GILLIAN DROVE onto the asphalt highway with a bump and thump. She turned south without hesitation. An hour later, faced with showing false ID to cross the border, or hunting up a passable motel in the dusty border town on U.S. soil, she chose to stop short of Mexico. She had to hold on to some scruples.

Seeking the least accessible motel, she rented an end unit, the one farthest from the cobbled motel entry. It was a relief to find the room clean. Hidden parking in the rear was a big plus. The rent, cheaper by the week, fit her budget, too. It occurred to Gillian as she went out to get her bags that she’d already begun to think like a fugitive.

In a week she ought to be able to alter her appearance enough to fool the men chasing her. She’d have to dump this car. With luck, she might be able to sell it to a private party and buy another in a different town. That’s what crooks in movies did.

Tonight she was too exhausted to plan beyond that. The money Daryl had left in the glove box along with her phony ID wouldn’t last forever. Eventually she’d have to find a job. She’d face that ordeal later—if she made it through the week she’d paid for in advance.

Gillian refused to dwell on the fact she was probably a wanted person in New Orleans and Flagstaff. Before she ditched this car, she’d go over it inch by inch, searching every nook and cranny again. Daryl had e-mailed Patrick Malone, saying that when Gillian arrived she’d have in her possession a key. To open what, Daryl hadn’t said. He hinted that he’d hidden a notebook with enough lethal information to expose a huge money-laundering operation. He also indicated to Malone that he suspected they were on to him. Daryl had promised to contact Patrick later via a different source. He’d never had the opportunity.

She and Malone had failed to turn up a key. Now Daryl was dead, and probably Patrick, too. She would be next if she didn’t unearth what Daryl had put in safekeeping. Gillian knew him too well to think he’d forgotten to put the key in her belongings. But where? Could it be so small it’d fallen out in the police parking lot and they’d missed it?

Her brain numb, Gillian pawed through the car’s trunk looking for the smaller of her two cases. Had it slipped behind the tire? “It’s not here!” she cried. “Where is it?” In spite of the late hour, and her questionable surroundings, Gillian removed everything from the trunk. The small case wasn’t there.

Her stomach heaved. Tears coursed down her cheeks. That case contained all she had left in the world that was dear to her.

Last Monday, she’d been nothing but confused when Daryl awakened her, babbling. She’d watched as, in a frenzy, he packed the small case and a larger one. The night was still blurred in her mind. For too long, she’d been an emotional wreck—a decline that had begun when she’d first broached the idea of starting a family. Daryl resisted. Said he wanted to wait. Until his CPA firm was more secure. Until they had more money in the bank. Until she could sell her flower shop and stay home full-time. Silly reasons, she’d thought.

So she had defied Daryl, stopped her birth control pills and gotten pregnant almost overnight. That definitely strained an already strained relationship. In hindsight, she wished she could go back and change everything.

Especially the part where something went horribly wrong in the last month of her pregnancy, resulting in the stillbirth of her long-awaited daughter. The rift widened between her and Daryl because after the autopsy, while she was heavily sedated in the hospital, he’d unilaterally arranged for baby Katie’s cremation. Oh, he attempted to explain. Families who’d lived in New Orleans for generations had access to above-ground burial vaults. Others, like them, had limited choices. He’d done what he believed was best, he’d told her.

For weeks, Gillian had wept. Weeks turned into months during which she couldn’t eat, sleep or work. Daryl did the opposite. He rarely came home from the office. And so after six months of that, they’d split, bound only by their joint partnership in Daryl’s firm. Maybe if she’d been a more active partner…if she hadn’t sunk into emotional oblivion, perhaps she wouldn’t be here four months after their separation, with both Daryl and Katie gone. Gone!

Suddenly she knew exactly what had happened—where she’d lost the suitcase. The place where she’d changed the tire. She entertained the idea of going back. What if the thugs were, even now, waiting in the trees? As desperately as she longed to retrieve the case, self-preservation dictated she wait.

Exhausted, Gillian dragged herself inside, stripped off her dirty clothes and fell into bed. Her agenda had just taken a new turn. She wouldn’t rest until the thugs who’d killed Daryl were brought to justice. And they’d better know she would go to any lengths to rescue Katie’s ashes.

GILLIAN STOOD in the cramped office off the kitchen of Flo’s Caf'e. She’d come to speak with the caf'e’s owner, Florence Carter, about a waitress position listed in a current edition of the Desert City News. It was the first newspaper Gillian had bought since departing New Orleans, although she’d followed the TV news and was relieved there’d been no mention of Daryl’s or Officer Malone’s murders. Her objective in buying this paper had been for the employment ads. Desert City was the closest town of any size to the back road where she’d lost her suitcase.