Page 1 of Whistleblower
PROLOGUE
CHANDLER
12 YEARS AGO
Is sixteen old enough to be a man?
I don’t feel like one, even with this pistol in my hand.
“Suz?” I whisper, but I know she won’t respond. She’s face down on the tile, her long, thick hair sprawled out, saturating in the growing puddle of blood. She was my last friend in the world.
It may seem odd that my only friend was a forty-nine-year-old bar owner who chain-smokes and takes her whiskey neat, but she has been more of a mother to me than mine ever was.
“Suzanne, please?” I don’t really know what I’m asking for. Please rise from the dead. Please let this be a nightmare.
It’s my fault. I could’ve saved her if the damn safe didn’t lock me out. Suzanne told me to stay low and run when the armed men shot through the glass, hoping they hadn’t spotted me. She promised me all they wanted was to rob her. “Hide in the kitchen, Chandler,” she instructed. When I hesitated, she assured me, “It’s just money, honey. Better broke than dead.”
I heard the cash register open and close. There was shouting and Suzanne telling everyone to just calm down. I heard a few bottles breaking on the ground. Then it was silent. I thought the worst was over until I heard the sharp pop. With my heart racing so fast I thought it’d explode, I ran to the hidden safe to get to the emergency pistol. It locked on me when I transposed the stupid numbers. Every single time I switched the two and the one, I had to wait an entire fucking minute. By the time I burst through the kitchen, arms outstretched, gun in my hand, the only person left was Suzanne…
And she wasn’t moving.
The sudden crunch of glass makes me look up at the front door. Straining my arms, I point the gun, still in my hand, at the woman who has crawled through the shattered window.
“Easy now,” she says, her voice calm, soothing, and surprisingly deep for her slight frame. She’s dressed head to toe in black, including her work boots. It looks like some sort of uniform, but I’ve never seen a cop wear this much leather. She holds up her palms in surrender but continues to advance, the glass crunching under each of her steps.
“Stop,” I hiss. “I’ll shoot.”
“Well, relax your shoulders first,” she says, taking another step forward. “You won’t hit the broad side of a barn tensed up like that.”
The gun begins to slip against my sweaty palms, so I grip it tighter. “What?”
Her footsteps are silent now as she’s past the shattered glass from the window and almost within my reach. “Have you ever fired a gun before, Chandler?”
My heart stops at the mention of my name. Taking a closer look, this woman is younger than I’d thought. Her lipstick is bright red, but she wears no other makeup to accentuate her angular features. Her jet-black hair is pulled into a low ponytail. She’s graceful, poised, and seemingly unbothered by the dead body lying next to us.
I don’t know why, but relief floods through me as she reaches out, palm facing the ceiling, intent on relieving me of the gun. She’s a stranger. I shouldn’t trust her but somehow my instincts tell me I’m safe now. I hand her the gun, surrendering my very last defense.
“There you go,” she mumbles, as she switches on the safety and tucks it in her coat pocket.
“No,” I mumble.
“Hm?” she asks, already having moved on from her question. She examines me head to toe.
“I’ve never fired a gun before. I didn’t do this,” I say, looking at my friend, hot tears beginning to blur my vision. “I didn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t.”
“I know you didn’t. Did you see it happen?”
I look at my raggedy tennis shoes in shame as I shake my head side to side. “I was hiding,” I admit. “I couldn’t get to the gun in time.” I wipe my face with both palms, attempting to remove the evidence of my unmanly hysterics. “I left her out here all alone.”
“Chandler,” the woman says, her dark eyes looking wary. “Gun or not, there was nothing you could do. The men who came through here are part of Dom Peroli’s gang. They’re ruthless, merciless, and don’t blink twice at hurting women”—she raises her brows at me—“or children. It’s good you hid, or you’d be lying next to your friend right now.”
“Are you a cop?” I ask.
“No.”
“FBI?” I ask, looking her up and down.
“Used to be,” she offers.