Chapter One
Lany
There are times in life when clarity suddenly hits and you realize that life is one fucked-up mess after another. As I sat on the floor in the backroom of some derelict drug house, cradling my aching cheek in my hand, I realized this was just another dramatic moment in a long line of dramatic moments that seemed to plague me, whether I wanted them to or not.
Either fate really hated my ass or I had done something horrific in every past life I had ever lived. No one could have this much crap happen to them unless they had burned down an orphanage in a previous life or drowned a litter of puppies living with a group of nuns. It just wasn't possible.
I had to be cursed.
How in the hell did this keep happening to me? That's what I truly wanted to know. This exact same thing had happened to me all those years ago, except I had a hot Italian SWAT officer to rescue me. I had been smacked around by some goon who thought he had the right to put his hands on me.
There would be no rescue this time, no handsome man coming in to sweep me off my feet and whisk me away from danger.
I was totally on my own.
I was so fucked.
I should have said no. It was as simple as that. I should have said no when the DEA came to me and asked if I could help them with a case. My dealings with the DEA had not been good up to this point, and this was a perfect example of that fact.
I really needed to stop letting people talk me into things. Yes, I wanted to be one of the good guys and help good persevere over evil, but maybe going undercover as a computer whizz for some drug-dealing street thug was not the way to go about that.
Considering I knew more about the right way to tumble down the stairs or fall from a tree without serious injury than I did about computers, I really should have thought this one over or at least talked to Sal about it before I agreed to anything.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—he was away for a training conference in Denver, Colorado, and wasn't expected home for another week. I had hoped to have this undercover gig dealt with and done by the time that happened.
Wasn't looking good for me.
“Get up!”
Conscious of the really big silver gun aimed in my direction, I slowly climbed to my feet. Luckily, there was a wall behind me so it made it a bit easier, but my cheek was throbbing from where this asshole had smacked me and my head was spinning and I just wanted to go home.
Doubt that was going to happen.
“I want to know where the money is.”
“Yeah.” I swallowed tightly. “About that...”
If this guy didn't shoot me, Sal would. He was going to be so pissed. I doubted I'd even have the luxury of being placed in a hermetically sealed bubble and grounded for life. He was going to strangle me.
Man, this idea of going undercover was getting worse by the second. Maybe I needed to consider calling it a day and just go home. The DEA could find the evidence on their own. I certainly didn't seem to be making any headway.
The DEA had given me an account to reroute the money to, but under Lyn's advice, I had sent it to an offshore account he had set up for me. Even if the DEA couldn't bust him, the guy was going to be broke soon.
Lyn Philips—my best friend, a former police officer on Sal's SWAT team, and now a member of the FBI's Cyber Crimes Division—had shown me how to set it up so that the money trickled out of the guy's account and into another account a little at a time. The missing money wouldn't be noticed until it was too late.
Hopefully, I would be long gone and back home with my family by then.
“I'm not exactly sure where the money is,” I said.
Floating around in cyber space was my best guess.
“I want my money!”
Before I got smacked again, I decided to go on the offensive. “Look, man, it's the middle of summer. I warned you about the heat. I told you that I needed more fans or the hard drives would overheat. You were the one that didn't want to spend the money to get them. It's not my fault the computers won't work now.”
“You have a fan.”
I eyed the small rusted olive-green fan that sat on top of the desk beside me. That thing looked like it came out of World War II. “That isn't going to cut it. I need cooling fans to keep the hard drives from getting too hot. Electronics like this are very delicate. They simply will not work when it's too hot.”
