Trust No One by Diana Layne

reflected in her dark eyes. “This won’t pull you out of retirement.” He doubted the sincerity of his words, but hey, whatever it took. It was his job to get her to go after Tasha.
    “Wanna bet?” Obviously she realized he couldn’t offer her any assurances as she continued, “If I do this one job, there’ll be another, then another. No. Unh unh. Not going to happen.”
    “You at least know how Tasha thinks.”
    “You’re right there. And if she doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be found. Just leave her alone and she’ll show up when she’s ready.”
    “Leave her alone and she’ll come home, wagging her tail behind her . . .”
    MJ’s face screwed into a scowl. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
    “From Little Bo Peep—the nursery rhyme. You might know your fairy tales, but you’re lousy with nursery rhymes.”
    “Angel’s not old enough for them. The book I have doesn’t have pictures.”
    “Little Bo Peep lost her sheep–”
    “No, that’s okay. I’ll skip the rhymes, thanks.” MJ looked at a clock on the wall. “And now it’s getting late. . .”
    Ben stopped playing nice. He’d known it would come to this. “You have no choice.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “I can’t take no for an answer. Jeff won’t let me. You have to help us find Tasha.”
    “And just how do you think you can make me? Hold a gun to my head?”
    “Would that work?”
    MJ made a rude noise. “What do you think?”
    “Didn’t think so.” Ben took a breath and plunged on. “Jeff gave me a better weapon. Angelina.”
    MJ’s mouth dropped open, but no sound came out. Her pie plate hit the coffee table with a hard clanking sound that made up for her speechlessness.
    “Vista is helping you push the adoption through faster than normal. They will pull back the help, make things more difficult, possibly stop the process al–”
    She sprang on him in a flash. Had him by his shirt, jerked him close. He’d known she would. He didn’t defend himself.
    “No,” she said in a soft controlled voice, one more deadly with its very control. But he was trained, too, and it would be a tough fight if she followed through. She knew it. He could tell.
    He held her gaze and spoke quietly, “I’m only the messenger.”
    She shoved him away and slumped into the couch, banging her head against the stuffed cushions as if she was trying to knock out the image of what faced her. “That son of a bitch.”
    The very forlornness of her response tugged at him. While he’d chosen Vista as an employer once he was out of the military, he realized she’d never had a choice in her occupation. Ed began training all three children for the business as soon as he’d given them a home. Ben understood her reluctance to be forced back in, even for a brief time.
    “It won’t take long. We’ll bring someone in to watch Angelina, or maybe Tex’s wife--”
    “No. She’s going.”
    “We can’t take a kid with us.”
    “No ‘we’ to it except for me and Angel. You aren’t going. You’re just the messenger,” she echoed his words back to him.
    “I can’t let you go alone.”
    “You want Tasha found, you will. You think she’s just going to pop up if I have another agent in tow?”
    “Orders. Either I go with you, or I’ll stake out your place and follow you.”
    “What? I’m suddenly untrustworthy? After all I’ve done, all I’ve sacrificed?”
    He didn’t understand it either. “Just speculating here, but you aren’t officially on payroll. You might take the kid and run.”
    “You could be using me to find her so you can take her out.”
    “Always that possibility, true.” Though he didn’t have that order, no assurance he wouldn’t get one.
    She tossed him a disgruntled look that told him what she thought of his theory. “Why’s Tasha killing these guys?”
    “Just now wondering that, are you?”              
    She ignored him and continued speaking, more to herself than