marshal.”
“Did Charlotte send you?” she asked. Brendan had told her why her friend had been unable to come to her aid herself; she was having a baby. She hadn’t even known Charlotte was pregnant. It had to be Aaron Timmer’s baby. Josie had realized her friend was falling for her former bodyguard shortly after he’d been hired to work palace security, too. Had they married? She’d been so preoccupied with her own life lately that she hadn’t gotten the specifics of what Charlotte and Princess Gabriella had endured.
“Charlotte?” the man repeated the name.
“Charlotte Green,” Josie explained. “She was the marshal who relocated me in the program.”
The man nodded. “Yes, she didn’t tell anyone else where she’d placed you. Not even her partner.”
Josie shuddered as she thought of the man who would have killed to learn her whereabouts. He must have been working for Margaret O’Hannigan. But then why had the woman thought she was dead?
“It’s a shame that Trigger was killed.”
“In self-defense.” Josie defended her former bodyguard. Whit was the one who’d found the bomb in the safe house and called the marshals. Everything had moved so quickly after that—Josie had moved so quickly.
“He was a friend.”
Josie shivered now and glanced back at CJ to make sure he was all right. “Trigger was a friend of yours?”
“Yes, a close friend. We used to work together,” he said. “But then things happened in my life. I took a leave from work and lost Trigger as my partner with the Marshals. We also lost touch for a while...until recently. Then we reconnected.”
“You had talked to him recently?” she asked.
“Right before he died...”
“Do you know who he was working for?” Josie asked. It might help the district attorney’s case against Margaret to have a witness who could corroborate that she’d hired the hit on her.
“He wasn’t working for anyone,” the man replied. “He was doing a favor for a friend.”
God, no...
She realized that this man was the friend for whom Trigger had been doing the favor. This man was the one who’d wanted her location, and from the nerves tightening her stomach into knots, she suspected he had not wanted her found in order to wish her well. She glanced down at her bag lying on the floor at her feet. Could she reach inside without his noticing? She didn’t have the gun anymore. It had been left at the crime scene back at Margaret O’Hannigan’s house. But if she could get to her phone...
She couldn’t call Charlotte, but she could call Brendan. He would come; he would save her and their son as he had so many times over the past few days.
She should have trusted him four years ago. If she had showed him the information she’d compiled, they would have figured out together that it was Margaret who had killed his father. But apprehending Margaret earlier wouldn’t have kept Josie safe.
“You were the friend?” she asked, as she leaned down and reached for her purse.
“If you’re looking for this,” he remarked as he lifted a cell phone from under his thigh, “don’t bother.” The driver’s window lowered, and he tossed out the phone. “That way Charlotte Green’s little GPS device won’t be able to track you down.”
He must have taken the phone from her purse while she’d been buckling CJ into his seat in the back. She was so tired that she hadn’t even been aware of what the man was doing. She had barely been aware of him.
“Who are you?” she asked, her heart beating fast with panic and dread.
“You don’t recognize me?”
She was afraid to look directly at him. A hostage was never supposed to look at her kidnapper. If she couldn’t identify him, he might let her live.
But as her blood chilled, she realized this wasn’t a kidnapper. Unlike Margaret O’Hannigan, this person wasn’t interested in money. He had an entirely different agenda.
“I—I don’t know,” she replied, but she was staring down at her purse, wondering what might have been left inside that she could use as a weapon. “I’ve been away for so many years.”
“You’re the one who looks different,” he said. “But I know the doctor Charlotte Green sends witnesses to, so I got him to show me your files. I knew what you’d look like. I recognized you in the parking garage.”
“That—that was you?” she asked.
He nodded his head. “And the other so-called orderly was at O’Hannigan’s place, setting up the backup plan.”
She glanced again at CJ and whispered, “The bomb?”
“But you were just