Framed For Murder. Mary Alford

THIRTEEN

       FOURTEEN

       FIFTEEN

       SIXTEEN

       SEVENTEEN

       EIGHTEEN

       Extract

       Copyright

       ONE

      You’re being set up... The moment Agent Liz Ramirez switched on the burner phone and read the text message, her stomach turned to ice.

      The number attached had been blocked. The sender wanted to remain anonymous. That it had come through on her burner phone was disturbing enough. No one knew the number except...Michael.

      Her fear for his well-being spiraled. It had been growing most of the day.

      She thought about her partner, Michael Harris’ earlier depression. When she’d dropped him off at his home after he’d been released from the hospital, she’d sensed something was bothering him even though he refused to talk about it.

      Now, standing on his front porch, the same feeling of unease that had followed throughout the day resurfaced.

      Liz rang the doorbell. “Michael, are you in there?” she called out when nothing stirred inside.

      His car was in the drive. The house looked the same as when she’d left Michael to get some rest, yet the hair standing at full attention on her arms warned her the feeling was neither a figment of her imagination nor a remnant of recent events creeping in.

      With the Scorpion team’s latest capture of their top terrorist threat known as the Fox, and the weapons he’d supposedly smuggled into the US still missing, the implication hinted at by his second-in-command still troubled Liz. Was someone else involved in the operation? Someone closer than any of them wanted to believe?

      She tried his phone once more. She could hear it ringing inside.

      Liz reached for the door handle. It opened freely in her hand. As a member of the CIA’s elite Scorpion team, Michael would know security was critical. The team had been tasked with bringing down some of the most deadly terrorists operating around the world and because of it, they had enemies everywhere. Michael wouldn’t deliberately leave the door unlocked.

      With her heart hammering in her chest, she reached for her weapon, eased through the door and into the house.

      “Michael, where are you?” The quiet of the house settled around her without answer.

      Liz forced herself to breathe as she glanced around the living room. Nothing appeared out of place. His phone lay on the end table as if he’d tossed it there.

      “Michael,” she called out as she eased to the bedroom. She touched the unmade bed. It was cold. He hadn’t been here in a while. A quick search of the closet and adjoining rooms proved fruitless.

      That left just one more place. The kitchen. Her stomach chewed with tension. Something was wrong; her heartbeat drummed in warning. It felt as if she were walking through cement as she slowly entered the kitchen and saw it. In an instant, her world crumbled and her worst fear became a reality.

      Michael lay sprawled facedown on the tile floor. A pool of drying blood framed part of his head.

      Her hand flew to cover her mouth. “Michael,” she said in a broken voice then dropped to her knees next to him. He was cold to the touch. Rigor mortis hadn’t yet set in. A single gunshot wound to his right temple confirmed the method of death. But the murder weapon was nowhere in sight.

      Bile rose in her throat and she sucked in handfuls of breaths before it finally subsided. She couldn’t wrap her head around the truth staring her in the face. Michael had been murdered.

      Tears filled her eyes, spilled over and soaked her jeans, yet she was powerless to stop them. The man who’d become like a brother to her was gone and she couldn’t have felt guiltier.

      Since they’d started working together a little more than a year earlier, she and Michael had just clicked. They had the same sense of humor. Liked the same type of action movies, and when they worked in the field, they could almost anticipate each other’s moves. That’s how she’d known something was wrong with her partner. And yet she’d ignored the warning signals.

      Aaron. She needed to let Agent Aaron Foster know what had happened. Time was critical. As field commander of the CIA’s elite eight-member Scorpion team, it was Aaron’s job to monitor terrorist activity and prevent the recently stolen weapons from falling into the wrong hands. There was little doubt in Liz’s mind that Michael’s death was related to the Scorpion’s capture of the Fox.

      She and Aaron had grown close through the years and Liz trusted him with her life. He was a natural born leader and a good man. She respected him like crazy, even though from time to time, they butted heads.

      Aaron answered on first ring. “Liz? Are you okay?” The lateness of the hour was proof enough that she wasn’t calling to chat.

      “No, I’m not. It’s Michael...” She stopped when her voice threatened to crack. “Aaron, he’s been murdered.”

      The silence that followed her declaration confirmed the magnitude of the news. Aaron was just as shocked as she had been.

      “How? When?” His broken questions were heavy with emotion. Aaron loved Michael as well. Everyone on the close-knit team did.

      Liz stuffed down her feelings. She needed to do this as a professional. Michael deserved her best.

      “A gunshot wound to the head,” she said quietly. “He was killed at close range. From the size of the entry wound, I’d say it was a Glock.”

      “Are you in danger?” Aaron asked with his concern for her safety intensifying his voice. Their friendship was just as important to him as it was to her. She struggled to stay focused. “No, he’s been dead for a while. Whomever did this is long gone.”

      “I’m on my way. I’ll call in Gavin and Alex. We’ll be there soon.”

      She ended the call without answering and stared at the man that she’d shared so many good moments with.

      “I’m sorry, Michael. So sorry I wasn’t there for you,” she whispered and meant it as she scrubbed tears from her face and got to her feet.

      Michael’s house had now become a crime scene and she had to tread carefully. She’d unknowingly contaminated the door handle by entering the house. It stood to reason that the killer would have touched it at some point. The door had been unlocked.

      Using her shirt as protection, she grabbed his phone and checked the outgoing calls. Michael hadn’t called anyone in days. Hers were the only incoming today. Had she been the last person to see him alive until the killer arrived?

      She thought about his strange behavior after she’d picked him up at the hospital. Was it all due to his near-death experience? She and Michael had been forced at gunpoint into a chopper by the Fox. They both could have died when it crashed to the ground outside a small town in Pennsylvania two weeks earlier. She’d suffered a fractured wrist, a few bruised ribs and some cuts and scrapes. Her