The Heart of a Renegade

And it was her fault.

It was well after midnight before Jessica finally dared leave the cover of the hemlock. The temperature was plunging and icy needles of rain stung her face. She was shaking uncontrollably, the first stages of hypothermia setting in, confusing her mind.

She had nowhere to go. No one to trust.

Not even the police.

Her cell phone was in the pocket of her coat—on Stephanie’s body. So was her driver’s license and her keys. The RCMP were going to be looking for her in connection with murder now. And she was being hunted by one of the biggest—and deadliest—Chinese organized crime syndicates.

There was only one person in the world who might be able to help her. Giles Rehnquist, her old colleague in Shanghai, would believe what she’d seen. He’d know what to do. She just had to reach a pay phone and call him in Shanghai.

Before the Triad got to her first.

Chapter 1

Luke Stone hunched over his shopping cart, black wool hat pulled low over his brow, eyes trained on the woman.

A blast of steam roiled from a vent in the sidewalk, disappearing with a white hiss into the frigid February night, but not for one instant did his focus stray from the woman standing alone outside the phone booth.

She was underdressed for these temperatures, shivering as she rubbed bare hands and checked her watch. He noted the heavy camera bag slung over her shoulder.

It was definitely Jessica Chan, ex-BBC foreign correspondent, Shanghai bureau. Here in Gastown at the appointed booth, at the allotted hour. His principal.

Luke no longer accepted close protection gigs. Not since he’d failed to protect the most important people in his life—his wife and unborn child. It was written right into his contract with the Force du Sablé, and he’d refused this job point-blank. But they’d told him he was the only person who could reach Jessica in time. Without Luke’s help, she would die.

Tonight.

Luke hoped to be rid of her in a matter of hours. Then he could get back to life the way he liked it. Alone.

The nearby steam clock released a sharp whistle and she jerked round, her straight, waist-length hair shimmering under the neon of the store sign behind her as she spun to face his direction. Her skin was pure porcelain in the eerie light, her exotic eyes glittering. Even from his position he could see they were the color of fine single-malt whiskey. With a small punch to the gut Luke realized the lady was startlingly beautiful. And very, very frightened.

She had reason to be.

Not only were the cops after her, she was being hunted by one of deadliest Asian gangs in existence. Now the CIA wanted her, too—ever since she’d placed a call to undercover CIA operative Giles Rehnquist based at the CNN bureau in Shanghai two days ago.

That phone call had cost Rehnquist his life.

And that’s why Luke was here now, to bring her in and to hand her—and the film in her camera—over to the CIA before she died, too.

She didn’t know yet that her “journalist” friend would not be there to take the call she was about to place. To the best of Luke’s knowledge, Jessica Chan had no idea Rehnquist was CIA.

It was almost 11:00 p.m. now, the time Rehnquist had told her to phone him from this booth, and a dank fog was crawling up from the docks, fingering through the historic brick alleys that led off in all directions.

Luke tossed a can into his cart as he inched closer. The sound caught her attention and she shot a look directly at him, missing what had just snared his interest—an Asian man in a leather jacket lingering just beyond a pool of light that spilled from a restaurant window.

The Asian quietly signaled another man in a dark doorway down the street. Both were watching Jessica, closing in on her from either end of the alley.

Luke pushed his cart faster toward his principal, head bent low as he mumbled to himself.

The Gastown steam clock shot out a powerful blast and began the hourly Windsor chimes. It was eleven o’clock. Jessica Chan stepped into the booth, picked up the receiver and rapidly began to punch in numbers.

A car drove by, tires crackling on slick cobblestones as tiny flakes of snow began to crystallize in the frigid air. By the time the vehicle had passed, Luke had lost visuals on both men.

His pulse quickened and he unholstered his weapon.

Giles was dead?

Jessica clenched the phone, her mouth turning dry as she tried to absorb what the woman at the CNN bureau in Shanghai was telling her. The one man who could help her was…gone. Confusion clouded her brain.

She’d spoken to him only two days ago, after Stephanie’s murder. She’d told him everything.

Giles had instructed her to lay low in a cheap hotel, use only cash and call him back from this exact same pay phone in forty-eight hours. In the meantime he’d find a way to help her. He had been Jessica’s last resort.

Her only hope.

And now he was dead.

Panic strafed her chest as the implications hit her and she slammed down the receiver. But just as she turned to run, a gunshot shattered a pane of glass near her ear.

She screamed and dropped down, covering her head with both hands and scrunching her eyes tight as a hail of bullets blew out another pane and shards rained down over her.

There was a moment of deathly silence before another exchange of gunfire shattered a store window across the street. Jessica heard glass tinkle to the frozen sidewalk. A security alarm began to wail. A woman screamed. More shouts came from the opposite direction as footsteps rang out on the cobblestones and a man yelled for someone to call 911.

She had to leave before the cops arrived.

Clutching her camera bag, Jessica surged to her feet, but as she tried to bolt from the booth, a man grabbed her, yanking her forcibly backward. Jessica screamed, fighting back with every ounce of strength. But she was no match against his iron grip. He whirled her round to face him and her heart clean stopped.

It was the Dumpster diver, morphed from a bent and fragile shape into something huge, ominous and incredibly powerful. He reeked of old booze, yet his pale gray eyes were sharp as flint against his grease-blackened face.

She opened her mouth in terror, but he pressed a gloved palm over it. “Don’t make a sound,” he whispered against her ear. “I’m here to help you.”

He released her mouth slowly, testing her resolve. But Jessica couldn’t have uttered a word if she’d tried.

She couldn’t even breathe.

He took her jaw in powerful fingers, twisting her face quickly toward the light. “Looks okay,” he said, wiping blood from her cheek with a callused thumb. “Just a shallow cut.” His voice was rough gravel, his accent Australian.

Out of the corner of her eye Jessica could see a man’s body splayed inhumanly across the sidewalk, a gun at his side. Another body sprawled to the right of him. Both were Asian. People were gathering around them.

Her eyes shot back to the man holding her. He was holstering a pistol. He’d shot those men. He’d just saved her from the triad. She struggled to absorb the contradicting images he telegraphed. His tattered gloves had no fingertips, his hat was old black wool, his jacket threadbare tweed. He stunk of booze, yet there was no alcohol on his breath. She couldn’t make any sense of him.

The yelling and footsteps grew louder, and police sirens began to wail.

Jessica shot a last desperate look down the road, toward the sound of approaching sirens. Right now she didn’t know which was the worse evil—the police who’d betrayed her, or him.

“You don’t want the cops, Jessica,” he warned, his fingers encircling her arm.

He knew her name! Her eyes whipped back to him.