...There was no question. The very large man with the dark hair and pale skin was following her.

Kimberly Sullivan tried not to allow the feeling of desperation to overwhelm her. She had hoped she’d be safe here. They’d promised that Kimberly Sullivan would be an unbreakable I.D.

Of course, they were wrong.

Kerry—no, she had to remember she was Kimberly now—walked into the crowded shopping mall’s food court entrance looking for the ladies restroom. She’d made the call on her cell phone from her car. The people she spoke to, always nameless, always faceless, had told her not to return home. As if she didn’t know that, as if that hadn’t been drilled into her head from the first moment she’d become a part of the witness security program, better known as WitSec by the marshals. She’d always thought it was called the witness protection program. The name didn’t disguise what it really was—prison—with no possibility of parole. Of course people in her other life called it something else—snitch. She was so tired of all this. No matter how good the identity, no matter how normal the town, she always seemed to be looking over her shoulder. She was beginning to believe her biggest problem had been in trusting the wrong people. Again.

She didn’t know how much longer she could stand this. But, she knew, stand it she would. What other choice did she have?

Kerry didn’t dare look over her shoulder. The man’s face was already imprinted on her mind. So were the other details her contact would need.

He had a two-inch scar on the back of his right hand. It wasn’t new, but it wasn’t very old. His charcoal gray Italian-cut suit was out of place in this small resort town and did nothing to hide either his paunch from years of eating too much pasta or the weapon strapped at his side. Or perhaps she was just so used to seeing the kind of man he was that she noticed things other people, normal people, didn’t.

At any rate, his face was imprinted onto her memory.

So far, he’d followed her to the dry cleaners, the video store and now the outlet mall. He hadn’t approached her, but Kerry knew, deep in her bones, deep in the shadowed spot where the fear dwelled, waiting, ready to reach out a deadly tentacle, it was only a matter of time.

She’d spent the three weeks she’d lived here in the northwest taking home classes in stress management. What a joke, she thought, feeling a sob bubble nervously in her throat. How could any self-help tape deal with this?

She had to get into the ladies room, lock the stall door and wait. Wait for help.

His hand touched her arm, and Kerry felt the fear she’d managed to temporarily control, the fear that was her constant companion, rise up in a gigantic wave.

Oh God, what now? What now?