of the cold locker and everything to do with the single word Collective.
What was Bernice doing with a ledger bearing the name of a group of organized crime families that had infiltrated public and private sectors from banking to the US Attorney’s Office? News of the group’s exploits had reached her even during deployment in the Middle East.
Bernice, what had you gotten yourself into?
Laurel shook her head, the action one of resignation rather than denial. She’d long ago accepted that Bernice never thought through a decision and that she rarely, if ever, considered the effect her actions might have on others, especially her daughter. Her involvement with the Collective was but one more in an increasingly long string of bad choices. There’d be no more bad choices on Bernice’s part, Laurel reflected.
Though the Collective was based in Atlanta, its tentacles were everywhere, apparently even here in this speck of a town where Bernice had lived.
A chuff of noise outside the unit caused Laurel to go still. Had she been followed to the storage lockers? She’d been careful, but she had to admit that she had been more intent on reaching her destination than checking the rearview mirror.
Awareness feathered her senses. A tingle of apprehension raced through her. Ranger training had taught her to trust her instincts.
“Sammy,” she whispered to her dog as she pulled on her backpack, “time to go.”
Something in her voice must have alerted him for he went on point.
As she exited the unit, a large man swiped at her backpack. Fortunately, she had it secured around her waist as well as her shoulders.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she yelled and jerked away from him.
He broadened his stance, the menacing move designed to intimidate. Too bad. She didn’t scare. “Give me what I want, and you can go.”
Like she believed that. “I don’t have anything.”
He ignored that and reached for her again.
Sammy growled menacingly but remained still. He was too well-trained to attack without a command from her.
Laurel knew she could take down the intruder. Ranger training had honed the already formidable skills she’d earned courtesy of the US Army. She twisted out of his reach and spun, kicking with her right leg and catching him in the chest cavity. The grunt of pain told her she’d made serious contact. Good.
He went down. Hard.
“Sammy, now.”
Despite having only three legs, Sammy attacked, fastening his jaw around the man’s ankle.
The man yelped. “Get him off me.”
“Sammy, enough.”
Sammy released his hold on the man.
She glared at her would-be assailant. “Stay still or you’ll see what he can really do.”
While he figured out that he wasn’t getting away, Laurel did some thinking of her own. If she waited for the police, she’d be letting herself in for prolonged questioning. It didn’t take much to surmise that the man belonged to the Collective and wanted the money and the ledger. Though she didn’t understand the meaning of the coded numbers listed in it, she knew instinctively she couldn’t let him have it.
Laurel pulled her weapon and held it on the man. “Sammy, watch.”
With her other hand, she fished through his pockets, found a pair of handcuffs—had he planned on using them on her?—and a set of keys. When she pressed the key fob, a beep from a nearby truck identified it as his. She marched him to the vehicle.
“Open the driver’s and back doors, then put the right cuff on.” After he did so, she slipped the empty cuff through the exposed frame, clicked the second manacle around his other wrist and secured him there.
He struggled against the restraint, all the while spewing a stream of venom. Mean eyes glittered with hate. “This ain’t over.”
“You’re right. It ain’t. But you are.”
The brief exchange sent her thoughts in a different direction. What if her career with the Rangers was over as a result of the injury she’d sustained while deployed?
She’d meticulously constructed her life, a result of her chaotic childhood. A need to put order to everything had driven her first to the Army, then the Rangers. There, she’d found the first real home she’d ever known. Being part of something bigger than herself gave her life purpose.
If she couldn’t be a Ranger any longer, she feared her life would lose its meaning.
Nothing she could do about it now. At the moment, she was running for her life. There’d be time enough to worry over the future.
Whispers of pink streaked the sky as she headed out of town on a narrow road of chewed-up asphalt. She put a call in to the local police, gave the location of the storage unit and reported the man as a burglar.
Outside one of the small towns that dotted the backwoods road, she found a coffee shop that advertised free Wi-Fi. Though she was anxious to be on her way, she booted up her laptop. First, she contacted a friend at the DOJ and asked for any information he had on the Collective.
His answer came swiftly. Stay out of their way.
She typed back. Too late.
Okay, but you asked for it.
Page after page of text filled her screen. She dug out a thumb drive and copied the information to it.
Next she ran a search on S&J Security/Protection of Atlanta, Georgia. Articles about the firm were abundant, as were mentions of Jake Rabb and Shelley Rabb Judd and their emphasis on hiring ex-military and police personnel as operatives.
Laurel did some quick calculations in her head, taking in the date on the picture and the probable current ages of the Rabb brother and sister. Could it be? Did she have a half-brother and half-sister?
The idea filled her with such longing that tears stung her eyes. In the lonely years growing up, she’d prayed for a sister or brother, someone to laugh with, to cry with. The possibility that she had both a brother and a sister revived that childhood dream. If only...
She put away the wishful thinking and turned her attention to the practical. She was going to have to do something she hated, something that stuck in her craw like having to bow and scrape to a smarmy politician: she was going to have to ask for help. She texted the contact number for S&J Security/Protection, gave a bullet point explanation of her situation, adding that she was a Ranger in the States on medical leave. When a reply came within minutes saying that an S&J operative, an ex-Ranger no less, would meet her, she knew she was on the right track.
With a to-go mug of coffee and a bottle of water for Sammy’s bowl, Laurel left the shop and started on her way once more. The road climbed, an easy ascent until it reached the ridge. From there, the ribbon of asphalt narrowed, twisting and looping back and forth on itself like a sidewinder as it gradually descended.
As
