LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

      Abigail Redland had never heard so many different birdcalls in her life. Hunched on the dirt floor of a long-ago abandoned play fort, she hard-swallowed a laugh. Imagine, she was having more fun in the deer-tick-infested woods of central Pennsylvania than she’d ever had in her office at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. Cramped muscles from the long night of surveillance included. She stretched her legs in front of her, careful to remain silent as her hamstrings protested with sharp spasms.

      “You still there, Abi?” Rio Ortego’s voice sounded in her earpiece and broke through her mental distraction.

      “Here. Nothing.”

      “Roger.” Rio was all business, as usual. Not only was Rio the Silver Valley Police Department detective who ran their current op, he was also a fellow Trail Hiker secret agent. Abi still had to pinch herself that she’d landed her new job with the autonomous government shadow agency so quickly after she’d left the FBI.

      Because of its secrecy, she’d never heard of Trail Hikers. The fact that it was headquartered only two hours north of DC and yet a world away in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, had intrigued her. As had the scope of their missions, international and domestic, outlined to her by the Trail Hiker CEO, Claudia Michele, a retired Marine Corps General. That had been almost three months ago, and Abi would be forever grateful to Claudia for finding her via the FBI’s database of departing employees. Abi figured she’d have to take a job that wouldn’t use her arson expertise as a cushion between the FBI and whatever came next. Being a Trail Hiker agent was a godsend, even if she still didn’t know what was going to come next. All she knew was that she didn’t want to be taking down bad guys for the rest of her life.

      Abi used her binoculars to go over every visible part of the house across the woods for what had to be the hundredth time in two hours and she all but willed their target to appear. She was at most one hundred yards from the house but the binoculars were invaluable. At least she didn’t have to rely on the night-vision goggles any longer—the sun had been up for a good hour.

      As if summoned by her thoughts, two ominous booms preceded a thin line of smoke wafting on the early morning breeze—her only warning before the sight of graceful flames registered as they licked up the side of the old, abandoned home.

      “We’ve got heat. Flames. Heading in.” She dropped her binoculars and began to unfold herself from her hidden position on the ground.

      “No, Abi, stay put. We’ve called the fire department in. Watch for the arsonist.”

      “We’ll never catch him if you keep relying on the SVFD, boss.”

      Rio didn’t respond and Abi didn’t expect any different. She didn’t have anything against the local fire department—Silver Valley Fire Department wanted the bastard as much as, if not more than, the Trail Hikers and Silver Valley PD combined. They’d all been tracking this loser for the better part of three months. He’d set building after building on fire, each time leaving a fireproof message in his wake, either outside near but far enough from the blaze, or, in many cases, in a fireproof lockbox. Always a warning for Silver Valley to “listen to God” and “revert to the old ways.”

      The mental image of the printed, computer-generated messages, all part of the evidence file, made her grind her teeth. Chances were that the fire starter was long gone, as most arsonists fled the scene immediately after committing their crime. He may have set the stage for the flames a day ago, to enable a quick entry and exit from the scene. Anger engulfed her as she faced the hard fact that he’d somehow sneaked in and out without her or the police or fire department’s notice. Certainly none of the SVFD’s walk-throughs had yielded hard evidence, either.

      Abi resumed her vigil anyway, which was automatic from years of FBI fieldwork. She forced herself to still and listen intently for any telltale signs of a human being. There had been none when she’d arrived four hours ago, well before sunup. The fire department had searched the house, along with several other empty buildings, last night and, from what Rio had told her, SVFD had found no indication of flammables or explosives in any of the suspected structures.

      She stared at the old farmhouse. A farmhouse that probably should have been razed decades ago judging from the weathered clapboards and rusty hinges visible from the outside. She hadn’t gone in to inspect it with the firefighters; as a secret Trail Hiker operative she had to remain as invisible as she could. Her cover as a special contractor to the police department worked but there was no need to push it.

      Only a handful of Silver Valley PD officers knew about the Trail Hikers, and the secret government shadow agency put a capital S in secret. It was easy enough to blend into the police department, though, as it regularly had civilians coming and going. It would be much more difficult to do her work in a fire department without loaded questions regarding her identity. Besides, she didn’t think any Silver Valley FD firefighters had been read into the Trail Hikers or she’d have met them as part of this case. Trail Hikers was so classified that she wasn’t privy to who was a part of the agency and who wasn’t. Abi didn’t care about that, anyhow—she was damn grateful to have this job. It was the perfect transition to her new life, whatever that would be.

      Twigs snapped and a loud thud made the ground quake. Her spine stiffened and she looked through every crack in the fort, taking care to stay as quiet as possible.

      “Crap!” The oath was followed by the sound of heavy steps on the forest floor and jeans-clad legs entered her field of vision.

      Carefully and intentionally, Abi crawled toward the entrance of the fort, her weapon drawn. When the feet began to sound a pattern moving away from her, she burst out of the shed.

      “Police!”

      She made out a tall figure, male, in a hooded sweatshirt. He turned in her direction and revealed a face covered with a ski mask. His single, deliberate hand gesture made his intention clear before

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