Sarah frowned.“What’s wrong, boy?What’s going on?It’s just me.”
“Nice job,” a strange voice said.“Probably saved the dog’s life.”
Sarah spun around, frightened nearly to catatonia by the voice.The stranger stood in front of her, offering a lopsided grin that weakened Sarah’s knees.In his hand was a long dark… thing.It looked like a roofing nail but much larger.“You wouldn’t happen to remember another Rottweiler three years ago, would you?”
Sarah blinked.Her mind was spinning.“I… I’m not…”
The stranger’s arm flickered.Sarah tried to speak again, but she found she couldn’t move her mouth.The giant nail was preventing her jaw from closing.
That was as far as she got before the last signals in her brain finished firing, and she collapsed to the ground.
CHAPTER ONE
Faith Bold’s heart thudded in her chest.Her fingers trembled over the keys, and she closed them into fists and pressed them on the edge of her desk.
In front of her were emails from an address composed of random letters, symbols and numbers.Faiths’ first instinct was that they were scam emails.She nearly deleted them, but the subject line was Re: Your Interference.That was just ominous enough that she opened them.
And discovered that David had lied to her.He was hiding something from her.Something big.Something that prompted someone else to take pictures ofhimtaking pictures and warn him to stop with a vague threat of consequences to follow if he didn’t.
And to think she’d felt guilty when she had Cybercrimes help her crack into his laptop.She’d actually feltbadfor snooping.
She felt pretty damned wonderful about it now.That choice might have saved David’s life.
“Faith!”David called.“The birthday boy’s waiting!”
The birthday boy in question offered an enthusiastic bark.Turk, her K9 unit, was turning eleven today, and they were celebrating with two cakes, one made out of cake for the humans and one made out of Kobe beef for the pup.The Kobe beef cake cost north of nine hundred dollars and was by far the most ridiculous thing Faith had ever bought for Turk, but you only turned eleven once, and Turk had saved her life more times than she could count.He deserved to be splurged on.
All of which made this discovery even more frustrating.She should be enjoying herself with Turk right now, but she couldn’t.Not with this sitting between them.
“Faith?”
Footsteps headed up the stairs, slow, heavy ones and light pattering ones.Turk reached her first, barking questioningly.She turned to him and forced a smile that her K-9 of almost five years didn’t believe for an instant.He went instantly to alert, sniffing around the room and staring out the window looking for the threat.
David arrived a moment later.“What is it?”he asked, noticing Turk’s behavior.“Faith, did you see…”
His voice trailed off when he saw the laptop screen.He went ashen, which was pretty damned appropriate considering what Faith was looking at.
Turk returned to Faith, a little calmer after confirming that nothing was amiss, but also confused that she was so tense.Faith scratched him behind his ears but kept her eyes on David.“Have you given him his cake yet?”
He swallowed.“Um… no.Not yet.I was waiting for you.”
She nodded.“Let’s go.”
He blinked.“Really?”
“Yes.It’s Turk’s birthday.Let’s go celebrate.We’ll talk later.”She thought a second, then said, “Actually, take Turk downstairs and get set up.I’m going to use the bathroom really quick.”
“It’s already set up.We just need…” His voice trailed off again when Faith met his eyes.He averted his own gaze and said, “Right.I’ll take Turk downstairs.”
Turk hesitated when David called him, but when Faith encouraged him to go, he followed David down the stairs, glancing over his shoulder worriedly when Faith didn’t come after them.
She entered the bathroom and locked the door, then sent texts to several different people.Better to do that now so that it was too late for David to argue.
She headed downstairs, and on the way down wiped the anger and fear off her face and replaced it with a smile.Turk barked happily when he saw her but still stared at her hard, not quite trusting her seeming change of mood.
She pushed through, lighting the candle in the middle of Turk’s cake and singing happy birthday.David joined in, his own smile not nearly as believable as hers.Well, that was fine.The smiles only needed to exist for a minute or two.
They took a picture of Turk with his cake, then Turk with each of them, then one with the three of them together.Faith noted how David tensed under her hand when they took the picture of all three of them.That only made her angrier.What did he think she was going to do?Hit him?
