Page 6 of Misdirection

She followed the trail, noting how the drops stopped at a doorway to her right.

At once, flashbacks hit her.

Flashbacks of the most horrible night of her entire life.

The night that had changed everything.

The night that had changed the entire course of her future.

Eight years of counseling hadn’t prepared her to find herself in this situation again.

Her heart slammed into her ears, and shivers claimed her muscles.

You can do this, Olive. Just keep breathing.

She stepped to the door.

Olive reached the door at the end of the blood trail and paused before slowly pushing it open.

A dark room greeted her.

Followed by the pungent smell of blood.

Nausea roiled in her stomach.

With her heart pounding in her ears, she reached around the door for the light switch and flipped it on.

Then she sucked in a breath.

A man wearing a gray suit and white shirt lay on the floor.

Beau Lebowski. Conglomerate’s Chief Executive Head of Development.

Olive had met the man several times, but they’d never really talked.

Now blood pooled from a wound in his chest.

Someone had shot this man, probably within the past couple of hours.

Olive’s throat tightened.

Snapping back into action, she touched his neck.

He had no pulse, confirming what she already knew—the man was dead.

She needed to call 911. If she delayed, she’d only look suspicious.

She grabbed her phone from her pocket and dialed.

“This is Olive Whiten”—she never used her real last name while on assignment. “I work at the Conglomerate headquarters in downtown Chicago. One . . . one of my colleagues has been shot, and we need an ambulance, and the police.”

The operator promised to send someone right away.

In a moment, Olive would call her boss at Conglomerate and tell him the news.

But first, she texted Tevin McIntyre, her colleague for this assignment. She kept her message simple.

We have a problem.

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