Specter
Circuit Series Book One
Lacey Dailey
Copyright © 2018 by Lacey Dailey
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by: Lacey Dailey
Proofreading: All Encompassing Books
Cover Photo: Christian Sterk
Cover Design: T.L. Shimmons
To Jacob:
* * *
For that one time in fifth grade you shoved a crayon up that poor girl’s nose because she wouldn’t stop picking on you.
* * *
You’re a badass.
Contents
Prologue
1. Wren
2. Wren
3. Wren
4. Sage
5. Sage
6. Wren
7. Wren
8. Sage
9. Wren
10. Sage
11. Wren
12. Sage
13. Sage
14. Wren
15. Sage
16. Sage
17. Wren
18. Wren
19. Sage
20. Sage
21. Sage
22. Sage
23. Wren
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Lacey Dailey
Prologue
The heavy knock on her door should’ve woken her up from a deep sleep. It was six in the morning and she was wide awake, staring vacantly at a brightly painted wall. The yellow she’d chosen was vibrant and reminded her of sunflowers. That is what she told her husband when he’d come home from work and found her rolling the rays of the sun on their wall.
It was vibrant. Overwhelming and way too much. Guests looked shocked when they’d seen it, and her mother had scolded her, insisting she’d ruined her chances of reselling one day. Nobody would ever want to buy a place with a yellow wall. But it didn’t matter because she loved it. And that meant he did too.
Her wall of sun had since lost its vibrancy. It may as well have been sprayed jet black. It did nothing to make the room lively, and frankly, she was sick of staring at it.
She forced one leg in front of the other when the knock sounded again. She glanced down at her outfit, noting the same purple peplum dress she’d put on five nights ago when she sat down on the couch to wait for her husband. When he didn’t return, she kept waiting. After the third night, she knew he wasn’t coming back and cried until her eyes were dry.
She looked through the peephole of her front door, spotting a large man with lips pressed together and impatience splashed across his face. The long dark braid that fell down his back would’ve given away his identity if he didn’t already have the eyepatch to do it for him.
She knew who he was, what he did, and why her husband needed him. She didn’t agree, but there wasn’t anything she could do. This man had connections to a bigger man. One who supplied her husband with what doctors couldn’t give him. She slept a full night’s sleep only after reminding herself the man behind her door had helped her husband walk.
Now, all her brain would put out is the idea that the man behind the door was the reason her husband was dead.
She backed away from the door, turning and heading towards the bay window that overlooked the porch. She pulled back the curtains and used trembling hands to push the window upward. Even with the screen and absence of the sun, the sticky, Miami heat hit her like a slap in the face. She gasped once, pulling pieces of hair off her sweaty cheeks.
“Mrs. Clemmons?”
She’d made a sound to confirm it was her and kept a firm grip on the handles of the window when she heard the heavy sound of his footsteps that told her he was approaching.
“Good evening, ma’am.”
She’d snorted at his greeting. He spoke as if he were a gentleman greeting her for dinner rather than a criminal standing on her doorstep in the early hours of the morning.
“Mrs. Clemmons, I’m here to pass along a message.”
“He’s dead, right?” She cleared her throat and spoke the words again. The first time she’d rasped them, they were barely audible. Sounded like sandpaper on gravel. She wet her tongue, blinking rapidly at the familiar moisture filling her eyes.
“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Clemmons.” He dipped his head. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He wasn’t sorry. She knew that. Her husband was just another man to collect money from. Another customer to keep business booming.
“How?”
He clapped his hands in front of him, widening his stance. “The FBI performed a drug raid. A handful of my men went to prison. My boss included. Many shots were fired. Your husband was collateral damage.”
“Are you trying to insinuate a federal agent shot my husband? In a room full of bad guys, you’re going to expect me to believe it was the good guys?”
His muscles stiffened. A low snarl came from between his lips. She knew she’d said too much. Took it too far and made the man with a gun strapped to his waist angry.
But she just couldn’t bring herself to care.
“Listen, princess. Me and my men ain’t in the business of making house calls. You think if we killed your old man, I’d be on this porch? Hell no.”
His phony facade was long gone. He wasn’t the polite gentleman he was a few minutes ago. Though she’d instigated his switch, something told her it didn’t usually take much to flip it.
“If you aren’t normally one to make house calls, why are you here?”
“Because!” He spat, as if the mere thought of her not understanding enraged him. “Them Feds shot your husband! Your so-called good guys are killers! Me and my men is busting our asses every day to help your old man and we’re still considered bad guys! You got your shit twisted, lady.”
They were bad guys. Despite the fact they consistently helped her husband, they were bad humans. She knew it down to her bones. And she wasn’t so sure she believed a man who smelled of liquor.
“Where is his body? Why isn’t the FBI here telling me about his death?”
He thrust his finger at the screen. “They ain’t here because my men took him. Shit happened fast, princess. Them pigs shot your man and kept walking. Didn’t even check to see if he had a pulse. My man, Frankie, drug his body away. You ask me? You is lucky the FBI ain’t here raiding your house for drugs and asking a million questions.”
“I want his body.”
“I suppose you could have it. Probably rotted up by now.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks at the way this man spoke about her husband. Her best friend. The sweet boy she’d met at the age of fourteen. They’d conquered every milestone together.
And she didn’t know how to handle his death without him.
Vomit rose up her throat at his vile description. She didn’t bother to move her curtains or hold back her hair before she bent at the waist and hurled everywhere.
She heaved for a long time, gasped for breath in between sobbing and hurling. She was surprised when she sat back up and found the man still standing on the other side of the screen.
She rolled her head, miserable eyes meeting his. “Why are you still here?”
“Them Feds killed your man, girl. Didn’t even think t
hat there might have been people inside that house that wasn’t working. He was in the way and they took him out when he got scared and started to run. You don’t think that’s fucked up?”
She did. She thought it was on high levels of fucked up. She knew what her husband was doing was wrong. Knew he could’ve faced jail time and got mixed up with some bad people. But he didn’t deserve to die.
And she had no chance to say goodbye.
“It’s fucked up.” She rasped, swiping at her face. If that’s what he wanted, her to admit the precious police had fucked up, he could go now.
“Ain’t it? That your husband is dead. Four of my men are dead. My boss is in jail after being shot and barely surviving. All that damage they did and they were still on the news made out to be some heroes who took down a drug ring. I dunno 'bout you, but that don’t sound like some heroism to me.”
It sounded like absolute bullshit. Her husband was a firing target for a couple of officers who had their eyes on a bigger picture. She couldn’t deny what he did was wrong, but there would be no mention of his death. No apology. No talk about all the good he did or the suffering he endured after his accident.
He was suddenly nothing. Just gone.
She’d wake up tomorrow and it’d be like he never existed. He was nothing to the FBI while the man who sips his flask before the sun comes up is making him out to be something.
Rage filled her petite body. She threw her back and screamed. Wild and unrestrained. Screamed while hot tears barreled down her cheeks.
She was pissed.
And broken.
And conflicted.
“What they did ain’t right.” The man spoke, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He screwed the lid back on his flask. “And my men? We done with it. We got a plan to expose what they did. Show the public their superheroes ain’t so damn high and mighty.” He leaned close to the screen, alcohol assaulting her nose. Her stomach churned, and she swallowed down the rising vomit. “We could use a hand. You in?”
Her eyes nearly fell out. “In with your plan? No. My husband is dead. I’m alive.”
Barely. But she was. And if her husband were here, he wouldn’t want her anything but.
The man’s laugh surprised her. “All due respect, lady, you ain’t exactly someone we’re looking to have on our team. We don’t ever have to have more contact than an email. Just need someone to tie up a loose end. Your career could come in handy.”
And his house call suddenly made sense. This man felt no sympathy. He had justice to seek for his friend. And agents to rain revenge down on. He didn’t have time to visit widows.
Unless it benefitted him.
“I can’t help you.”
“You sure? It’d be real easy. Your pretty self would just go about a normal day, sending an extra email every once in a while. Once our plan is complete, you’ll never hear from us again and the Feds will be exposed for the rat shit they are.”
She went over his words. Her mind was an internal battle of right and wrong. But the line between the two was blurred long before this moment. The group of people who were supposed to always do right had done wrong. And there would be no consequences for their wrongful actions.
Her husband paid for his actions with his life.
It enraged her, drove her wild and forced another agonized shout from her chest.
“What would I have to do?”
He grinned, slow and menacing. “Your normal job.”
“What’s the agenda here?”
“Told you. There’s a piece to our plan that don’t fit. We need to keep an eye on it, make sure it won’t go rogue before we can put it back the way we want it. You’ll act as a distraction, send some words if they start acting up or talking funny. I’ll fill you in on the trip.”
“Trip? Are we going somewhere?”
“All part of the plan, girl. Start packing.” He stood up, popped his neck, and adjusted his belt. “You ever been to Arlington, Virginia?”
1
Wren
8 months later
* * *
I stared into my paper cup, eyes fixated on the lone ice cube that was fighting not to become another reason why my Diet Coke went from fizzy and delicious to lukewarm and flat. It floated towards the top, not much thicker than my fingernail at that point but I had to give it credit for being the last cube floating.
In the end, it would perish.
Just like the other twelve cubes did.
I lifted the paper cup off my desk, using the sleeve of my fleece sweater to wipe away the ring of condensation it left on the wood. I was extra careful not to swallow the ice cube warrior.
His defeat would come.
But I wouldn’t be the reason for it.
Watching ice melt was an exceedingly underwhelming way to spend an afternoon. But it was how I spent all of them. My undeniable addiction to Diet Coke was a topic of conversation every time I visited my mother. She was positive my Coca-Cola intake would result in a cancer diagnosis.
What type of cancer I’d get was still unknown.
But according to her, each time I took a sip of the stuff I was one step closer to death.
So I sipped it slowly. Prolonging my good health and impending cancer diagnosis. But giving up Diet Coke all together was something I could not do. The Aspartame in that one cup was like Nicotine to a smoker. It got me through the day.
When I was offered the position to be head of Tech Support for a start-up company pegged to make six figures in their first six months of business straight out of college, I’d thought I hit the motherload. Turns out, head of Tech Support for a recruiting firm was more mundane than watching ice melt. I was rarely needed. When the services I spent four years perfecting at DeVry University were requested, I used them long enough to shuffle down a hall and into an office to plug in a power cord that somehow fell out of the power strip located on the bottom of somebody’s desk.
Then it was back to my ice warrior.
Don’t get me wrong, SevTeck paid me well. So well I often felt bad for spending hours on end naming small blocks of ice and watching them die. My mom told me having a job that pays well and barely lifting a finger to earn those wages was every man’s dream.
It’s why I stayed and spent my time plugging in power cords for aggressive headhunters instead of stopping servers from crashing like I thought I’d be doing.
SevTeck must be pretty damn hooked up in the Tech department for not having one serious crash in the last two years.
Wonder who programmed their system.
Oh, wait.
It was me.
SevTeck was comprised of three owners. One owner was a man who stood at almost seven feet tall. Had to have his three-piece suits made specially. He played college basketball until he tore his ACL and was forced to take his education seriously. He owned a third of this company and asked everyone who works for him to call him Hal. Why? I had no damn idea. His name was Craig.
One owner was a baker turned badass recruiter who wore jeans and untied tennis shoes to run an internationally successful company every day. Kate was the exact same age as me. In fact, I was pretty certain we were only a few weeks apart in age. And you can bet your bottom dollar she has no idea what watching ice melt can do to a person’s will to live.
The third owner was a hot-headed tigress who scared the living shit out of any new employee and would rip their skin off their body if they even thought about making a mistake. She was the sole reason I was given this job. Her name was Lilah Wilder, and she was my older sister.
How the hell Craig, Kate, and Lilah became friends was truly beyond me. Lilah claimed it started with her and Craig back in college bonding over a study group. They stayed in touch after graduation and spent their monthly catch up meetings in a bakery Kate’s family owned. Long story short, they were all bitching about their boring ass jobs and decided to start a company.
I wondered then if I started whining about how boring my job was if there
was anybody who’d run into my office with a million-dollar idea. I could start a business. My last cube had melted. What else did I have to do?
“You don’t look like you’re working very hard.”
My sister’s pursed lips and stormy eyes compiled with her sleek red dress and sky-high pumps would have sent a lesser person running. Me? I wasn’t afraid of her business persona. The badass bitch spent her nights in pajama pants with kittens on them and screamed at the TV while she watched The Bachelor and stuffed herself with cookie dough.
“That is entirely untrue.” I argued, spinning in my leather desk chair. “I’ve been watching ice melt and killing myself with Diet Coke.”
Her eyebrows raised as she scanned the paper cup filled with dark liquid. “Can’t you just drink water?”
I groaned, flopping back in my chair, arms flailed outward like I was shot in the chest. “Not you too! Lilah, water has no taste!”
“It does so! It tastes crisp and refreshing.”
“Crisp and refreshing?” I snorted. “You just described a cucumber.”
“So get some cucumber flavoring and pour it into a bottle of water.”
“Or.” I sat up in my chair, pushing my glasses back up my nose and clapping my hands together like a brilliant idea just struck me. “I could keep sucking down my Aspartame.”
Her dark eyes rolled deep into her head, her heels clicking against the hard floor as she made her way into my office. She shoved some papers aside and made herself a home on the edge of my desk. “Are you going to be at brunch on Sunday?”
Specter: Circuit Series Book One Page 1
