Shiver

said.
    A few minutes later she heard it: a single sharp bang. She knew what it was: kill shot. Bad as it might be of her, she couldn’t even feel a smidgen of sorrow. As long as Veith was alive and on this planet, she never would have felt safe for herself or for Tyler for the rest of her life.
    Or for Marco, either.
    She stopped, waiting for him, and when he rejoined her she asked: “What about the other guy?” in reference to the last remaining unaccounted-for thug. It was a tacit acknowledgment that she knew what he’d done.
    “Without Veith, he won’t bother us. If he’s alive, he’ll slink away with his tail between his legs.”
    After that, they walked down the snowy slope in silence for a while. Neither of them mentioned Veith. Finally the silence got old, so she glanced at him and said, “Marco?”
    Instead of the reply she had been expecting, he looked at her, sighed, and said, “About that . . .”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
     

     
    “A bout that?” Sam repeated, frowning at him questioningly.
    Marco caught her arm, stopped walking, and turned to face her. They were a good distance from the plane now, with a wall of woods to one side and the mountain stretching up to its towering peak behind them. It was cold, but not bitter, and at this elevation the darkness was alleviated by the moon and twinkling stars. The snow underfoot was just deep enough to cover the ground. A light flurry of flakes floated in the air.
    Marco’s expression was rueful as he looked down at her. He was tall and broad shouldered enough to block her view of the woods behind him, dark and tough and handsome, a man to depend on even if, she realized with a little catch in her heart, tonight was probably all they were ever going to have.
    “Do you love me?” he asked.
    Sam’s eyes widened. She searched his face as her pulse started to pound. “Yes,” she said, because she did.
    He blinked. “You do?”
    Not the response she had been hoping for. Her brows snapped together. “Are you telling me that that was a rhetorical question?” Her tone was acerbic. His hand tightened on her arm when she would have pulled away.
    “No,” he said hastily. Then a smile just touched his mouth. “Maybe. But guess what, baby doll? I love you, too.”
    Her heart lurched. She felt vulnerable suddenly. Exposed. She didn’t like it. She couldn’t deal. Unless—he was telling the truth.
    “Really?” She searched his eyes suspiciously. Maybe there was a hint of insecurity in that look somewhere. If so, maybe it was because she was feeling slightly insecure.
    “Yes, really.” He slid a hand along her cheek, unsmiling now. Then he bent his head and kissed her. It was a sexy kiss, hard and hungry, and she closed her eyes and kissed him back for all she was worth. Her arms were still around his neck when he lifted his head to nuzzle her cheek, then straightened to look down at her. Opening her eyes, she smiled at him.
    “I love you, Sam. This whole fiasco has been a nightmare from hell, except for the fact that I found you.”
    After the I love you part, she barely registered a word he said. She was standing there smiling up at him, stupidly, with flowers blooming in her heart and stars blazing from her eyes, when he sighed and added, “Keep that in mind, would you? Because there’s something I need to tell you.”
    That did not sound promising, but she was too dazzled even to frown. “What?”
    “Let’s walk and talk, shall we?”
    Not even worried about whatever horrible deed he was about to confess to—she knew the worst about him, right, and loved him madly anyway—she withdrew her arms from around his neck and fell in beside him as they resumed their trek down the slope.
    “So tell me,” she said.
    He sighed again and said, “I am not Rick Marco. My name is Daniel Panterro. Danny.”
    “What?” Sam heard that with a sense of shock. Her eyes flew to his face. She would have stopped walking, except he caught her arm and urged her on.
    “I’m an FBI agent. This has been an undercover operation. I’ve been pretending I’m Marco—there really is a Marco, and he really did do all the bad things you’ve been accusing me of—while he spills the beans on all the Zeta cartel’s secrets, including its distribution channels and the corrupt law-enforcement agents who work for them.”
    He told her the whole story.
    “Oh, my God,” she said when he had finished. As he had talked, it had started to occur to her that if he