Read Online Cold Fear by Rick Mofina - Free Book Online

she
overheard two out-of-state female agents chuckling behind her back about her
size.
    After Mark’s birth, Bowman had become some thirty pounds
heavier than she should be for five feet seven inches. Her weight had been a
life-long struggle for her. She pretended she did not hear their remarks, but
they hurt. She tried to shake it off; she knew she was fit, strong, a good,
dedicated agent.
    But somebody must have said something up the chain of
command. For not long after the Freemen case ended peacefully with arrests, she
was reminded constantly of fitness requirements and confined to computer work
at her desk, assisting with NHQ on Internet crime.
    The Bureau envisioned her post as holding potential to
gather criminal intelligence, but that never really happened. Bowman became a
vehicle for clerical requests made by other agents in the region needing data
from the Internet. She soon tired of it. Many days, when she had little to do,
she sat at her desk, chewing carrot and celery sticks, gazing out her office
window, longing to be freed from office job to do criminal investigative field
work.
    Then came the winter night Carl answered a radio call in
a snowstorm. A bus carrying a girls’ basketball team from Wyoming broke down on
Interstate 90, west of Garrison. They had trouble getting someone to come out.
Carl was on the road returning from business in Drummond. But he never made it
home that night. He turned around to help the girls. Not long after he arrived,
a Freightliner hauling Christmas toys for malls in Spokane jackknifed, crashing
into the bus. Carl and one of the girls were killed.
    Bowman’s life changed forever that night. She thought
she would never survive but she hung on. For Mark. They helped each other.
    It’s okay if you feel like crying a little today,
Mom, he would tell her in the months after it
happened.
    They endured.
    After Carl’s death, Bowman’s attempts to escape her desk
job seemed futile, but she did not give up. A few years later, she had shed
some pounds but was still a little overweight. The hell with it, she thought,
she was fit strong and could perform her duties.
    Her hope for a change came recently after she took more
training at the Academy. Bowman had an analytical mind that took her to the top
percentile when she completed specialized courses at Quantico in the Violent
Crimes and Major Offenders Program. It covered everything from fugitives to
sexual exploitation of children, kidnappings to assaults against the president.
Bowman was hopeful her course work would make her a candidate for assignment to
Violent Crimes, which had current openings in the Los Angeles, Chicago and Dallas divisions.
    Just before Carl’s death, Mark was diagnosed with a rare
lung ailment. Those three cities had medical centers specializing in
ground-breaking research on Mark’s condition. It would give Bowman peace of
mind to be close to one of them.
    Medication helped Mark’s lungs function properly,
allowing him to live the normal life of a nine-year-old. He loved school,
computers and dinosaurs. They had visited key sites in Montana, Colorado and Alberta. Mark designed his own dinosaur Web site and posted it on the
Internet, which Bowman monitored. You never know what’s lurking out there.
    She was expecting to hear word on her applications for
the out-of-town jobs any day now. She was originally from Miles City
and feeling bittersweet about the possibility of leaving Montana. The insurance
claims had long been settled. She had sold Carl’s business. They had a little
money to start a new life. She and Mark both needed a fresh page, she thought,
reaching into the popcorn bowl, watching Duke in all his glory, reins in his
teeth, guns blazing. Bowman’s telephone rang. She grabbed it.
    “Tracy, Roger Cole in Billings.”
    She sat up. Cole was the resident agent for Montana. “We’ve got a situation and you’re going to be involved. In fact, your name came up
from Washington for this.”
    Her