Untethered from a nuclear family sharing the same house, Mary was flailing a bit as she tried to figure out this next chapter.

  It would be helpful, she thought, if she could find some other women who were her kind of “Wow, you’re so young to be so old!” as she was. Even Deidre, her best friend since the life-preserving saltine and electrolyte delivery, was twelve years her senior.

  The fellow nurses her age working at the hospital all had to juggle daycare pickups and toddler dance tutus.

  They came in with scouting peanut sales sign-ups and cookies, so many cookies.

  Mary had done all that and was over it.

  Now, listening to the other women talking about their families, Mary was exhausted in the remembering. How did she do it? How had she made it to this point? The point where her beloved sons were off finding out who they were going to be as adults and Mom—who had been their everything for oh-so-many years—was barely a passing, if not downright irritating, thought.

  Divorced from Dan, ignored by her boys, and a square peg in the round hole of Norfolk society—not fitting comfortably into the demographics—and now, yeah, she was in a birthday funk.

  She was chewing on the cud of her existence, again, Mary pointed out to herself. She’d get these thoughts and keep gnashing her teeth on them. The thoughts went nowhere, but there they were—repetitive and mood-crushing. Mary looked out the window at the sky painted a leaden gray, heavy and oppressive. Maybe that was adding to her mood.

  Her phone jangled on the counter, and Mary leaned in to read the screen, Deidre.

  Deidre was entirely too upbeat for Mary’s present mood. She’d check the text later. Reaching into the grocery bag, Mary dragged out her yogurt and plastic box of strawberries, a package of salmon, and a couple avocados. She should have picked up a bottle of wine to go with her inner whine, she mused as she opened the fridge. Yeah, that needed a good cleaning, she thought as she looked over the glass shelves, and it wasn’t happening today.

  Her phone jangled again, signaling another text, Deidre.

  Persistent. Mary leaned over and muttered at her unanswered phone, “Give me five minutes. Let me finish putting this stuff away. I’ll grab a cup of tea and then be ready for a chat.” She could have texted that, but then the conversation would be off and rolling. Mary tipped her head back and wiggled her shoulders. “Get it together.”

  The clatter at her window made her look up. The sky had opened up, and the rain pummeled the glass angrily. The sudden deluge was so heavy that she couldn’t see anything beyond the water sliding down the pane. She was grateful she got home and into the house before the sky opened up and began dumping. Being out in that mess would be painful.

  The phone rang, Deidre. Okay, that was out of character.

  Mary snatched the phone up and swiped the screen. “Are you in an ambulance?”

  “What?” Deidre asked. “No. What gave you that impression?”

  “You usually wait for a go-ahead text before you call,” Mary said. “Modern phone etiquette.”

  “I don’t have time for that. You don’t have time for that either. I am about to rock your world.” Deidre sounded like she’d just won the lottery.

  Pulling the coffee out of the grocery bag, Mary put her nose to the plastic and sniffed the slight scent of fall seasonings. Closing her eyes, she imagined how good it was going to taste in the morning. Cinnamon Roll, yum. “You can rock my world if I can do it in my pajamas,” Mary said into the phone. “I’m about to curl up on the couch with a bowl of ice cream and listen to the rain on my roof.”

  “Why?” Deidre’s voice turned momentarily concerned before it bounced back to excitement. “No, don’t tell me. We haven’t got time. I need your passport number.”

  “My, what now?” Mary tapped the speaker button.

  “Your passport number for these plane tickets.”

  “Okay, I feel like I walked in in the middle of a conversation.” Mary reached the coffee bag on to the shelf and shut the cabinet. “I have no idea what’s going on here.”

  “Go get your passport while I explain. I don’t want to lose these tickets. Go. Hurry!”

  “For where?” Mary turned and found herself heading toward her bedroom.

  “Amsterdam to Geneva, then a train to Haute Nendaz.”

  Mary stalled with her hand on the doorknob. “Why?” Switzerland, she could find on the map. Haute Nendaz not so much.

  “Chocolate, of course.” Deidre was laughing, her excitement palpable.

  “Of course. Also, there’s chocolate at the grocery store and that doesn’t require my standing in line at the TSA. When is this that you want to go?” She pressed into the room.

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Shit, Deidre,” Mary stopped mid-stride. “Fly to Switzerland tomorrow? What are you even talking about? Did someone die? Can we send flowers instead?”

  “Prescient. Yes, someone did die.” Deidre coughed and gasped. “That went down the wrong tube. Sorry.” She coughed again. “I told you about the woman I read about in a magazine, the horoscope lady.”

  “She does special charts to figure out where in the world you’re supposed to be on your birthday to change your life. Is that the one?”

  “She’s the one, Rushpa Viswan. I filled out a form to get on her wait list. I figured, why not hear what Mrs. V. had to say.”

  Mary regained her forward momentum toward her passport and couldn’t figure out why she was still in motion. This was ridiculous. “Mrs. V. could send you to the middle of Borneo,” Mary pointed out.

  “Could,” Deidre agreed. “But the website says you get three destinations: the best one to improve your romantic life, the best to change your career life, and the best to change the trajectory of your life. Well, she says, ‘align with your life’s purpose.’” Deidre drew in a deep breath. “Any change would probably be good, so I figured that I’d look at the places Mrs. V. tells me about and pick the one with the fewest poisonous snakes and cannibals.”

  Mary got on her knees, lifted the dust ruffle on her bed, and laid her fingers on the pad to open the safe with her prints. “That sounds like a solid plan. But your next birthday isn’t until June, almost a year away.”

  “Right, well, she’s got a two-year waiting list. I mean, this woman is really popular.”

  “Totally not following you here,” Mary said, putting her cheek to the floor and using the flashlight on her phone to reach into the fire-proof safe she’d bolted into the floor.

  “Mrs. V.’s client for DAY OF THE WEEK died.”

  “Died?” Mary grabbed her passport and sat up. “That’s kind of an extreme way to get out of improving your life.”

  “I know, right? When the appointment became available, Mrs. V. looked over her list, chose me as the person she wanted to work with in that time slot, and said I had to come to take that appointment.”

  “The dead woman’s spot.” Mary’s brow drew together. Did this sound legit?

  “Yeah,” Deidre dropped the cheerful from her voice, “that’s kind of not the way I want to think about this. So she’s in Haute Nendaz, Switzerland.”

  “Where there’s chocolate.”

  “And lots of gooey melted cheese, I’m told. Do you have your passport number?” Deidre asked.

  Mary opened the blue cover to the hideous photo of her with red clown lips. It was bad, worse even than her driver’s license, and in that photo, the light reflected off Mary’s glasses, making her look like an eyeless zombie. “Why am I giving this to you?”

  “Because I’m not going by myself. Mrs. V. told me,” Deidre affected a British accent, ‘You’re not to come alone.’”

  “That sounds,” Mary paused, looking for the right word, “ominous. Kind of Agatha Christie-esque.”

  “I already called my brother and told him he had to give me his travel points. With his wife on third-trimester bed rest, they aren’t going anywhere, and the points’ll just go to waste.”

  “Right, well,” Mary said, “waste not want not.”

  “It says I can use the points for hotels, too,” Deidre said. “And there’s plenty for us to go together as long as we share a room.”

  “Tomorrow, though?”

  “Stop. I can feel you digging your heels in. And I’ll physically drag you if that’s what it takes. You’re going with me.”

  “I have my pole dancing class. I love that class. I —”

  “Look, you don’t start your new job until next week. And yes, you love your pole dancing class, but it’s only an hour long. After that, you’re not doing anything but moping. You were moping when I called, weren’t you?”

  “Little bit moping,” Mary admitted. “Beginning of the school year used to be a big deal here. No boys. Just me.”

  “And your fortieth birthday,” Deidre said. “That can’t be overlooked. You’re about to head over the hill.”

  “Yup, thanks.” Mary closed her eyes and tipped her head back. “That, too.”

  “So why mope when you can eat yourself into a cheese coma?” Deidre asked, then plowed ahead. “The best tickets are for tomorrow at five a.m. We fly to Atlanta, then Geneva, then we have the train. It’s only four blocks from the train to the hotel I’ve already booked. So pack into a wheely bag. The next day, we’ll have the morning to do a little sightseeing and grab some lunch at a cute little outdoor café. I have my appointment in the afternoon, so you can do whatever you want. They have a pool and sauna at the hotel.”

  “Five a.m. tomorrow morning?” Mary shook her head.

  “Now, I only signed up for two nights at the hotel. We can decide if we like it there and want to stay or—we’re right there in the middle of Europe—we can go anywhere, you know? Grab a train. Be spontaneous. You’re shaking your head. I can feel you shaking your head. Mary, isn’t that what we both just pinky swore to? We’d work on being less organized and just get out there and experience?”

  “I’ve never pinky sworn to anything in my life.” Mary rolled her hips to plop her butt onto the carpet, allowing more blood flow to stop the pins and needles prickling in her feet.

  “Huh, maybe I dreamed it. Okay, what’s that passport number?”

  As she read it out, all Mary could think of was the piles of dirty laundry with no clean clothes to pack. She didn’t even know what kind of weather was in Haute Nendaz. And she’d just bought those perishables she still needed to get into her fridge.

  Chapter Two

  September Second

  Washington, D.C.

  The door stood open. A brass plate labeled this the Panther Force War Room. He was in the right place.

  As Halo paused in the hall, waiting for an invitation to enter, Max sat politely at his side, on his best behavior.

  A man moved into his view.

  Now, Halo was improbably big for special forces. As a rule, the men were about five foot ten in American measurements. Their wiry frames had musculature that was magnitudes stronger than one would suppose. They were the kind of men who liked to run ultramarathons for fun and could easily get into small spaces and out of tight situations. Honestly, moving the height and bulk of Halo’s own six foot four, two-hundred-fifty-pound frame—using the Yank’s measurements—had advantages and disadvantages. For one, he was an outlier among his team and the only one who dangled over the end of a standard-issue cot. Ryder and he stood eye to eye, but the others were a good six inches shorter. Even Halo’s ex-wife, at six feet, was taller than the boys. They had hated it when she stood beside—towered over—them, looking down at their bald spots.

  Normally, hulking over everyone, it felt nice when Halo met up with someone his own size. To be small in comparison? That was an unusual circumstance. But the man walking toward him had Halo tilting his chin up to catch his gaze, even if it was only a couple of inches. This guy was astonishingly large in the way Halo imagined that bear to be when he found the scat pile on his way to finding Mrs. Haze.

  “Halo St. John?” the man asked.

  “Sir.”

  The mountain of a man extended his hand. “Honey Honig, welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Honey turned toward the man at the desk, who lifted a hand. “I’m Nutsbe Crushed, Panther Force mission coordinator. You’ll forgive me for not standing up,” Nutsbe said. “I’m in my wheelchair today.”

  “Sir.”

  “We’re going to tone down on the sirs when we’re not in the field,” Honey said.

  “Yes, si— Okay,” Halo said, glancing toward the table with a go-bag resting in the center.

  “Yup, that’s yours. As was explained to you during your assessments,” Honey said. “Cerberus Tactical has a dual role to play here at Iniquus. They do search and rescue if any of our clients find themselves in dangerous circumstances. Typically, that’s associated with mass disaster. Though, Team Bravo evacuated the entire corporation from a war zone last year.”

  “We stick around after our clients are safe and lend a hand as part of Iniquus’s charitable outreach,” Nutsbe added.

  “Amazing work you all do. One of the many reasons I’m glad to have signed on,” Halo said.

  Honey looked down at Max, who looked up at Halo for information.

  Halo gave his dog the “all’s well” brushing signal. And Max lay down, letting his tongue loll out as he panted. Yeah, Max knew that something was in the works, and he was excited for whatever came next.

  “Since Max is tactically trained, you and Max will also deploy with the Iniquus force teams, like ours. On Panther Force, we meet diverse needs. It keeps things fresh on the job. Panther Force was over doing teambuilding with the Madagascar military for some months. And now, most of the team is in the Baltic region on a close protection assignment for Mr. and Mrs. Sutton. They own Pangolin.”

  “And it looks like our team will be over there longer than we’d expected,” Nutsbe said, wheeling back from his desk.

  “The Suttons have decided to move their board of directors retreat at the end of the month from Egypt to Estonia for safety reasons given our present global concerns.” Honey moved to the other side of the conference table, pulled out a chair, and sat, gesturing for Halo to do the same.

  Halo pulled out a seat and signaled Max under the table.

  “Mrs. Sutton will be in Helsinki until the third, when she will take a ferry across the Baltic to meet up with her husband, and they will be flying home together,” Honey explained. “Our team will now be staying on-site while we conduct our due diligence on Tallinn and their planned excursions. We want you to be part of the process so you have a good idea of procedure and policy.”

  “I like the challenge of working in new environments,” Halo said.

  “Good to hear since you’ll spend the first few months rotating between the tactical teams, learning the ropes while Command continues to build out Cerberus Team Charlie. With Iniquus, you’ll find it’s similar to your work as a Commando, but there are civilian rules, laws, and protocols that you’ll need to have down pat.”

  “All right.” Halo tipped his ear toward the go bag. “Looks like Max and I are heading out soon, then?”

  “You are heading out in the next hour,” Honey said. “Max is going to stay here to work with Reaper on two specific required skills needed before he’ll be allowed to join a mission. The first is snake aversion training.”

  Nutsbe wheeled out from behind his desk and over toward them.

  Halo glanced briefly down to see that Nutsbe had bilateral, below-knee amputations. Iniquus hiring veterans recalibrated after sustaining permanent injuries, made Iniquus a shining beacon in a world that often chewed up its elite warriors—using and abusing their bodies for their countries’ well-being, then failing to live up to the promises made in terms of physical and mental health. “We heard Max had a bit of a run-in with a rattle snake,” Nutsbe said with a shake of his head. “That’s a crazy story.”

  “I didn’t even know there was such a thing on the East Coast.” Halo glanced down at Max, and Max, in turn, put his paw on Halo’s boot as if they were companionably holding hands. “Ryder warned me about copperheads in Virginia.”

  “There are others—water moccasins are also called cotton mouths,” Honey said. “But the venomous snakes in this area pose the same dangers as snakes Max can run into worldwide. We want the dogs to stay away from all snakes no matter where your missions take you.” His gaze caught Halo’s and held. “You saw for yourself how the trajectory for Mrs. Haze’s survival hinged solely on how Max got his mouth around that rattler. A few inches further down the snake’s body, you would have been racing Max down to the vans and off to the nearest emergency vet to get the antivenom. A danger to Max. A danger to you. A serious danger to our lost subject, too. Max was minutes from finding Mrs. Haze. The rest of the team worked their search grids at a distance so their dogs wouldn’t have picked up that scent cone. The survival time frame was so narrow—from the find until the onset of the storm—Mrs. Haze would have died but for the well-placed bite.” Honey held Halo’s gaze. “Close call, brother.”

  “Agreed. Snake aversion is a must for all those reasons.” Halo dropped his hand to Max’s head and scritched behind his ears. Too, damned close a call. “What’s the other skill?”

  “He needs to be toilet trained,” Nutsbe said with a grin.

  Halo stilled. “Come again?”

  “Max has to be comfortable using all manner of toilets,” Nutsbe said, “from the tiny cabinets on transportation to various kinds of sanitation found around the world—Japanese high-tech to holes in the floor to porta-potties.”

  “All right, this is a new one on me.” Halo’s lips pulled into a bemused smile. “Can I ask why?”

  “If, for example, you’re on an unplanned mode of transportation,” Nutsbe said, “the client decides to go on a boat ride, take a last-minute plane, or jump on a train—trying to get away from some center destruction. Even when everyone’s go-go-go, your K9 will need to relieve himself. Better to just go hit the head.”

  Halo crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in the black captain's chair. He could quickly see the benefit of toilet training, though it had never occurred to him before. Halo had always worked with combat K9; they relieved themselves wherever.