Strip, music blaring into the southwestern air.
Her intention was to zigzag back to her hotel so long as the neck tingling went away.
With a twist of her heel, she turned around and stopped dead in her tracks.
Leo stood two feet away, eyes glued to her.
“We meet again,” he said, his voice calm and even.
She paused . . . shocked to see him. “Are you following me?”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and then he opened his mouth and lied. “No.” The corners of his mouth lifted, and a smile that could only be described as flirtatious manifested on his face.
This was not happening. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” she asked him, knowing damn well he did.
Her question pulled some of the tension out of his shoulders. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “So, go there.”
He paused, let that flirty smile expand. “What’s your name?”
A car horn sounded from the street.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” The man was trying to pick her up.
He cocked his head to the side. “You’re beautiful, you’re not wearing a ring . . .” He shrugged. “What’s your name?”
For a moment she stood in shock. In her line of work, she didn’t believe in coincidences. So what were the chances of Grant not knowing whom he was talking to?
Considering she’d sniffed out his earlier lie, and the one he just delivered by saying he hadn’t been following her . . . no, Leo Grant wasn’t that great of an actor, even if she knew he was capable of taking on the persona of someone he wasn’t. Undercover federal agents had a knack for things like that.
In an attempt to deliver the same message to him as she did to the guy in the convenience store, she shook her head and walked past him.
He followed. “Wait.”
She stopped, did a quick pivot, causing him to step into her personal space. “Go away!”
“You don’t mean that. I see something in your eyes . . .”
“You see me being . . .”
Car horns blared.
Olivia shifted her gaze from Leo to the street.
In an instant, she saw the barrel of a gun pointing out of a car, the face behind it.
“Get down!” she yelled.
Everything happened all at once.
Surprise on Leo’s face as she dropped her bag and lunged for him.
Her knees buckling as she attempted to become a smaller target.
And a flash of light from the tip of a gun that fired without a sound.
CHAPTER THREE
One minute she was growling at him, the next she was grabbing his arm, and they were both down