Game of Fear (Montgomery Justice #3)
Robin Perini
PROLOGUE
* * *
Eight years ago
THREE IN THE morning cloaked too many secrets.
Seventeen-year-old Gabe Montgomery slipped around the side of the Denver bus terminal trying to stay out of sight. A blaring horn pierced the night and the hydraulic hiss of a bus door’s opening snaked through the crowd.
A puff of warmth from an idling engine doused the November air in an eerie fog. Gabe shrank into the shadows. If he knew how to do anything, it was sneak. Tonight, for example, after partying at a club his father had forbidden, Gabe had stuck one leg into his bedroom window sight unseen—until he’d caught his father sneaking out of the house dressed like a stealth ninja.
Gabe couldn’t resist. Maybe it was time for some payback. The last time he’d disappeared from his bed, his father had been waiting up when Gabe had crawled through the window. The memory of the scathing insults that followed still burned. The lecture about being smart in his choices or he’d never be good enough for the force still irked. Well, Gabe had his old man now, tailing him without being seen.
Except something was very wrong.
The smell of diesel clung to the air surrounding the fleet of buses. Gabe recognized the bulge beneath his dad’s coat, just under his shoulder, packing heat where most wouldn’t notice. His movements were too furtive to be answering a routine call from the sheriff’s office. And Patrick Montgomery sure as hell wasn’t wearing his official uniform.
His father glanced around, the guilty look on his face twisting Gabe’s gut. He wanted to believe that one of his brothers had called, making a surprise visit home from the military, but he knew better.
Patrick Montgomery was hiding something, and Gabe’s mission had changed. He vowed to discover his father’s secret.
Gabe pressed against the bus terminal wall, his back digging against the brick, but the bite didn’t faze him. His father stood in the shadows, nearly invisible in his black garb, surveying the area around him as if expecting an attack at any moment. Twice he’d checked his weapon and more than once peered into the darkness.
Gabe’s father had decent radar, not as good as Mom with her Spidey sense, but decent. He could obviously feel Gabe watching.
“Damn right I’m watching, Dad.” Big-man cop didn’t even know his seventeen-year-old son had tailed him here.
Yeah, Dad. Your kid can outmaneuver you after all.
Gabe had wanted to be a cop since he was six. He knew what it took. But he’d been on the other side of the law, too, and had to admit sometimes walking off the straight and narrow path was more fun. He’d gotten into enough trouble this year to know the inside of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office jail all too well. He hadn’t spent as much time there as his older brother Zach, but Gabe figured he had a semester left to surpass the troublemaker of the Montgomery clan. Problem was, being the youngest of six hell-raising brothers, Gabe hadn’t recognized that Patrick Montgomery no longer possessed a whole lot of patience. Being grounded half of senior year sucked.
Pissed Gabe off. His father was a poster child for perfect. Perfect cop, perfect husband, perfect father.
To be honest, he’d never doubted that absolute truth. Until tonight.
Gabe squatted down and squinted through the night, out of his father’s line of sight. The scent of gasoline burned Gabe’s nose. The exhaust hit his lungs and he fought back a cough. Had to be quiet.
His dad was antsy, nervous. He fidgeted like Gabe had never seen, and Gabe had definitely never witnessed that particular expression on his father’s face. What was his dad hiding? Had he gone over to the dark side? Gabe had heard his dad whisper over the phone about good cops going bad enough to know it happened.
His entire body stilled. Maybe he should just go. Did he even want to know the truth? He shoved the apprehension aside. He needed to know.
A bus pulled into the station, its headlights sweeping the parking lot and momentarily exposing an unexpected sadness on his father’s face. Another emotion—anticipation—glittered in his eyes. Who was his dad waiting for?
The doors opened and, one after another, passengers disembarked. The excited, the down-and-out, the dead-tired . . .
Then a teenager with long, dark brown hair exited and scanned the terminal area suspiciously. Patrick straightened, his entire body going on alert.
Gabe took another look at the girl. A weird sense of déjà vu swept through him. She looked familiar, but Gabe knew he’d never seen her before.
She was gorgeous.
And scared.
She turned back to help the blonde girl behind her make it down the few stairs to the street. Ugly bruises marred the blonde’s face and each step made her grimace and hug her arms to her body, as if her ribs ached.
Patrick Montgomery stepped out of the shadows and caught the girls’ attentions, the relief on their faces obvious.
Idiot. Here he’d been suspecting his father was up to no good, yet obviously this was police business. He’d kick Gabe’s butt for following him here. What if these teenagers were going into WITSEC or something? Maybe there was a U.S. Marshal around, too.
Gabe shrank farther into the shadows. If he got out now, his dad would never know he’d followed—
“Mr. Montgomery? You really came?”