Bodyguard

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

ONE (#ufaf699b6-4849-5797-ab70-95846e6afa5b)

If the Everglades didn’t kill her, her uncle would.

Either way, Esme Dupree was going to die.

The thought of that—of all the things she’d leave behind, all the dreams she’d never fulfill—had kept her moving through the Florida wetland for three days, but she was tiring. Even the most determined person in the world couldn’t keep running forever. And she’d been running for what seemed like nearly that long. First, she’d fled witness protection, crisscrossing states to try to stay a step ahead of her uncle’s henchmen. She’d finally found her way to Florida, to the thick vegetation and quiet waterways that her parents had loved.

Esme wasn’t as keen. Her family had spent every summer of her childhood here, exploring the wetland, documenting flora and fauna as part of Esme’s homeschool experience. She preferred open fields and prairie grass, but her parents had loved the shallow green water of the Everglades. She’d never had the heart to tell them that she didn’t. By that time, her older siblings were grown and gone, and it was just the three of them, exploring the world together.

Funny that she’d come back here when her life was falling apart; when everything she’d worked for had been shot to smithereens by her brother’s and uncle’s crimes, Esme had returned to a place filled with fond memories.

It was also filled with lots of things that could kill a person. Alligators. Crocodiles. Snakes. Panthers. She wasn’t as worried about those as she was about human predators.

Her uncle and the people he’d hired.

The FBI, too. If they tracked her down, they wouldn’t kill her, but she’d put her hope in them before, trusted them for her safety. She’d almost died because of it.

She wiped sweat from her brow and sipped water from her canteen. Better to go it alone than to count on people who couldn’t be depended on. She’d been learning that the hard way these past few months.

Bugs dive-bombed every inch of her exposed flesh, the insect repellant sweating off almost as quickly as she could spray it on. Things hadn’t been so bad when she’d been renting a little trailer at the edge of the national park. She’d had shelter from the bugs and the critters. But Uncle Angus had tracked her down and nearly killed her. He would have killed her if she hadn’t smashed his head with a snow globe and called the police. They’d come quickly.

Of course they had.

They were as eager to get their hands on her as Uncle Angus had been. It seemed like every law enforcement office in the United States was keeping its eyes out for her.

Thanks to the feds, the organization that had sworn to protect her. Witness protection was supposed to be her ticket out of the mess she’d found herself in. She’d hoped it would be. She’d probably even believed it would. She’d entered the program because she’d seen her brother murder a man in cold blood. She’d seen the look in his eyes, and she’d known that he was capable of anything. Even killing her to keep her quiet. What she’d learned since then was that there was no panacea to her trouble. No easy way out. No certain solution. Her best hope was in herself and her ability to keep a step ahead of her uncle until the trial.

“That might have been easier if you’d stayed with the police,” she muttered, using a long wooden pole to move the canoe through shallow water.

There was no sense beating herself up over the decision to run again. Uncle Angus’s hired guns had firebombed the tiny police station she’d been taken to after she’d been attacked. During the chaos that had followed, she’d seen the opportunity and she’d run.

It had seemed like the right decision at the time.

Now she wasn’t so sure. The sun had nearly set, its golden glow still lingering on the horizon. Mosquitoes buzzed around her head. She didn’t bother slapping at them. Her arms ached. Her head throbbed. Her body felt leaden. All she wanted was to get out of the Glades and back to civilization. She’d make different decisions this time. Head for a place she’d never been before. She’d buy colored contacts to change the bright green eyes she’d inherited from her mother. The reading glasses she’d bought and worn hadn’t hidden them well enough, and Uncle Angus had told her that was how she’d been found.

“Those eyes, kid,” he’d growled. “You can’t hide them.”

He was wrong. She could, and she would.

No more living in her delusions, telling herself that everything was going to be okay because she was a good person with a good heart who wanted only what was best for the people she loved.

A fool.

Because she really wanted to believe that good begat good and that the happily-ever-after she’d planned for so many clients would happen for her one day.

She might be a fool, but she wasn’t stupid.

If she was found again, she would die.

But she wasn’t going to be found. She’d sleep in the canoe again. Just like she had the past three nights, covered by mosquito netting, listening to things slither in and out of the water. By tomorrow afternoon, she should reach her destination—Long Pine Key Campground. She eyed the compass she’d bought before she’d left Wyoming, using a small Mag light to study the map she’d grabbed from the Everglades National Park information center.

She’d had a feeling she was going to need both.

As a matter of fact, she’d put together a survival pack, and she’d hidden it in the crumbling loft of one of the boat sheds that dotted the trailer park where she’d been staying.

She’d been able to grab it after she’d escaped the police.

Maybe she wasn’t as much of a fool as her ex-fiancé, Brent, had said she was when she’d told him she was going to testify against her brother. She was tired, though. Tired people made mistakes. Like coming to the Everglades instead of heading for Texas or California or somewhere else where no one would think to look for her.

Death.

It had been stalking her for months, but now...

Now she could feel it breathing down her neck.

She shuddered, watching the edges of the murky water for a place to pull onto the shore. She needed a spot clear of vegetation. One that would allow her to drag the canoe far away from the edge of the water.

Tomorrow she’d be away from the slithering, slapping, plopping sounds of things moving through the water. She’d leave the canoe behind and make her way out of Florida. She still had money. Not much, but enough to get her to another state. She’d start fresh, build a new business. Nothing to do with weddings or brides. Nothing that anyone she knew would connect her with.

Not even Violetta.

Her eyes burned at the thought of never seeing her older sister again, her heart heavy with what that would mean—no family, no connections, no one who shared all her childhood memories.

If she could have, she’d have contacted her sister. But she didn’t dare. Their brother, Reginald, would use Violetta’s knowledge about Esme to his advantage. He’d probably been doing it all along. As much as she loved her sister, she also knew Violetta’s weakness—greed. She liked the good things in life, and she was happy to let their brother, Reginald, give them to her. Even if his means to those ends was murder.

Esme winced at the thought, pushing aside the memory that was always at the back of her mind. She’d witnessed a murder. Her brother had been the murderer. She’d watched the victim die, and she’d known that she couldn’t keep quiet.

She’d turned on her family, betraying the deepest of all bonds.

That was what Uncle Angus had said when he’d broken into the trailer.

Turned on family, and that makes you the lowest of low. You have to die, Esme. Because family is everything.

It was a lot, but there was more to life. There was integrity, there was honor, there was faith. The last was what had enabled her to offer herself as a witness to her brother’s crimes. She had what no one else in her family did—a certainty that God was in control, that He’d work everything out for His good.

She just hoped His good didn’t involve her dying in the middle of the Florida wetland.

Esme flashed her light along the edges of the water, ready to stop for the night, to try to shut off her thoughts and get some sleep. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, the sound both alarming and comforting. She had to be on the right track, moving closer to civilization. The map and the compass hadn’t steered her wrong, but civilization meant people, and that meant more danger.

Her light shone on marshy land. Eyes peered out from thick foliage, and she tried not to let herself think about what was watching her. She didn’t mind the mammals. Mice, marsh rats, deer. Even thinking about panthers and bears didn’t bother her. It was the reptiles that made her skin crawl—alligators, crocodiles, snakes.

“Cut it out!” she whispered, her voice filled with the fear she’d been working hard not to acknowledge. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to be back in her cute little Chicago apartment, making dinner after a long day planning weddings.

Esme sighed. She did not want to be in a place where predators were waiting to do what they did best.