No Rules by Starr Ambrose Page A

expensive homes on large parcels of land, most of them dark now except for yard lights and the ghostly glow of dim nightlights from distant bedrooms and bathrooms. The dream homes of successful urban professionals. It roused a mild curiosity about their destination, but not as much as the facts he’d planted in her mind.
    “So what was my father’s role in Omega? Did he run it?” It was hard to imagine the quiet, bookish professor she remembered arranging to rescue hostages from terrorists.
    “No. Evan became the hands-on director of operations. Your father’s role was to do what he always did, teach linguistics and travel to the Middle East as often as possible, ostensibly to do research and field work. In actuality, he was Omega’s point man in that part of the world. Wally was fluent in several languages and knew the cultures intimately. He had contacts, informers, and access to areas that are usually off-limits to Americans. Because of his insights, we often knew ahead of time what groups were apt to become a problem, and where they operated. He was…” Donovan searched for the proper word before shrugging in defeat. “Invaluable.”
    She could only stare. As far-fetched as it sounded, no one could make this up and have it mesh so well with the facts. For the past fifteen-plus years, her father had led a double life. A dangerous one.
    And in the ultimate betrayal, he’d brought the violence of his world directly to her.
    “You said he wanted to keep me safe,” she accused. “But now someone is trying to kill me, and I don’t even know why.”
    His face looked strained, a muscle jumping as he ground his teeth. “It was the one thing Wally didn’t foresee—that you would come for his funeral.” He clenched his jaw over it as he turned into a driveway lined with ground level lights. She barely glanced at the gate that swung open onto the shadowy tree-lined drive, or the large, well-lit house at the end of it. Her attention was riveted on Donovan.
    “He was careful to keep you a secret so no one could use you against him, and he succeeded, right through covering his tracks when he made that detour to Houston. He must have known his cover was blown, but he was still a few steps ahead of them, and they didn’t follow him there. I don’t think they knew about you until you showed up in Nipagonee Rapids.”
    “Why did he involve me at all?”
    “I don’t know yet, and it bothers me, but part of it has to be because you were safe.” He stopped under a portico beside the house, put the car in park, and turned to face her. “He probably knew they were going to catch up with him—his location was never a secret. A large part of his cover was to look ordinary and harmless, with nothing to hide, and he would have stuck with it. He knew they’d question him, search his house, his office at the university, and find nothing. It must have looked like a dead end until you showed up and they realized there was another place he could have left the information.”
    “Except he didn’t,” she said, her voice rising in desperation.
    “Trust me, he did. You’re the key, and they know it. So do I.”
    Frustration built almost to tears. She didn’t want to be anyone’s key to anything. Didn’t want to be the target of fanatics with knives. Didn’t want to have the fate of some hostage depending on her ability to remember some trivial comment from her father.
    Oh God, what hostage? Fear stabbed her chest, as sharp as a blade. “Why was my father’s information so important? What hostages are at stake, and why can’t the people who are holding them just move them to a different location to keep them hidden?”
    “We don’t know.” Lines creased his forehead, perhaps some of the same frustration she felt. “Whatever information he had, it was more than just the location of the hostages.”
    Hostages who were barely real to her, but who must be living in far more fear than she was. “Who are they?” she