2

Chapter 2

Two months later

Hagerstown, Maryland

he was there again .

Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington glanced out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to survey the dresses in the shop window while she and her mother strolled down the crowded sidewalk of historic Hagerstown, Maryland.

She could see him, there in her periphery, standing dangerous and tall, his gaze narrowed on her, watching her with almost complete absorption.

She should be terrified. She should be fighting against the dark shadows, the terrors that rose inside her at night and the visions that haunted her even when she was awake. He brought to mind the one vision she couldn’t get away from even when she slept. The figure standing by her bed, watching her with such intensity, holding her with gentleness and compassion as agony screamed through her brain.

It was a vision her mother had sworn time and time again couldn’t have been real. It was one she knew had to be real. It was too intense, the echo of that pain too agonizing.

She didn’t fight her mother over it, though. Lady Angelica Harrington was too determined, too certain of herself and her own rules to admit she could be wrong.

Lilly rarely argued with her mother.

No, Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington rarely argued with her mother. But Lilly was finding it harder and harder to keep from doing just that.

“Darling, you’re too quiet again.” Her mother reached out, her fingers trembling as they still did whenever she touched her daughter, as though she couldn’t quite believe she was there.

“Sorry, Mother, I was thinking about that dress.” Glancing back to where she had glimpsed the aloof figure moments before, she felt disappointment tear through her.

He was gone. Dark blond hair, or was it light brown? Those eyes, what color were they?

she wondered as she turned back to the window of the shop. Brown. They had to be brown. A raptor brown. Mixed with green. Intent and brooding. Eyes that could fire a woman’s arousal and her imagination. Not to mention her confusion why she would know that.

“We could go in and try it on,” her mother urged her, the soft lilt of her English accent drawing gazes from the couple that passed by them. “I’m certain it would look positively gorgeous on you.”

Would it?

She looked beyond the dresses to the other attire the store offered. Jeans, close-fitting, and shirts that would have her mother gasping in shock, she was certain. Not because they were revealing, but because they were common. Her mother strictly detested whatever she believed was common.

“Victoria, we could look at the dresses.”

Victoria.

She frowned at the image that greeted her in the glass.

She didn’t see Victoria there. She saw an unfamiliar image, a woman she was comfortable with, yet those weren’t the features—the face, the eyes, or the hair—of the woman she’d been before. Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington of the London Harringtons. She was related to royalty, though admittedly, the kinship was a distant one at best. Still, she couldn’t quite acclimate herself to who she knew she was, the person she knew she was supposed to be.

“Victoria.” Her mother’s voice echoed with exasperation now.

“I don’t think I need another dress, Mother,” she stated absently as she moved for the door of the shop. “I see something else I might like, though.”

Where the hell was her British accent? She remembered having one. She remembered once being proud of that accent. It didn’t exist now, though. Her voice was smooth and cultured, but it lacked any accent, any inflection, that could have identified her as a member of any particular country or indicated her social status.

“Victoria, you’re acting rather odd.” There was a note of fear in her mother’s voice as she entered the shop and moved beyond the dresses.

Was she acting odd? She was sure as hell feeling damned odd, she thought, before a brief moment of shock hit her. More and more often she found herself cursing. There were moments it was all she could do to hold back the earthy vulgarity when she was talking.

“I’m fine, Mother,” she assured her again as they moved through the small store.

She was going to obey the dictates of what she wanted rather than what her mother would consider acceptable. It was a dangerous urge to follow. At least, six years ago it would have been.

And there they were. Snug, low-slung jeans. There were low boots made of soft, supple leather on a stand beside them. Boots that looked sexy and stylish while being practical and easy to run in. Which made her wonder. What would she be running from?

“Victoria, we’ve discussed this denim fetish you seem to have acquired,” her mother stated worriedly as she moved closer and fingered the denim jeans. Tension seemed to thicken the atmosphere. “Really, Victoria. The dresses are much nicer.”

Lilly had to clench her teeth in irritation.

Lilly, she thought. Her name shouldn’t be Victoria, she had always disliked being called Victoria. She was Lilly. But she couldn’t recall a single time that her parents had called her Lilly.

She was Lilly. Lilly . . . something. She tilted her head and stared at the material as she rubbed the pocket between her thumb and forefinger. Lilly. Not Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington. Not even Lilly Harrington. But who?

“Can I help you?” the saleslady asked just behind her.

“The jeans,” she told the red-head as she moved to where they hung. “I’d like to try these, please, as well as the boots.” She moved to the boots and chose the correct size before stepping to a particular rack of blouses.

“Oh my God, you wouldn’t dare! Victoria, Desmond would have a stroke if he caught you dressed in such clothing.” Her mother was outraged, as she stared at the flat-heeled, sinfully black leather over-the-knee boots and snug jeans.

No, it wasn’t Desmond who had a problem with the clothes. It was her mother. Angelica Harrington demanded a certain image be presented at all times. Jeans did not fit that image, nor were they allowed in her mother’s presence.

Ignoring her, Lilly walked over to the nearby shirt, reached out and ran her fingers over the soft, expensive olive-green Egyptian cotton.

“Desmond will not appreciate this,” her mother warned, her voice tight.

Desmond was her stepfather now. In the six years she couldn’t remember, she had managed to lose her father, and her mother had married his younger half-brother.

“This blouse, please.” The dull olive-green cotton would fit tightly, conform to her body and shape her breasts enticingly. She wasn’t certain why she was suddenly drawn to the color, though.

She turned to the polite saleslady trailing them. The other woman smiled gently. Long red-gold hair fell to her shoulders and an understanding smile crossed her face.

In the meantime Angelica fussed in the background about the jeans and the drab color of the blouse.

“Victoria, really. The dresses are much nicer.” Angelica continued to object as her daughter moved toward the dressing room.

She glanced back at the door. There was a spot just between her shoulder blades that refused to stop itching. She could feel the eyes on her. His eyes. Somehow, he was still watching her, still waiting for her. Would he be as surprised by the jeans as her mother seemed to be?

As Lilly entered the dressing room she breathed a sigh of relief and leaned wearily against the wall, closing her eyes and taking a hard, deep breath.

She opened her eyes and stared back at the woman in the mirror.

She wasn’t Victoria any longer.

Who the hell was she, really? And why wasn’t she comfortable with the knowledge of her own identity, her own looks?

The soft cotton material of the short gray dress skimmed over her breasts and hips, ending at a barely decent length just below her thighs. The soft gray material didn’t seem appropriate somehow. Just as the green eyes staring back at her didn’t seem right.

She had once had hazel eyes. She had always had hazel eyes.

Her hair was a dark red now. It had once been a rich deep brown. Her doctors were amazed at the fact that somehow her eye and hair color had been permanently changed.

She was different. Her looks were different. Something inside her was different. There was something that didn’t seem quite right about the life she was living now, and the woman she remembered being.

“Darling, are you all right?” Angelica’s voice came through the thin walls of the dressing room. Lilly could hear the concern, the confusion in her mother’s voice. But she also heard the forced patience and edge of irritation.

“I’m fine, Mother. I’ll just be a moment,” Lilly told her.

“Desmond is going to be utterly upset if you return to the house in jeans.” There was a note of amused affection in her mother’s voice when she spoke of her husband that had Lilly almost cringing in distaste. There was a warning there as well. “He may even fuss at you, dear.”

Lilly stared at the denim, the boots, and the blouse. She stared back at herself in the mirror, then turned away. She loved it. She could move in this clothing. She could run, she could fight

. . . who?

Dark flashes surged through her mind, electric images of gunfire, blood and death flashed like vibrant lies amid a midnight landscape.

Hurriedly stripping the new clothes from her body, Lilly pulled the dress back on, slid her feet into the heels that she knew she could never run in, then gathered up the articles she had tried on.

Stepping from the dressing room, she gave her mother a careful, cool smile in response to the frown on Angelica’s face. She knew better than to upset her mother. At least, she had known better six years ago. There was a part of her now that balked at giving into another’s dictates or the threat of the consequences.

“I’ll take these.” She handed the clothing to the saleslady, while trying to ignore the irritation in her mother’s eyes. Perhaps it was best that she remain the daughter Angelica thought she was, but another part of her demanded that she be something else, something more, and that she be prepared.

She had to maintain the illusion, she thought. Survival depended upon blending into this life she was living now. Even the smartest prey understood the value of playing dumb. And a killer well understood the hunt.

Lilly almost came to an abrupt halt at the thought. Shock was a bitter taste in her mouth as she fought not to sink into the shadows and the memories that were just out of reach.

She wasn’t a killer! She was a social butterfly; a scheming little debutante, her father had once accused affectionately. She knew well how to blend into this life, she had learned at an early age. She wasn’t a killer. But the blood in her dreams indicated otherwise.

She resisted the urge to stare at her hands, a part of her desperate to ensure no blood stained them.

Who the hell was she and why did the memories of the past six years seem so elusive while the nightmares seemed more real?

She was indeed Victoria Harrington. DNA had proven it. Her blood was a perfect match for the DNA that had been taken from the Harrington children a decade ago to ensure they could always be identified, no matter the circumstances.

She knew who she was, yet she felt like an imposter. Whatever had happened in the past six years she had lost had changed her in ways she couldn’t explain. It had ensured she no longer fit in with her family, her friends, where once before she had blended into this life seamlessly.

She had memories of her life up until the night before the car crash that had killed her father and left her struggling for life six years ago. The memories of the past six years eluded her, though.

And why was she searching for a face in the crowd, anticipation surging through her at the thought of one brief glimpse of a man she didn’t know? A man who felt more familiar to her than her own face. The man she had caught watching her earlier.

“You’re acting very strange, Victoria.” Angelica sighed as they left the shop and moved back to the tree-shaded sidewalk and the shops that Angelica insisted on visiting.

Lilly could hear the edge of anger in her mother’s tone and she knew she should be wary of it. Angelica Harrington had a hard, sharp edge when angry. One that cut with brutal strength.

And she had no problem slicing into one of her children if she felt the need.

“I’m well, Mother.” She watched the crowd intently, careful to keep her mother’s body shielded as they continued the impromptu shopping spree they had decided on that morning.

She couldn’t understand why she was doing that. Why did she suddenly know how to protect her mother, and what was she trying to protect her from?

“I didn’t ask if you were well,” her mother said, exasperated. “I said you’re acting strange.”

“So, I look strange and I feel strange, as well.” Lilly snorted. “And could you please just call me Lilly?”

They both stopped.

Lilly tried to look everywhere but at her mother, before she was finally forced to meet Angelica’s dark brown gaze. The anger was still there, but also a hint of fearful confusion.

Lilly well understood. Perhaps Angelica truly had lost her daughter.

“Lilly,” Angelica finally said softly then, staring back at her as though she saw more than even Lilly could guess at. “That’s what your grandmother called you, you know.”

No, she hadn’t known that. Her grandmother had died when Lilly was no more than a child.

As though by silent accord they turned and began moving down the sidewalk again. There was a silence between them now that wasn’t exactly comfortable.

“I don’t remember her calling me Lilly,” she said, trying to calm her racing heart and to ease the tension.

“You were very young,” her mother said. “It doesn’t surprise me that when you disappeared you chose that name to use. Your grandmother always claimed you were more a Lilly than a Victoria. But your father insisted on Victoria.”

She had been Victoria six years before. She had been the belle of every ball. She had been powerful in her own right. She had had lunch with the Queen more than once, she’d known the Prime Minister, she had danced with many members of Parliament. She had conspired—

The memory slammed shut, just that quickly. It was there, then gone as though it had never been. Frustration ate at her. The memories were there, just out of reach, haunting her, daring her to do what, she wasn’t certain.

“You know, there’s the nicest little antiques store just ahead.” Her mother changed the subject with forced brightness as they passed a small café whose tempting scents wafted out to her. “I thought it would be nice to see what they have. I found several flatware pieces there the last time I visited. It was quite unique.”

Coffee. She would kill for a cup of hot coffee.

She would kill . . .

For the barest second the sight and scent of blood filled her senses, and it wasn’t the first time. She didn’t freeze this time. She barely paused at the memory, and, like the first time, it disappeared just as quickly as it had come.

She didn’t stumble, she continued walking, balancing perfectly on the high heels even as she thought that if she had to run, it would take precious seconds to shed the impractical footwear.

“Desmond usually comes on these little forays with me.” Her mother continued chatting.

“It’s too bad he had that meeting this afternoon in D.C. He could have accompanied us.”

Lilly had breathed a sigh of relief when Desmond had announced he couldn’t take the trip with them. For some reason, she no longer felt as though she could trust the uncle she had once cherished. That feeling left her off balance as if she couldn’t trust anyone anymore.

It was locked in her memories. All the answers she needed were locked behind the veil of shadows that had wiped out the past six years of her life.

What had happened the night her father’s car had gone over that cliff with her in it? Had they argued? Had they been in danger? Why had they left the party that night without telling anyone or making their excuses?

None of the explanations she had been given when she awoke in the hospital nearly four months ago made sense. She had lost more than just memories. Lilly felt as though she had lost herself as well.

She had lost her life, her father. Her mother and uncle felt like strangers, and where was the brother who had always tried to protect her? When he had come to see her in the hospital, he had disowned her as a lying, scheming tramp attempting to steal his sister’s identity.

And perhaps that hurt most of all. She had idolized Jared. To have him turn on her had broken her heart in ways she feared would never heal.

“You’re too quiet, Lilly. How do you hope to ever acclimate if you refuse to try?” Her mother’s voice was hard now, censorious. “I still think you needed time to heal further. The clinic in France . . .”

“Mother, really.” Lilly smiled gently, consolingly. “I’m acclimating fine. I’m just getting my bearings, I promise.”

“And you would tell me if it were otherwise?” her mother questioned, concern softening the hardness in her tone.

“I promise I will,” Lilly lied.

“The dress becomes you.”

Lilly froze at the sound of the voice at her ear, slightly husky, rich and dark, like the finest black velvet rubbing against the senses.

She knew that voice. It sank inside her, caressed against memories that chafed beneath the shadows and eased a sense of fear that had been riding inside her for the past months.

She hadn’t realized how frightened she had been until that clenched, tight part of her soul seemed to relax marginally.

“I think I prefer the jeans, boots, and thigh holsters you wore in Afghanistan better, though.”

She felt his cheek against her hair as her heart began to race, to pound erratically with fierce anticipation. Her body suddenly became too sensitive, too warm, as a distantly remembered heat began to flare inside her.

“Et.” The halting sound delayed her attempt to turn around. “Stay still, no need to turn around yet.” There was an edge of darkness in his voice as he gripped her hip with one hand and held her in place.

There were too many sensations racing through her body now, too much heat and too many pinpoints of emotion that she couldn’t make sense of.

“Who are you?” she hissed as she gazed around desperately, wondering where her mother had gone off to, wondering what she would think of the man standing much too close to her daughter.

“You don’t remember me?” There was an odd note in his tone, one she couldn’t decipher quickly. “As much trouble as we’ve instigated together? I think I’m offended, Belle.”

A sense of vertigo assaulted her at the chiding tone.

“Evidently I don’t.” She fought to still her racing heart, to ease the harshness of her breathing.

“I heard you’d been wounded. Evidently the rumors of lost memories is true.” The comforting tone to his voice did nothing to still the alternating emotions that were suddenly tearing through her. “Trust me, baby, you know me.”

She believed it. She knew it. She could feel that knowledge heating her body.

“Then I can look at you.” She kept her voice low, as he did, her gaze continually scouring the interior of the shadowed store for anyone that could be watching or listening.

“Not yet. Turn around and I won’t be able to help myself. Your mother would find you in a very compromising position. She doesn’t seem the type to look the other way if she caught her daughter being seduced in a back corner of an antiques store.”

Her mother would be absolutely mortified. Furious.

“Do you remember Friendly’s Sports Bar?” he asked then.

She shook her head slowly, though a ghost of a memory surfaced. A large dim room, a jukebox playing, the crack of pool balls and spirited laughter.

“The corner of Franklin and Walnut Street,” he told her.

“We’ve met there before?” She heard the uncertainty in her voice, the neediness, the hunger for information. Finally a prayer had been answered. Someone who knew who she was rather than who she had been.

“Several times,” he assured her. “Tell me, Belle, how severe is the amnesia?”

She couldn’t decipher the underlying emotion in his voice. Part concern, part something else that had her wondering not just who this man was, but what he was to her.

“The past six years are gone,” she answered truthfully, though she wasn’t certain why she had. This man had her guard up, yet a part of her was reaching out to him, desperate to trust him. “Did you know me well?”

His hands tightened at her hips. “I’ll let you decide that. Meet me tonight at the tavern, alone. No mother, no driver. You could ride that racy little motorcycle you looked so good on.

The one you keep in storage here in Hagerstown.”

She rode a motorcycle? Since when did she ride a motorcycle?

She shook her head almost instinctively, rejecting the idea that she would, that she could ride, even as she remembered the wind in her hair and the power pulsing between her thighs.

“I’ll be there at eleven.” His fingers caressed her hips. “Will you be there, Lilly?”

“I’ll be there.” The decision was made so quickly, so instinctively, that she almost called the words back.

“Good girl.” Were those his lips brushing against the shell of her ear?

Lilly shivered at the exquisite sensation of warmth, almost a kiss, as she took in a hard, shocked breath.

“I’ve missed you, Lilly.” Was that a note of regret in his voice?

Lilly fought the overwhelming urge to turn and confront him, to demand the answers she was certain he had. There was no doubt he had known her during those lost years. There was no doubt he may have possibly known her intimately.

“Who am I?” The words slipped past her lips, the emotion in her voice undisguised, the fear that she fought to keep hidden revealing itself in the husky, plaintive tone of her voice.

Behind her, the warm male body bracketing hers was still for a long moment before she felt the silent sigh ripple across his chest.

“We’ll discuss that tonight.” There was a promise in his voice and, a part of her feared, a warning.

A warning about what? The truth perhaps?

The truth could be a double-edged sword, her uncle had warned her several times when she questioned if he had had the past six years of her life investigated once he learned she was alive. Surely he had, yet he refused to give her a straight answer.

The evasiveness had been driving her insane. Perhaps, this time, someone would give her a straight answer.

“And if I don’t show up?”

His hands eased away from her slowly as the sound of her mother’s voice discussing the merits of a particular porcelain plate filtered through the dim room.

“Then I guess you don’t show up,” he murmured. “Perhaps, Lilly, there’re things about yourself that you don’t really want to know.”

As she tried to understand that comment he slipped away from her, the warmth of his body no more than a dream as she turned quickly to try and catch a glimpse of the man who had held her so intimately.

Was he the one following her? Was he the one that filled her fantasies as well as her nightmares?

However, all she saw was his back as he slipped out the door and moved quickly past the long, narrow window of the shop.

Lilly began to race after him. Waiting until tonight for answers suddenly seemed less than feasible. She wanted those answers now.

“Lilly, Mrs. Longstrom has the most gorgeous lace tablecloth in the back room.” Her mother’s voice stopped her as she took the first step. “You simply have to come back here and see it. I believe it would be perfect for the breakfast room at the manor.”

Lilly turned quickly back to her mother, a question forming on her lips, a demand to know if her mother had seen the man speaking to her. If she knew him.

In the moment that the words would have slipped past her lips, she snapped her teeth quickly together. Her mother hadn’t seen him, or she would have already posed the same questions to Lilly.

Angelica suddenly paused, her gaze sharpening as though she sensed or saw something in Lilly’s face that concerned her or perhaps angered her.

“I believe it’s time we go.” Angelica moved quickly across the room despite the height of the heels she wore with her alabaster slacks and matching sleeveless blouse.

Lilly protested as her mother’s fingers curled gently around her arm and urged her toward the door. “Really, Mother, we don’t need to leave.”

She had to get her bearings, had to make sense of what was suddenly happening. What she was feeling.

She should never have had such a reaction to a man she couldn’t see, only hear. A man who seemed more familiar to her than her own body.

She followed her mother from the antiques shop, back to the busy tree-lined street. Pausing, Angelica Harrington made a quick call to the chauffeur, gave him their location, then turned to her daughter with a worried frown.

“I tried to do too much at once,” Angelica said, the apology in her voice pricking at Lilly’s conscience. “I should have allowed you to rest a little longer.”

“You’re going to have to get used to this, Mother,” Lilly informed her firmly as she let her gaze survey the busy street with narrowed eyes behind her dark sunglasses. “Just as I have to get used to myself.”

Lilly didn’t catch her mother’s look of consternation. The older woman watched her daughter as one might watch an alien, waiting, watching for any signs of danger. But together with the wariness there was also pain.

A mother’s dream had come true. The daughter she had thought she had lost forever had returned home. Her child lived and breathed. She was given the chance few parents who had lost children were given. A chance to say all the things she hadn’t taken the time to say before.

A chance to kiss her daughter good night. A chance to see her smile. Hear her laughter.

Perhaps.

Travis wondered if Lilly had learned to laugh again. He knew the few times he had managed to pull laughter from her it was like seeing sunshine for the first time.

He wondered if her mother saw sunshine when she saw her daughter’s smile, or heard her laughter. He wondered if she’d seen that smile or that laughter since her daughter had been home. God knew, Lilly deserved at least a few moments of happiness before the world went crazy on her again. And before her mother possibly lost her daughter all over.

One thing was certain, beneath the impatience and flashes of irritation Angelica Harrington’s heart was also breaking as she watched the young woman she had been told was her daughter.

There was no doubt Lilly was definitely Victoria Lillian Harrington. DNA proved it, her dental records proved it, but there were no fingerprints to back it up. Her fingerprints had been removed the day she signed on with the Elite Ops. With her return the blame had been lain on the fiery car crash.

Standing well out of her line of vision, he watched her closely, a smile tugging at his lips as she slid her sunglasses on and continued to watch the street with what he knew were eagle-sharp eyes.

She’d caught him following her several times throughout the afternoon. Each time she had stopped, arrowed in on him, and watched him with a familiarity he knew did nothing but confuse her.

He’d seen that confusion. He’d felt it. He’d nearly tasted it as he stood behind her and breathed in her scent.

She was fighting to make sense of the world she was in and the memories she had lost, but she was still game to fight for the answers.

She would be there tonight. There wasn’t a doubt in Travis’s mind that she wouldn’t find the bar in time to meet with him. He wondered if she would make it there alone, or if her shadow, the bodyguard her uncle had hired, would manage to follow her.

Lilly Belle, code-named Night Hawk, would never have allowed herself to be tracked to a meeting. She would have ensured she arrived alone, and if she didn’t, then she would ensure the one following her regretted it.

That was his Lilly. She could be merciless, but in being so, he’d watched, year by year, another piece of her soul erode.

Those wounds were still there, in her eyes, along with her confusion, her wariness.

“What do you think?”

Travis glanced over his shoulder at the towering former Russian who stood carefully back from the edge of the building.

Nik Steele watched Lilly and her mother, his icy blue eyes lasered in on them intently.

“I think we need to plan for when all hell breaks loose,” Travis grunted as a limo drew to a stop in front of the two women.

The chauffeur jumped out, and Travis couldn’t help the amused twitch of his lips. He had to admit, Wild Card made a hell of a chauffeur.

“Looks slick in that perky little hat, huh?” Nik said. “Maybe we should send pictures to his wife.”

Travis snickered at the thought. Wild Card’s wife was a hell of a woman; he had no doubt she wouldn’t ooh and aah over how cute she thought he looked. It was enough to make a single man shudder in fear. Or in envy.

“Save the pictures,” Travis advised him. “Maybe we could throw darts at them instead.”

Nik’s amused grunt was a rough, broken sound, part amusement, part mockery. The man never laughed. He rarely smiled. But hell, Travis couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed himself.

“So what are we putting in our report to Live Wire?” Nik asked him as Wild Card helped Lilly and Angelica into the car.

What was he putting in his report to Jordan?

“She’s viable,” he stated.

“Really?” The skepticism in Nik’s voice wasn’t lost on Travis. “That’s not how I saw things, Black Jack.”

“Do you intend to report differently?” As the limo pulled away, Travis turned back to the mountain they now called Renegade.

Nik was the only one of the team that seemed to change code names like underwear. Jordan couldn’t seem to make his mind up about the big, blond-haired giant.

“Not me.” Nik shook his head firmly as he glanced back at Travis. “If I were you, I’d talk to Wild Card, though.” He nodded in the direction the limo had taken. “Make sure he has the same report. Because I’m betting ‘viable’ isn’t the word he would choose either.”

But it was the one he would use in his report, Travis promised himself. He’d talk to Wild Card. Tonight, he’d meet with Night Hawk. The game was about to begin. That meant

“viable” had to be the word they all used. Or Night Hawk would pay the price.

Under no circumstances could the Elite Ops be revealed. The damage it could cause, the danger it could represent to them all, was too high.

If Lilly wasn’t considered viable and an asset to the operation, then she was a risk. And all risks had to be eliminated.

Immediately.