DISCONNECT (The Bening Files Book 2) Read online

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLES

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  BLURB

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  DEAR READER

  Acknowledgements

  AFTERMATH

  BLURB

  LINKED

  BLURB

  Also available from Rachel Trautmiller

  The Bening Files

  Linked

  Don’t miss the next books in The Bening Files, coming soon

  Aftermath

  Contingent

  DISCONNECT

  Copyright © 2015 Rachel Trautmiller

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews and articles without the prior written consent of the author.

  Cover Design by Rachel Trautmiller

  Published by RT-Miller Publishers

  Photo © Mere May Studios

  This book is a work of fiction. When real establishments, organizations, events or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements and all characters in this novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

  To the choices you will make.

  May they be filled with enough wisdom to carry you through.

  Enough risk to keep you guessing.

  Enough love to fill your heart.

  The power to know when the answer is yes.

  And when it is no.

  Or if the choice itself isn’t the biggest question, but the beginning of a journey only a lifetime will answer.

  A conscienceless serial bomber has a game to play. The rules are simple. There are none.

  Somebody knows Detective Amanda Nettles more than she cares to acknowledge. With one phone call, a faceless and genderless madman, proves he knows every dark secret Amanda has—even those she’s never uttered to a soul.

  Two explosions have rocked downtown Charlotte and shaken its citizens. All the clues lead back to Amanda. With the FBI—namely Baker Jackson Robinson watching her every move, Amanda must figure out the why behind the madness, because this guy is coming after them. One-by-one. And he wants her to witness every detail.

  Robinson’s life has never been simple. Prior to his sister’s comatose state, he preferred the chaos and the danger if it meant saving a life. Raising a pre-teen dependent on him, alone, means he needs to skirt around danger, a.k.a.—Amanda Nettles. The attractive and unavailable detective is trapped in play only their perpetrator understands. And he's using those closest to Amanda as bait.

  With each new event, Amanda must make a choice. Follow her heart, protect her friends and lose the life she's built for herself or sit on the sidelines and watch someone else destroy it. The last thing she intends to do is involve the one man who understands her, in a way no one has before. Because Robinson isn't the type to walk away from a fight that matters. And she won’t stop looking for answers just because they aren't readily available.

  If only her feelings for the handsome Agent would disappear...

  And his need for the Detective's sassy comebacks, wasn't so strong...

  The clock wouldn't be ticking. With innocent lives in the balance.

  CHAPTER ONE

  PTSD.

  The acronym imbedded itself somewhere inside McKenna Bening’s brain. It overtook easy aspects of her life, even more so than the child growing inside her uterus. It, along with the psychologists attached, was a noose hanging around her neck. A small bunching of letters that should have described lingering feelings of impending doom, in the most clinical way.

  Except, like the roots of a large oak tree, this tightening in her chest was firmly planted in the present. And the space where an organ should reside, held a circus freak show full of animals jumping around to a gnarly beat. If the tempo increased, her heart might leap to the Third Avenue pavement, on which she walked.

  McKenna sucked in a breath.

  The FBI psychologist said this type of side effect—as if she'd merely taken an antibiotic she was allergic to—was typical of people who suffered from the disease. Disease. It wasn’t cancer. At least a doctor might cut that out. Was she supposed to take a knife and remove her nervous system? Her memories?

  Stay calm, they said. Yes, because she wanted to have her heart shaking around in her chest and fifteen-thousand pounds of invisible elephant taking up residence in the same area.

  Think of Riley.

  She adjusted the strap of her purse with one hand, the other resting on her protruding stomach. A swift movement met her palm, as if her child were telling her to chill.

  Okay. One foot in front of the other. One step closer to her destination. Closer to safety.

  Two teenagers rushed by, chatting about something incoherent to her. A man in a dark suit brushed her elbow as he passed, engrossed in a conversation with someone on the other end of the phone pressed to his ear.

  A woman in a jogging suit, pushing an active gear stroller with a curly-haired toddler inside, glanced up. She caught the sight of McKenna’s protruding belly and smiled. Then she moved on.

  Breathe. Everything is normal. Just another day in Charlotte, North Carolina.

  That pinprick of anxiety wouldn't leave her shoulders. It dribbled downward, like sweat from her pores, until it sat in her stomach. Unshakeable.

  She looked over her shoulder. Nothing, but ordinary people covered the crowded sidewalk. A husband holding his wife’s hand, out for a stroll. Teenage girls checking out a boy across the street. Two older ladies occupying a bench and people-watching.

  No threats. No one chasing her. The ripple of danger urged her forward, at a pace better suited to the jogger.

  Screw PTSD. Someone watched her. Followed her. And she wasn't going to wait around for them to catch up.

  She reached for the comfort of her SIG. It wasn't there, and hadn't been for about seven months, because the FBI refused to clear her for duty. Maybe they never would. And these weekly therapy sessions were part of a drawn out mind game of how to let the agent down gently.

  They thought sh
e had unresolved psychological issues. It was a risk, in which they couldn’t afford to gamble. She understood that. If she were on the outside, looking in at another agent, in a similar situation, she might come to the same conclusions.

  She would. No maybe about it. It kicked up a healthy dose of annoyance in her blood stream. Truth didn’t always make things easier.

  Not today.

  Today, the grip of her service revolver and weight of her badge, would be welcoming instead of anxiety riddled. For the first time in all those months, she really wanted her life back. It wasn’t a sentence she fed a psychologist and prayed she could embody sometime in the next fifty years.

  Her hands shook as she squeezed herself between a group of people on the sidewalk. The more distance she put between herself and this unknown threat, the better. She shook off their grunts of disapproval and kept going, almost at a full jog now.

  Two more blocks. Then she'd be at CMPD’s third precinct. It wasn't her original destination, but would have to do. Amanda Nettles should be inside, on duty, and able to help her.

  Amanda would probably call Jordan. McKenna stopped. A young man wearing baggy jeans and an even baggier shirt, bumped into her. He righted himself, then glared at her as he passed. She thought she heard him mumble, “Idiot.”

  Jordan would come running, because that's what husbands did for wives who seemed unstable. For wives who’d been taken captive and lived to tell about it. And had watched said husband nearly die.

  Those days at his bedside had changed something integral inside her. No matter what some federally paid psychologist said, it didn’t have anything to with an overused medical term. And everything to do with her heart, her values and what she found important in life.

  So, for the time being, she’d given up working for the FBI. It didn’t mean she’d put aside her independent ways. Or that she wanted Jordan to drop everything to rescue her from nothing. She turned left on Broadway, following a large crowd of people as they entered the crosswalk, going away from the third precinct.

  Whether Jordan would admit it or not, he was waiting for her to crack. If it happened, he would pick up the pieces, like the loving husband he was.

  Would they go back together again?

  She passed a man in a cowboy hat, leaning near the entrance to a dress shop, a newspaper in hand. He lowered the paper and turned the page, his dark eyes meeting hers above it. They held for a second, as she passed, then he resumed his reading.

  A spiral of panic settled in her stomach. Okay, no big deal.

  He’s probably waiting while his wife shops.

  She walked ten steps. Moved to the side of the walkway. Then she bent down, as if to tie an unlaced shoe. The bulge of her stomach didn’t let her get as close to the ground as she would have liked.

  A peak backward told her what she feared. The cowboy no longer perched against the shop. She stood so fast, she nearly knocked an elderly couple across the sidewalk.

  “Excuse me.” Was that her voice? It sounded wobbly and short of breath. Shame climbed her throat. She was better than this. Last year, Quantico had wanted her to be a part of the Hostage Rescue Team, where keeping your cool came first.

  A slight vibration filled her body. Her muscles shook as if she stood in front of the citizens of Charlotte. Naked. Yeah, she was far from cool.

  “You alright, miss?” The elderly gentleman asked. Sympathy covered his wrinkled face. Worry crowded clear blue eyes, enhanced by wire-rimmed glasses.

  McKenna spotted the hat in a throng of people headed her way. “I'm f-fine.” Of their own volition, her feet sped up again, her heart matching the tempo. The gentleman called out to her. She didn’t stop.

  A disheveled reflection flitted around the windows as she sped past. Her hair had come out of the half knot she put it in this morning and she looked like a blob running through downtown Charlotte.

  If FBI Director Stotts could see this now…

  HRT offer rescinded. For all of time.

  She caught sight of the cowboy hat in a row of windows housed by Gamegon Incorporated's tall business structure, to her left. He was a few people behind her and gaining. McKenna ducked through the gaming conglomerates revolving door and came to a stop inside a busy reception area.

  What floor was Rupert on? Two? Three? She rubbed her head. She should have gone to Amanda. Sucked up her pride and called Jordan. Short puffs of breath left her mouth, but nothing went in.

  The buzz of phones and blur of people stepping past her, toward the curved, glass staircase and pristine marble elevator banks, reverberated in her head. The receptionist, a few feet in front of her, fielded several calls at once. She never glanced up.

  McKenna turned around to head out the doors. The Cowboy stood, hat and all, a silhouette against the midday sun, as if he'd come straight out of an old western. He held something in his hands. Instinctively, she ran for the staircase, taking the steps as fast as her pregnant body would let her.

  Cowboy-man followed, his long gait bounding upward twice as fast. Sweat clung to her forehead and her armpits, the stench of raw fear hanging in the air around her, suffocating. She hit the top of the landing and collided with the unmistakable, solid wall of human flesh.

  A scream erupted around her, resounding in a voice that sounded like her own. The force of it sent her backward, the heel of one shoe losing grip with the landing and finding only air. The other foot was quick to follow.

  Yes, she should have called Jordan.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “You didn’t forget, did you?”

  “No.” Guilt swamped through Amanda Nettles’ system at the lie. She readjusted the phone pressed to her ear. Noted the time on the computer at her desk, inside her office of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department. Twelve-fifteen.

  Late. Again.

  “You’re such a bad liar.” Eric Dunham's soft-spoken voice floated across the waves. The soft crinkle of shuffled papers came from his end of the phone. That voice had drawn her to him nearly five years ago. It was filled with genuine concern and easygoing warmth. The type that swayed his courtroom juries.

  And, usually, her. Today, it grated on nerves already stretched to the max. “I’m sorry. Things have been crazy. Can we reschedule?” It was lunch. Not like they had to postpone a wedding or anything.

  A distracted chuckled met her ears. “Sure, but you owe me, babe.”

  “You pick the time and place and I’m there.” She could do that. No problem. Anyway, they lived together. Not like she never saw him.

  Except…

  Amanda gathered her belongings. Gun, badge, purse. Check. She was forgetting something. She knew it. Whatever it was, would come to her eventually.

  She moved toward the exit. In the process, her knee grazed the corner of her desk. A framed picture of Eric and herself wobbled. She reached out to catch it and missed. It crashed to the tiled floor, the glass cracking into a spider web design.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  She threw her bag over her shoulder and picked up the mangled eight-by-ten frame. In the picture, both she and Eric smiled as if they were teenagers with the secret to longevity.

  They’d been at the Grand Canyon on vacation when a stranger offered to snap the shot. Amanda sat on a railing along the cliff, Eric resting next to her. He had an arm draped casually over her bare knee, and a smile that said he knew what he had next to him was his. The wind had been out of control that day and, as a result, several strands of her dark hair escaped her ponytail and were across her smiling face.

  The scene, although unspectacular, brought up memories of the trip and how he’d asked her to move in with him. There had been no hesitation when she’d agreed. Just a bright future, stretching before them.

  The shattered glass covered their happy reflections. It distorted the memory and dredged up something she wasn’t ready to voice, after five years together. Maybe, because she couldn’t pinpoint the problem. When was the last time either of them had looked th
at happy?

  “Mandy?” His voice brought her back to the present.

  She opened a drawer and shoved the photo inside. She’d deal with it later. Like everything else. “Just dropping things. I gotta go. Talk to you soon, Lawyer Boy.”

  Amanda snapped her eyes closed. So not good.

  Silence blared through the other end of the phone. The sound of shuffled papers had ceased. “You know I hate that nickname.”

  “I know.” Maybe he’d like it better if she’d actually come up with it instead of FBI Agent B.J. Robinson. “Sorry, it slipped out.”

  “Uh-huh.” A hint of annoyance shoved its way through his words. “You’re not ditching me for some case of his, are you?”

  “When have I ever been less than honest?” If she collaborated with Robinson on a case, Eric was always the first to know.

  A chuckle filled her ear, short and tight. “Right. Forget I asked.”

  “Eric…”

  “Try not to work too hard. Talk to you later.” Then he hung up. The fist of unease clamped on her stomach. She should call him back and... What? Prod him into a discussion with no clear path?

  The light filtering into her cube of space disappeared as her partner, Detective Catsky, crossed his arms over a slight beer belly, which he tried to remove with occasional workouts. One hand held half a ham sandwich, a glob of mayonnaise dangling toward the carpet. Times like today, she wondered if Captain Dentzen got a good laugh out of partnering the two of them.

  Catsky’s bulbous, graying head shook back and forth as he scratched his chest. “Yo, Nettles, Agent Robinson’s on line two. You wanna tell him I’m a homicide detective, not a freakin’ secretary?”

  Speak of the devil.

  “Any chance you’d tell him I’ve already left for the day? I’m kind of in a hurry.”

  His lips scrunched together as if he were giving it serious thought. “Again, I repeat...”

  “Yeah.” She held up her free hand. All she needed was another speech about how the FBI sat around and did nothing while people like herself and Catsky attended to the dirty work. The words should have been a good-natured barb between agencies, but never hit the mark coming from the older detective. “Got it. You’re not a secretary.”