Free Operation Zulu Redemption: Out of Nowhere - Part 2 by Ronie Kendig Page B

Disbelief speared her. Who could fall asleep that fast? He didn’t want to talk to her? Fine. She wouldn’t get answers. Just the very real threat of dying at some unsuspecting moment because she’d set off a time bomb named The Turk.
    Curiosity and fear strangled her ability to sleep. She lifted the throwaway phone and went to the search engine. There she typed in The Turk. Scanned the results. Most were about a chess robot, but she noted a few conspiracy theory sites. One blog caught her attention. A woman reported having been in the wrong place at the wrong time when a man with a star-crescent tattoo descended on a quiet evening. The woman’s fiancé was murdered—shot to death. The Turk cut a six-inch gouge into her neck and left her to die.
    A shadow loomed over her.
    Téya sucked in a hard breath.
    Trace glowered. “What are you doing?” He growled as he snatched the phone from her hand. He dropped back in his chair, eyes locked on her as he tore apart the phone. “For someone afraid of being found, you sure are making it easy for him!”

Francesca
Alexandria, Virginia
28 May – 0930 Hours
    It was one thing to temporarily suspend her job. She
might
have broken some rules.
Might
have been obstinate about that. But to disrupt her entire life—phone, utilities, and her credit—was going too far. Enough was enough.
    Frankie stalked into her father’s house, bypassing the kitchen, den, and bedrooms, and stormed right into his office.
    His graying head came up, expression startled, then he smiled. “Francesca dear!”
    “Do not ‘Francesca dear’ me, Daddy.”
    His smile wilted. “Excuse me?”
    Being upset was one thing, but disrespect never had a place in their home. “I want my life back.” Her heart thudded with the anxiety. “Please. I get your point. You want me to leave him alone. You don’t want me digging. I get it. Okay, maybe I was even wrong to pursue it, but to get me suspended and destroy my very name with creditors and—”
    “What
are
you talking about?”
    Anger ratcheted through her. “Don’t do this, Daddy. Don’t play Top Secret ignorant with me. Please—just reinstate my utilities.” She leaned over the desk, lifted the phone from its cradle, and slapped it down in front of him.
    Shock riddled his expression, and she hated it. But she’d never been so desperate. “Please. Call them. This isn’t fair.” Tears burned at the back of her eyes, but she willed them away. She’d never used them to get what she wanted before, and she sure wasn’t starting now. Francesca Solomon might be many things, but weak and silly she was not. “It’s one thing to reprimand me through work. But to shut down my whole life—I can’t get gas. I can’t even get a new car because of what you did to my credit score.”
    Her father stood, a scowl digging into his handsome face. “When did this happen?”
    She blinked. “Daddy.” The tears were coming, but with every ounce of her willpower, she pushed them back. “Don’t do this. Don’t play dumb with me. You
know
—”
    “I don’t.” His chest heaved, a sign of his effort to contain his anger. Or frustration. He waved her to a set of wingback chairs sitting in the morning sunlight. “Let’s talk.”
    Frankie remained where she stood. “Talk?” Was he serious? How could he
not
know? “You are the only person who even cared that I was tracking down evidence on Trace, so feigning ignorance is not going to work.”
    Well, a few others knew but they didn’t have the power or the means to shut down her life like this.
    Or did they? Had she once again underestimated her enemy? She shoved her hands into her long black hair and trudged over to the chair and dropped into it. “You’re
seriously
serious? You didn’t shut down my life?”
    “Why would I?” His tone bordered on preposterous.
    “Because I’ve been investigating Weston.”
    He went to the edge of the burgundy leather chair, elbows on his knees. “And you think