ON Edge

  ON Edge

  An Ozzie Novak Thriller

  Book 1

  Redemption Thriller Series - 13

  (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 (Book 1)

  AT Large (Book 2)

  AT Once (Book 3)

  AT Dawn (Book 4)

  AT Dusk (Book 5)

  AT Last (Book 6)

  The Ivy Nash Thrillers

  IN Defiance (Book 7)

  IN Pursuit (Book 8)

  IN Doubt (Book 9)

  Break IN (Book 10)

  IN Control (Book 11)

  IN The End (Book 12)

  The Ozzie Novak Thrillers

  ON Edge (Book 13)

  Game ON (Book 14)

  ON The Rocks (Book 15)

  Shame ON You (Book 16)

  ON Fire (Book 17)

  ON The Run (Book 18)

  1

  The red-stamped letters on the sealed envelope are as big as mountains. A sickening waft of wet ink hangs in the air. And the cacophony of voices sounds like a garbage disposal full of chopped glass.

  You, Ozzie Novak, a twenty-eight-year-old husband and half owner of Novak and Novak, LLC—at least in name—think you have life figured out. And then it kicks you in the nuts with a precision that could never be mistaken as an accident. Drowning out the sensory attack, you replay the last few hours to see how it possibly could have been avoided.

  A morning almost like every other: an early coffee, always flavored with something like hazelnut or vanilla, and a piece of fruit in your hand. Usually an apple, orange, or pear. Apples are the hardest. Choosing the apple this morning actually has a benefit.

  We’ll get to that in a minute.

  On your way out the door, an air kiss from the wife. She says she can’t smudge her makeup. You push the insecurity of her not kissing you—not really kissing you for the last two months—to the back of your mind and hang it on her justification. You try not to think about the fact that she’s provided five such explanations during this moratorium on anything resembling intimacy. Each, on its own merit, holds weight. But when viewing her broader body of work—yes, you realize you’re thinking in terms of acting—the excuses make you wonder if she thinks she is married to a ten-year-old.

  As you push open the kitchen door to walk toward your Cadillac sitting just outside of your detached garage, a swirl of wind whips across your face. The lungful of chilled air acts as a drug infusion, sending your mind and spirit into another place, where the pain of a relationship that has so suddenly flipped into the red zone recedes just below skin level. You relish the diversion. As much as you want to stop, close your eyes, maybe even lie down in the lush, green winter rye you had planted to ensure there was green grass even in the winter months, you can’t. She might be looking from the house, then wonder if you’re losing it. Ultimately, that would lead to a lot of questions. Questions that neither she nor you have the guts to answer.

  Instead, you trudge forward, and when the door shuts on your Cadillac, what little sounds you’d been able to pick up before are now nothing more than a memory. You take a breath and wonder if she or you will ever open up and attempt to repair the damage that divides your relationship. Questions crowd your frontal lobe, but you quickly switch on your favorite sports talk-radio station. It’s entertaining, and you find yourself laughing out loud. You realize those medical journals you read at the ER a few weeks ago—when your father thought he was having a heart attack, but it turned out to be a false alarm—are right. Laughter is good for the soul.

  You sip the coffee, take in the soothing aroma, and feel your arms tingle from the caffeine permeating your arteries. Fake energy is better than no energy at all. You back out of the driveway, put the car in drive, then feel the buzz of your phone against your chest from the front inside pocket of your suit coat. Before proceeding, you check your phone to see three heart emojis from your wife. You try not to ask why or analyze what she’s trying to say. You take it at face value. That lasts about five seconds. In the back of your mind, you realize this “patch of love” will last about four or five hours. And then you’ll begin to wonder what tonight will bring. More cold shoulders? Or is there any hope that you, she, or both of you will wake up, grow up, talk through all this crap, and get back to loving the hell out of each other.

  A sigh. You turn up the radio and lose yourself in another funny bit between the talk-show hosts. One of them had pranked the evening-drive host by making him believe that his marijuana stash had been found by the Austin police and that he would likely be charged with possession and intent to distribute. You laugh again and try to keep things in perspective.

  Nothing is as bad as it seems, right?

  The morning show’s funny banter, for the few minutes driving through Austin traffic, serves as a thin bandage over the gaping hole in your heart. Twenty-five minutes later, you pass the front of your office building. Instead of glancing up to see your last name listed twice in three-foot letters, you focus on three college-age kids harassing Sam, the old black man who’s been shining shoes on the street corner since you were knee-high and tagged along with your dad to work. You quickly park the Cadillac in the underground garage, dump your coffee into the trash on the way out, and then spot those same guys shoving Sam around.

  You walk in that direction, tossing the apple in your hand like it’s a baseball on fire. A fury builds inside. You’re programmed to snap at anyone who preys on those who are the most vulnerable. You can’t help yourself. It’s mean, and it sickens you. It makes you believe that people are more animal than human.

  Up ahead, you spot a cop on a bicycle. You wave, try to get his attention. Too many cars and people, and you lose sight of him. You move around an older couple; then you dodge a guy on crutches and a few others moving too slowly. Then you see Sam. His fatigue-green sweater is ripped. Blood snakes from the corner of his eye. Each time he tries to bend down and pick up his stuff—brushes, polish, and dollar bills from tip money—he’s kneed or shoved against his shoe-shine platform.

  Ten yards out, you shout at them to stop. Either they are deafer than you, or they don’t care. So, with a running start, you hurl the apple. One of the three guys—some skinny punk with a cigarette dangling from his lips—takes it right on the nose. He screams, falls to the ground like he has just been punched by Ali.

  The other two are wearing tight T-shirts. Are they part of some wrestling team? Their foreheads are lumpy, and they’re missing a few teeth. They appear to be steroid users. You instantly dub them Lumpy and Stumpy—you suspect their muscles are inversely proportional to their dick size.

  Lumpy and Stumpy release Sam, who clings to the side of his shoeshine chair. He sees you, and you nod; then you turn your sights to the steroid robots closing in fast. Your breathing is labored, only because your heart is racing. It’s not from fright. Those guys are big, but at six-two, two hundred ten pounds, you know you will inflict damage. If they break your face in the process, so be it. They deserve an ass kicking, or worse.

  Lumpy, wearing a blue shirt, lunges with a roundhouse right. Easy pickings. You duck, and as he spins from the missed punch, you thrust a left fist into his kidney. His teeth clap together, and he drops to the ground.

  You hear something in the distance, maybe a shrill, but you ignore it. You have to. Stumpy, in a red T-shirt, growls as he reaches for your throat. His hands never touch you. You send a hard side kick directly into his knee. It buckles. You know the feeling of a hyperextended knee.

  You rear back, take aim for Stumpy’s nose, and ju
st as you begin to throw a punch that will make mincemeat of his cartilage, someone with a whistle jumps in front of you like a referee in an NFL game, breaking up a fight. It’s a cop, but his quick arrival scares you. You’re used to not hearing distinct noises until they’re right on top of you. So you step away and take a breath. The cop calls for backup. The whole story is shared. A few minutes later, Lumpy and Stumpy and the punk with the cigarette are hauled away, while paramedics treat Sam’s wounds. They’re minor. The cop thanks you, but you can only focus on Sam, whose hands are quivering. You help him pack up his stuff, give him a hundred bucks, and suggest he take off a couple of days. He doesn’t say much and toddles away through the parking lot.

  You buy an energy drink in the lobby of the office building, crack it open, and drink half of it on the elevator ride up to the fourth-floor offices of Novak and Novak. Three others are in the box with you. You’re not fond of small, enclosed places, so you try to calm your thoughts, take your mind off the confrontation, off the spike of adrenaline.

  But you can’t do it. You replay the series of events on the sidewalk and begin to question if you took it too far. And then you finally hit on a really tough question: were you simply looking for an excuse to get into a fight?

  Maybe it goes further back than the defense of Sam. It doesn’t take much head-scratching to recall the time of your first real fight. You were in seventh grade, still a scrawny, prepubescent kid whose athletic socks sagged down your ankles. Kids made fun of you for being Jewish, for being too skinny, for not hearing very well, for being…whatever. You didn’t pay them much attention, but you also never really stood up for yourself. Not until two bullies picked on a kid with special needs. You don’t recall his exact impairment, but Jacob had problems with yelling uncontrollably, and he had this weird twitch. You walked toward the locker-room exit to join the other kids in athletics on the field, but out of the corner of your eye, you saw two kids shoving Jacob over the bench and into the lockers.

  You couldn’t ignore it. You walked over and helped Jacob to his feet. The two boys got in your face. The leader of the two had such a thick hick accent that he hurled spit at your face as he called you the “p” word—that’s what your mom calls it. Then he grabbed you by the T-shirt.

  A fuse was lit.

  Without thinking it through, you put everything you had into one swing of your fist. The hick took it on the chin and fell back against his buddy’s knee, who screamed out in pain. You told them if they ever went after Jacob again, you’d beat the crap out of them. They never said another word to you or Jacob the rest of the year.

  A guy behind you in the elevator sneezes, and you inch forward. Then a thought zips to the front of your mind, and it’s a bit of a revelation: all those years ago, was the act of defending Jacob not just a defense of him but also a declaration that you would no longer allow yourself to be bullied for who you were?

  Instinctively, you reach for your ear and feel the device anchored just behind it.

  The elevator rocks to a stop, and you eye the lit-up number four above the doors. People push toward the opening, which shifts your mind into work mode. Lots of tasks to accomplish today. You check your watch—a high-end Tissot that your wife gave you on your honeymoon. It’s 8:33 a.m. Dammit, you’re three minutes late to start a deposition.

  You walk into the main meeting room. Everyone is set up. Brian, a second-year attorney, asks if he can lead the questioning. You’re fine with it. The deposition involves a lawsuit related to a bombing at an Austin band venue a couple of months earlier—you and your wife were actually there and survived. The client, one that dear old Dad—Nathaniel Novak—brought in, is hell-bent on suing the club and the City of Austin for not protecting his equipment—he’d supplied all of the stage lighting. You are beyond trying to convince your father that the lawsuit looks petty, considering that three people died, others were severely injured, and the general populace—even those who usually couldn’t recite the name of the president because they were lost in their own little bubbles—was shaken to its core.

  The deposition goes on for almost an hour. Your mind drifts, initially to the woman in your life. To the time when you thought she might be inside the Belmont, buried under rubble or burned alive in the fire. You can recall that feeling of relief and jubilation when she walked out. You hugged her with everything you had.

  A breath catches in your throat as you realize something: isn’t the bombing about the time when her emotional connection disappeared?

  You sniffle, which draws a look from Brian—he doesn’t want anything to interrupt the pristine recording of the deposition. You look off and recall the day you met Nicole Ramsey during your second stint in college.

  The first stint? A two-year run at the University of Texas that was summarily halted by the “break-and-shake,” a term used by college kids who had nothing better to do than try to humiliate grouchy professors. Too much to address in that hairball, so you move on to that day when you were walking along a path next to the San Francisco Bay, and you looked up to see the most stunning woman. She had brown, lustrous hair framing a face so luminous it appeared to have been dipped in milk. Nicole Ramsey had syrupy eyes. You felt your heart skip a beat. You stopped and talked to her—something that you would usually never do. The connection was instant and electric. You were in bed three hours later, and the white-hot passion didn’t stop for three months.

  And then she graduated. Said she needed to find herself and her independence. She headed off to Europe. It broke your heart, but somehow you thought you’d see her again. Kindred spirits and all. Fast forward through graduating at Cal-Berkeley, law school at Georgetown—Dad always said you have to experience life inside the Beltway, just to cut your teeth—and then you joined Dad in the firm. Novak and Novak. Your dream job.

  Or not.

  It’s complicated—what isn’t these days? So you turn your thoughts back to Nicole. It was about a year ago. Out of the blue, you ran into her at a wine-tasting function where Dad was trying to drum up business. She worked for a bioengineering company in marketing. You didn’t say much. She didn’t either. But the sexual tension was unmistakable. Again, three hours later, you ended up in bed. After that, you sat on the floor, eating pizza, laughing a lot. You’d found the one. The person who made you whole. You made her whole. She was that once-in-a-lifetime comet. Eight weeks of dating, and then she was talking about marriage. You could see your future all laid out ahead of you.

  You asked her to marry you—you could barely utter the words before tears flowed from both of you. This is what love is all about, you told yourself. The engagement was a blur. Cake tastings, flower-shop visits, wedding planners, rabbi and pastor discussions—she’s a devout Methodist, while you’re Jewish in name only, and even that’s a stretch.

  Again, stay on track. It’s about Nicole, not about all this ancillary stuff.

  More on the engagement. Caterers, tuxedo fittings, band selection, on and on and on. It wore on you, but you didn’t say anything because Nicole was glowing, happy, and showing you how much she loved you every day.

  The wedding was spectacular. The honeymoon, though, even better. Two weeks in Italy and the islands of Greece. You settled into a new house, and the relationship continued to grow. Work was…work. But home was what made you get up every day. You started talking about kids. “How is married life?” you’re asked almost everywhere you go. Honestly, you say you’re lucky to have found “the one.” And then she shut down. The flip of a switch. Was it the day after the bombing, or just before? Nevertheless, it rocks you. This could never happen. But it has, and you’re not sure what to say. Each passing hour, day, week, the chasm only grows. You’re really not equipped with how to deal with it, even though you handle conflict and negotiation every day at the firm.

  A nudge on your arm. “How do you think that went?”

  You turn and stare at Brian’s lips to make sure you understand him. “Nice work,” you say. Then people mill about
. You walk to your office and tell Stacy, your admin, that you’d like to have a few moments alone.

  “But you have a meeting with the leadership council in five minutes,” she says as if she’s your high-school teacher. She’s twice your age, so you tend not to push back.

  “Well, okay. Just give me a minute.”

  Two minutes later, men and women in blue windbreakers and suits enter the office and lead you and everyone they can find to the conference room. They are federal officials.

  And here you sit. A man who works for the IRS Criminal Investigation Division holds the envelope. It’s a sealed warrant. Meaning, this is no joke. Someone will be arrested and charged with a crime.

  Where’s Dad, dammit? You glance left and right, but don’t find the man who stands four inches shorter than you and has a thinning bed of gray, curly hair. You saw his car in the parking lot in his normal spot, so he has to be here.

  Unless he’s not. Did he use the restroom, see the raid, and decide to take off?

  There are gasps all around, mutterings of questions. You try to understand what’s being said, but you know it’s impossible. What you do pick up, however, is fear. Fear from people you’ve known for years, even if it was more as Nathaniel Novak’s son than as a practicing attorney at the firm that has been around longer than you have.

  You want to get up, pace a little, but two men standing at the side of your chair quash that request.

  You watch files being stacked into boxes. Men and women with stern looks writing with Sharpies on the side of the boxes. You’ve never seen so many Sharpies. Then again, you’ve never seen anyone raid your office. Maybe a client’s office, but not yours.

  You stare at the sealed envelope and wonder what’s on the inside. What event initiated this raid? With sealed warrants, more than likely a secret grand jury has been meeting for weeks and decided to hand down indictments. And you never caught wind of it? Not with all your contacts in Travis County, the City of Austin, or even, to a lesser degree, inside the state capitol? Someone would have surely tipped you off. Right?