On his way out, he grabbed the stack of mail on the corner of his assistant’s desk, took the rental car keys and left.
The house was empty, but rather than work in the kitchen, he made his way to his first-floor office. Before going through his mail, he called Providence.
“Hello, Dakota.” He loved hearing her say his name. “What’s the word?”
“My lawyer, Warren Hott, will represent both of us.”
“Okay.”
“Why don’t you sound relieved?” he asked.
Silence.
“It’s been a long morning, that’s all,” she replied, her voice tight.
“You wanna talk about it?”
“No. Thanks for letting me know about Warren.”
“He asked for a meeting at the club tonight.”
“Why there?”
“He wants us to walk him through our evening.”
“Oh, God,” she bit out. “Never did I imagine something so private would become this public.”
“Would you change it if you could?”
Silence.
“Neither would I,” Dakota said. “See you at eight.”
Curious about the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about, Dakota Googled her. She was a marketing consultant with a polished website and a string of testimonials by happy clients. Besides the website, there was nothing online about Providence. Like him, she had no social media accounts.
Next, Dakota checked email. Juanita let him know that a handful of realtors were leaving. “The nervous ones are jumping ship,” she wrote. “They’ll regret it.”
Like Juanita, he didn’t appreciate their lack of allegiance, but he couldn’t control their decisions. Dwelling on it was a waste of his time and energy, so he moved on.
He extracted the stack of mail from his bag, tossing aside the junk. One envelope caught his eye. His name and company address had been typed, but in large, block letters, someone had written “Private” across the bottom. Inside was a letter and two photos. The first photo was of his spray-painted truck, and the second, of his crew on a mission. There were four men in formation, dressed in tactical gear, their faces concealed by night goggles.
“No fucking way,” he murmured.
The letter had been created from clipped letters and words from magazines, and glued to a piece of white construction paper.
NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION
If you want your ALPHA secret to stay that way, wire transfer $15 million to offshore account 1-87623-487721 Bank of the Princes. You have until midnight Thursday.
He slammed his fist on the desk. “Fuck.”This cannot be happening, again.He held the note under his desk lamp in search of fingerprints, but saw none. To his naked eye, the letter appeared clean.
When Beth had gone missing, her abductors had extorted money from him, but they hadn’t returned his wife. That was a dark time in his life and he hated thinking about it.
Pushing out of his chair, he pressed the hidden button on the underside of a shelf on his built-in bookcase. The shelf slid open, revealing a safe. He keyed in the code, stored his Glock, and removed his ALPHA laptop.
After logging in, he began reviewing some of the cases he’d worked. As an operative, he’d helped capture dozens of criminals. Had one of them decided to exact their revenge?
The security alarm chimed. “Dakota?” Miranda called.
