Even though she was on the radio, Petra had taken extra care with her appearance that morning. She wore a sheath dress of ballet-slipper pink, with a matching lip gloss. The light color set off her tanned skin, just as the short sleeves accentuated her toned and muscled arms. Her dark wavy hair was up in a bun at the nape of her neck.
“Let’s not waste any time,” Steve began. “Your client has had a rough month. Two weeks ago, he was kicked out of a downtown club for disturbing the peace. Then last week there was a viral video of Joe cursing at a waitress who didn’t get his order right. And just yesterday he was ejected from a press conference after throwing a punch at my fellow KDEN reporter for asking a question about the preseason debacle against Washington. The city of Denver loves Joe, but I have to ask—what’s his deal?”
Petra exhaled. “There is no deal. I think we forget that sports stars, or any celebrities, are humans first. They have good days and bad, just like the rest of us. I’m sure you’ve had difficult days, and said or done things you later regretted. Why isn’t Joe Owens allowed the same latitude?”
“I’ve never screamed at a waitress for not remembering to bring ketchup with my meal,” said Steve.
Petra’s phone vibrated with an incoming text. It was her boss, Mike Dawson, with a terse two-word message: Take control.
“I’m glad to hear that you’ve never done anything so stupid,” Petra said. “But I think we forget that celebrities are people whose lives are lived under a microscope. Joe’s behavior has been bad, rotten really, but we all deserve a second chance.”
“By now, Joe Owens is on to his third, fourth and fifth chances. When do we stop forgiving or demand better?”
Steve was right, and Petra refused to argue, despite what her boss wanted. The seconds ticked by. “Now,” she said, finally. “We should require better now.”
Steve lifted his eyebrows and cleared his throat. “I’m surprised to hear you be so honest.”
Petra shrugged, then remembered that she was on the radio. “Everyone should be more forthright.”
“Why do you do it, then?” Steve asked. “Why did you become a sports agent?”
Petra smiled and shook her head. “I didn’t come here to talk about myself.”
“I’m just asking because you’re the first agent we’ve had on the show. My listeners will be interested in hearing about you and your job.”
Fair enough. Besides, if she talked about herself, then she didn’t have to defend the indefensible any longer. “I played basketball in college and when I graduated, I wanted to remain involved with sports. Going to law school and becoming an agent seemed like the perfect way to achieve that. And it is, really. I help bring the players to the fans, and also help players manage their own careers, finances...you know, the works.”
“Seems like the safe answer,” said Steve.
“It’s the truth,” she said.
“Why do you really do it? The money? The parties? What is it?”
Petra flipped the phone in her hand. She was here to help Joe’s reputation, not bare her soul. And yet she said, “My dad played for the American Hockey League and he did okay financially. And yes, he had an agent. One day, the agent is in Mexico with more than two million dollars that my father had earned over his career.” She took a deep breath. “That situation taught me that I want to be a very different kind of agent. Someone who represents her clients on the field or the court, but who can also truly look after them when they need me. I want them to be able to trust me with everything.”
“That’s rough,” said Steve. “I’m sorry about your dad.”
“It gave me a unique perspective,” she replied.
“Joe Owens is a lucky guy to have you for an agent. But I gotta ask one last question.” Steve leaned forward. “There’s always a scandal or two lurking. Like you said, famous people get their mistakes examined under a microscope.” He exhaled. “Do you ever get sick of dealing with people like Joe?”
Setting the phone aside, she said, “It’s all part of the job.”
The green light in the corner began to flash. “That’s all the time we have. Before I go, I’d like to thank Petra Sloane for sitting in the Hot Seat. Next up, the morning’s headlines.”
The red light proclaimed they were off the air. Steve leaned across the table and offered his palm to Petra. They shook hands. “Thanks for coming in. Now I wish your client had the courage to take his turn and explain himself.”
“Maybe next time,” she offered.
“Are you saying Joe’s shenanigans will continue?”
Petra hadn’t meant to imply anything, especially not to a media personality like Steve Chan. Her phone vibrated, shimmying across the table. As she glanced at the screen, she couldn’t help but think of the old cliché of being saved by the bell. “That’s my boss,” she said. “I have to take this call.”
“Go ahead,” said Steve, “and thanks again.”
Petra swiped the call open as she exited the studio. “Hey,” she said.
“That’s the sorriest excuse for an interview I’ve ever heard. Why didn’t you defend Joe?” Mike demanded. “Christ, is pointing out that he’s some regular guy the best you can do? Or worse yet, give everyone your sob story.”
“What’s wrong with Joe being a person who makes mistakes?”
“He’s a god, Petra. We need to make sure people see him that way or there will be no contracts for you to negotiate. No revenue for the agency. No money for your paycheck.”
Beyond Mike and his tirade, the radio broadcast played in the background. Petra caught a few words, and then the announcer had her full attention. “In other news, the FBI and other agencies led an early morning raid on a suburban Denver location. The site is rumored to have connections to the new influx of Russian drug trafficking. Now, let’s get a look at that rush hour snarl on the interstate...”
Unbidden, Ian came to mind. In truth, he was always at the edge of her thoughts, his name just a whisper in her breath. Had he been at the raid?
The air was thick with disinfectant and stale coffee. A voice continued to buzz in her ear. It was her boss, still talking. What had he said? Something about making Joe take responsibility was distracting to his career and kept people from idolizing him.
Petra pushed open the door to the studio. She inhaled and held her breath for a count of three, then exhaled slowly. The past disappeared. “I disagree,” she said, finally joining the conversation. “The days of glorifying celebrities have ended.”
“You don’t get it,” said Mike. “It’s the glory that makes them celebrities.”
“You heard the interview. Steve Chan wouldn’t have accepted my saying that Joe is above the rest of us.”
“What I heard was an agent who refused to take control of the interview and get out our message.”
“Next time, convince Joe to go on the show. Let him speak for himself if he’s done nothing wrong.” The sun, a bright white ball, hung in a sky of turquoise blue. Heat shimmered over the expanse of blacktop as she walked across the parking lot. Petra used her remote fob to start her car, a roadster, and unlock the doors.
“And since you mentioned Joe,” Mike said, “several sponsors have expressed reservations about renewing his contract. We can’t handle another scandal. He’s your client. You control him.”
Petra’s phone beeped. She glanced at the screen. “Speak of the devil,” she said. “That’s Joe.”
“Talk to him, Petra. Get him to clean up his act.”
She didn’t bother to point out that Mike couldn’t have it both ways—either Joe was blameless because he was famous, or he had to behave better. “I’ll do what I can.”
“You’ll get the job done,” said Mike, “or find a new one.”
Despite the summer’s heat, Petra went cold. Sure, her boss was taciturn, but Petra was good at what she did. “A
re you threatening to fire me?”
“No. It’s a promise.”
Mike’s call ended abruptly and Joe’s immediately came through.
“Petra?” He sounded breathless. “We need to talk.”
Was he going to complain about her performance, too? “Hey, Joe, did you hear the interview?”
“No. What interview?”
“I just spent a few minutes with Steve Chan in the Hot Seat.”
“Oh, that show can get brutal.” He paused a beat. “Listen, something happened. I need you to handle the public relations.”
“That’s what I was doing, Joe. Public relations, as in talking to Steve Chan about you.”
“Well, you might have to visit his show again because this is bigger than big. Lots of heads will roll, you know.”
One of those heads, she assumed, would be hers. Her muscles contracted with tension. She rubbed her shoulder with her free hand. “What happened?” she asked.
“I can’t talk over the phone. You need to come here, to my house.” A beep sounded from Joe’s side of the call. “That’s my driveway intercom. I’ll see you in half an hour.” The line went dead.
With the news of the FBI raid still fresh in her mind, she pulled up her friend Katarina Floros’s social media page. Katarina worked for Ian as a communications specialist, and two weeks ago she’d posted a picture that Petra hadn’t found the courage to “like.”
A couple stood before a lake. The Rocky Mountains served as a backdrop, and the water was so clear there were two sets of mountains and two skies. Without question, it was a photo of a couple as they took their vows. The groom, tall and handsome, was someone Petra knew well—Roman DeMarco, another employee of RMJ. The bride was a woman she’d never seen. Katarina’s husband officiated the service. Ian Wallace, the best man, stood just behind Roman’s shoulder.
It had been two years since Petra ended the relationship with Ian and she had no right to wonder about his life, yet she did. He’d obviously remained in Colorado and hadn’t returned to England after their breakup. Had he taken a date to the wedding, and if so, were they serious? She wondered who Roman had married and if Katarina had thrown a bridal shower—it seemed like something Kat would do. Petra glanced at the picture once more, a voyeur into the life she would never live, and shoved the phone into her bag.
* * *
As she drove through Denver’s more exclusive neighborhoods, Petra’s headache returned with a vengeance. She’d been rash to ignore the pain when it first began at the radio station, and now it was a full-blown migraine. Each throb of her pulse exploded like a bomb inside her skull.
The sun beat down, surrounding everything in a brilliant and blinding halo. She gripped the steering wheel with knuckles gone white and rounded the corner. Joe Owens’s home came into view.
Made of golden brick, with a set of double doors and a side room that resembled a turret, the three-story home was impressive and immense, even on a street of impressive and immense homes. The wrought iron gate was open—unusual, but then he had told her to come. Since she was expected, Petra didn’t bother with the call box. She followed the winding drive to a circular courtyard, where Joe’s cobalt blue SUV sat.
Petra parked her car next to his and turned off the engine. She closed her eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled. Again and again. The pain remained, lurking just beneath the surface, like wisps of fog over a river on a sultry night.
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.
Rocky Mountain Valor Page 2