Hearing his car alarm go off, Dan jumped out of bed and dressed in jeans, and grabbed his gun. “You stay here. You don’t have your gun with you to protect you.”

“All right.” She got on the hotel phone and called hotel security. “Someone is trying to break into our SUV.”

Dan hurried out of the room and raced for the elevator. He was glad she didn’t come with him.

Standing near his vehicle, a man dressed in a security uniform greeted Dan. “Is this your car?”

“Yeah, I’m Sheriff Dan Steinacker.” He offered his hand to the man and the guard shook it.

“I saw a man approach your car and try to unlock it when I was making rounds outside. Since he was wearing all black, I was suspicious. As soon as the alarm went off, I headed in the direction of the vehicle and then got a call from your missus.”

“Thanks,” Dan said. “Can I give you something for your trouble?”

“That’s what I’m paid for. I see you have a lot of boxes in there.”

“Yeah, my new wife is moving with me to Yuma Town. It’s just clothes and stuff like that. Nothing valuable, but no one knows that.”

“I’ll keep an eye on it for you until you leave.”

“Thanks, appreciate it.” Dan headed back up the elevator to their room. He entered the room and saw Addie watching out the window.

“Our personal security guard is going to watch it because of all the boxes we have out there. He said the guy was dressed all in black.”

“And he only targeted our car.”

“Because of all the boxes. Nothing to worry about.” Because Dan would do all the worrying. “Let’s go back to bed. We can get up in a couple of hours and take off.”

Neither of them could sleep though, so at four-thirty, they got up, took showers, had a complimentary breakfast, and thanked the security guard.

“Congratulations to the both of you.”

“I mentioned we were newlyweds,” Dan said to Addie.

“Oh.” She smiled. “Thanks. And thanks for earlier this morning. We might not have anything that valuable in the car, but it’s all I’ve got right now.”

“I understand completely,” the guard said.

Then Dan said good-bye again and they drove off.

“Another eight hours and we should be in Yuma Town.”

“I’ll be glad for it,” Addie said. “And I really am glad to have my clothes too. Otherwise it’s like living out of a suitcase on a permanent basis. I never thought my life would change so much that I’d actually move in with you.”

“And be my mate.”

She smiled. “Best thing I ever did.” They drove for a while longer and she said, “I keep thinking about that man dressed in black who tried to break into the car early this morning.”

“I keep thinking about our bed at our home and how I can’t wait to make love to you there. When I go to the office, everyone will know why I’m wearing the biggest smile no matter what business comes up during the day.”

Addie laughed. “Glad to know you have your priorities straight—me. You don’t mind if I take off a couple of weeks before I begin working for you, do you?”

He pumped his fist. “Yes! You’re working for me and not with the others. Unless we do some joint missions, which often happens.”

She smiled. “Did you think otherwise?”

“The way Bridget was pushing you to join them, yes.”

“We’ve functioned well together so far, so I’m willing to try it. I can always take another job if it doesn’t pan out for us.”

“It will work for us.”

She smiled. “About the two weeks?”

“You don’t have to work at all, if you don’t want.”

“That would drive me crazy. At least until we have kids. I just want to take off some time, to…decompress after all that’s happened and settle in a bit. And make the wedding plans too, with the help of all the ladies who want to pitch in.”

“That will be a ton of them.”

“Good.”

“Sure thing, honey. Whatever you want.”

She smiled. “I like this arrangement.” Then she frowned. “Are you really glad that Dottie found Jack again?”

“Yeah, I am. They were meant to be together. I just worried the guy might be like the other man she’d married, so I might have given Jack a hard time over it until I was sure he was good for her. I offered him a job too. I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t like him. He’s a decent mate and father to their kids. It worked out perfectly for them.”

“Okay, I thought so, but was just making sure.”

Dan drove for about an hour, thinking on the business with the break-in at her apartment again. “About the break-in, they had to have been looking for all that stuff at your apartment when it was actually at the storage facility, but they didn’t know that.”

“I agree. When you were packing boxes, did you find any paperwork? I had some files of receipts, insurance paperwork, utility bills, stuff like that, in one of those manila expandable files. I didn’t pack it and just wondered if you had.”

“No, I didn’t see anything like that.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Well, damn. Okay, so they stole the set of old keys that didn’t belong to anything any longer and all my paperwork—”

“Looking for what the keys might go to, maybe to see if you were paying for a storage facility.”

“That was under our dummy corporation’s name. And it was owned outright, so no monthly payments.”

“Except you’d have to pay the taxes.”

“Right, and I paid that and never kept any evidence of it around the apartment.”

“I would think with the tons of information we found and shared, they’d know their gooses were already cooked.”

“I agree.” Addie sat in silence for another hour while Dan tried to think of another reason they might still be targeting Addie’s possessions.

“Unless someone is still worried we’ll find more information that would blame someone else,” Dan said.

“Like my boss? He was promoted when Alicia died. Briggs has been the only other person who has been in the know all this time. Besides the other team members, but they were never where I was when I had all the trouble.”

“Yeah. Like him.”

“I didn’t find him mentioned in any of the documents. I looked through every one of them.”

“We don’t wear jewelry very often because of the problem with shifting and worrying about losing it. You don’t have any jewelry keepsakes, do you? Your clothes are probably fairly new and not what you would have had before your dad died. What else did you have from when your dad was still alive?”

“The antique clock. It’s something I’d never get rid of. I always loved it. It was my dad’s father’s clock. Unlike clothes or anything else I might own, he knew that was the one thing I’d keep forever.”

“Let’s check it out then.” Dan pulled into the next travel center a mile up the road and parked in front of a pump.

“If you know where the clock is packed, you can get it out while I pump some gas.”

“Okay.” Dan moved several boxes before he found the one with the linens and clock in it. He ripped off the tape and carefully unwrapped the clock.

Addie finished pumping the gas and put the nozzle back and closed the cap on the gas tank.

“It looks all right.” Dan turned the clock over and opened the back. “If I’m not mistaken, this looks like it could have a secret compartment at the bottom inside.” He pushed and poked and prodded, but nothing happened.

She pulled a fingernail file from her backpack and used it as leverage. A little lid snapped off and inside the hidden nook was another flash drive. She dug around in her bag and pulled out the cord to attach the flash drive to her phone. “Do you mind driving some more? I’ll read what’s on the flash drive and see if there’s anything new on there.”

“Good idea. I’ll drive for however long it takes you to get through it. With being a speed reader and having a photographic memory, you’ll get through it faster than I will.”

“Okay.” Addie hadn’t taken long before she said, “Holy crap. We were right. Briggs was involved in this all along. I’m sending these files to Stryker and Carl, as insurance, in case anyone tries to stop us and search for this evidence.”

“That’s why they were still looking for any other evidence. Briggs is up to his eyebrows in it, and he might assume you did know it too.”

“Why didn’t my dad ever tell anyone about it?”

“Both your dad and mom did and you see where they ended up. With you, you were lucky and had me.”

“Boy, was I ever.” Addie sighed. “Stryker’s sharing it with everyone. Carl’s contacting the news media about the latest development. I can’t believe he’s working for Hal’s parents’ paper now and loving it. And having to bake on the side under Mrs. Fitz’s tutelage.”

“I think she was just lonely.”

“I think Carl needed some real friends too. I’m glad she wasn’t too upset about what happened to Alicia since they’d been friends.”

“She was furious to learn of Alicia’s involvement in the murder of your parents and the attempts on your life. She said it had served Alicia right to have contracted me to protect you. That was the only good thing she’d done, but it had backfired on her.”