Saving Faith by David Baldacci Read Free Book Online

guard, that small discomfort could become a fatal one. Tonight, however, because he was wearing body armor, the holster wasn’t scraping his skin; the pain and heightened sense of awareness were not nearly as strong.
    Faith could feel the blood rush through her ears, all senses elevated, the way they were when you were lying in bed late at night and hearing a strange, troubling sound. When you were a child and that happened, you raced to your parents’ bed and climbed in, to be wrapped up, consoled by loving, understanding arms. Her parents were dead and she was now thirty-six years old. Who was out there for Faith Lockhart?
    “And after tonight, it’ll be Agent Reynolds instead of me,” Newman said. “You’re comfortable with her, aren’t you?”
    “I’m not sure ‘comfort’ applies to situations like this.”
    “Sure it does. It’s very important, in fact. Reynolds is a straight shooter. Believe me, if it weren’t for her, this thing would be going nowhere. You haven’t exactly given us much to go on. But she believes in you. So long as you don’t do anything to destroy that confidence, you have a powerful ally in Brooke Reynolds. She cares about you.”
    Faith crossed her legs and folded her arms across her chest. She was about five-five, and her torso was short. Her bosom was flatter than she would have liked, but her legs were long and well shaped. If nothing else, she could always count on her legs to get attention. The defined muscles in her calves and thighs, visible through her sheer stockings, were enough to cause Newman’s gaze to flicker over them several times with what appeared to be mild interest, she noted.
    Faith swatted her long auburn hair out of her face and rested her hand on the bridge of her nose. A few white strands of hair floated among the darker. They were not yet noticeable, but that would change with time. In fact, the pressure she was under would undoubtedly accelerate the aging process. Besides hard work, agile wits and poise, Faith’s good looks, she knew, had helped her career. It was shallow to believe that one’s features made a difference. Yet the truth was they did, particularly when one dealt with an overwhelmingly male audience, as she had for her entire career.
    The broad smiles she received when entering a senator’s office were not so much due to her gray matter, she knew, as to the above-the-knee skirts she favored. Sometimes it was as simple as dangling a shoe. She was talking about children dying, families living in sewers in far-off lands, and these men were fixated on toe cleavage. God, testosterone was a man’s greatest weakness and a woman’s most powerful advantage. At least it helped to level a playing field that had always been tilted in favor of the males.
    “It’s nice to be so well loved,” said Faith. “But picking me up in an alley. Coming out here in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night. That’s a little much, don’t you think?”
    “Your walking into the Washington Field Office just wasn’t an option. You’re the star witness in what could be a very important investigation. This place is safe.”
    “You mean it’s perfect for an ambush. How do you know we haven’t been followed?”
    “We’ve been followed, all right. By our people. If anyone else had been around, believe me, our people would’ve noticed it before sending us on. We had a tail car until we turned off the highway. There’s nobody back there.”
    “So your people are infallible. I wish I had that kind of people working for me. Where do you find them?”
    “Look, we know what we’re doing, okay? Relax.” Even as he said this, though, he checked the mirror again.
    He glanced at the cell phone lying on the front seat, and Faith could easily read his thoughts. “Suddenly wanting backup?” Newman glanced sharply at her but said nothing. “Okay, so let’s get to the principal terms,” she said. “What do I really get out of all this? We’ve never quite