Chapter 1
Brian Malone rolled his eyes and muttered a curse as four males in their teens or early twenties scattered in different directions. Once, just once, he wished a criminal would obey the command. So much for a lunch break.
Brian, his partner, Rafe Montoya, and two other special agents with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation had just met up in the parking lot of a diner when they spotted the gang members on the opposite street corner. Two out of the four were well-known to local law enforcement and had active warrants out for their arrest. There was a good chance they all had weapons and drugs on them, and since they ran, the agents had reasonable cause to grab and detain the others too.
Immediately, he took off after the closest one, darting toward an alley. His partner jumped into theirdepartment-issued vehicle to try and head the guy off on the next street over. Rafe’s voice came over the radio as he notified headquarters of what was happening. Meanwhile, the other agents took off after one of the other dirtbags.
The suspect he was chasing was only about sixteen years old, but that didn't mean he could let his guard down. More than one cop had been shot and killed by underage criminals before, and he didn't want to be added to the list.
The kid turned down the alley, with Brian hot on his heels. Adrenaline pumped through his veins. The gangbanger was fast, but there was no way the little shit was going to get away from him. One of the fittest guys in his district, he ran several miles four times a week and at least two marathons per year. He also did two tours in the Marines before joining the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, then spent six years working his ass off to get transferred to the NCSBI.
His older and younger brothers had also enlisted in the military. KC, a Navy SEAL, had taken a position in Little Creek, Virginia, training incoming frogmen, after marrying his wife about eighteen months ago. Moriah gave birth to their first child, Megan, five months later, and the little girl had every male in the Malone family wrapped around her teensy-weensy finger.
Sean was the youngest of the three brothers and did a stint in the Army before joining the FBI. He recently relocated back to the East Coast of NorthCarolina after working for several years in the Jacksonville, Florida, office. Shortly after moving back, he reconnected with a girl from the boys’ youth whose Aunt Bonnie was dating their Uncle Dan after many long years of friendship. Sean and Grace Whitman, a physical therapist, were now planning their fall wedding on the beach in Whisper. The small town on the Outer Banks was where the boys had lived with their uncle ever since their parents were killed in a plane crash when Brian was fifteen. They couldn’t have asked for a better surrogate father than Dan Malone. He’d been their rock as they grieved and their role model as they grew into adulthood.
Turning right into the passageway between two commercial buildings, Brian gained ground on the kid and jumped over a trash can that was knocked into his path. They were just about to reach the other end of the alley when Rafe appeared in the unmarked car, slamming on the brakes and coming to a screeching halt, obstructing the exit. The suspect tried to skirt around the blockade, but Brian reached out and grabbed the back of his white T-shirt, spinning him around, belly first, into the hood of the car.
“Hands behind your head,” he barked, using his body weight to keep the kid from running off again or getting hold of any weapons he might have on him.
The suspect fought unsuccessfully to get free. “Get off me!”
With Rafe's help, Brian handcuffed thesquirming teen’s wrists behind his back. Ignoring the demands to let him go, which quickly turned into begging, he patted him down for weapons and/or drugs. Other than finding a wallet and a set of keys in the pockets of a pair of baggy jeans, Brian came up empty-handed. He dragged the suspect to the rear passenger door, opened it, and pushed him in. Even if the kid got his hands free, he wouldn't be able to escape—missing door handles and a metal cage separating the front and back seats would prevent it.
Brian slammed the door shut and sighed heavily as Rafe used his handheld radio to let their district’s command center know they had one in custody. The dispatcher acknowledged him, and within seconds, one of the other agents announced they’d nabbed their suspect as well. Two out of four wasn't bad. Hopefully, one of them got chatty and gave up some intel on an upcoming drug deal or any of the numerous cold cases clogging up the system.
As Rafe circled to the driver's side of the vehicle, Brian climbed into the passenger seat and glanced over his shoulder, not recognizing the suspect. He looked a few years younger than the others he was hanging out with. But it wouldn’t be a surprise if there were a warrant out for him too.
“What's your name, kid?”
The brooding teenager just stared out the window, remaining silent. Brian didn't push as Rafe put the vehicle in drive and headed toward the SBI districtoffice in Elizabeth City. Letting suspects stew a while and come down from an adrenaline high usually loosened their lips.
Fifteen minutes later, they were in the booking area, where both teams processed their respective detainees. The teens were patted down once more as a precaution and had their shoes and belts removed. The second suspect was one of the gangbangers who was known to have several warrants out for him. He was a drug dealer, a middle-level member of the Devil’s Crew, and looking at his third strike. So, with any luck, he would want to make a deal to avoid a lengthy prison sentence that put him in his fifties before he was paroled. Brian doubted it, though. Most of these fuckers would rather do prison time than rat on their brotherhood, which could result in a death sentence not sanctioned by law.
As he filled out the paperwork, Rafe stood beside him, cursing under his breath. Brian glanced up and raised his eyebrows. “What's up?”
His partner held open their suspect’s wallet with a driver’s limited learner permit in full view.Andrew Bingham.The last name sounded familiar, and Brian struggled to remember where he’d heard it before. Then Rafe showed him a small photo stuck in a clear plastic sleeve on the other side of the wallet.
Shit. That's where he knew the name from. This wouldn’t go over well. Shaking his head, Brian glanced at the kid, who suddenly looked younger than hissixteen years and ready to cry. Nope, this wouldn’t go over well at all.
Tess Bingham slowly but efficiently stitched the chest cavity of the deceased man, on whom the medical examiner had just finished an autopsy. Prepping and closing the bodies were among her many duties as Dr. Peter Hansen's assistant—a position she held in the Dare County coroner's office for the past four years.
Some of her friends thought it was creepy that she worked with the dead, but Tess loved her job. She’d always wanted to become a doctor herself, but after tragically losing her parents in a car accident, the then twenty-one-year-old had taken on the responsibility of raising her younger brother.
There was no way she could have done that while attending medical school, with its demanding coursework and clinical requirements. Instead, with the college credits she had already earned, she only needed to complete three online courses to finish her bachelor’s degree in biology, which allowed her to take the job with the coroner’s office. But once Andy went off to college, she hoped she might finally have the chance to pursue medical school.
She loved her brother, Andy, but he was a typical teenager, susceptible to peer pressure, and occasionally got into trouble while still grieving the loss of theirparents. So far, his problems were all school-related, resulting in a few detentions—nothing too serious. But Tess feared that, despite his excellent grades, he might really screw up someday. If that happened, there was a strong possibility the state would put him in a foster home or juvenile detention until he turned eighteen. He could face expulsion or, at the very least, lose out on several scholarships he might be eligible for.
After she finished closing the car accident victim’s chest, she covered him with a sheet. He was a large man, and she would have to wait until one of the other two M.E. assistants returned from lunch to help move the body onto a stretcher. They would then place him in one of the morgue’s refrigerated drawers until he was released to a funeral home. In the meantime, Tess sterilized the scalpels, saws, and other equipment used during the autopsy. Once that was done, there was paperwork to file, samples to take to the lab, and the metal exam table to clean and rinse.
Hopefully, that was her last autopsy of the day. There’d been three others earlier. And those were only the ones Dr. Hansen did. He and two other medical examiners covered all of Dare County, and some days were far more hectic than others. Today had been somewhere in between—busy but not too busy. If all went well, Tess could leave on time and then stop at the supermarket. She wanted to actually cook something that night instead of ordering takeout ormicrowaving frozen dinners. The last two weeks had been one or the other, and she was tired of them.
An hour later, only one more body had arrived at the morgue, and Clark Emery would assist Dr. Kristina Winiecke with it, so Tess went into the locker room to change out of her scrubs and work shoes. After throwing on her jeans, a short-sleeved knit shirt, and clean, white sneakers, she let down her messy ponytail, brushed her hair, grabbed her purse, then headed toward the rear entrance of the building. The staff had their own assigned section in the back parking lot, which was also reserved for morgue vehicles and funeral home pickups.
She pushed open the door to the records/reception office, and before she reached the door to the lobby, Patty Flynn, the front desk clerk for the past twenty-two years, flagged her down. “Tess, you have a phone call.” The older woman raised her eyebrows and fanned her face. “It’s that hunky Special Agent Malone. What I wouldn’t give for a night with him.”
Rolling her eyes, Tess stopped beside Patty’s desk. “I assume you have him on hold, and he didn’t hear that.”
“Hey, I might be sixty-two, but I’m not dead yet. That man is fine. And of course I have him on hold. The last thing I need is a sexual harassment charge seven months before I retire.”
