Page 2 of Nothing Hiding

Three street corners on, and she gave in to that prickling feeling and stopped, checking behind her once more. Perhaps it was her own guilty conscience at play, imagining a guard was following her, looking to catch up with her and catch her in the act, and tell her dad, who would be madder than mad at her.

That was the sensation she was getting, but there was nobody behind her who looked like a guard or who seemed to be following her at all. Not that she could see, anyway.

With her nerves calming down a little, Daisy started to walk again, albeit at a faster pace than before, her high heeled boots clicking loudly against the pavement.

Now that she was farther away and closer to her meeting point, she was getting excited and actually looking forward to the drinking, the dancing, and the partying in the super-trendy underground nightclub that she was headed to. From now until early morning. She didn't plan to return before dawn, and that would be good timing because the guards usually knocked off for coffee at six a.m. She could sneak in again, hopefully, and nobody would be any the wiser.

And there was the alley ahead, looming, looking darker than she remembered—a gloomy, narrow gap in the street.

Her friends would be at the other end. She was almost there!

Frowning, she stopped, turning again.

Why was she feeling so uneasy? It was as if the sensation was getting worse, not better. Was her own guilty conscience troubling her now? Or something else?

She shook her head, trying to brush off the nagging feeling. It was probably just her nerves playing tricks on her.There was nobody behind her. Well, a couple of people, but they were clearly going about their own business. Two guys crossing the road and heading out of sight, and a woman quickly walking a few blocks away, her head down.

No danger. She needed to stop being paranoid, or she might end up sabotaging herself. Although, seeing she was feeling so jumpy, she should maybe text her friends and ask them to meet her right here.

Daisy turned again, facing the alleyway, taking out her phone.

And gasped in a shocked breath.

There was someone standing there, right there, in its dark mouth. Where had he come from? How had he gotten there?

Intent was in every line of his body. His face was obscured by a darkened hood as he moved swiftly toward her.

Someone had been following her! They had! Not a guard, but someone else, someone dangerous.

She began to scream, but before she could make a sound, a gloved hand wrenched her off her feet, clamped over her mouth. Steely arms encircled her, lifting her. The hand at her mouth was suffocating, and it stank of a strong-smelling chemical. Something was making her sleepy.

Gray fog was blotting out the nighttime scene.

She tried again to struggle and cry, but her efforts were lost in the fog that thickened and encircled her, locking her in its chilly embrace.

CHAPTER ONE

The information in her father's ledger was turning her world upside down.

Paging through it again, her stomach churning, FBI agent Juliette Hart was wishing she'd never accessed that storage container where his possessions had been stashed away for years after his murder.

Her father hadn’t been the man she thought he was. She was being forced to confront the terrible realization that he’d been taking bribes.

After the quick search through the container, she'd organized for everything in it to be shipped back to her Paris apartment, where she now worked as a member of the special international task force. Her thoughts had been to go through it and donate it, sell it, or keep it.

The process had taken a couple of weeks to organize and then she'd been busy and hadn't had time to unpack the boxes.

Now, finally, the contents were all unpacked and neatly arranged.

A box of books—in various languages—including quite a few political works, and one or two thrillers, always her dad's go-to for relaxation. Some old crockery and cutlery, a few dining room chairs, a couple of antique tables, magazine racks, ornaments, and pictures.

All quality goods, tastefully chosen and well kept. She was keeping four of the chairs, a table, and a couple of the ornaments and pictures that suited her apartment and which held fond memories of a childhood that had been spent in many different countries as her diplomat father had moved, right up until his murder in Germany.

This was all the stuff that was useless to her, at any rate, for anything regarding his death.

And then—the small, hard covered ledger. That was the opposite.

It was lying on the table, now bathed in a ray of the morning sun filtering through her apartment window. From here, she could hear the swish of the traffic, the occasional snatch of conversation as people passed by below, bicycle bells, and the honk of a taxicab, and the now familiar sound of the delivery van arriving to collect some of the bread, freshly baked at the boulangerie on the other side of the road.

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