Jennifer D. Bokal - Rocky Mountain Valor

After tucking her keys into her handbag, Petra walked to the front door and rang the bell. Far-off chimes announced her arrival.

Nothing.

She gripped the door handle and pulled down. It held fast. She hit the doorbell three times in a row, the chimes playing and replaying, the echo rolling across the courtyard and down the wide lawn.

Her head throbbed with each chime of the bell, and her frustration grew. There was no way Joe hadn’t heard her, unless he wasn’t home. His car was here, but really, that meant next to nothing. He could have easily been picked up by someone else, or left with the person who’d stopped by earlier, while they’d been on the phone.

Whatever the excuse, her client owed her an explanation. She called his cell phone. It went directly to voice mail.

“Joe.” Petra didn’t bother to keep the irritation from her voice. “Where the hell are you? I’m here.”

She ended the call and rang the bell again. Still no one came to the door.

Petra made a second call to Joe. Again, voice mail picked up. “Just so you know, your behavior is costing me my job. If I get fired because of you, I’ll kill you.”

Shoving the phone back into her handbag, she followed the brick walkway to the back of the house. A pool, complete with a slide and whirlpool, was empty. Two tumblers filled with amber liquid and ice sat on a table. Sweat trickled down the side of the glasses. Joe hadn’t been gone from his drink for long. But where was he? And who had been drinking with him?

Sunlight glinted off the water’s surface. The glare left Petra blind, and the pain in her head was now a thunderous roar. She fumbled in her bag for a set of sunglasses and slipped them on. They did little for the pain, but at least she could see.

Beyond the patio, a set of French doors stood open.

None of what she’d found made sense. Joe valued security even more than privacy. It was unlike him to leave the front gate open and his house seemingly unattended.

Maybe he was home, but doing what? And why ignore Petra, when he had insisted that she stop by? Certainly, visiting a client while sick with a migraine was the worst thing to do. Yet if she could get out of the sun, the worst of her headache might abate.

She approached the threshold and took a tentative step into the family room. Sheer curtains hung from ceiling to floor and billowed in the breeze.

“Knock, knock,” she called. “Joe? It’s Petra. Are you home?”

From somewhere, she heard a gurgling. Petra strained to listen. The noise was gone as quickly as it came.

She took another step.

There it was again—a sound like water struggling down a blocked drain.

“Joe?”

Nothing. Not even the sound. With one hand on the wall, she ventured down a darkened hallway. Her heart thudded against her rib cage. With the thunderous pulse, the pain in her head multiplied tenfold. She staggered, almost stumbling, but pushed herself upright and took another step, her fingers trailing along the wall.

Around the edges of her consciousness, she sensed the lurking nothingness that came with a blackout. Then a burst of pain exploded in the back of Petra’s skull. She pitched forward, slamming into the tile floor. And then all she knew was darkness.

Chapter 2

Once Ian Wallace decided that Nikolai Mateev had to die, it became easy to bend rules and break laws. He sneaked the computer out of the Comrades’ safe house and worked on the laptop in the relative privacy of his black SUV with darkened windows, which was parked two blocks away.

All that ended as he spotted Special Agent Marcus Jones striding purposefully up the street. He wore the obligatory Fed uniform of a dark suit and red tie. In the moment, Ian wondered if the uptight special agent had anything else in his wardrobe.

Ian hit the keys rapidly, then slid the flash drive from the port. He was shutting the laptop’s lid as Jones rapped his knuckles on the side window. “What the hell are you doing, Wallace?” the agent asked through the glass. “I’m pretty sure that’s my evidence in your hands.”

Ian rolled the window down. “This laptop was found—”

“Hidden behind the wall,” Jones interrupted. His nostrils flared and the cords in his neck stood out. “I heard. I am with the FBI, you know. My question is why in the hell did you take a laptop from my raid?”

“Technically,” said Ian, “I’m the one in charge of the raid.”

“I want Mateev as bad as you do, but you’re playing with the FBI now and everything—and I mean everything—has to be done by the book,” said Jones. “I don’t want loopholes that can be exploited during a trial. So just tell me that you didn’t try to get into that laptop. If you did, a judge will consider it tainted and we’ll never get a search warrant for whatever you found.”

Ian’s work here was done. He’d hoped to quietly turn the computer in to evidence and leave without seeing Special Agent Jones, much less have a confrontation. Since that wasn’t going to happen, Ian only wanted to leave. “I don’t want to get into a pissing match with you, but I am the team leader. This computer was found and I wanted to see what was on the hard drive.”

Jones paused a beat. “What did you find?”

“Nothing,” said Ian. “There’s too much encryption to break through.”

The FBI agent dragged his hands down his face, giving him a hangdog look. “No offense, but you’re the biggest moron I’ve ever met. That computer is evidence. You know that. Besides, people in this country have rights against illegal search and seizure. They expect that we’ll conduct a fair and honest investigation and that a judge will sign warrants before we search their property all along the way.”

“Are you done with the lecture on the American legal system?”

“Depends,” said Jones. “Did you pay attention?”

“Remember, you hired me to catch Nikolai Mateev because I didn’t have to play by all of your rules.”

“Consider yourself fired.”

Ian shoved the laptop through the open window. “Take your computer. I have everything I need to find Mateev on my own.”

“You’re off the case. Completely. I don’t want to see you or any of your operatives from RMJ anywhere near Mateev. If I do, I’ll arrest you all for obstruction of justice. Got that?” Marcus took the offered computer.

Ian didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. As far as he was concerned, the FBI had served their purpose. Now? Ian didn’t need them anymore.

He raised the window and put the SUV into gear, the flash drive safely hidden in his palm. Sure, lying to the FBI and stealing evidence made Ian guilty of more than a dozen federal crimes. But what did he care about a little jail time when it meant sending Nikolai Mateev where he belonged—straight to hell?

* * *

Petra slowly regained consciousness, opening her eyes to find herself leaning against a wall, her hand resting on a gray plastic box. Her head throbbed with each beat.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The last thing she remembered was a phone call from one of her clients, Joe Owens. He’d wanted to see her, but then what? The beeping grew, climbing in intensity, rising in volume before ending in a crescendo of a full-blown alarm. Petra could almost see the sound waves radiating out from the small gray box. She had tripped an alarm. But why? Nothing made sense.

She took in the rest of the room, which was tiled in cream-colored marble and framed with blond wood. Nearby was a set of double doors, and a staircase on the left led up to a balcony that ran the length of the room.

Like seeing the corner of a photograph, the fragment of a memory came to her. It was Christmastime and she stood in this room—Joe Owens’s foyer. She’d spilled red wine on her silk blouse and had been directed to the kitchen where she could get some seltzer water for the stain.