Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #1 by Valerie Hansen, Sandra Orchard, Carol J. Post Page B

manage to say was, “It’s not you or your house. It’s me. I think I may be wound a little tight.”
    He nodded. “Come on. I’ll show you to your room and you can rest. I may not be technically at work but I have plenty to do on my laptop.” He pointed as they passed a ground-floor room. “If you need me, I’ll probably be in there.”
    â€œIf you give me your cell number I can just phone you,” she said, feeling quite clever for having thought of it.
    He dropped her tote at the foot of the stairs. “You brought your cell phone?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œGive it to me.”
    â€œNo. I may need it.”
    â€œSo your father can call you again or so he can trace your whereabouts through it?”
    â€œWhat? That’s just TV nonsense, isn’t it?” Nevertheless, she placed her phone in his outstretched hand and watched as he removed the battery and the tiny information-processing card.
    â€œI’ll turn this over to my people and see if they can trace your last incoming call. That would be your father, right?”
    Mute and subdued, she nodded. In the space of a few moments she had gone from strong and resolute to scared witless again. Her emotions weren’t merely on a roller coaster, they were taking a ride on a spaceship that had run out of rocket fuel halfway to the moon and was now plummeting to earth, where it would smash to smithereens.
    Daniella gritted her teeth. The imaginary rocket hadn’t crashed yet. The ending wasn’t written in stone because she wasn’t done fighting. Not by a long shot.
    Straightening and thrusting back her shoulders, she stood firm and faced Isaac. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
    Surprisingly, his stern features softened as he admitted, “No, but I did. The error is mine. I should have confiscated your phone back at the apartment and turned it over to the authorities.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you?”
    â€œI’d like to blame my injury or the meds I’d been on for the pain but that won’t fly—with my boss or with me.” He made a face. “As much as I hate to even think it, I suspect I was concentrating too much on you.”
    â€œMe?”
    She noted the rosy color infusing his cheeks and guessed what he might mean before he said, “Yes, Daniella. You. Only not as a victim or a suspect, as an appealing young woman who interested me. That was my mistake. I promise it won’t happen again.”
    All she could think to say was
too bad
.
    Thankfully, good sense kept her from voicing it.
    * * *
    As far as Isaac was concerned, he was still on the job even if his dog wasn’t. He offered his guest a quick tour of the ground floor of the old farmhouse, then suggested she get some sleep upstairs in his sister’s room while she had the chance.
    What he didn’t say was that Daniella might need all her strength and wits in the coming hours and days and should take advantage of any opportunity to recover from the long, trying night before.
    Limping to the small room he used as a home office, Isaac was more than ready to get off his feet. He propped his sore leg on a half-open drawer, leaned back in the swivel chair and powered up the laptop he normally carried in his work vehicle. A simple password and he was in.
    Most of his emails were inconsequential compared with the files McCord had sent about Daniella. A quick scan told him that the captain hadn’t left out anything. The gaps were evident, and now that he knew she’d been relocated by witness protection he wasn’t surprised.
    Getting the old records of her journey from past to present might be hard to do but learning about her father’s crimes and punishment was not going to be tough. Fagan’s arrest and conviction were matters of public record. He’d start there, then see how much more help he needed to complete his own file on Daniella.
    He’d hardly begun