Her Rocky Mountain Defender. Jennifer D. Bokal

       Prologue

      Roman DeMarco sat at the table in the kitchen of a cramped studio apartment. Like an ever-present fog, the smell of overcooked eggs crept in from the hallway. In the distance, a baby’s wail pierced the still afternoon. He lifted his weary gaze to the window. The view was of the stained brick building next door. Roman had lived under an alias—Roman Black—paying rent and sleeping in this apartment for almost half of a year, yet this place wasn’t his home.

      Turning his gaze back to the table, Roman held up his latest creation. It was a powerful ELD, or electronic listening device. He hit the power button. A small rectangular screen glowed and filled with boxy script. It held two words: Signal Obtained.

      During his years as an intelligence officer with Delta Force, Roman had bugged many rooms. But this next target had proved to be uniquely difficult.

      As far as Roman was concerned, he loved the challenge. The targeted room—underground and made of concrete—was the first problem. Any signal coming from the room needed to be strong, and using an easily hidden, thumb-size ELD was impossible. It left Roman to fashion his own device. The bug might be larger than he wanted, but the battery should be powerful enough to last fourteen days. Or so he hoped.

      “Testing. Testing. One. Two. Three,” he said.

      He pressed a small button on the side. His words were replayed. “Testing. Testing. One. Two. Three.”

      He turned the device over and examined the back. Two powerful magnets lined each side of the ELD. He moved to his refrigerator and held out the black box. Like a live thing, the magnets pulled, and the ELD wiggled in his grasp. He let go and it sailed an inch from his hand, connecting with the appliance’s metal casing. He smiled to himself. If things went as planned, Roman was about to reclaim his former life.

      It couldn’t come a day too soon.

       Chapter 1

      Boulder, Colorado.

      9:45 PM

      May 5

      “There you go,” Roman DeMarco said. He poured whiskey into a shot glass and slid the drink to a customer. Moving to the next person, he cast his gaze at the room. It was still early in the evening, but more than two dozen patrons filled The Prow.

      No, patron wasn’t the right word; it gave the bar an air of respectability it didn’t deserve. This place was the last stop on a person’s long, downhill slide to the gutter. Only a few recessed lights over the bar illuminated the windowless room. The smell of stale beer, body odor and desperation hung in the air. The constant thump, thump, thump of a rock song pounded through the stereo system, the bass so deep that the sticky floor reverberated with the chords. The occasional cackle of drunken laughter cut through the music—the sound more manic than merry.

      Singles hunched protectively over their drinks, while couples cast furtive glances at each other and moved toward darkened corners. The words, The Prow—spelled out in neon letters three feet high—were superimposed on the front of an illuminated sailing ship as it cut through a glowing wave. The sign hung on the back wall and cast a bloody light on a motorcycle club shooting a game of pool.

      It would have been easy for Roman to feel disdain for these people, the forgotten of the world. But he didn’t, not at all.

      He wasn’t your average bartender. No, as an employee of Rocky Mountain Justice, a private security firm, Roman was at The Prow to gather information about the bar’s owner, Oleg Zavalov.

      Five months prior, RMJ had gained information about Nikolai Mateev, a Russian drug lord who was wanted all over the world. The recent intel suggested that Zavalov not only laundered money for Mateev, but employed his great-nephew, as well. But what RMJ needed was proof—and that meant putting one of their people on the inside. With dual specialties in electronic surveillance and languages, Roman was the perfect man for the job.

      It was hard to break through, though. Zavalov, mistrustful by nature, kept a tightly knit duo of two Russian nationals with him all the time. One of them was indeed Nikolai Mateev’s great-nephew. Beyond that, in five months Roman had gleaned woefully little information about the suspected money laundering. Yet, he hoped that once he planted that ELD in Oleg Zavalov’s office, all of that would change.

      Now all he needed was an excuse to get into the locked basement and plant the bug.

      A regular, a cop who drank for free, approached and slammed down an empty glass. “Another beer,” he said, running a hand through his thick blond hair. Worse than anyone else was the cop who turned a blind eye to the rampant crime in this place for free beer.

      Roman faked a smile.

      “Sure,” he said, grabbing the glass. He turned to the tap and pulled down the handle. Foam spit and gurgled from the tap. An empty keg was the perfect reason to get into the basement.

      “This one’s spent, Jackson,” he said to the cop. Jackson. Roman could never figure out if it was a first or last name. “Give me a minute. I need to get a new keg from the basement,” Roman said, turning to the manager as Jackson shifted his attention to a group of women nearby.

      The manager held out a ring with three keys and Roman took them with a nod. He unlocked the basement door marked as private, and flipped on the light switch. The golden glow of a single bulb illuminated a set of dilapidated wooden stairs, cinder block walls and a patch of gunmetal-gray concrete of the basement floor.

      A hallway with four doors was laid out at the bottom of the stairs. The back door, controlled with an electronic lock, led to the alley behind the bar. On the left there was a locked door to the beer cooler and next door, a storage room filled with cheap liquor and stale snacks. The final door, the one that led to Oleg Zavalov’s office, was on the right.

      Roman didn’t waste any time. He quickly unlocked Zavalov’s office door and slipped inside. Using the penlight he kept in his back pocket, he withdrew the ELD and powered up the device. A small green screen began to glow. One word appeared: Acquiring.

      “Damn.” He moved closer to the door. Still no connection. He glanced at his watch. He’d been gone less than two minutes, but how much longer before his absence was noticed upstairs?

      The inset screen still glowed green as one word scrolled across its face.

      Acquiring.

      Acquiring.

      The sound of footsteps on the stairs drew his attention. He glanced at the screen one last time. Signal Obtained. Roman placed the ELD under the top of Zavalov’s desk, an imperfect place, but the best option he had. The door creaked open, giving Roman a split second to think up an excuse for being in a room that was unquestionably off-limits.

      * * *

      Madelyn Thompkins wasn’t in the habit of sneaking down rickety staircases in dive bars. But this was the opposite of habit: according to social media, her sister, Ava had been at The Prow less than an hour before.

      No one had heard from Ava since she checked out of rehab in their hometown of Cheyenne, Wyoming, four months ago. So to have her turn up in Boulder, where Madelyn was enrolled in med school? It was an opportunity she couldn’t squander.

      Despite the crummy neighborhood and the sketchy bar, Madelyn came straightaway. A quick search of both the main bar and the bathroom turned up nothing. It left her with two choices: give up on her first chance in months to find her sister, or explore the entire building—even the parts that were off-limits, like the basement hallway she was standing in. Then again, when she thought of it that way, Madelyn didn’t have a choice at all.

      She pushed the slightly ajar door fully open and peered into the room. A figure, shrouded with the dark, moved. She wasn’t alone. Her pulse spiked and she bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering.

      “Hello,”