“I said drop it!” the cop shouted.

Brodie looked up at the window. He was right out there in the open, a perfect target. So were the cops. If Brushard wanted to take him out, this was the moment. “He can kill us all. You need to get back behind your patrol car. Now.”

The cops came closer. “I told you—”

“I’m Detective Shayne Townsend!” Shayne’s voice seemed weaker than normal. “Badge 210. I’m the one who radioed in... That man is with me. We’ve got a shooter upstairs...third floor.”

The cops looked toward that window and hurriedly backed up. One called in and confirmed Shayne’s badge number.

But they kept their weapons pointed at Brodie.

“He’s getting away,” Brodie said. The man’s getaway had to be the reason why he hadn’t fired yet. “We can’t just stand here, waiting, while that shooter runs. He just killed a man!”

And those fresh-faced cops weren’t equipped to handle the guy. But Brodie was.

“Let me go after him,” Brodie snarled.

“No, everyone stay right where you are!” This shout came from the taller cop, the guy with red hair. “We’ll get this sorted out.”

“You’re letting him get away,” Brodie snapped.

“We need an ambulance!” Shayne called out. “Hurry!”

The cops got confirmation on Shayne’s badge, and they finally sprang into action. One ran toward the wrecked car.

One ran for the building—and Brodie was right behind him.

Brodie rushed up a flight of stairs, even as he heard the scream of more sirens outside. Help, coming in like a fury.

Too late for Nate. But not for Sullivan. Not for my brother.

They burst onto the third floor. The cop ran in with a shout, and Brodie had to jerk the guy back. But the third floor was empty, a cavernous open space in the abandoned building.

Damn it. He’d feared the shooter was getting away. When the bullets hadn’t torn into him, he’d known that deafening silence had meant that the perp was fleeing.

His hands fisted as he went toward the window on the right. The window that was still open and looked out on the street.

An ambulance was below. More patrol cars. Shayne was directing the scene, and Brodie saw that Sullivan had been pulled from the car.

“The third floor’s empty,” the cop said, and Brodie glanced back at him. The kid was on his radio. “We’ll search all the floors. We need backup!”

Brodie’s hand slammed into the window frame. A small chunk of glass fell loose when he hit it. Brodie frowned at that glass. He picked it up. Tilted it.

Light glinted off the glass.

The shooter wasn’t here. He was somewhere else... He wasn’t here!

Frantic now, his gaze went back to the street below. Jennifer was being pulled away by Shayne. She glanced up toward him, her face etched with fear and—

No!

“Jennifer!” he roared.

Sullivan was on a stretcher. Grant turned at Brodie’s shout.

Jennifer was out in the open. Too easy. What was Shayne thinking to let her stand out there like that? Shayne knew she was the guy’s target.

“Get cover!” Brodie yelled. “Get—”

Gunfire exploded.

But it didn’t hit Jennifer. Grant had grabbed her, and they’d hit the ground.

The sirens screamed again.

“He’s in the next building,” Brodie yelled. This time, he’d seen exactly where that shot came from. “Not this one! We need men in there before he hurts anyone else!”

Brodie and the fresh-faced cop rushed down the stairs. The scene on the street was chaos as the cops swarmed and hurried to search for the shooter.

Only...

They couldn’t find him.

Because even though they searched every room in the nearby building, the shooter was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

JENNIFER WASN’T EXACTLY a fan of police stations. Or rather, she didn’t enjoy sitting in an interrogation room for hours, being separated from Brodie and being forced to answer the same questions over and over again.

Brodie trusted Shayne Townsend, but it was quickly apparent that Shayne was more than a little suspicious of Jennifer. Not that Jennifer blamed him. He’d known her for a very short time, and, during the few hours of their acquaintance, he’d nearly been killed.

She was kind of a dangerous woman to know.

“I want you to tell me everything you can about Stephen Brushard.” Shayne sat across the table, glaring at her.

Weary, so very weary, Jennifer could only shake her head.

Pain knifed through her when she thought of Nate. His body had been bagged and tagged at the scene. Taken away...

Jennifer cleared her throat. “I’m his target.”

Shayne’s fingers drummed on the table. “Why is this guy longing for your death so much? Tell me everything. Every single detail about your relationship with him.”

“I can’t.” Her shoulders slumped with weariness. “Most of it is classified, and you don’t have the clearance to—”

His hands slammed onto the table. “A man was murdered less than ten feet from me! No one brings this kind of danger to my door.” His eyes turned to slits as he glared at her. “You think I’m going to stand back and let the McGuires all fall next?”

She shook her head. “The last thing I want is for them to be hurt.”

“But they have already been hurt—a great deal.” He opened a file and tossed the black-and-white picture toward her. It was the picture that she and Brodie had recovered from the Mustang, the picture of her and Brodie’s mother. “Are you tied to the death of Brodie’s parents?”

I don’t know. Her fingers brushed against the edge of the photograph.

“Was Stephen Brushard the man who killed Brodie’s parents?” Shayne demanded.

“I think he was in prison then.” She hadn’t even realized that he’d escaped. The last she’d heard about Stephen Brushard, he’d been sentenced to twenty years of confinement.

“Then you believe he hired someone?” Shayne pressed. “Because he was so determined to get to you? Is that what happened? He hired someone to—”

“I don’t know what happened!” Her breath heaved out. “I want to see Brodie. Is he okay? Is he—”

“Brodie is with Sullivan.” He motioned toward the mirror on the right. She knew it was a two-way mirror, but Jennifer didn’t know who was watching her from that other room. “They’re both in there,” Shayne said, as if reading her thoughts, “watching you.”

What? Instinctively, she shook her head.

“Brodie didn’t take kindly to the fact that his baby brother got caught in your cross fire. I mean, sure, Sullivan’s an ex-Marine, but there’s getting hurt in battle, and then there’s getting hurt for no damn reason at all.”

Her breath hitched. Brodie was just watching Shayne interrogate her?

“The thing is,” Shayne continued softly, “I can’t find any records about your so-called involvement with the government. Grant can’t get confirmation. No one can back up your story—”

“No one will back it up.” That wasn’t how these situations worked. “I was a ghost agent.” So deep undercover that only a few higher-ups at the CIA even knew about her. Those higher-ups would never confirm her identity.

Shayne cocked his head as he studied her. “I’m sorry, but you just don’t strike me as an agent. I mean...where’s the training? If you’re some secret agent, then how come you ran to Brodie for help? Why not take out the stalker yourself?”

Because she’d never taken anyone’s life.

“I don’t trust you,” he said flatly. “I think you’ve been lying to the McGuires all along. You know more about their parents’ death than you’re saying. You know more about Stephen Brushard, and you’re not getting out of here until I know every single one of your secrets.”

* * *

BRODIE PACED BACK and forth in the narrow room. “This is ridiculous!” He glared at the two-way mirror to his right. “Why are we still in interrogation?”

Grant rolled his shoulders. “Probably because a man was shot to death right in front of us, and our plan to nab a killer resulted in a four-block radius of Austin being shut down for hours.”