I had to have misheard what Clay said because there was no way my father had escaped from prison only a month after he’d been found guilty of murder for a second time. They couldn’t have been stupid enough to give a man like him the opportunity to escape. It had to be a mistake. A joke. A very unfunny joke.

I blinked slowly, wondering if maybe I was hearing things. I had gotten hit hard on the head today. That was a good possibility. I was going to go with the concussion as the reason I’d heard that absolute insanity.

“Rona, did you hear me?” Clay crossed over to where I was standing. He reached out as if he wanted to touch me, but then dropped his hand when he remembered that his partner was standing next to him.

I nodded. “I heard you, but I don’t see how that’s possible.” I was surprised at how calm I sounded.

It was Agent Matthews who explained things. More or less. “A little under two hours ago, we received a call from Indiana State Prison saying that your father escaped their custody.”

Okay, that was definitely less rather than more.

As my head cleared, I knew I had to accept that what they were saying was true, but I wasn’t going to be satisfied with such a simple explanation. “Again, I don’t see how that’s possible.” I crossed my arms, winced, then scowled. “What happened?”

“I’m afraid we can’t discuss an ongoing investigation,” Agent Matthews said. “Especially since there are multiple agencies involved.”

“Like hell you can’t,” I snapped. “My father broke out of prison. The same convicted murderer I had to testify against for the second time. The same man who tried to kill me. Who almost killed me.” A thought suddenly hit me, and I slid off the bed, needing to stand even if my legs gave out on me. “For all I know, he tried to kill me again tonight.”

“That’s not possible,” Agent Matthews said. “Trust us, Willis Jacobe couldn’t have been responsible for your mugging, even if that would’ve been something in his MO.”

“His MO?” I snapped at the agent. “His MO is to butcher people with the sharpest object he can find, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have minded using a rock if he thought it’d get the job done. I’m going to need something more than that as a reason to believe he didn’t come after me again today.”

Clay looked at Agent Matthews, who shook his head, and then he turned back to me, a familiar stubborn set to his jaw.

“About an hour before you were mugged, Willis Jacobe was attacked by another inmate and both were taken to the infirmary. The prison doctor examined both inmates and sent the attacker back to his cell after bandaging up a few shallow cuts. Jacobe was admitted with multiple contusions and lacerations.” Clay sounded like he’d swallowed a medical dictionary, but I was following what he was saying so I didn’t protest. “The doctor was concerned about a blow to his head as he showed signs of being confused and disoriented, and with his history…”

I nodded, not needing him to finish that sentence. With my father’s previous head injury, they’d want to be careful, especially since the prior injury had caused his personality changes. The last thing they’d want would be him becoming someone else…again.

“So they kept him in the infirmary, and he got out from there?” I prompted.

“Basically,” Clay said. “He’d been in there for about forty minutes when he started complaining of chest pain. When the doctor went over to administer a shot, Jacobe grabbed him and used the needle to get the keys to his cuffs.”

“Brilliant. He didn’t even pull some Shawshank sneaky escape. You guys let him get out right there in broad daylight.” I had to admit, being pissed was infinitely better than worrying about who’d come after me, or what my father might do, or thinking about how much more I was going to hurt tomorrow.

“You do realize that the FBI doesn’t have anything to do with the Indiana state penitentiary system, right?” Agent Matthews asked.

I glared at him. “I think Willis Jacobe is a dangerous murderer that the FBI, the state police – hell, every person whose job it is to serve and protect…” I blew out a long breath, then inhaled deeply, trying to slow my pounding pulse. “I made sure he got put away, but apparently, I was the only one doing whatever it took to keep people safe from him.”

Despite his partner’s presence, Clay did reach out this time and put his hand on my arm. “Jacobe kept the doctor hostage until he was able to grab a badge and use it to get out of prison. As near as anyone can figure, he snuck onto a laundry truck and vanished.”

“But it wasn’t early enough for him to have found me and hurt me.” I went back to the original point.

“Correct,” Agent Matthews said. “The local police are going to work on your mugging case, but Clay and I are here to make sure you’re safe from your father.”

“You two are going to keep me safe?” I gestured around me. “You do realize I’m in the hospital?”

“Because you were mugged,” Clay said, “not because of your father.”

I raised an eyebrow and ignored the pain as it stretched the cut on my forehead. “Really? That’s what you’re going with?”

He gave me a half-smiled to go with a half-shrug. “We told the US Marshals that we’d come talk to you about protective custody. That’s all I want for you. To keep you safe.” His expression sobered, and he reached out to squeeze my hand. “If not for you, let me do it for Anton.”

I knew Clay meant well, but mentioning my uncle brought a memory rushing forward fast enough to make me stagger.

“How long have you been getting these threats?” I demanded as I tossed the envelope and letter onto the worn sofa.

My uncle glanced down for a moment before returning his attention to the salad he was making. “I don’t always make friends in my profession, Rona.”

His tone was mild, and he sounded so much like my mother that it sent a stab of pain through me. I usually tried to ignore how much he looked like her, but times like now made it hard, though not as much as when people commented on how much he and I looked alike since that reminded both of us of who we’d lost.

“I’m not a child, Uncle Anton,” I said, glaring at him. “You should have told me that you were getting death threats.”

He turned toward me and pushed his sleeves up higher on his arms. Most of my female classmates growing up – and a few of the guys – had swooned over my uncle’s forearms and I’d often wondered if that was how things would’ve been if I’d had a brother.

“I have an entire filing cabinet full of letters like that,” he said calmly. “I get them at least once or twice a week, though they usually come to the office and not here.”

“Don’t they scare you?” I asked. “Someone could hurt you.”

I saw the shadow cross his face, and I knew that he’d understood what I was really scared of: that some crazy person would take him away from me like my father had taken my mother. He came over to where I was standing and pulled me to him in a hug. I tucked my head under his chin and let myself pretend that I was in junior high again, accepting comfort from my uncle because of some minor incident.

“’Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.’”

“Mark Twain.” My words were muffled, but I knew he could hear them. “He also said something about school boards being idiots.”

Uncle Anton laughed and took a step back. “That he did. And I happen to think that makes him more credible.”

I managed a smile. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to go to court tomorrow?”

“Nothing’s ever one hundred percent safe,” he said as he went back to his salad. “Cars and airplanes crash. Tornados and hurricanes happen. Random events, natural phenomenon, all of it is as likely as something malicious.”

He hadn’t answered my question. “Do you at least tell the police about the letters?”

“They know,” he said. “And I have to let them do their job so I can do mine.”

I’d let it go then. He’d seemed so calm, so in control. It wasn’t until days later, after he’d been gunned down on the courthouse steps, after the case on his murder had been officially closed, that I’d learned the cops had tried to convince Clay to go into protective custody after the latest set of threats.

He’d turned them down, saying that he wasn’t going to let someone scare him into silence.

I’d hated him for that.

It hadn’t been until I’d started at Quantico that I’d started to understand why he’d done what he’d done, but as I stood in front of Clay and Agent Matthews, a similar offer hanging in the air between us, I realized that only now could I truly get it.

“Do you know the Mark Twain quote about courage?” I asked. I brushed my hair back from my face and squared my shoulders. “If I hide, my father accomplishes what he’d set out to do nearly ten years ago. I can’t let the fear of him rule my life.”

“Rona,” Clay protested. “Be smart about this.”

“Telling a woman that she’s stupid isn’t usually the best way to get her to listen.”

A man’s voice came from the doorway, but I didn’t quite believe that I wasn’t hearing things until my eyes confirmed what my ears heard.

Jalen.

I scowled at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”