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He was handsome, with beautiful dark eyes and a sculpted chin. There was something about a man with a clean-shaven head, neatly trimmed beard, and mustache that struck a chord with her feminine side. But then, she had long ago learned that men she considered too handsome for their own good caused the most trouble in relationships.

At least that’s the way things had been with Dwayne, the guy she had dated in college, and then Ryan, the man she had married. Handsome men were known to be too overconfident, cocky, conceited, and way too sexy. Yet, she couldn’t stop staring at Locke Dangerfield in that photo and liking everything she saw, including how well he fit the suit he was wearing.

Anger stirred within her at her reaction to him. Hadn’t she decided at the time of her divorce that she didn’t need another man in her life…other than an occasional roll between the sheets whenever she got hot and bothered to the extent her battery-operated boyfriend couldn’t satisfy? Some women did better on their own, and she was one of them.

Hollis glanced over at her stack of bills as she turned off her iPad. She needed to get on with her day by checking her appointment log. Instead of meeting clients at her home, she met them at a nearby café owned by a man who’d been her brother’s best friend, Malik Balmore.

More than likely, Locke Dangerfield already had a very competent private investigator on his payroll as part of his law practice. He and his partners were not just attorneys who defended. They also investigated.

Why did the thought of anyone…especially Locke Dangerfield investigating organized crime send fear up her spine? Possibly because she knew the danger involved. Rogue agents could be ruthless and merciless. They would go to extreme lengths to keep their activities from being uncovered and had no problem eliminating people.

Hollis released a deep sigh, accepting this wasn’t her investigation, nor was it her problem. She needed to focus on the cases that would pay her bills. For the time being, exposing cheating spouses was it, and there seemed to be a lot of them out there.

***

Locke Dangerfield leaned back in his chair and glanced around. Knowing he would be the lead counsel on the case, it made sense to establish temporary residence in Tampa. Carol Lumbar, the administrative assistant for all three attorneys – Dangerfield, Duke, and Wasilla ─ hadn’t wasted time finding him a furnished two-story house in a nice community on the bay that fit his needs. To make him feel at home, she shipped some items from his office in Portland to give it both a personal and business feel.

The house had four bedrooms. Two were for Shogun and Macayle if they needed to fly in, and the other was a guest bedroom. He liked the spacious home office that overlooked Tampa Bay. The view out the window was breathtaking.

After five days in Tampa, he had met with Karl several times and tried to explain to him why he hadn’t wanted to push for bail. Although doing so would have made it more convenient to meet with Karl somewhere other than the jail while building a defense, Locke felt Karl should stay put until they knew who could be trusted and who couldn’t. The less movement, the better. Especially since Barcos’ men could be waiting for the perfect opportunity to make a hit on Karl. There was no need to make things easy for them.

Locke changed his mind about not asking for bail when, in less than a week, he saw the mental toll of being back behind bars had on Karl. He also wasn’t sure Karl was safer in jail than out, since it was unclear who he could trust. So, he reversed course and decided to seek bail, but only if Karl agreed to certain conditions.

Namely, he would be relocated to an undisclosed place with a round-the-clock bodyguard, and he would not have access to a cell phone. Nor would he have visitors. Not even his fiancée.

Karl had balked at the latter until Locke made him see reason. An assassin wouldn’t hesitate to take out Nyla Roker to get back at him. Her going into hiding had been the right decision for her well-being.

Locke sat back up straight in his chair and glanced at his desk, cluttered with police reports, crime scene photos, stacks of Karl’s financial records, and transcribed tapes of various interviews. Many of the documents had yellow sticky notes sticking out, marking areas he wanted to review again.

After completing the review of Karl’s financial statements, various other reports, and personal interviews that Locke conducted with people whose names had appeared in several documents, he could only come to one definitive conclusion. Karl is not the man everyone assumed he was.

He had started by interviewing a number of people listed as those Karl had supposedly intimidated for failing to repay their loans as agreed. James Meadows, for instance, was a disabled man who expected to get roughed up. Instead, Karl had gifted the man a second-hand car so he could get to his doctor appointments.

Then there was Audrey Hines, a single mother who had fallen on hard times. She had expected a broken arm. Instead, when Karl arrived, he and his lady friend had stocked her kitchen with enough food to last her and her kids for six months.

Then there was Harold Langley, an auto mechanic who couldn’t repay his loan. Instead of demanding payment with all kinds of threats, after he explained to Karl how slow business had become, Karl found him steady work the very next day with a dealership restoring classic cars. A single father whose wife had left him with three kids found dependable, affordable daycare with Karl’s help.

The stories had gone on and on, and by the end of that first day, Locke had decided to change Karl’s occupation of loan shark to problem fixer.

Then Locke spent an entire day reviewing Karl’s financial records to see just how he was making money. He discovered investments that had paid off during Karl’s eight years of confinement, as well as money he had inherited when his parents and only uncle had died, and the sale of their homes and rental properties in Mississippi. Although Karl’s father and uncle might have obtained the money through unscrupulous means, Karl quietly funneled the capital anonymously to help others.

The funds covered several college scholarships, two youth centers built in Tampa, trade school tuition, and STEM camps. It took a full day of extensive digging to uncover the owner of the shell company. Karl Halifax. Out of curiosity, Locke took a drive to visit a huge after-school center, the Sheppard Granger Youth Center. Younger kids had been outside on the playground, and older teens were inside using the huge basketball court. Some studied in various rooms with computers, and others spent time in several recreational and game rooms with numerous video games and screens. Locke spoke with Melvin Wilkins, the man who ran the facility, and when asked, Mr. Wilkins assumed the center’s benefactor was Sheppard Granger.

Locke had only smiled at that assumption since he’d known that was not true. A call to Shep that night had verified his suspicions. Sheppard hadn’t known anything about the center, and Locke could tell he had been touched that Karl had honored him in such a way, without even letting him know he had done so. Nor had Shep known about all the other good deeds and anonymous charitable donations Karl had made.

Karl’s actions proved he had taken in all of Sheppard Granger’s mentoring just like the rest of them. In his own time and in his own way, Karl turned his life around and made a difference in many people’s lives.

Another thing Locke shared with Shep was that he’d noticed every scholarship recipient who received an anonymous four-year, paid-in-full tuition award, was a high school student whose parent or grandparent had a criminal record or was currently serving time. Karl was intentionally singling out students who carried the same stigma he knew so well.

Using his laptop, Locke emailed Carol to request reports and background investigations on every detective involved in the case, as well as the responding officers, evidence technicians, and dispatchers. He wanted to know who called into the station regarding the shooting at the warehouse.

Also, he wanted in-depth information on every man and woman who was part of the FBOC, the Federal Bureau Organized Crime Force, and every FBI agent assigned locally, including retired agents, recent transfers, and unexplained resignations. He wanted his team of paralegals back in Oregon to go through the files with a fine-tooth comb to see if they found anything interesting before he delved into the reports when he got them.

The only downer so far was that there were no video cameras in the café where Karl met that man, and none of the staff could recall such meetings. There were no cameras on that rural road either. The investigation firm that Dangerfield, Duke and Wasilla Law Firm normally used, Peachtree Private Investigative Firm, was tied up assisting Macayle in the case he was presently working on that involved a triple homicide. So, Locke was doing a lot of the initial leg-work himself, and he was fine with it since he liked getting out in the field once in a while. It was one of the things that made his occupation interesting.

Locke checked his watch and decided to call it a day. He usually worked till five, and it was barely four, but after reading all the documents that day, his eyes felt tired. He stood to stretch, deciding to go to one of the take-out places close by to get something to eat.

He was about to grab his keys off his desk when the doorbell sounded. Frowning, he wondered who would be paying him a visit. He pulled his pistol from his desk drawer. He had a license to carry a firearm in all fifty states and had used it once or twice. Because of the nature of this particular case, he had to operate on the side of caution.