the murder of AFOSI’s Major Ian Kelly. Ian’s body had been moved clear across Colorado Springs from Peterson Air Force Base and dumped behind the Chapel Hills Mall but AFOSI DNA evidence proved his murder had taken place on the base, so the Air Force had claimed jurisdiction. And Sam Vance had quietly turned over everything he’d already compiled, but he hadn’t been happy.
It was an awkward situation for Tricia since she attended the same church as the Vances. But she kept getting mental pictures of Ian laughing with his wife and daughters earlier in the summer at a backyard barbecue. He’d deserved so much more than to be executed for just doing his job. She was going to make whoever killed him pay. And no one, not even the former love of her life, was going to get in her way.
She stepped back and stretched to her full five foot nine inches. “You really don’t want to take on the United States Air Force, Travis. AdVance might be an elite name in corporate security and anti-terrorism circles, but compared to the might of the U.S. government, you’re small potatoes. And you’ll lose. Big-time.”
She turned and stalked away. The general was not going to be happy about this when he saw her report. And frankly she couldn’t wait to watch the fallout.
Travis watched Patricia stride off. If he’d asked anyone at school to describe her, they’d have said amiable, shy and maybe even a little guarded. He’d found her appealingly mysterious but vulnerable. And what the air of mystery and timidity hadn’t done to draw him, her long auburn tresses, short straight nose and wide golden-brown eyes had.
Now he found himself absolutely bowled over by all the changes in her. In his mind, she’d stayed the quiet girl of barely twenty who’d broken his heart. Now he knew she’d gone on—without him. She’d changed so much. She had curves where there’d been none to speak of. Her exceptional hair was now cropped short in what could only be called a nonstyle. But the biggest change of all was that the quiet self-contained young woman he’d known had disappeared and become open, candid about her intentions and nearly volatile. He rubbed his stomach. Maybe nearly was a bit too hopeful an adjective. The young woman who’d brought out his every protective instinct was gone and in her place was a warrior in her own right.
Remembering that old Patty and the one personality quirk that had probably foreshadowed all the changes he saw, he listened for the sound of her car. Sure enough, the familiar six-second heavy rev of an engine reached his ears. Ah, the sound of Patty Perturbed. He grinned, wondering if she still drove with the same edgy recklessness she’d had in college.
Travis caught himself smiling and scowled. Unfortunately, he had a whole lot more to wonder about than her driving. Like if he’d lost his mind when he’d touched her—when that same electric spark he remembered so well from college shot through him once again. Like why matching wits with Patricia Streeter had felt so good.
What was it about her?
In those few moments with her in his arms, he’d felt more alive than he had in years. It was as if that first touch had reawakened all the feelings he’d once had for her. As if all those feelings had been hiding deep inside his frozen heart.
He took a breath and huffed it out in an explosive burst. Why had he been so angry when he’d realized who it was he held in his arms? Could all that latent anger be a sign that he hadn’t really gone on with his life when he’d married? Had he been unfaithful to his wife in his heart?
Allison.
Her dark, accusing eyes were burned into his memory. How many times had she charged him with carrying his love for Patty so deep inside that he couldn’t dislodge it? Had she been right? Believing she’d been wrong was the one thing about their doomed marriage he’d been able to take comfort in.
No! He wouldn’t do this to himself. Not again. He had come to love Allison and most especially he’d loved their daughter, Natalie. He could still see them as they’d pulled out of the drive that fateful Saturday morning. Identical creamy complexions and raven-black hair, Natalie, so innocently unaware of the tension between her parents. Allison wearing all the tension in her expression that he was trying so hard to hide from their child. Natalie had waved and laughed with excitement and anticipation of a week at her grandparents’ house on Lake Henry in New York. Allison hadn’t even acknowledged his presence, having refused a ride to the airport.
A week later they’d been gone. A boating accident took all four in a moment’s carelessness on the part of a teen taking his friends out for a spin in his father’s boat. Travis had envied his in-laws their quick deaths. They’d never known the grief and guilt Travis had.
He didn’t even blame the kid who’d been at the helm of the speedboat. Since that day he’d had too many moments of inattention at the wheel of his car, which was potentially just as deadly as that boat had been. The only ones to blame for their deaths were God and himself.
God’s failure was obvious. He should have reached out His hand and saved them. That’s all it would have taken, and Travis couldn’t get past that.
And his own culpability? Just as easy to define.
If he’d been a better husband, Allison would have been at home with Natalie and not on that boat with her parents. The separate vacation had been Allison’s way of trying to force him to give up the police force. But he’d been just as determined to remain the person he was. No compromises for Travis Vance. And because he hadn’t been willing to consider a change in career, his wife and child had died.
In the long run, when grief, anger and guilt had all but consumed him, the job hadn’t been important at all. He’d walked away and hadn’t looked back. In fact, AdVance Security and Investigations had grown almost by itself.
His father had asked him to evaluate the security at a friend’s company. Plans for a new product had been stolen. The CEO had wanted to find the leak and prevent it from happening again. Travis did both and got hooked on the available technology and ways to prevent corporate espionage.
And the rest was history. AdVance kept him busy three hundred and sixty-five days a year with several regular corporate accounts and a few special assignments interspersed. This favor he was doing for Sam was just such an assignment.
He climbed behind the wheel of his car, forcing himself to think only about the case. A syndicate called Diablo was operating in Colorado Springs and poisoning the town. They were selling street drugs, not the stylish designer drugs of rich and famous vacationers CSPD was used to dealing with. Consequently the city had exploded with a rash of robberies and murders. Drug arrests and drug-related domestic abuse calls were up, as well.
And it looked as if Diablo had ties to the group responsible for the shooting of Dr. Adam Montgomery, Travis’s childhood friend. They’d caught the guy directly responsible, but he’d been killed in jail before cracking. Sam had been pulling his hair out before and since and getting nowhere fast. Then a break. An Air Force officer with AFOSI was found murdered. Executed really, his body dumped behind the Chapel Hills Mall. And scribbled on a crumpled piece of paper in his pocket was the name Diablo and La Mano Oscura, the Venezuelan drug cartel Sam thought controlled Diablo.
But then the Air Force had swooped in, claiming jurisdiction, saying Kelly had been killed on base. They’d promised to let the CSPD in on anything they found out about Diablo or its possible ties to La Mano Oscura. But Sam wasn’t convinced. If Air Force pilots were involved, who knew if they’d admit it outside military circles? So Travis had offered to “keep his eyes and ears open” but they’d both known what that meant. Travis was on the case.
Travis narrowed his eyes as he put the car in gear and started toward home. Wouldn’t
