Rocky Mountain Valor

“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. “Are 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.

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.

An arched doorway on her right led to the same kitchen. The room beyond was dark. The lights were off and the curtains had been drawn.

Petra caught a glimpse of her dress, her hands. She was covered in splatters of red. Not wine this time. Blood? Icy tendrils of panic reached for her throat and squeezed. Was she bleeding? She scanned her body. Scrapes, bruises, a single cut to her arm. Beyond that, she had the expected residual headache that came after a migraine, and nothing else. So what had happened after she lost consciousness? Why was she covered in blood?

Her handbag lay in the middle of the foyer, the contents were scattered about. Lipstick. Sunglasses. Keys. Wallet. No phone. She dove for her purse and dug into the interior. It was empty.

“Joe?” Her throat was dry, her voice hoarse.

Petra took a step. Her legs trembled, and her vision wavered. She breathed deeply, trying to stay calm. She had to call someone. The kitchen... There’d been a landline in the kitchen. She peered around the corner and found nothing but darkness. Dark floor. Dark walls. Dark forms blending in with the gloom.

“Joe?”

Petra took another step, then another. The floor underfoot was sticky. The odor of copper and meat was thick in the air. The shadow of the island loomed before her. Her foot connected with something solid but not hard. Petra’s heartbeat raced.

Scrambling, she reached for the wall. Her hand danced along the surface until she found an electrical switch. She turned it on. The room blazed with light. A pool of black spread out around her feet. Joe lay sprawled at the base of the island with a knife protruding from his side.

Petra sank to her knees next to him. His shirt was soaked and crimson, his breath nothing more than a gasp. She dared not touch the knife, lest she hurt him more.

“Joe? Joe? Can you hear me?” The alarm continued to scream. Petra couldn’t even hear her own voice.

He didn’t respond.

A loud knocking was heard and above the din a voice called, “Police. Open up.”

The police. She scrambled to her feet, lightheaded with gratitude that someone had arrived who could help Joe—help her.

A large man in a suit stood on the stoop. He held up a small leather portfolio. His badge and photo ID were visible. “I’m Detective Sergeant Luis Martinez with the Denver PD. I’m responding to a home alarm.” He looked her over from head to toe. “Are you injured, ma’am?”

Petra’s legs went weak with relief. She held tight to the doorjamb. “I’m fine,” she managed to say, “but you need to help him.”

“Help who?” the detective asked.

“He’s in the k-kitchen,” she stammered, “and hurt.”

The detective swept past her as three more black-and-white police cruisers rushed up the drive. Half a dozen officers exited the vehicles and ran to the house.

“That way,” she said, pointing to the kitchen as they approached. One of the police officers disabled the alarm. The silence was more terrifying than the noise. In the quiet, Petra could hear a single question echoing in her mind: What have I done?

She leaned on the wall for support. Her throat burned. She wanted to pass out. But she needed to know what had happened to her client.

She stepped toward the kitchen, but Martinez blocked her path. He had removed his suit coat and splatters of blood stained his wrinkled shirt and tie. Over his shoulder, she saw the uniformed police officers administering first aid to Joe. In the distance, she heard another siren, and through the open front door she caught a glimpse of an ambulance racing up the drive.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” Martinez said, steering her to a dining room that was situated on the other side of the foyer. Two EMTs bearing a stretcher entered the house and immediately went to the kitchen, disappearing from Petra’s view.

It didn’t mean that she couldn’t hear what they said. “Starting IV fluids,” said a female.

“Starting IV fluids,” repeated her partner, a male.

“I see seven stab wounds,” said the female.

Seven wounds? She tried to picture herself in a frenzy of what—rage? Fear? In her mind’s eye, she saw nothing.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?” the detective sergeant asked. “Can you answer a few questions?”

She nodded.

“Let’s start with your name and why you’re here.”

“I’m Petra Sloane, Joe’s agent.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

A thousand images flooded her mind at once. Nothing seemed real. “I have no idea. I can’t remember a thing.”

“You might be in shock,” said the detective. “Take a moment...”

Martinez’s words trailed off as the EMTs came from the kitchen. Joe was strapped to the stretcher. His eyes were closed; an oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose. An IV was attached to his arm. Petra watched in silence as they placed her client in the back of the waiting ambulance and sped away.

“I should call someone,” she said, as the final scream of the ambulance’s siren faded into the quiet morning. “His estranged wife, Larissa, maybe. Or...he has a sister in California.” Petra could not recall her name.

“That’ll hold for a few minutes,” Martinez said. “Let’s get back to why you were here. What can you recall?”

Why had she come? Petra closed her eyes and brought back as many details as she could muster. The blinding sunlight. The heat wafting off the pavement. Joe’s voice in her ear, quick and clipped, his tone low and almost a whisper.

“Joe called me earlier and asked me to come over right away. He needed to tell me something. I figured there was another scandal.”

Martinez removed a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket. He flipped past a few pages before scribbling on a sheet. “Another scandal?” he echoed.

“He’d done some pretty stupid things lately. The stories were all over the press. It’s my job to portray Joe in the best light possible in the media. So if he’d had any more missteps, I should be the first to know.”

“And did he say what kind of misstep he’d made?”

Petra tried to recall exactly what Joe had said. In reality, he hadn’t told her much beyond that he had something important to tell her and heads were going to roll. “I guess he didn’t say anything in so many words. Only that something bad had happened.”

Martinez wrote in his pad and Petra was forced to wait, grappling with memories that she couldn’t quite make clear.

“What time did you arrive?”

Finally, a question she could answer. “About nine thirty.”

Martinez looked at a fitness tracker he wore around his wrist. “And what transpired between then and now?”

Petra went cold. She began to tremble. “What?” The word caught in her throat. “What time is it now?”

Martinez pinned her with his dark stare. “Quarter after ten.”

The detective thought she had stabbed Joe. She could tell, from the hard set of his jaw and his unwavering gaze. She looked away, because the worst part of it all was that Petra feared he was right.

* * *

Ian had gathered his team at an RMJ safe house, a dump of a place in the heart of downtown Denver. The small house had a tiny living room and kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms upstairs.

He remembered each and every person they’d hidden away in this little house. A presidential candidate after an assassination attempt. A cleric wanted by a terrorist group. Yet he’d never pictured that he’d be here personally, along with his team, in desperate need of a place to lie low.

Was this raid, the one that should’ve been their crowning glory, really going to be their downfall?

They’d gathered in the kitchen, crammed around the small Formica table—Roman, Cody, Julia and Katarina, along with the rest of the team. The air was filled with the electricity of tension and too many unanswered questions.

Roman was the first to speak. “What the hell happened back there? One minute I’m talking to Comrade Three and the next some FBI agent is telling me to leave the witness alone.”

Roman’s statement was followed by a chorus of grumbles. Everyone had been just as brusquely routed from the bust.

Ian asked a question of his own. “How many lives do you think Nikolai Mateev has ruined? Nobody knows his name, and yet his actions—his drugs—have affected almost every single person in this city. Have you ever thought about that?”

“What are you getting at, brother?” Roman asked.

Ian shook his head. There was no avoiding the truth. “Jones fired us from the case,” he said.

Jaws dropped and eyes widened.