grown accustomed to in Los Angeles. Especially if his parents’ three-thousand-square-foot penthouse condo was any indication of the kind of quality he could expect—not that he could dream of affording something like that.
Eventually the steady rhythm of his feet pounding the pavement worked its magic. Rather than a confusing jumble of images, memories, questions, and thoughts, his consciousness seemed to stretch out in front of him like the road ahead. Tuesday on his way to work, he would put in a call to Patrick’s real estate agent. Then, he would focus on gleaning what he needed to know to make his transition into his new job go as smoothly as possible. As for church, and the people he had encountered there, he didn’t need to think about that for six more days. He shuddered, interrupting his study rhythm, at the memory of the young women at lunch today. He’d felt like the fatted calf thrown to a pack of ravenous wolves. One would have thought he was the only unmarried man at the table of twenty. Actually, one would have thought to he was the only single man in the whole of Nashville—or even Tennessee.
He had hoped, upon discovering his home church had such a largesingles’ group, that finding a wife—the next step on his life’s journey—would be easy. He hadn’t planned on Zarah’s presence making that completely impossible. Seeing her again after so long—seeing that she was more beautiful now than she had been at seventeen—these generic, bleached-blond Stepford girls would never be able to compete with her.
After about an hour, with thunderheads approaching from the west, Bobby headed back toward his grandparents’ house. The first few splashes of rain helped his cool-down efforts considerably as he made his way up the driveway at a slow jog.
He grabbed a quick shower and then pulled on a pair of khaki shorts and a blue polo shirt, but was only able to find one of his pair of favorite leather flip-flops. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he ever did find the second one, it would have some pretty big teeth marks on it. He tossed the single thong into the bin with the rest of the shoes he hadn’t needed yet and pulled out a different pair. Yes, not only would he call the real estate agent first thing Tuesday morning, he would let her know to look for properties with owners who wanted to close quickly. If worse came to worst, he might even be willing to rent for a while. He loved his grandparents; but, after just a few days, he was ready to be back in his own—dog-free—place. His cell phone beeped, indicating he’d missed a call while he was out and someone had left him a voice-mail message.
“Robert Patterson, this is Captain Carroll from the TCIU. I wonder if you might be available to come into the office for a few hours this afternoon. We have a new fraud investigation case we want you to take the lead on, and we’d like to bring you up to speed so you can hit the ground running on Tuesday. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience.” Bobby scrambled to find pen and paper and ran the message back twice to write down and double-check the phone number Captain Carroll left.
Excellent. Even though he’d been hired as a special agent in charge, he’d worried that he might get stuck with either administrative workor acting as a support person on someone else’s investigation for a while—exactly what had happened to him the last few months he was in California. Whatever this new case was, he would put all his efforts into closing it quickly and showing Carroll the kind of asset he would be to the unit. With no family of his own and, as of yet, no outside commitments, he could devote almost all his time and energy to the investigation.
These bad guys had no idea what they were in for.
Chapter 6
S o you had absolutely no forewarning that he was going to be there?”
“None whatsoever. I walked through the door, and—bang!—there he was.”
“Excuse me, but I’m the one
Eventually the steady rhythm of his feet pounding the pavement worked its magic. Rather than a confusing jumble of images, memories, questions, and thoughts, his consciousness seemed to stretch out in front of him like the road ahead. Tuesday on his way to work, he would put in a call to Patrick’s real estate agent. Then, he would focus on gleaning what he needed to know to make his transition into his new job go as smoothly as possible. As for church, and the people he had encountered there, he didn’t need to think about that for six more days. He shuddered, interrupting his study rhythm, at the memory of the young women at lunch today. He’d felt like the fatted calf thrown to a pack of ravenous wolves. One would have thought he was the only unmarried man at the table of twenty. Actually, one would have thought to he was the only single man in the whole of Nashville—or even Tennessee.
He had hoped, upon discovering his home church had such a largesingles’ group, that finding a wife—the next step on his life’s journey—would be easy. He hadn’t planned on Zarah’s presence making that completely impossible. Seeing her again after so long—seeing that she was more beautiful now than she had been at seventeen—these generic, bleached-blond Stepford girls would never be able to compete with her.
After about an hour, with thunderheads approaching from the west, Bobby headed back toward his grandparents’ house. The first few splashes of rain helped his cool-down efforts considerably as he made his way up the driveway at a slow jog.
He grabbed a quick shower and then pulled on a pair of khaki shorts and a blue polo shirt, but was only able to find one of his pair of favorite leather flip-flops. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he ever did find the second one, it would have some pretty big teeth marks on it. He tossed the single thong into the bin with the rest of the shoes he hadn’t needed yet and pulled out a different pair. Yes, not only would he call the real estate agent first thing Tuesday morning, he would let her know to look for properties with owners who wanted to close quickly. If worse came to worst, he might even be willing to rent for a while. He loved his grandparents; but, after just a few days, he was ready to be back in his own—dog-free—place. His cell phone beeped, indicating he’d missed a call while he was out and someone had left him a voice-mail message.
“Robert Patterson, this is Captain Carroll from the TCIU. I wonder if you might be available to come into the office for a few hours this afternoon. We have a new fraud investigation case we want you to take the lead on, and we’d like to bring you up to speed so you can hit the ground running on Tuesday. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience.” Bobby scrambled to find pen and paper and ran the message back twice to write down and double-check the phone number Captain Carroll left.
Excellent. Even though he’d been hired as a special agent in charge, he’d worried that he might get stuck with either administrative workor acting as a support person on someone else’s investigation for a while—exactly what had happened to him the last few months he was in California. Whatever this new case was, he would put all his efforts into closing it quickly and showing Carroll the kind of asset he would be to the unit. With no family of his own and, as of yet, no outside commitments, he could devote almost all his time and energy to the investigation.
These bad guys had no idea what they were in for.
Chapter 6
S o you had absolutely no forewarning that he was going to be there?”
“None whatsoever. I walked through the door, and—bang!—there he was.”
“Excuse me, but I’m the one
Similar Books
