“No,” Sean agreed. “But there are worse things than being shot. That’s what worries me.”

“You mean if someone is dirty?” Thorpe looked tense and pensive.

“Yeah. But it’s possible I’m being paranoid.” He sighed. “I’ve got an escape route if we need it, so I’ll call.”

Sean pulled off the road into a fast-food restaurant’s parking lot. As commuters started wrapping around the building in their vehicles, waiting for liquid caffeine and fortification, he drove to the edge of the lot and kept the engine running. “Wait here.”

He jumped out with his phone in both hands, staring intently at the screen and dialing something. A moment later, he pressed the phone to his ear. The conversation lasted less than thirty seconds. Then Sean was running back to the car. He tossed his phone onto the asphalt, and it splintered into a dozen pieces.

Callie gasped. “What the . . . ?”

He peeled out of the parking lot and swerved back onto the freeway, cutting off a little subcompact. “As soon as I identified myself, the SAC took the phone. That shouldn’t happen. He demanded that I bring you in, Callie. I won’t do it.”

Her heart caught in her throat. “Like he wants to arrest me?”

“He called it ‘questioning,’ but something is off. He asked what we’d been doing in Vegas for the last thirty-six hours. He knew you were with me. He knew I’d shopped at that Walmart and that we’d taken a taxi from there. Which means he may even know we’re in this Jeep.” Sean weaved in and out of the swelling traffic. “I tossed my phone so that he couldn’t trace that signal anymore, just in case they’re locked on to it.”

“Should I do the same?” Thorpe asked.

“Can’t hurt.” Sean nodded tightly.

Thorpe rolled down the window and dumped it onto the freeway without hesitation. “Now what?”

“Our one saving grace was that they hadn’t been able to find out from the cab company exactly where they’d taken us. They were still doing paperwork to obtain the information. We have to ditch this Jeep and find another cab.”

“Then we should probably head back toward the Strip,” Thorpe suggested.

“Yeah.”

Mouth pressed together tensely, Sean switched lanes and followed the signs toward the touristy section of Vegas. “It will probably take twenty or thirty minutes or so from here. Depends on the traffic.”

“Once we get a cab, where are we going then?” Callie asked. “It’s all fine and dandy to disappear into anonymous transportation, but where do we tell him to drive us if not the field office? Local police?”

“No,” Sean said immediately. “The SAC will just swoop in and claim jurisdiction, then we’ll be right back to where we started. There’s got to be another way to get you free. Who else wants the information on that disc?”

Callie sat back in the seat, trying not to let panic overwhelm her. If Sean didn’t know where to turn, she feared they were doomed. “Maybe Logan could get paperwork for us to leave the country.”

“I’m worried that if the killers tracked us to Lake Mead, they can follow us anywhere. The way they’re operating, I don’t think they have boundaries. They’ll go wherever and do whatever for that remaining research.”

“But you said my father burned it.”

“We know that,” Thorpe reminded. “They don’t.”

“So if we find a way to convey that the research doesn’t exist anymore, maybe they will leave me alone?” That sounded awfully optimistic, but Callie still hoped deep down that Sean believed it, too.

“No,” he scoffed. “You still know something about these people and what they want. You still have enough evidence to suggest they killed your family and the Aslanovs. And you’re the only eyewitness who can tie both Whitney and the older bastard he’s working with to this conspiracy. They will kill you in a heartbeat to bury their skeletons.”

He was right. Callie fought to breathe. She wouldn’t die for greed, for research that didn’t exist anymore, to keep a dirty secret.

Then a solution hit her—so simple and effective. She grabbed her backpack and tore into it, pulling out her cosmetics case. “As soon as we find a taxi, I think I know where to go.”

* * *

SEAN began to wonder if Callie was out of her mind. She was in the backseat getting all dolled up, carefully applying mascara with a hand mirror, then teasing and smoothing her hair with a small brush.

“You look beautiful, lovely, but I don’t think now is the time to worry about all this.”

A glance to his right showed that Thorpe looked as confused as he did.

“It’s the perfect time. I’m going to make a big splash.” She dug into her backpack and pulled out some black leggings and a simple V-neck shirt in red. She shimmied out of her old clothes and into the new, then exchanged her tennis shoes for some black sandals.

Somehow, she made clothes that had been rumpled into a ball five minutes ago look perfect.

“Why?” Thorpe demanded. “What do you have planned in that mischievous head of yours?”

Callie shook her head. “I’m still working out the details. Get me to a taxi. You’ll see.”

“You should clue me in. After all, I have some experience at eluding bad guys,” Sean said ironically.

“I’ve put my trust in you for the last thirty-six hours. Now it’s time for you to do the same for me.”

Sighing and grumbling, Sean continued heading northwest, toward downtown. Traffic was definitely picking up now that it was after seven a.m. They slowed to the speed he’d drive on a residential street as he headed north on I-515. Fucking mess.

Ten minutes to go, max. Then they could disappear into a cab, get lost in a sea of humanity, and hopefully whatever the devil was in Callie’s head would save the day.

Another glance in the rearview mirror alarmed him. A black sedan two cars back and to the right. They’d picked it up a few minutes ago—along with a lot of other cars. But this one . . . every time he switched lanes, so did the sedan.

With the hair at the back of his neck standing up, Sean slowed down. It wasn’t hard with this many cars. The lane of traffic beside him was moving a tad faster. But the black sedan slowed, too.

Growling a curse, Sean changed lanes again, getting directly in front of the dark car. He glanced in the rearview mirror, hoping to see someone blabbing on the phone, a woman putting on her mascara, or someone reading their texts—anything that said this driver wasn’t really paying attention to them. Instead, he saw two men in an unfamiliar bluish uniform, one fancier than the other. He tensed.

“What is it?” Thorpe asked.

Sean didn’t really want to talk to him, but Thorpe was another gun and more muscle. He needed that more than resentment now. “We’ve got company. Callie, have you worked out your plan?”

“I need to make a phone call. Neither of you has a phone anymore?”

“They’re destroyed.” Thorpe looked grim.

“Keep getting to the taxi. I’ll figure out how to make this work.”

An exit appeared on the right. He sped up and put on his blinker, pretending that he intended to change to the fast lane on the left. At the last moment, he jerked the wheel right, cutting off an SUV, then bumped onto the off-ramp, flooring it.

The other car hit the brakes, tires screeching, then followed them off the ramp.

“Fuck,” Thorpe said, turning to look out the back windshield.

That summed it up. Sean navigated the traffic, dodging cars, changing lanes, screaming through a yellow light to try to lose their tail.

The black sedan simply ran the red and continued on, firing a semiautomatic out the window.

“Jesus, they could kill anyone!” Sean cursed, thankful that the bullets had missed. “We should hit the Strip soon. If I can’t shake this tail, we won’t have time to retrieve our luggage from the back. Callie, hand Thorpe your backpack. As soon as I stop the Jeep, everyone bail out and run.”

In the backseat, Callie gave him a nod. Besides lushing up her lashes with mascara, she’d rimmed her bright blue eyes in her signature black liner. Her eyes stood out in her pale face, broken only by the red gloss on her lips. Now wasn’t the time to notice how damn beautiful she was, but he couldn’t help it. She looked especially lovely with her delicate face full of determination. Hell, he really was madly in love.

As Sean raced down Tropicana Avenue, he also realized that finding a quick place to ditch the Jeep on the Strip might be tough. Time to improvise.

Sean hung a right onto Las Vegas Boulevard the second he could, grateful that traffic wasn’t too heavy. When he saw the street sign for Las Vegas Boulevard, he hung a sharp right onto the edge of the Strip. A screech of tires behind told him the sedan was doing its best to follow suit.

“Where the hell are you going?” Thorpe barked.

“Looking for a place to lose the Jeep and pick up a cab,” he said grimly.

Thankfully, the traffic in the tourist areas wasn’t as heavy at this hour. Random cars and the occasional cab drifted by. Some hungover partiers were doing the walk of shame back to their hotels.

The grandeur of the Bellagio jumped out at him, the famous fountain show idle this early in the morning. He floored it down the relatively empty side street leading to the hotel, past the standing streetlamps meant to be charming. Through the back passenger window, he caught a glimpse of the fake Eiffel Tower that always made him roll his eyes—and the black sedan heading toward the curve to follow him, about thirty seconds behind. At least they had stopped shooting for now.

He roared under the canopy and glanced to his right, past the topiaries. A few idling taxies, a shuttle bus full of spent revelers leaving for the airport, and some members of the valet staff milling around.