Hard Fall

By CJ Lyons

An FBI agent must pick up the pieces of her life as she helps a woman receiving death threats in this thriller by the bestselling author of After Shock.

There comes a time in every hero’s life when they fall harder and farther than ever before and they face a choice that changes everything: to give up or claw their way back again. Lucy thought she’d made her choice two months ago when she sacrificed everything to save her family, but now she has to decide whether or not she can save herself…

When honor, duty, and family collide . . . who would you save?

Hard Fall is the fifth novel in the Lucy Guardino FBI Thrillers series. If you enjoy captivating suspense, intelligent storytelling, strong and vulnerable characters, and a freight-train pace, then you'll love this adrenaline rush of a heart-pounding thriller.

Praise for the Beacon Falls novels

“Combine Dirty Harry with a loving wife and mother and you might end up with Lucy Guardino. Fans of Lyons’ hospital-set series will love the change of setting and thrilling pace. . . . You won’t be able to put this one down.” —RT Book Reviews on Snake Skin

 “An action packed thriller from page one! An amazing fast paced story with characters that jump off the page and capture your heart. A must read!” —My Book Addiction on Blood Stained

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781939038241

Book preview

Prologue

Until fifty-eight days ago, Lucy Guardino never dreamed you could have a panic attack in your sleep.

It was the dog. Always the damn dog.

Haunting her day and night.

Lucy jerked upright, fingers clutching her throat, fighting to loosen a rope that was no longer there. She couldn’t breathe, was suffocating, terror throttling her as effectively as the real noose had.

Her heart beat so loud and hard it ricocheted through her body. Her gasps filled the darkness surrounding her, red streaks blazing through her vision, the pressure on her chest, pressure around her throat so tight… she was dying.

The damn dog would finally get what it’d wanted all along.

Lucy reached for her weapon. Her gun, where was her gun? Her hand flailed, hit the back of a couch. Awareness crept into the darkness. Her couch. The movement shook the blanket from her body and her left foot thudded to the ground.

Pain shrieked through her, slapping her fully awake.

She wasn’t choking to death, the pain reminded her. Wasn’t dying.

That’d been fifty-eight days ago. This was now. Her new reality.

Thanks to the damn dog.

She blinked, the room slowly coming into focus. The old steamer trunk they used for a coffee table. A fireplace, its mantel filled with family photos. The overstuffed chair from her mom’s house, now angled beside the bay window—her daughter Megan’s new favorite place to sit and pretend Lucy didn’t exist.

The way the shadows fell across the wing-backed chair, for a second, she thought she saw her mother sitting there, watching over her as she slept. Like she had when Lucy was a kid, after her father died.

I’m so sorry, Mom. Guilt settled like a rock in her stomach. She wished for tears to blink back, but she had none left. What good were tears, anyway? They couldn’t bring her mom back.

Her living room. In her house. The room where her mother had been killed by the man sent to kill Lucy. No wonder Lucy felt compelled to haunt it night after night.

Couldn’t change the past, just as she couldn’t save her mother. But she had been able to save her husband and daughter. She tugged the blanket closer to her body, her heart thudding against the T-shirt she’d worn to bed. Nick? Safe and sound asleep upstairs in their bed. Wasn’t that why she’d crept down here to the couch, so her night terrors wouldn’t disturb him? One of them deserved a good night’s sleep.

She leaned forward, bent over her ankle and massaged the nooks and crannies of scar tissue and missing muscle. Felt the alien bumps and knobs left behind by the surgeons with their plates and screws. Her ankle and foot now had more hardware than an erector set. The dog’s handiwork.

The dog was dead. Not by Lucy’s hand. It had been trained to kill—had done its best on her. Animal control had no choice. It had died peacefully in its sleep.

The man who’d turned a beautiful animal into a raging killing machine, he’d died as well. By Lucy’s hand. Not so peacefully and wide awake. His screams never haunted Lucy.

She shook away memories from fifty-eight days ago. Focused on the simple, undeniable fact her life centered on: her family was safe.

The pain in her leg subsided to its usual dull roar. Unlike the blinding blaze when the dog first mauled her ankle, the pain now danced across a spectrum. From the spiking intensity of infrared blasts to tooth-rattling ultraviolet electrical shockwaves, less intense but more unnerving. A rainbow of agony.

Although her bones had mended nicely, apparently nerves heal more slowly. The doctors said it might take years—or never. And while they were healing—or not—the electricity racing along their synapses jumped erratically causing random impulses the brain interpreted as pain.

Leaving Lucy with a choice: a life of painkillers, popping pills to numb her body and mind or a life of pain.

She couldn’t live without her job and when your job is an FBI Supervisory Special Agent leading a team of armed men and women, you can’t do that job while taking narcotics, so Lucy chose the pain. Treated it as she would any other suspect—observing, analyzing, predicting what it would do next, and preparing against it.

So far the pain was winning, able to sneak past her defenses, blindside her. Not for long. Because tomorrow—she glanced at the railroad clock on the wall, her eyes now adjusted to the dim light, 3:14 a.m.—no, today, today was the day she returned to work.

Fifty-nine days ago, she’d almost lost everything. Now she was taking it all back.

She pushed herself upright, reached for the cane propped against the couch, and grit her teeth against the purple haze of pins and needles as her foot brushed against the oak floorboards. Took one step, then another toward the bedroom upstairs where her husband slept.

Pain or no pain, panic or no panic, no way in hell was Lucy letting anything keep her from doing her job. From healing her family. From getting her life back.

Starting today.

Chapter One

Friday, 9:46 am

---

Lucy’s first indication that this day wouldn’t be going as planned came when she entered Pittsburgh’s Federal Building and was stopped by security.

The Federal Protective Service guard, one she didn’t recognize, snapped to attention when Lucy swiped her employee ID at the turnstile and an alarm sounded. Ma’am, step back, please.

I think it’s expired. She hobbled to one side so she didn’t block anyone else and cursed herself for forgetting to check the date on her ID. Thankfully, she’d left plenty of time before she was due to meet with Isaac Walden, second-in-command of her Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement squad. She gestured to the cane. I’ve been on medical leave.

The guard didn’t relax his attitude. Instead, he nodded to one of his comrades at the security desk who came out from behind it to stand a few feet from Lucy, covering his partner. She almost laughed at the thought that she might be a threat to anyone—but forced herself not to. FPS guards were not known for their sense of humor.

Ever since the Zapata cartel had burned down a sizable chunk of the city last Christmas, security throughout Pittsburgh had been high.

No one was more paranoid than here at the Southside Federal Building where the Joint Counterterrorism Task Force was housed as well as several sensitive investigative units including High Tech Computer Crimes and Innocent Images. The FBI, DEA, ICE, ATF, US Marshals, and now Homeland Security Investigations all had a presence. One stop shopping for any wannabe terrorist trying to make his bones.

The badge, ma’am.

Lucy handed the first guard her building pass. He passed it to the second, who relayed it to the main security desk for validation.

I have my credentials, Lucy offered, keeping her hands at her sides, making no threatening movements.

The guard responded by sliding his right hand to the butt of his weapon, his left hand raised, palm forward in the universal gesture for freeze right there.

The second guard returned and handed her a temporary ID. I’ve been instructed to escort you, Supervisory Special Agent Guardino. Do you have any weapons with you?

Of course I have weapons. Why would he even ask? Federal agents were mandated to carry both on and off duty. And I don’t need an escort.

Sorry, ma’am. Orders. Please remove all weapons prior to passing through the body scanner. We’ll need to examine the cane as well.

She frowned at him. Agents didn’t pass through the scanner, only civilians. Was there a reason for their extra precautions? Are we on alert?

Neither answered her, focusing on her movements as she removed the forty caliber Glock from her belt holster and her backup weapon from her bag and carefully placed them, as well as her bag and cane, on the table beside the body scanner. The first guard checked her belongings while Lucy stepped into the scanner and raised her hands.

She grit her teeth. The cane helped her balance and eased the pressure on her left ankle until the nerves finished healing. She could walk without it—well, hobble would be more like it—but only with a lot of pain and effort. Better get used to it, she told herself as the machine whirled around her. She wouldn’t be using the cane forever—couldn’t if she wanted to pass her physical fitness assessment and return to full active duty.

The guard gestured for her to step free of the machine. Stand here, please. Legs spread wide.

Shit. The brace. Overtop her left sock she wore a plastic ankle-foot-orthotic brace or AFO that kept her toes from dragging on the ground. She winced as the guard patted down her leg. That’s an ankle brace prescribed by my physician. I was injured in the line of duty two months ago.

He didn’t look up as he rolled her pants leg high enough to examine the form-fitting plastic and its Velcro straps. Finally he nodded and stood. This way, ma’am.

Lucy collected her belongings and followed the guard onto the elevators. To her surprise he hit the button for the top floor.

No, ma’am, the guard said when she reached to hit the correct button. My instructions are to escort you directly to Administration.

Admin? That usually meant a summons from the Special Agent in Charge. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken to Markel—but he had sent flowers while she was in the hospital. Or his secretary had. Shit, she probably was supposed to send a thank you note or something. She sucked at office politics.

As they rode in silence, an impulse to jab the button for the floor where her team and office were instead of riding to the top made her smile. What would the earnest guard do? Shoot her?

She’d like to see him try. Probably he’d just shout, Ma’am, stop, ma’am. Well, she was losing her patience with all the damn ma’am-ing and searching and escorting as if she were a civilian.

The doors slid open and Lucy strode out, ignoring the guard she left in her wake. He hurried to pass her and lead the way—not difficult given her slower pace with the cane—but she felt a smug ray of satisfaction warm her from the inside out. Petty, she knew, but she’d take any opportunity to feel back in control.

They reached the Special Agent in Charge’s suite, but her escort led her past it to the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, John Greally’s office. John was a friend. They’d partnered in the field when Lucy was still in training, and their daughters went to school together. What was going on? He never asked her to come up to his office; John preferred a more casual and hands-on approach to supervising—something Lucy herself tried to emulate. If he had something to say, he would have come to her, not the other way around.

Lucy glanced at the secretary sitting at the desk, guarding the ASAC’s door. She was someone new; Lucy didn’t recognize her. No answers there.

They’re waiting, the secretary said, nodding to the door behind her.

They? Lucy wondered. The guard stood aside, allowing Lucy room to enter alone.

It always disoriented her when she entered Greally’s office because the space was the antithesis of the man. The office was Spartan, no clutter, not even a calendar in sight. Just a large, modern-style desk with a sophisticated computer set up and a single photo of his family. Two not-so-comfortable appearing chairs waited in front of the desk. The obligatory photos of the president, Attorney General, and Director lined the walls.

Typical generic administration office. No signs of Greally’s personality. The father who cheered and whistled at his daughter’s school plays. The boss who came down to gossip with Lucy’s squad and steal coffee from her private stash.

Or the friend who’d brought his work with him to the hospital so Nick could spend a few hours home with Megan.

This was the office of an Assistant Special Agent in Charge, an administrator. Not the real John Greally.

Who at the moment was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a woman hovered in the back corner, staring out the window with its view of the Steeler’s practice field. Do you know when Greally will be back? Lucy asked her.

The woman glanced over her shoulder at Lucy. Seemed especially interested in her cane. She twisted her mouth and slowly turned to face Lucy. He’ll be joining us shortly, Special Agent Guardino.

Most folks around here called her Lucy. She preferred it that way. I’m sorry, have we met?

No, the woman, a blond in her thirties said, clipping the syllable short. But we’ve spoken on the phone and you’ve ignored several appointments I scheduled.

Right. Who could forget a voice more irritating than pepper spray? Ah…Ms. Carroll from Employee Assistance. I explained over the phone that I won’t be requiring your services. I’m returning to duty. Before my sixty days of medical leave is up—as you can see.

Because of the hazardous nature of the job, the FBI provided excellent health and disability benefits. Benefits Lucy was determined not to make further use of. It might take her a while to get back to full active duty, but she was determined to get there, right back where she was, leading her team from the front lines, just as she had fifty-nine days ago.

Carroll’s smirk made Lucy itch to look over her shoulder, check her back for an ambush.

Lucy went on the offensive. I brought my doctor’s release for limited duty, my range qualification on both my service weapons, passed my psych eval, and a drug test showing that I’ve been off all narcotics for weeks. Nineteen days to be exact. Her doctor told her it was too soon, but she was afraid that once she was placed on disability, it would be far too easy for administrative busybodies like Carroll to bench her with a medical pension rather than accommodate her return to modified duty.

She pulled the file from her bag and offered it to Carroll.

I’m afraid none of that matters, Agent Guardino, Carroll said, making no move to accept the paperwork. If you’d bothered to consult with me—

All due respect, Ms. Carroll, but this has nothing to do with you. I’ve been cleared for modified duty. All that’s left is for me to speak with my supervisor about my squad’s open cases. The administrator might be queen bee of her little cubicle hive, but Lucy had faced down serial killers, a vicious drug cartel, and even a psychotic bomber holding a hospital hostage. She turned the full weight of her glare onto the Employee Assistance functionary. Carroll looked away first.

Before Lucy could savor her victory, minor as it might be, the side door opened and Greally rushed in. Lucy, you’re here, he exclaimed, folding her into a bear hug. Security screwed up, they were supposed to have your pass waiting. He handed her a new badge. Then he spotted Carroll standing behind his desk and his demeanor shifted from friend back to boss. Why don’t you both take a seat? And I gather these are for me?

He slid the file from Lucy’s hand and moved around behind his desk, displacing Carroll. She approached the chair but waited for Lucy to sit down first. Greally also sat, putting him and Lucy on an even level, but Carroll remained standing. Not hard to read the nonverbal power play there. Lucy shared a half-smile with Greally and was relieved when he returned it, obviously thinking the same thing.

Did you go over Lucy’s options with her? he asked Carroll.

Option. Singular. At least according to the new personnel directives. Carroll crossed her arms over her chest. I’m afraid Supervisory Special Agent Guardino wasn’t very receptive.

You’re talking about me walking out with a medical pension. Quitting. For good. Of course I’m not receptive.

Carroll stared down at Lucy. Lucy kept her focus on Greally. He broke the silence, clearing his throat. Ms. Carroll, give us the room, if you please.

Carroll sniffed, nodded, and walked out, back stiff, heels thudding against the institutional carpet. She didn’t quite slam the door behind her, but it definitely closed with a pissed-off exclamation mark.

Sorry to have wasted her time, Lucy said, edging forward in her seat. I’ll go catch up with my team and their open cases.

I wish it were that simple, Greally said, his expression turning serious. A lot has happened since you left, he began. With the new director in DC and his mandate to turn the Bureau into the world’s best counterterrorism investigative organization—

She’d seen the new director’s press conferences on CNN. Typical DC political posturing. We’re already devoting ninety percent of our manpower and resources to counterterrorism. And Homeland Security Investigations was created to cover that territory, so why the pissing match? Ask me, we should be headed back to the reason why we were created in the first place: fighting crime. Whoops. She hadn’t really meant to say that aloud. Two months off work and her diplomatic skills were rusty. Didn’t matter; Greally had heard it all from her before.

Then the meaning behind his words sank in. Greally had warned her weeks ago that with a new Director came changes, but she’d never dreamed…She swallowed against the metallic taste that filled her mouth. My team?

The Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement squads were experimental to start with, he reminded her. The new director is dissolving the program.

That’s ridiculous. Our unit alone has cleared over three hundred cases.

The director is giving ICE control of the online child pornography mandate since they already have the Innocent Images program. They’ll continue to coordinate with local law enforcement and the non-government organizations in the coalition you created.

Just like that. The team, their entire reason for being—gone. Vanished in a political Ping-Pong game.

My people? Walden? Taylor?

Greally kept his face neutral—obviously this wasn’t the first of these kinds of conversations he’d had recently. But damn it, this was her team they were talking about.

Reassigned. Taylor went back to computer crimes two weeks ago—the SAC felt he was much too valuable to be in the field. Never mind that Taylor had originally left his job as an analyst with the High Tech Computer Crimes squad to endure the rigors of the FBI Academy because his dream was to be a Special Agent in the field.

Greally continued. Come Monday, Walden will report to the bank robbery desk. Because the FDIC insured most bank deposits, the FBI was required to be involved in bank robberies, but local law enforcement usually handled all the heavy lifting, so it was more a question of shuffling files than real investigation.

Did he choose that or did you? she asked, not bothering to filter the bitterness from her tone.

He jerked his chin up at that, accepting her challenge. He did. He only has three years before he has his thirty in, said it was easy time.

That doesn’t sound like the Walden I know. Except…it kind of did. Walden had been working crimes against children longer than any of them. The kind of cases that tended to consume most investigators, burn them out fast.

I didn’t tell you earlier because, up until this morning, I was still fighting to keep you on board as a task force coordinator or the like. Even the SAC tried, but Washington isn’t buying it.

Lucy’s chin sank to her chest. The past two months only two things had kept her going: the fact that her family was safe and she had her job to return to. Without her job, what was she?

She knew the question was cliché, but that didn’t help her find an answer.

Greally stood