Out of Character by Diana Miller Page A

table. He closed his eyes and took a couple harsh breaths before reopening them. “Go to the kitchen. All of you.”
    Jillian was terrified to be alone with him, felt about to throw up. She folded her arms over her whirling stomach.
    “No one’s going to kill you,” Mark said. “We’re with the government.”
    “Which government?”
    “The United States government. That’s a logical question, given how you’ve been treated.”
    She unfolded her arms, her eyes on his face. “Why am I here?”
    “For your protection, believe it or not.”
    “Did Andy’s friend set this up?”
    Mark took her hands. “This has nothing to do with Andy. It has to do with me. We know someone’s after me, and you may have gotten caught up in it. We thought you were safe in Denver, but it appears we were wrong.”
    She looked down at their joined hands as she struggled to understand. “Who’s we?”
    “The FBI and a couple other federal agencies.”
    Jillian raised her eyes to Mark’s face again. “That’s who had me brought here?”
    He nodded. “Like I said, we’re trying to protect you.”
    Trying to protect her? She jerked her hands free. “You’re telling me I was abducted from work, drugged, and driven to God knows where with my wrists and ankles bound, and it’s because you want to protect me?”
    “Alex tied your ankles, too?” Mark grimaced. “Sometimes he gets a little carried away.”
    Jillian grasped Mark’s forearms. “A little carried away? I was so terrified I could barely breathe, positive I was about to die, and it was because you’re trying to protect me?”
    Mark just sat there, his face impassive.
    Her blood was boiling. She shook his arms. “They couldn’t tell me they were with the government, instead let me think I was about to be killed? I made so many bargains with God I think I’m obligated to join a convent and spend the rest of my life in Africa helping the poor, and you say it was all to protect me?” She shook him harder, knew she seemed hysterical, but she couldn’t help it. He’d not only run out on her, but he’d subjected her to this?
    “See why we had to subdue her?” Across the room, Alex chuckled. “She’s a real wildcat.”
    “I told you to get out of here.” Mark caught Jillian’s hands and removed them from his arms. “I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened like that.”
    After what she’d gone through, she was in the custody, protection, or whatever, of the United States government? “Why didn’t Andy’s friend know about this? He’s with the Justice Department in Denver and said the feds don’t have anything going on in Colorado.”
    Mark released her hands. “Why did you go to Justice?”
    “Because I’m not stupid.” She scooted away from him. “When I was shot, had my car blown up, and was shoved in front of a bus, all within a week of meeting a man who’d disappeared, I got suspicious. Especially when Andy didn’t find you as a New York CPA. I assumed you’d given me a fake name because you’re married or that you didn’t really live in New York. Then Andy talked to the Keystone police and discovered you’d given them the same name and a fake New York address. He also learned a Mark Jefferson flew from New York to Denver, but never back to New York.”
    “How did Andy find this out?” Mark asked.
    “He has sources. Including a guy who told us the government has nothing going on in Keystone.”
    “Andy’s source wouldn’t have heard about it. It’s too confidential.”
    “You have answers for everything, don’t you?”
    “This is the honest truth,” Mark said. “I didn’t run off because I wanted to. I left because we know I’m the target of someone dangerous who might also have targeted you.” He let his words sink in. “For the record, my wife really was killed six years ago.”
    Mark’s gray eyes were unchanged from Keystone, which was perhaps how she’d recognized him. They didn’t mesmerize her now—anger was clearly