Chapter 1 - The Name in the Dark
The digital clock on the bedside table glowed 3:14 AM in harsh green numbers. Outside, the Lake Michigan wind rattled the reinforced glass of Desmond’s third-floor bedroom, but inside the room, the silence was so suffocating that I could hear Frankie’s rapid, shallow breathing from the doorway. Frankie kept his right hand hovering an inch above his shoulder holster, his eyes darting toward me with a mixture of disbelief and sheer dread.
Desmond hadn't shifted an inch on the mattress. The sweat from his violent muscle spasm still glistened across his broad, bare shoulders, but the vulnerable man who had laughed at my joke three minutes ago had vanished behind a sheet of impenetrable iron.
"Speak, Frankie," Desmond ordered. The baritone of his voice was pitched so low it felt like a vibration in the floorboards. "Who took credit for the car bomb?"
Frankie swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing above his black tactical collar. "We raided an auto repair garage down near Cicero. Found the mechanic who wired the ignition block six months ago. We cracked his encrypted phone before the feds even knew we were there." Frankie paused, his gaze sliding reluctantly toward where I knelt on the edge of the mattress. "The down payment came from a private shell account registered to an offshore freight brokerage. And the guy who signed the transfer... his name is Tyler Vance."
The bedroom seemed to tilt on its axis.
A cold rush of adrenaline flooded my veins, making the tips of my fingers go numb. My hand, which had been resting steadily against Desmond’s recovering calf, jerked away as if the sheets had caught fire.
"Tyler?" The name tore out of my throat before my brain could stop it. "No. That’s impossible. That makes no sense."
Desmond turned his head slowly. The icy blue of his irises locked onto mine, devoid of warmth, devoid of the teasing spark we had traded over the broken whiskey glass two weeks ago. He looked at me the way an executioner inspects a stranger who wandered onto the scaffold.
"Your last name on the agency application was Vance," Desmond said, his tone razor-sharp and deadly calm. "Nora Vance."
"My brother is a logistics clerk for a commercial shipping yard," I stammered, scrambling backward off the mattress until my cheap rubber nursing clogs hit the hardwood floor. "He drives an eight-year-old pickup truck! He takes care of our grandmother’s medical debt! He doesn't build car bombs, Desmond! He has nothing to do with this!"
Frankie pulled his sidearm from its leather holster with a clean, metallic click, keeping the barrel pointed at the floor between my feet. "Boss, she applied to the private agency exactly twelve days after your third senior nurse quit. She insisted on the night shift. She was right beside you during your weakest hours."
"Frankie," Desmond whispered without breaking eye contact with me. "Leave the room."
"Boss, she could be the trigger—"
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"I said leave us." Desmond’s voice cut through the air like a butcher's cleaver.
Frankie hesitated, then backed out into the dark hallway, pulling the heavy double oak doors shut behind him with a heavy thud.
