Excerpt from Nine Days by Minerva Koenig, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Her hair was wet and she wore an exasperated expression. "Don't you answer your phone?"

"I didn't hear it," I said, privately amused by the technical truth of the statement. I'd unplugged the loathsome instrument before falling into bed. An old habit and a good one.

"Hey, Teresa, is Richard around?" the guy asked her. "I need to get into the basement."

"I don't keep track of him anymore, Jesse," she said, a stain of irritation on her voice. "Let's go inside," she said to me.

He put a hand out, saying, "I'm Jesse Reed, I live upstairs."

"Julia Kalas," I replied, shaking.

"Like the opera singer?"

I spelled it and his expression went curious, his eyes hovering somewhere around my chin. "What is that, Greek?"

"It's Finnish."

The feds had fought me on it at first, but there was no way I was spending the rest of my life named Smith. It wasn't as if the name Kalas were traceable to me—at least, not by anyone I didn't want to be able to trace me when the time came. I told the feds I'd picked it out of the phone book, and when I showed them how many Kalases were listed for Boston, they let it go. For people whose job it is to be suspicious, they were surprisingly gullible.

The Amazon gave the apartment door a push. I backed up with the knob in my hand, letting her in.

"Nice to meet you," Jesse called after us. I saw him smirk as he trotted down the porch steps, revealing a pair of predatory canines.

"You want to watch yourself with that one," the Amazon said as I went into the bathroom to get dressed. "You'll be on your back with your panties on the floor before you know what hit you."

"Yeah?" I replied, curious. "Will I enjoy it?"

She made a disgusted noise. "How the hell should I know? I wouldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole."

Her eyes dropped to the two splotchy pink scars on my right side without changing, so she'd gotten at least that far into my file. I pulled on a T-shirt and checked my face in the mirror. It still looked the same.

"Who's Richard?" I asked, coming back into the kitchen.

She had coffee and filters out, and was filling a copper kettle at the porcelain sink. "My soon-to-be ex-husband. He's taking his time moving out, so you might run into him around the place. Don't let him give you any shit."

I got as comfortable as the chrome chairs at the dinette would let me. "Is he likely to offer me some?"

"He's likely to do any damned thing," the Amazon sighed, setting the kettle on the stove and lighting the gas. "Fortunately, it's not my problem anymore."

I wondered what her husband was like. Big guy. Rough around the edges, probably, to match her. "How long were you married?"

She waved it by, coming over to take the other chair. "Everything all right with the apartment?"

Some blood in the water there, I thought. Putting it on the back shelf to play with later, I replied, "I don't know—I haven't seen all of it yet. The door in the bedroom is locked, and the key you gave me doesn't open it."

"Yeah, that's my place," she said, leaning back and crossing her arms. "I split this floor into two units after Richard moved out."

I let my eyes drift around, and she pointed out dryly, "You're not gonna live here forever."

That reminded me. "There's only fifteen thousand in the bank account the feds set up. I was supposed to get fifty for the house in Bakersfield."

"The fifteen is for a car and living expenses until you can get a paycheck coming in," she said. "If you find a property you want to buy, let me know and I'll get what you need transferred down."

"Why can't I just have what they owe me, straight up?"

Her brown eyes jumped to my face, going sharp. "WITSEC's not in the business of giving habitual criminals big chunks of cash."

Excerpted from Nine Days by Minerva Koenig. Copyright © 2014 by Minerva Koenig. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Minotaur. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.