Rachael Voss dreamed about retiring someplace like Fort Myers, Florida—provided she didn’t catch a bullet first. She drove the rented Mercedes along a gently twisting road, seashells crunching under the tires. Even this late at night it was still too damn hot, but she had the windows cranked down anyway. Air-conditioning gave her more of a headache than the heat of Florida in August.
Her partner, Josh Hart, sat in the passenger seat swirling the remnants of his iced coffee around in a plastic cup. Music played low on the radio—the volume and station both still set to whatever they’d been when she and Josh had picked up the rental at the airport—but otherwise they traveled mostly in silence, only the breeze coming through the windows for company.
During the day, Josh would have bitched about the open windows and Voss would have surrendered and put on the A/C. They’d been partners for more than three years, first with the FBI and now as part of Homeland Security’s new watchdog task force, the InterAgency Cooperation Division. The ICD consisted of one director, two assistant directors, and fourteen interagency case coordinators, Voss and Josh among them.
Delicious aromas steamed off of the vegetation, mingling with the ocean scent of the Gulf of Mexico, not far off. They rounded a corner and the road turned to pavement. The headlights picked out twisted tree limbs and the tall, thin trunks of palm trees, whose bark always reminded Voss of mummy wrappings. She slowed as she drove over a speed bump. A spotlighted sign announced they were entering Manatee Village, which made Voss roll her eyes. Manatees were the ugliest, laziest creatures in the ocean, the couch potatoes of the sea. They weren’t cute like seals or sea lions—just big, fat things that lolled in the water like the cows they were named for, but without the benefit of providing milk or cheeseburgers.
“Who lives out here?” Josh asked.
“Good question,” Voss said.
But the exchange had been rhetorical. They both knew who lived in Manatee Village—a development of faux-adobe-looking single-family homes with inground swimming pools and lanais that let the bugs in but kept the alligators out. Old people who retired to Florida lived in condo and townhouse developments, and people born and raised in Fort Myers couldn’t afford homes like this. The last time Voss had been through the city’s downtown, she’d been left with the impression of a place teetering between resurgence and total collapse, and neither fate seemed more or less likely than the other.
No, the people in Manatee Village weren’t from here. They were young professionals, mostly with families, who had moved to Florida for the sake of their jobs, working with startup companies when the economy had been surging and now hanging on by the skin of their teeth.
As they drove through Manatee Village, half of the pastel faux-dobe homes had either FOR SALE or FORECLOSURE signs in front.
Blue lights flashed ghost shadows against the houses at the corner of Periwinkle Lane. Voss turned right and let the Mercedes roll toward the riot of vehicles jammed up and down the block. Nearest were the news vans—only two for now, but in the days to come there would be many more.
“I’m surprised nobody’s sent a helicopter yet,” Josh said.
Voss guided the rental car between the vans. “I’m not. It’s Fort Myers. Besides, it’s dark out. If someone’s going to pay for a chopper, it’ll be tomorrow when the sun’s up. They’ll probably dangle Nancy Grace from a bungee cord with a microphone and let her prey on the neighbors.”
“Stop. You’re scaring me.”
Neither of them smiled at the joke. When there were dead children involved, nothing was funny.
Just past the news vans, the road had been blocked by a pair of Fort Myers police cars parked nose to nose, each manned by a single uniformed officer. As Voss and Josh rolled up in the Mercedes, the cop on the left stood at attention, chin high, and strode over to them, rolling his shoulders like a boxer about to deliver the final blow.
“I’m sorry, ma’am—” the young cop began.
Voss flashed her ID. “Homeland Security. Let us through, please.”
The kid managed to keep his composure long enough to take a closer look at her ID, then nodded in deference. “Yes, ma’am.”
He stepped back onto the sidewalk even as he waved to the other cop to let them through. The man—a slightly older version of the tanned, fit kid who’d stopped them—jumped into his cruiser and backed it into a driveway to let them pass.
Voss almost expected Josh to make some innuendo-laden comment about the young cop’s obedience, but he remained silent, staring straight ahead. She was glad. He might actually have made her laugh, and it wasn’t a night for laughter.
She guided the Mercedes past another Fort Myers police cruiser, then a couple of Florida State Police cars, and finally parked at the back of a cluster of unmarked sedans. The center of attention was 23 Periwinkle Lane, which looked indistinguishable from the other homes in the development. A brightly colored FOR SALE sign had been planted on the lawn, and Voss felt a pang of sorrow. The murdered family would never have another home.
FBI agents and state police investigators combed the yard with flashlights. In the open garage, gloved techs were going over a red Mustang like it had just crash-landed in Area 51. Half a dozen grim-looking men and women clustered in the driveway, engaged in a conversation that might have been an argument or just speculation about the case. Yellow crime-scene tape had been run along the white picket fence in the front yard, across the driveway to a palm tree, then along into the backyard.
“What’s with the tape?” Josh asked. “Kind of overkill, right? Why not just do the front and back doors?”
“Maybe they found decent footprints and are going to make casts,” Voss said.
They got out of the car and walked to the driveway, stepping over the yellow tape. A slender, attractive Asian woman in an FBI shirt noticed them first. She wore her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail and, despite her beauty, her expression—even in the moment she caught her first glimpse of them—was equally severe. She tapped another FBI agent, drawing his attention to them, and as the man turned around, Voss stiffened.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Josh muttered.
Voss felt her lips curve in a feral smile. “This should be interesting.”
They had worked with Supervisory Special Agent Ed Turcotte once before, on the strangest and most terrifying case of their lives. She and Josh had been FBI agents themselves back then, doing ocean interdiction, dealing with gun smugglers and drug runners, mostly. Turcotte headed one of the FBI’s counterterrorist squads and had tried stealing cases out from under them any number of times.
The last time, they had all nearly died.
But Voss and Josh didn’t work for the FBI anymore. Turcotte probably knew that, which would have explained the confusion on his face as they strode up the driveway toward him. The man had gone bald enough that he’d shaved what remained of his hair down to a half inch of gray-brown stubble, and he looked about a decade older.
Turcotte and the female FBI agent stepped away from the group to greet them.
“Agent Turcotte,” Voss said.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Turcotte replied with a scowl.
Voss produced her identification and Josh followed suit.
“Homeland Security ICD,” she said as she flashed the ID. “Didn’t anybody tell you we were coming?”
Turcotte gave a sardonic laugh. “I knew someone was coming, but nobody mentioned names. So you’re Homeland’s new Troubleshooters, huh?”
“Troubleshooters?” Josh asked.
The woman at Turcotte’s side cocked her head, studying them. “That’s what they’re calling you at the Bureau. To be honest, there might be some sarcasm involved. Some people are wondering if you’re going to ease troubles or cause them.”
Josh glanced at Voss. “I like her.”
“Me, too,” Voss said, before focusing on the woman again. “And probably a little bit of both, since you’re wondering.”
The woman raised her hands. “Hey, I said ‘some people.’ ”
“You did,” Josh admitted, his blue eyes glinting with mischief.
“Special Agent Nala Chang,” Turcotte broke in, “meet Agents Rachael Voss and Josh Hart, formerly FBI. Now, apparently, interagency cooperation coordinators for Homeland Security. Officially, our babysitters.”
“Though Troubleshooters is growing on me,” Josh said. “We’ll have to bring that up at the next meeting.”
“Good to meet you,” Chang said.
“So, what’ve you got?” Voss asked.
Turcotte frowned. “Weren’t you briefed?”
“Only on the players involved and the general stuff—home invasion, four DOA, possible terrorist connections. They stuck us on a plane too fast to give us the details. Anyway, our job isn’t to solve the case, it’s to offer whatever help we can and to make sure all of you don’t get in one another’s way while you’re trying to,” Voss explained.
“And if we do? Get in one another’s way, I mean?” Chang asked, with what seemed like genuine curiosity.
Josh and Voss exchanged a glance, but it was Turcotte who answered.
“Then they have the power to assume command of the investigation.”
Chang stared at him. “You’re fucking kidding!”
Turcotte glared at her, clearly not liking the profanity from a subordinate agent.
“I’m liking her even more,” Josh said.
But Voss kept her gaze fixed on Turcotte. “Ironic, isn’t it, Ed?”
“That’s one word for it,” he sniffed, then glanced at Chang. “Nala, run them through it, will you? Take them into the house and show them around. Then they can meet the rest of the folks they’ll be babysitting.”
“You’re the boss,” Chang said, turning and starting up a brick path toward the house. She glanced back at Voss and Josh. “You two coming?”
The sequence of events was off. Turcotte ought to have introduced them first and then sent Chang to give them the tour. Obviously, he wanted to warn the other lead investigators that the ICD Troubleshooters had arrived and to be on their best behavior—which in Turcotte’s terms might mean not sharing all the information. Voss knew this, and it pissed her off, but she had expected as much the moment she’d spotted him. In the end, it wouldn’t matter. She doubted the others would be foolish enough to go along with him when they knew it might cost them control of the case.
Josh headed up the walk after Chang, but Voss took a moment to scan the property and the front of the house, trying to look like she was taking in the whole scene when in fact she just wanted a better look at the other investigators talking to Turcotte. Two of them—an attractive young Latino and a graying white guy—wore radios and guns on their hips, marking them as state police. She figured the tall black guy in the tailored shirt must be the officer from U.S. Special Operations Command that she’d been told would be in attendance—though why U.S. SOCOM had anyone at all responding to a murder case on U.S. soil, she had no idea. Each branch of the armed forces had its own special operations command, handling counterterrorism, special recon, unconventional warfare, and psych-ops, among other, similarly sneaky, badass tasks. U.S. SOCOM was the unified command, giving orders all across the top, so nobody stepped on one another’s toes, but all of their operations took place on foreign soil.
The last guy was the one that bothered her most, though. He wore dark trousers and a red tie, hair perfectly in place despite the humidity, and looked like he never broke a sweat. His sleeves were turned up and she imagined he had left the jacket that went with his pants in the car, but he still looked like he would have been more at home in a corporate boardroom than at the site of a quadruple murder. He hung back from the others, listening to the conversation without contributing.
Voss caught up with Chang and Josh at the door and followed them inside.
“I assume I don’t have to tell you not to touch anything,” Chang said.
Josh gave her a look that said maybe he didn’t like her so much anymore. “We’ve only been away from the Bureau for five months.”
Chang paused in the foyer and smiled at him. “Yeah? How’s the new job?”
“Better benefits, fewer people to answer to, and vast power to stomp on assholes who put their egos before their jobs,” Josh said.
“Fun,” Chang replied.
Jesus, Voss thought. Is she flirting with him? She wasn’t jealous—or, at least, only a little. Josh was her best friend. They’d saved each other’s lives more than once and shared an intimacy that had never crossed the line into romance but sometimes danced right on the edge. Still, she was amazed at the effect Josh so often had on women other than his ex-wife. Yes, his eyes were startlingly blue and he had his gorgeous days, but there were better-looking guys.
Okay, maybe a little jealous.
“Out of curiosity, Agent Chang, who’s the suit out there in the driveway?”
Chang glanced around the foyer as though to orient herself. “Norris. Not sure if that’s his first or last name. He’s a consultant from Black Pine.”
Voss was glad Chang didn’t see the expression on her face. She frowned in distaste and turned to see Josh mirror her reaction. Black Pine Worldwide was a private military security and consulting firm who contracted with the U.S. government, among other clients, to provide everything from standard security to bodyguards to Black Ops, if the whispers were true … and she had no doubt they were.
“Why is he here?” Josh asked.
Chang turned to face them. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he’s consulting.”
“For who?” Voss said. “Who hired him?”
Now Chang got it and she frowned as well. “Actually, I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask him.”
“I will.”
Chang shrugged. “Okay, on with the tour. You can go over the whole house yourselves if you want, but there was no sign of forced entry on the first floor. It all went down on the second floor, while they were sleeping. I’ll show you the parents’ room, but if you want to check out the twins’ bedroom, you’re on your own. I’ll give you the lowdown, but I’m not going in there again.”
“Twins?” Josh echoed, his face going slack.
“Three-year-old boys,” Chang said, all of the spark gone from her eyes. “You didn’t know?”
Voss felt sick. Her hands curled into fists as she started up the stairs.