Brynn walked over and knelt beside her, taking her hand. “Faith, what happened?”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
“Brynn!” Reggie’s voice boomed from his office. His door jerked open, and her silver-haired boss stepped out. “Brynn, get in here.”
She shot him a glare and returned her attention to Faith. “Are you all right?”
She dabbed her nose. “Yes, just . . . go on.”
Brynn rose and followed Reginald H. Gunn, Managing Partner, past the nameplate bearing his title. Shelves crammed with law books lined the walls, and towers of file boxes crowded every corner. Reggie walked behind his cluttered desk, and Brynn noted the pin-striped suit jacket hanging on the back of his chair. The pink silk handkerchief in the front pocket told her he planned to be in court later.
“Close the door, would you?”
She followed his gruff command, taking one last peek at Faith as she eased shut the door.
“Sit down.”
She crossed her arms, staying in place. “I’ll stand. What’s up?”
Reggie’s leather chair creaked as he sank into it. Then he ran a hand through his thick hair.
“Nate called me.” He glanced up. “Jen Ballard was killed last night.”
Brynn sagged back against the door. “What—”
“I don’t have all the details yet, but she was murdered sometime yesterday evening in her home.”
Murdered.
Brynn’s blood turned cold. Beautiful, witty Jen Ballard murdered. The words didn’t belong in the same sentence.
She stepped closer to Reggie’s desk. “How—”
“I don’t know, okay? I haven’t even had time to call the police up there. And there’s something else—”
A sharp knock at the door. Ross leaned his head in and immediately zeroed in on Brynn. “You tell him yet?”
“Tell me what?” Reggie asked.
Ross stepped into the office, oblivious to the tension hovering in the room. “Perez is MIA. We were supposed to meet at eight to run through his testimony, but he didn’t show.”
“Try his girlfriend.”
“She hasn’t seen him in a week.” Ross looked at Brynn and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
She cleared her throat. “Jen Ballard.”
“What now?”
Anger flared in Reggie’s eyes. “She’d dead, Ross.”
Ross’s face went slack. “What?”
“She was killed in her home last night. Up in Sheridan Heights, right outside of Dallas,” Reggie said. “I just got off the phone with Nate Levinson twenty minutes ago.”
Ross shot Brynn a look, as if she might somehow make sense of what he was hearing, but she couldn’t. The forty-two-year-old woman who’d once been their boss, their mentor, their friend was dead.
“What’s the other thing?” Brynn asked Reggie. “You said there was something else?”
Reggie stared at Brynn. A veteran trial attorney, he had a talent for creating drama, but the somber look on his face was all too real.
“What?” Ross demanded.
“James Corby is out.”
Brynn’s eyebrows shot up. “Out?”
Beside her, Ross made a strangled sound.
“He escaped.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Ross clutched his head with his hands. “How do you escape a fucking maximum-security prison?”
Reggie’s gaze locked with Brynn’s. “I don’t know.”
But he did know. And so did Brynn. As an assistant prosecutor, Brynn had tried James Corby’s case alongside then-lead prosecutor Jen Ballard. Brynn had learned that James Corby was not only violent and sadistic but also smart. Frighteningly smart. And the prospect of him slipping out of prison had lurked in the darkest corners of Brynn’s mind for years.
Her chest felt tight. She placed her hand on her sternum and tried to breathe. But it was Ross who bent at the waist and looked like he was going to puke.
“Shit!”
“Hey,” Reggie snapped. “Don’t throw up in here.”
Ross straightened and shook his head. “This is insane. Where the hell are the marshals?”
“They’re on it,” Reggie replied. “That, I do know. Nate tells me they’ve been working this thing from the beginning.”
“And when was that?” Brynn asked.
“Wednesday.”
“He escaped Wednesday, and we’re just now hearing about it?”
Ross let out a blistering string of curses. He was starting to grate on Brynn’s nerves.
“What does this mean for us?” Ross demanded. “Our trial begins in Dallas in three days, right down the goddamn road from Jen’s murder—”
“It means we have to take action,” Reggie said. “I’ve already started.”
“What do you mean?” Brynn couldn’t keep the skepticism out of her voice. She’d dealt with plenty of criminals and considered herself fairly streetwise. But what kind of “action” did Reggie think they were going to take here? Was he planning to jump in his Mercedes and hunt down an escaped convict?
“I’m hiring protection,” Reggie said. “The best money can buy.”
“Bodyguards?” She blinked at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.” He checked his watch and picked up the phone.
“Wait, stop.” Brynn held up her hand. “Before you rush off and hire anyone, we need to talk to the sheriffs up there about protection. This falls on them, doesn’t it? Our courthouse is in their jurisdiction.”
Reggie gave her a dark look. “This law firm doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends up there. As you well know.”
“Yes, but . . . it’s their job.”
“Yeah, and it’s our job to win this trial. I won’t have my two top attorneys worried and distracted.”
Brynn was still in shock. But not so much that she couldn’t imagine the major pain in the butt that having a bodyguard trailing her around was going to be. This was the biggest case of her career. Reggie had put her in charge of everything, from jury selection to the closing statement. She’d spent countless hours preparing and still had work to do.
“Yes, but . . . bodyguards? As in plural?” She played the money card. “That sounds expensive.”
“It is.”
“Listen, Reggie, I appreciate the thought—” She glanced at Ross. “We both do, but—”
“No buts. And it’s not a thought. I already made the call.” He looked at Ross. “Now, about this Perez thing, did you get Bulldog on it?”
Ross shook his head, and Reggie jabbed at his desk phone.
Bulldog, aka Bull, aka John Kopek, was the private investigator Reggie kept on speed dial. Brynn shook her head. She felt like she’d been sucker punched, and her boss was already back to business.
“Bull, it’s Reggie. I need a locate.” He muffled the receiver against his shirt and gave Brynn a sharp look. “You’ve got a trial to prep for. Better get to it.”
• • •
Erik Morgan was almost out when everything went sideways.
An earsplitting boom.
A billow of smoke.
He halted in the narrow corridor and adjusted the body that was slung over his shoulder. The air around him swirled with grit. Sweat seeped into his eyes. But he pushed the distractions out of his mind as he and his teammate moved into position.
Weapon raised, Erik darted around the corner, instantly spotting two silhouettes. To his right, a man holding a pistol. To his left, a teenage girl holding a cell phone. Erik fired two rounds at the guy, hitting him square in the chest.
“Clear!”
He ran for the door, stopping at the threshold to scan for hostiles.
“Clear!” he repeated, then took off down the stairs.
One flight. Two. A door slapped open above him.
Boom!
Dust rained down as Erik adjusted his load and kept moving. They were running out of time. He could feel it. More smoke, more shouting. He heard
his partner’s footsteps behind him.
“Go, go, go!” someone yelled.
Boots thundered as four men carrying more than eight hundred pounds of dead weight bounded down the stairwell. At ground level, Erik stopped at the plywood door. His teammate kicked it open and peered out to scan the area.
“All clear!” Hayes yelled.
Erik followed him through the door, exiting the kill house with a cloud of smoke and dust. He sprinted the last fifty yards to a concrete barricade, then dropped to a knee in the dirt and lowered his load to the ground.
“Two minutes, forty-six seconds.”
Erik glanced up to see Jeremy Owen looming over him with a stopwatch. The former Marine sharpshooter did not look happy.
The man playing the role of Erik’s protectee groaned and sat up. “What the fuck happened back there?”
Hayes shook his head. “I couldn’t see.” He glanced back at the kill house, a building made up of rooms, hallways, and stairwells, where they practiced closed-quarters battle-and-rescue scenarios. Flash bangs and smoke grenades were tossed into the mix to ramp up the chaos.
Erik had watched Hayes work, and visibility wasn’t his only problem. Hayes’s protectee had a paint splatter on his shirt the size of a soccer ball. If they’d been facing live rounds, the man would be dead.
“Okay, everybody up,” Jeremy ordered. “Hit the hoses, and we’ll reconvene on the south range at 1500.”
Erik got up and helped his teammate to his feet. He wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his arm and glanced at the sun. It was ninety-eight degrees today—hotter inside the kill house—and his clothes were saturated.
Everyone grabbed their gear and moved out. Jeremy caught Erik’s eye and signaled for him to walk back with him on the trail.
“How’d it go with Becker?” Jeremy asked when they were deep in the woods.
Hayes Becker, twenty-six, of Roanoke, Virginia. As a team leader, it was Erik’s job to help evaluate candidates who wanted to join the elite ranks of Wolfe Security, and Hayes had made it to the final round.
“He’s not ready yet,” Erik said. “But he’s getting there.”
“What’s your take on his skills?”
“His tactical driving’s good. PT scores are off the charts. It’s his shooting that needs work.”
Jeremy grunted. “That’s the problem with these FBI hires.”
“So, we’re keeping him?”
He nodded.
They made their way along the running trail and O-course. Set among the towering East Texas pines, the course had been modeled after the SEAL obstacle course at Coronado. The pinnacle in terms of height and effort was a seventy-foot cargo net, which a couple of new recruits were clawing their way up right now. They wore olive-green BDUs to differentiate themselves from real Wolfe agents, who wore all black.
Erik reviewed this afternoon’s session, making a mental list of the areas where Hayes needed work. Any team they deployed on a job was only as good as its weakest member, and new hires either had to get up to speed or get out, simple as that.
“I’ll spend some time with him,” Erik said. “We can burn through some mags on the range, see if I can pinpoint his problem.”
“Good. I’ll give Liam the heads-up.”
Erik walked into the clearing as a silver BMW 5 Series sped by, leaving a cloud of red dust in its wake. It curved along the dirt road and pulled up to the sprawling log cabin that served as their business headquarters. A man climbed out from behind the wheel. Average height, medium build. From his Ray-Bans and suit, Erik pegged him for a corporate executive. Then the passenger door opened, and a woman stepped out of the car.
Erik halted. Her long, red hair caught the sunlight as she turned around. She wore tight black jeans and a silky white shirt, and she had a big leather purse slung over her shoulder. She was several inches taller than the guy with her, partly because of her mile-high heels.
“Who is that?” Erik glanced at Jeremy.
“No idea.”
They got all kinds of VIPs at the compound. Pop stars, politicians, athletes. Some of their clients were just ordinary rich people who’d picked up an enemy along the way and decided they needed protection. Judging from their looks, this couple fell into the last category. They mounted the steps to the building, peeling off their shades as they went inside.
“Yo, Erik.”
He turned to see Tony Lopez jogging up the trail. In a black T-shirt and tactical pants, he was dressed just like Erik, only he wasn’t sporting a layer of dirt and soot.
“The chief wants you in his office,” Tony said.
“Now?”
“Yeah, ASAP.”
Erik’s gaze narrowed. “This have to do with the Five Series that just pulled up?”
“You got it.”
“Know who they are?”
He smiled. “I hear they’re a couple hotshots from Dallas.”
“Shit.”
“Think they’re attorneys,” he added.
“Shit.”
Tony grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “Better you than me, bro.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PHOTO BY ERIC VON LEHMDEN
New York Times bestselling author LAURA GRIFFIN is a two-time RITA Award winner and a recipient of the Daphne du Maurier Award. Laura lives in Austin, where she is working on her next book. Visit her website at LauraGriffin.com.
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Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Laura-Griffin
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BOOKS BY LAURA GRIFFIN
The Alpha Crew Series
Cover of Night*
Alpha Crew: The Mission Begins*
The Tracers Series
At Close Range
Deep Dark
Shadow Fall
Beyond Limits
Exposed
Scorched
Twisted
Snapped
Unforgivable
Unspeakable
Untraceable
Also by Laura Griffin
Far Gone
Unstoppable* (first appeared in Deadly Promises anthology)
Whisper of Warning
Thread of Fear
One Wrong Step
One Last Breath
*ebook only
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Laura Griffin
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ISBN 978-1-5011-6237-4
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Touch of Red Page 29