AT Stake (An Alex Troutt Thriller, Book 7) (Redemption Thriller Series 19) Read online

  AT Stake

  An Alex Troutt Thriller

  Book 7

  Redemption Thriller Series - 19

  (Includes Alex Troutt Thrillers, Ivy Nash Thrillers,

  and Ozzie Novak Thrillers)

  By

  John W. Mefford

  ALSO BY JOHN W. MEFFORD

  Redemption Thriller Series

  The Alex Troutt Thrillers

  AT Bay (RTS #1)

  AT Large (RTS #2)

  AT Once (RTS #3)

  AT Dawn (RTS #4)

  AT Dusk (RTS #5)

  AT Last (RTS #6)

  The Ivy Nash Thrillers

  IN Defiance (RTS #7)

  IN Pursuit (RTS #8)

  IN Doubt (RTS #9)

  Break IN (RTS #10)

  IN Control (RTS #11)

  IN The End (RTS #12)

  The Ozzie Novak Thrillers

  ON Edge (RTS #13)

  Game ON (RTS #14)

  ON The Rocks (RTS #15)

  Shame ON You (RTS #16)

  ON Fire (RTS #17)

  ON The Run (RTS #18)

  The Alex Troutt Thrillers

  AT Stake (RTS #19)

  AT Any Cost (RTS #20)

  Back AT You (RTS #21)

  TBD (RTS #22)

  TBD (RTS #23)

  TBD (RTS #24)

  1

  Two months ago

  Using a wooden spoon, the woman scooped a bunch of strawberries from the container and placed them onto a paper plate. They had a festive look, as if they’d been sprinkled with powdered sugar and she were preparing a celebratory meal.

  To a degree, she was.

  When she was a child—her enthusiasm unbridled by the mere mention of her birthday—she would badger her poor mother relentlessly, asking for hints about her gift and any other surprises. Her mother held steadfast, not revealing the secret until the day of. Undeterred, she would scour the house looking for clues. Every year, though, her efforts failed to land the prize, and she was forced to wait. Hours felt like days, days like weeks. Inevitably, her patience was…well, she had no patience. For the month leading up to her birthday, her inner frustration throttled every part of her being.

  Times had changed, and she’d been able to channel her lack of patience into an unyielding perseverance, as a vision of the future began to take shape. And that vision, she knew, unequivocally, would change the world. She’d grown from girl to woman. A woman who’d suffered the greatest humiliation one could endure.

  Has anyone besides me waited more than three decades for the decisive moment of redemption?

  The woman lifted the plastic strawberry container and inspected the remaining pieces of fruit. She spotted two more strawberries coated in a white fuzz—mold.

  She carefully plucked the pair, set them onto the plate with the other moldy ones, and tossed any that looked edible straight into the trash can.

  A smile crossed her lips. Even at her mature age, it was difficult to hide her enthusiasm. She was about to test her hypothesis…one that had been noodling in her mind for almost as long as her groundbreaking work.

  “Are we ready for a party, or what?” she said out loud. She saw a puff of her own breath inside the cold, decaying building. She considered grabbing a blanket from the closet, but she paused, deciding that should wait another day, maybe two.

  She picked up the plate, walked into the grand room, where one of three fireplaces existed in the building. She crouched in front of the fireplace—her knees popped liked cracking walnuts—and scooted the plate toward the metal bars that served as a cage-like barrier.

  From the darkness within, there was a stir. Then, the young man said, “Wh-wh-what do you want with me?”

  The stutterer.

  The woman tried not to roll her eyes. She pointed at the plate on the floor.

  “Is-is-is that for me?”

  There was hope in his voice. Fear, yes…but a smidge of hope too.

  “I’ve decided you will live another day.”

  The boy grunted a breath in relief. “Dear God, thank you.” He grabbed the iron rods with his hands, leaned his head against them, and began to sob.

  The woman waited, saying nothing. Finally, the whimpering ended.

  “It’s not God that’s granting you this stay of execution.”

  “Oh, no, I-I-I realize that. Th-th-thank you. Thank you so much, Pluto.”

  The woman’s eyes looked down to the plate—the boy had momentarily lost focus.

  “So, you’re actually giving me food…real food? Those are strawberries. I love strawberries.”

  She had to hold back the barrel-sized chuckle that wanted to escape. It was tough to contain herself, but she did. She knew the kid despised fruit—strawberries, in particular.

  “M-m-may I have one?”

  “They’re all for you.”

  The kid reached his dirty hand through the metal bars, grabbed two strawberries as if they might soon run away, and tossed them in his mouth.

  Did he even notice the mold?

  The woman lifted the plate, allowing the faint light from the single lamp behind her to illuminate the molded strawberries, and then she set it back on the dusty floor. The boy picked up another strawberry, inspecting it closer this time. After just seconds of deliberation, he bit into the fruit and then grabbed six more, which he downed in quick order.

  The mold meant nothing to this kid. He had a verified IQ of more than one hundred fifty, scored a perfect sixteen hundred on his college SATs, had a pristine grade point average, and was probably more intelligent than any of his professors. He knew the perils of eating tainted food, yet he’d done it anyway.

  And that was why he was Number One.

  Survival. The mind worked in strange ways. Ways that would bring the woman what she wanted so dearly.

  Vengeance.

  2

  Present day—Alex

  A cool breeze swirled leaves into a small funnel that skipped along the sidewalk on Commonwealth Avenue in Newton, about ten miles west of Boston. I paid little attention. Instead, I checked my phone for the tenth time in the last ten minutes.

  “Where the hell are you, Brad?” I glanced around the bustling crowd of onlookers cheering on the runners—or in some cases, walkers—in the Boston Marathon, hoping to see the towheaded locks of Brad bounding in my direction. Nothing.

  I huffed out a breath, trying to rein in my annoyance at my boyfriend for being late.

  Boyfriend. It felt weird to even think it, much less say it—even though we’d been dating for almost two years. At forty-one years old, I was, in essence, a widower; my husband had been brutally murdered about three years ago. Yes, it was tragic, but not just because he’d been killed. It was why he’d been killed. To put it simply, he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. He was a slut, and not just with one woman. He’d even had the gall to sleep with our college-aged nanny, who was nothing short of a tart, anyway. The killer had targeted men with Mark’s proclivities. Some might call that karma. But as much as I hated him for what he’d done to me and our marriage, I hated the fact that our two kids—sixteen-year-old Erin and thirteen-year-old Luke—would grow up without a father even more.

  For some reason, the Greek poem The Odyssey came to mind in regard to raising teenagers. No real connection, only that the parental experience had been emotionally draining recently. Who knew what hormones could do to a human being? Apparently, I’d long since forgotten my awkward years.

  My thoughts circled to Brad. My boyfriend. Wasn’t I too old, too hardened to have o
ne of those things—a boyfriend? For a moment, I went back in time. I was standing behind the high-school tennis courts in Port Isabel, Texas, and had been asked to “go steady” by Felipe during my junior year. We dated, had some fun, made some memories. But we were teenagers. Kids.

  Right, the same age as Erin, who’s been begging you to allow her to date.

  “Stifle it, Troutt,” I said out loud, knowing I didn’t want to get into any type of internal debate about how things were different when I was young. They just were.

  What was even odder than dating at my age? It had to be talking to myself. No one noticed on this clear, blue-sky day. Thousands had lined the twenty-six-plus miles to watch more than thirty thousand brave souls run the Boston Marathon. I really only cared about two of those runners: Nick Radowski, my long-time colleague and pseudo-partner at the FBI, and his cousin, Stan, a cop from San Antonio. They’d had this date circled on their calendars for months. Mostly because of their uber-competitiveness against each other. While I had to admit my competitive gene was prominent, watching them verbally jab and poke each other since Stan had flown into Boston four days ago had been amusing.

  Nick was like a brother to me—I had no siblings. I was an only child to Donald and Charlotte Troutt. My parents were both deceased. One had died tragically; the other had lived in a way that was like watching a slow-moving catastrophe. But that was another reason I cherished my close friends—they were my family. And for that reason alone, I wanted to support Nick and Stan.

  I felt a sharp jab in my rib cage and giggled.

  “Gotcha!”

  I turned to see Brad’s smiling face, accented by the most adorable dimples a woman could ever desire on her man.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said, moving in for a kiss. I reciprocated—his lips were as soft as ever. I rested a hand on his chest—his pecs were the opposite of soft. Okay, many women would say I was lucky. I guess I was. But something was still missing…or off. Maybe it was just me.

  I flipped around and looked westward, down Commonwealth. “I’m just glad we haven’t missed Nick and Stan. You know they’re counting on us for support.”

  “You’re pissed at me.”

  We locked eyes, and I patted his chest. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing.

  “You have every right to be mad. I was just finishing a follow-up report for Jerry about the Maya Sherman arrest.”

  “You said you were going to finish that late last night.” Damn, I sounded like a nag.

  “I know, I know. I just got sucked into this new Netflix show called Glow.”

  “Glow?”

  “Yeah. It’s about these women in professional wrestling. It’s pretty dope.”

  Dope? A slow nod. Since when had Brad gotten into women’s professional wrestling? Or, for that matter, started using the word “dope”?

  He gently touched my nose. “Did I stress you out or something?”

  It took me a second, but I finally realized my brow was furrowed—which, I was certain, only made me look that much older. And grumpier.

  “Well, I was just hoping…”

  His eyes suddenly wandered away from me as I spoke; I followed his gaze. Two girls walked by in purple yoga pants and matching tight Lycra tops that would have been outlawed “back in the day.” My vision snapped back to Brad. His eyes were practically walking over every curve on their bodies. Had our relationship actually dipped that far? Brad never ogled other women—I was the woman he dreamed about. Or so he’d told me countless times. Then again, these hard-bodied girls…they were probably in college. Brad was only twenty-nine—twelve years my junior. I shouldn’t be surprised that he was attracted to girls closer to his age, but it still felt like someone had driven a spike into my heart.

  Brad brushed by me, and the girls, and walked over to a sign. He leaned down and picked up a backpack. “Hey, there,” he called out. A teenage boy, wearing a Red Sox cap and walking away, lifted his head from his phone and turned around.

  “Oh, dude, thanks!” The kid walked up, grabbed the backpack, and hoisted it over his shoulder. “I’m in the middle of this epic battle, and I lost focus. Thanks again.”

  “Sure thing.”

  So, Brad wasn’t ogling the girls after all. He walked back to me.

  “You saw that kid leave his backpack?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I know we caught Maya, but you can’t be too careful, given what happened a few years ago.”

  Maya and her small band of disgruntled followers had been planning a terrorist attack during this year’s marathon, and we all understood that another attack like the one back in 2013 would lead to total chaos. It had been our job to stop them, and we did. The whole plan had been snuffed out, thanks to the online investigative work of my buddy, Ozzie Novak. He was a private investigator by trade. He and his daughter Mackenzie were staying at my house under protective custody related to another investigation—one that would hopefully wrap up soon. Ozzie had been working as a contractor for my boss, Jerry. Kind of a parallel investigation outside of the regular task force put together to prepare for the marathon. Jerry wasn’t a big fan of the task-force leader, Randy Logan. I had to admit…I wasn’t a big fan, either. The guy was an ass. I released a deep breath and kissed Brad on the cheek. “Thanks for watching out for us.”

  “Where are the kids, by the way?”

  “Erin’s doing her thing with a friend. She’s around here somewhere. And Luke is at home. Said he couldn’t leave while he was hunting the First Order in the latest Star Wars video game.”

  “Sounds epic,” he said.

  I hooked an arm inside of his. “You’re one of the good guys in this world, Brad.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Just good? That’s not what you said two nights ago. You said I was the best f—”

  I kissed his lips before he finished.

  “Was that an invitation for me to spend the night tonight?” He flashed those irresistible dimples as he said it. The stinker.

  I started to respond, but my words were interrupted by a distant boom. I turned, cupped a hand over my eyes. Was that a…?

  A couple of seconds later, a louder boom. This one I knew was an explosion.

  People around us flinched. The second bang was pretty far away and to the west, but much closer than the first one.

  A jolt of electricity zapped the base of my skull. I yelled my first thought: “Erin!” I pushed off of Brad and started running westward. I had no idea where she was on the course; I only knew she was close to the starting line.

  I made it twenty feet before I felt a thud rock my chest. Another bomb had just exploded, this one to our east, the closest one yet. Brad got to me and wrapped his arms around me; screams echoed in the air, and people were running in all directions, it seemed. Up ahead, I saw smoke pluming skyward.

  “Let me go! I have to find Erin!”

  “Where is she? I can find her. You stay down.”

  “Get off me,” I said, my heart in my throat. “I’m looking too.”

  We separated and took off in opposite directions.

  Boston was under a terrorist attack. Again.

  Thousands were in harm’s way, including Nick and Stan, but they were trained law-enforcement officers. They’d be fine. Erin, though, was another matter. A question that I should have never allowed to enter my mind brought with it a surge of emotion: had my daughter just been killed?

  3

  A wave of panic rippled through the crowd faster than I could run. Stunned, terrified faces. A few were in tears. I slammed into shoulders of men, women, children. They were running in no discernible direction, like someone had just kicked over a mound of ants.

  “Erin!” I called out, while scanning the mass of humanity.

  No sign of her, but I couldn’t be certain. Sirens whooped around us, men and women in police uniforms scattered about, but no one seemed to know what was going on, what to expect next. Was another bomb about to go off?

  I couldn’t let t
he chaos stop me, even as my gut feared the worst.

  Don’t go there, Alex. It will destroy you, keep you from moving, from thinking.

  I tried moving faster, but there were too many people, everyone screaming. My pace was too slow. I slid under a sawhorse and hit the street. A cop grabbed my arm before I could get moving again. He said, “Miss, you’ve got to stay on the other side of the barricade. It’s for your protection.”

  Was he kidding? Did he not see the crowd already flooding the streets? I had no time for this.

  I ripped my arm downward and yelled, “FBI!” as I bolted out of my stance. I was back in dodge mode, and when someone didn’t get out my way, I shoved them aside.

  “Erin!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. But I realized everyone was yelling…for a friend or a loved one, or out of sheer fright.

  Running down the infamous Heartbreak Hill, I made it a block and stopped for a moment, jumped onto a nearby bench. I did a three-sixty…twice, hoping to see the golden ponytail with the red-and-black bow: her high-school colors. Nothing. But I couldn’t be certain in the sea of people.

  “Erin!” I yelled until my voice cracked.

  The exercise seemed futile, so I jumped off the bench and kept moving. In the distance, I could see two distinct plumes of smoke rising into the blue sky. I knew there was one behind me. Where were the exact locations of these bombs, and how had they gotten past our security? The FBI and about a dozen other law-enforcement agencies had teamed up to ensure this event happened with no issues—not like the ones in Manchester, England, or Brussels or Paris. How was this happening? Ozzie had led us to Maya, the person who had masterminded the terrorist plot. She’d planned to use TATP bombs to exact justice on the country that she called “the land of no opportunity…the land that buries dreams.” Like so many other terrorists, she thought the world had done her wrong, and she was hell-bent on making sure people would pay with their lives.