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Collins, since she had given them Amelia’s Nice address. It had to be someone else, using the company stationery.
    With trembling fingers she tore open the flap and pulled out the single sheet of paper, staring at the bright travel brochure advertising the amenities of Nice and the French Riviera. Scrawled across the photo of the golden beach were two words: You lied .
    “No.” The word whispered past her stiff lips. She closed her eyes, denying what she’d seen. It wasn’t possible. They couldn’t have found her. She went into the living room and sank down onto the sofa.
    “Samantha?”
    Through the roaring in her ears, she heard Tony’s voice. Was he still here? “Samantha, you look so strange. Are you all right?”
    She was definitely not all right. Dazed, she turned to him. “I thought you’d gone.”
    Again he detected the inconsistency, the flatness in her vowels.
    “Not yet,” he said. “Good thing, too. Samantha, what’s going on? What scared you?”
    Slowly, as if she feared it might turn into a snake, she unclenched her fist from the envelope. Like a condemned woman resigned to her fate, she unfolded the brochure. More red letters, crudely printed with a felt marker, leaped out at her. You can’t hide forever .
    Beside the words was a crude drawing of a gallows with a stick figure hanging from it, the neck twisted obscenely.
    “Oh, no.” Her eyes wide with horror, she dropped the paper on the table.
    Gingerly Tony picked it up, staring at the message. “Who sent this, Samantha? What is going on?”
    Samantha covered her face with her hands, as if by shutting out the light she could deny the implications of the words and the brochure. She let her hands slide down to her lap where she clasped them tightly together. “They’ve found me. They know where I am.”
     

Chapter Three
     
    “They? Who’re they?” Tony dropped the brochure on the coffee table. Feeling totally out of his depth, he sat down beside her. He clasped her icy hand in his, rubbing it between his palms. “And what do you mean they’ve found you? Who is it you’re hiding from?”
    She hid her face against his sweatshirt, breathing in the cool scent of outdoors and the underlying warmth that emanated from his skin. “I can’t tell you, Tony. It’s better if you don’t know.” She lifted her head, her eyes tear-wet and stricken. “I’ll probably have to move.”
    “How long have you been hiding?” Tony asked, without much hope of a straight answer.
    But she surprised him, and her reply had a ring of truth he recognized. “Almost six months.”
    “And no one knows where you are.”
    “Only Mr. Collins, my solicitor. And he would never betray me.” She stood up suddenly, urgent words tumbling from her mouth. “Tony, you can’t stay here. I may be in danger. And you might be, too.”
    He remained where he was, staring at her. “Really? What kind of danger?”
    A muscle jumped in her jaw as she tightened her lips. “I can’t tell you.”
    Tony stood up abruptly, his knee knocking the table. The mug Sam had forgotten from hours ago fell over, spilling the dregs of cold coffee. “Damn. Where’s a cloth?”
    “In the kitchen.”
    Tony mopped up the coffee, which fortunately hadn’t soaked anything important. Taking the cloth back to the kitchen to rinse it out, he paused on the way. “Sooner or later you’ll have to tell me. I want to help you.”
    “I don’t need any help.”
    “I think you do,” Tony said calmly. “I’m not leaving until I get some answers.”
    “It’s not your affair.” But her protest was lost as he turned on the water at the sink.
    Samantha sank back into the sagging cushions. What could she do now? Run again, somewhere else? She massaged the spot between her eyes that was beginning to ache. She had taken such pains to lay down a false trail, winding through Europe in a car rented under Amelia’s name. She’d been so careful, never making close friends, never letting anyone