IF BOREDOM WAS LETHAL, DREA THOUGHT, THEN SHE wouldn’t live long enough to get her money. She’d left her hometown and eventually worked her way to New York City precisely because she didn’t want to live in a town like Grissom, Kansas. She’d grown up in a small town; the life wasn’t for her.

It wasn’t the people. The people were generally nice, if not nosy. And even though her life in New York hadn’t been all glamour and excitement and an endless round of parties-Rafael wasn’t one of the Beautiful People, unless there was a subgenre of Beautiful Thugs-and she’d spent a lot of time in her room, at least it had been an extremely comfortable room. She hadn’t gone to the theater or movies, but there was always pay-per-view on the television. She didn’t have even that in the tiny, dingy room she got that Friday night at the tiny, dingy Grissom Motel, which lived down to its unimaginative name. And she couldn’t go to a movie, because Grissom didn’t have a movie theater-or much of anything else.

There was a small café, and one fast-food restaurant staffed by bored teenagers. For shopping, there was the hardware store, the feed store, the farm-supply store, and a dollar store. For a wider selection, the citizens drove to a neighboring town thirty miles away, which had a Wal-Mart. Big whoop.

She could remember when going to Wal-Mart had been a big deal to her, because that was where she’d bought most of her clothes. If she’d managed to scrape together enough money to buy something at Sears, she was as proud of it as if she’d gotten it at Saks Fifth Avenue.

And here she was again, wearing Wal-Mart clothes. The difference was that she had two million bucks in the bank, and she knew that soon she could wear anything she wanted. In the meantime, living in the boondocks again was driving her nuts. Maybe she hadn’t done much when she’d been in New York, but at least she could have.

Nerves ate at her; she felt as if the waiting was scraping her skin raw. After one night in Grissom she checked out of the motel and drove thirty miles to the town that boasted a strip mall, but on second thought kept going, to the next town down the road. The extra distance from Grissom would make it just that much more difficult for anyone to find her.

The next day, she checked out of that motel, and drove some more.

She did that for the next three nights. Living out of a cheap suitcase, not bothering to unpack because she was spending just one night in each place, bothered her on some bone-deep level. Every decision she’d made since the day she’d left home, such as it was, had been made with her eye on one goal, which was to have money, security, and a home. She had money now, even if she couldn’t get it yet. A home? She was afraid to stay in one place long enough to unpack her suitcase. She’d had somewhere to stay, but it wasn’t hers, a place where she belonged and could let her guard down. Maybe “home” and “security” actually meant the same thing-in any case, she knew she hadn’t found it yet.

She was holding her breath, waiting to start living.

On Wednesday she found herself driving in a wide, meandering circle around Grissom, as if she were circling a drain. There was nothing to see except miles and miles of flat land, green with the summer crops, and the wide blue bowl of sky overhead. Traffic was sparse, because I-70 was a long way to the north, and down here in farm country the only people driving around were the people who lived here-and not many did.

Maybe it was the long days of solitude, or the mostly empty road that meant she likely wasn’t in grave danger if she let her mind wander, but with nothing to occupy her time except her thoughts she began to feel…uneasy. That was the only way to explain it. She’d made a mistake somewhere, somehow.

All the steps she’d taken ran through her head, and she examined each one. She tried to think what she could have done differently, and other than transferring all the money to the Elizabeth bank and taking her chances with an extended stay in the area, she came up blank. On the other hand, was she taking a bigger chance by hanging around Grissom for so long?

Was she relying too much on the assumption that Rafael wouldn’t go to the police? She didn’t think so. Rafael would want to take care of her his way, the permanent way, which precluded any cops. Her other assumption was that Rafael, who had lived his entire life first in Los Angeles and then New York, would have no idea how to track her through middle America. This was her territory, not his. But what if she was wrong?

What if he hired out the job?

A chill shot through her. That was what she’d overlooked. Rafael wouldn’t try to hunt her down himself, he wouldn’t send his men out to beat the concrete bushes of New York. She’d stolen two million dollars from him, smashed his ego, and thrown his newfound “love” back in his face. To him, the last two reasons would be even more powerful than the first. For an offense that serious, he’d hire the best.

And the best was…him.

Her heart began hammering and her breath came too fast. Jerkily she pulled to the side of the road and gripped the steering wheel as she fought off the panic attack. She couldn’t panic; she couldn’t afford the wasted time. She had to think.

Okay. The bank wouldn’t give out information about her account to anyone without a search warrant, which obviously Rafael wouldn’t be able to get. But…what about a hacker? The assassin made his living tracking down people, and he was damn good at what he did, or he wouldn’t be able to charge the huge amounts he did. He earned the money by producing results. It followed, then, that he’d either be really good himself at getting into supposedly secure computer sites, or he knew someone who was.

Drea took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds, did that several times to slow her heartbeat. Think it through, think it through.

To hack into a bank’s computer system, he’d first have to know which bank, but, damn it, he’d have the starting point because he’d know which bank Rafael used. Or he could get into the IRS system, knowing that every transaction over ten thousand dollars triggered a report to the tax agency, and from what she’d read the IRS didn’t have the best computer system around. By the same token, Rafael’s bank was one of the huge national banks with billions and billions in assets, so it followed that the bank would have a kick-ass security system on its computer network.

While she’d been wasting time driving aimlessly around looking at fields and sky and not much else, he could have tracked the bank transfers, and be waiting for her in Grissom.

The best thing she could do was walk away from the two million, at least for now, and stay safe. She still had the cashier’s check for eighty-five thousand from the bank in Elizabeth, so it wasn’t as if she was broke.

As soon as she deposited it somewhere, though, so far as she knew that would trigger another of those damn currency transaction reports, which would lead him straight to the bank where she’d put it.

There had to be a lag time, though, even a short one, between the bank and the IRS. She had an advantage with the cashier’s check, because that should mean it would be immediately honored. She needed to go to a large city, use the cashier’s check to open an account at a large national bank, let them know ahead of time she was wiring in two million dollars, and make arrangements to get at least a chunk of it in cash.

Suddenly, she knew how she’d work it. With the cash, she’d open up several different bank accounts, in different but neighboring towns, always less than ten thousand dollars so the bank wouldn’t have to file those damn reports. Then, in a flurry of activity, she could wire smaller sums out of the Grissom bank to all those other banks, and one by one she could go to those other banks, close out the accounts, and get the money in cash. She would fly under the radar. Getting the entire two million would take longer-a lot longer-but unless he could hack into the bank’s computer system she should be home free.