Theo (Silver Team #1)

Chapter 1

I was living a nightmare of my own making.

My life had been erased, my past rewritten, my name changed, my medical records, credit and job history, education—all wiped clean.

I had nothing from my previous life. Not a picture of my parents, not a movie stub, not a birthday card from my sweet Grandma Margie.

Nothing. All gone. Sometimes I wondered about what had been done with all my stuff.

Was it taken to a landfill and thrown in the trash?

Was it taken somewhere and burned? And the most disturbing part was how easy it had been for someone sitting behind a computer to delete my whole life.

I was no longer Bridget Keller.

Though I wasn’t thinking any of those thoughts now as I fought for my life. As pathetic as it had become, I still didn’t want to die. Especially not like this.

I felt the man straddling my hips tighten his grip around my neck. My struggling did very little to stop the pads of his fingers from digging into my flesh, robbing me of much-needed oxygen.

“Last chance, Bridget. What did you see?”

Just like the three other times the man had asked before he tackled me to the floor, I had no answer, and if I did I wouldn’t have been able to give it, seeing as he was strangling me.

Which was scarier than when he’d slapped me—and at the time that had been pretty damn scary…

and painful. I’d never been hit by a man or, well, anyone, and let’s just say the sting of the slap hurt worse than I’d imagined.

Mercifully by the third time he’d landed his palm on my face my cheek had gone numb.

Or maybe at some point, pain was pain and adding more didn’t matter when the agony was already such that it stole your breath.

“Answer. Me!” he screamed in my face.

I would’ve flinched or jerked my head away as spittle landed on my forehead if he didn’t have one hand wrapped around my throat and the other fisting my hair, yanking it so hard I thought he was going to pull it out by the roots.

The corners of my vision darkened.

I was running out of time.

The man was too big and heavy. All the bucking and kicking and twisting was in vain.

I’d given up everything to do the right thing and this was how I was going to die.

Months of living in safe houses, months of no privacy, months of being questioned by prosecutors prepping for trial, months of misery that I knew would lead to giving up a normal future and this was how it was going to end.

A man I’d never seen before on top of me strangling me to death.

Alone.

In a house that had been given to me by the government as payment for my good deed.

All for nothing.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut. I would’ve hated myself but at least I would’ve been alive.

“What’s going on in here?”

I knew that voice.

The man on top of me shifted his weight.

He tipped his head back to look at my neighbor who was approximately a hundred and five, and now was my chance.

I quickly bent my knees, put the soles of my bare feet on the carpet, and with all the strength I could muster, thrust my hips up and twisted, freeing my pinned hands.

“Get off her!” Flix shouted.

The hand around my neck loosened. Oxygen filled my lungs, which in turn gave me a fighting chance.

A chance I wasn’t going to squander—so fight I did.

I clawed at his face, arched, reared, and shoved.

In other words I launched an attack, putting the man on top of me off balance until I forced him off of me.

I scrambled to my feet at the same time as my assailant, drawing in one painful lungful of air after another and preparing for another battle. Thankfully that battle never came. The man turned tail and ran through the living room into the kitchen and out the back door.

“Are you okay, Brenda?” Flix asked.

Flix.

Thank God for my elderly neighbor.

I whirled around and took in his wrinkled face.

Normally it was full of kindness and humor but right then he looked pale and fearful.

I didn’t know the man well. I hadn’t lived next to him long enough to form a bond, however, I had sat in his kitchen and listened to him share stories about his deceased wife and children.

I knew he had grandchildren. I knew he was losing his eyesight but, and I quote, “the good Lord has sharpened my hearing” and thank God He did.

Incidentally I had shared nothing with Flix.

Not that I had anything to share—after all, I’d only been Brenda King a few months and Brenda had no life experience beyond the cover WITSEC gave her.

And for some reason it didn’t seem right to share those made-up stories with a man who had offered me kindness and generosity.

“I’m…” I stopped to clear my scratchy throat. “I’m fine.”

“I called the police.”

Oh, shit .

I couldn’t be here when the police arrived.

I couldn’t be here at all.

They found me .

Whoever they were.

Without hesitation I ran to the side table I always set my purse on and snatched it on my way to the front door, only stopping long enough to pull Flix’s frail body into a brief hug.

“Thank you, Flix, I’ll never forget you. You saved my life.”

I let go and was running out the door when I heard him yelling after me. Guilt immediately clawed at my insides—not that I could do anything about it. Just like all the regret that weighed heavily, the guilt, too, would have to sit in my belly until I learned to live with it.

Barefoot in my car, or rather the car I’d been given—one over which I had no choice in color, make, or model, therefore it was a boring white sedan that I was told was non-conspicuous and safe—I peeled out of the driveway of a house that I would never see again.

I left behind all of the shit I’d been given that I hadn’t wanted in the first place and headed to the one person I knew could help me.

Theo.

A mile down the road I threw my government-issued cell phone out the window.

I wasn’t stupid, I knew everything I had was being tracked.

At this point I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that I’d been drugged and a subcutaneous GPS device had been implanted.

And since I wasn’t stupid, I’d spent a lot of time driving around getting the lay of the land.

Clarksville, New York, was beautiful. I wouldn’t have picked it as a place to live and it certainly wasn’t what I was used to but it was quaint and it did have cute mom-and-pop shops and a kickass diner with the best milkshakes I’d ever had, and the people who lived in Clarksville were friendly.

But I couldn’t say I’d miss it, except for Flix. I’d miss him.

I turned onto Tarrytown Road and did my best to take in the beautiful fields, the corn just peeking up out of the dirt, the trees, the cute farmhouses, knowing I’d never see any of this again.

Eventually Tarrytown Road ended and I took a right onto 32, the highway that would lead me to freedom.

Or at least to a truck stop and if luck was on my side, I’d hitch a ride with a nice, non-creepy trucker who would take me to Maryland.

A few hours later, I learned luck wasn’t on my side as I rode next to a man who was nice, non-creepy, but talkative in a way that made me wish I had the option to go to sleep or at least pretend I was.

But I wasn’t dumb and I knew I’d already taken a huge risk—necessary, since I figured my car had a tracking device on it, but still an enormous risk—getting into a truck with a stranger.

I wasn’t going to take any further chances.

So there I was listening to Troy the Trucker tell me about the time he’d been abducted by aliens.

Not that he’d called them aliens, he referred to his captures as “celestial beings”.

“…but it wasn’t all bad,” he finished. “I’d go back if I was invited.”

I didn’t take my eyes off the road when I said, “Well, that’s good.”

“So tell me about yourself, Cindy.”

Cindy, that was me, or the new me I’d made up on the fly when Troy had asked my name.

Coming up with a fake name was harder than one would think.

I should’ve prepared for the question but at the time I was just happy a semi had pulled into the deserted Fuel Hub gas station ten minutes after I’d gotten there.

Which had given me just enough time to get my backpack out of the trunk, put on a pair of shoes, and hunt for all the cash I’d hidden in the car.

I’d heard people say, life was a crazy ride and nothing was guaranteed, or was that Eminem who said that?

Anyway, it was the truth. A year ago I was coasting through life, not wildly happy but content.

Now I was rummaging through a car to find wads of cash I’d stashed just in case—the just in case being running for my life with all of my worldly possessions shoved into a backpack.

So, yes, life was a crazy ride I wanted desperately to jump off of.

I did not want this as my life.

Yet here I was in a truck with Troy after hitchhiking.

Awesome.

“Nothing to tell,” I lied.

Troy’s chuckle was an obvious indication he knew I wasn’t telling the truth so really it was unnecessary for him to comment, but Talkative Troy had a comeback, “You’re not the first woman I’ve picked up who was on the run and I hate to tell you this, Cindy, but you all look the same.”

Well, damn .

An unwelcomed shame washed over me.

“I’m not in trouble with the law or anything.”

“Wouldn’t care if you were,” he told me.

That got my attention, as well as my gaze, and I really needed to keep my eyes on the road but I couldn’t stop myself.

What kind of man didn’t care if he was aiding and abetting a criminal?

Other than his stories about being abducted by friendly aliens he seemed normal.

He certainly looked normal but maybe Trucker Troy was really Outlaw Troy and that was worrisome.

“You wouldn’t care?”