At nine o’clock on the dot, I opened the front door of Frost Security and stepped inside, the heels of my work boots clunking heavily on the refinished hardwood of the small lobby as I headed right to Genevieve's receptionist desk.

Peter Frost and Richard Murdoch, the founder and first member of Frost Security, had redone this old saloon when they first moved up to Enchanted Rock and opened the agency. They turned it into a nice little office space with a lot of hard work and dedication. The bones of the building had been good, solid, aged timber after they’d cut the minute amount of rot away. But, still, it had just been a wide open saloon. Rather than give us cubicles, they’d installed a framework of glass-enclosed rooms in the former common bar, making us look at least halfway respectable, and added insulation and updated the electrical work.

Up here in the lobby, though, they’d kept it more open so it would look less intimidating. Fresh artwork from the Curious Turtle, Richard’s fiancée’s art gallery that he’d recently become a partner in, hung from the walls. Green plants dotted the area and comfortable chairs lined the walls. If you hadn’t known any better, you’d be amazed to find out how many old prospectors had been gunned down in this building. That was one fact we didn't put on the service brochure.

“Morning, Gen,” I said as I stepped up to her desk. “What’re we riding herd on today?”

Genevieve Richter laughed and rolled her eyes behind her wire-framed glasses, that knowing look of a grandma clear on her face. She glanced down at her appointment sheet. “You, Mr. O’Dwyer, have an appointment in thirty minutes with an Ashley Maxwell.”

Gen was like our red-headed den mother here, and one of Peter and Richard’s first cases they’d sewn up. She stayed on top of all the paperwork, files, billing, accounting, phone calls, and scheduling—all the stuff I, at least, couldn’t wrap my head around. As far as I was concerned, she was damn good at her job. Of course, the only measure of a good job for me was whether or not there was a paycheck in my account every two weeks. And she and Peter always made sure we were taken care of.

“Ashley, huh?” I asked, searching my memory bank for the name as I went around her and grabbed the coffee pot and a mug.

The name didn’t ring any bells, but that didn’t mean anything. I was relatively new to this little settlement, with only a couple years on the mountain under my belt. Enchanted Rock was a tourist community, more or less, with a few thousand core local residents who lived in town, like me, and significantly more spread throughout the surrounding mountains. “She a local?”

“Only for a few months a year.”

I nodded and sipped my black coffee. On top of the normal population, though, was the seasonal migration of the rich folk who came through. Summertime was time for hiking, backpacking, and camping. Fall was all about hunting the big game, both elk and deer. And during the winter, it was skiing and snowboarding in the surrounding resorts. And, of course, you always had the sickeningly wealthy who came up during spring and sometimes stayed just a few days, or as long as six months. Their little estates dotted the mountainsides, complete with rambling cabins and plots of land.

“Vacation cabin, huh?” I asked knowingly.

She nodded. “Sounds like a breaking and entering, and she wants it investigated. Peter has all the details back in his office. Well, as much as we have, at least.”

“Got it. Anything else?”

She shook her head. “Nope, that’s it. Better get some coffee in you and run a comb through that hair of yours. You’ve only got,” she glanced at the clock, “twenty-eight minutes till your first appointment now.”

I laughed, lifted my mug a little in a mock salute to her, and turned to head back into the office proper. “Well, I’d best skedaddle then, huh?” I asked back over my shoulder as I began to meander through the glass enclosures that counted for offices here, heading back to my little office.

I passed Matt Jones, my roommate, on the way in as he bustled back to his desk with a stack of files in his arms, blue pen clutched in his teeth. I’d heard him get up and moving before dawn this morning. Peter had him heading east to Denver for a deposition on an insurance job, a fire case where they suspected arson by the owner.

Matt gave me a nod as he ducked into his office and kicked the door shut behind him with his foot. He was on a timetable, after all, and didn’t have time to chew the fat.

I respected that. He was the one paying our bills right now.

That’s what our meat and potatoes really was. Corporate work. The kind where Frost didn’t necessarily pad the hours or anything, but could still get by with charging a little more on the hourly rate.

With the exception of our little case a few months back involving an outlaw biker gang and a big shootout, the most exciting thing we handled anymore was corporate security penetration tests and the occasional stalker case.

It wasn’t adrenaline-pumping but, I’ll be honest, after a certain amount of getting shot at nearly everyday while I was in Baghdad and Sadr City, or running as a private bodyguard for high value targets in Brazil, you kind of want a break from all that.

Reckon that’s how I ended up here, in a sleepy little corner of the High Rockies. That and, well, the incident.

But, I didn’t have time to dwell on it, or the past. I still had emails and more coffee to down before my first appointment came in. I headed into my office and powered up my computer before beginning the tedious task of clearing out the inevitable spam that filled my inbox like burrs on a dog’s tail.

Ten minutes in, Peter appeared, rapping softly at my office door. He looked haggard, his almost black hair in disarray, big circles under his cold blue eyes. Still, though, his button-up shirt was perfectly pressed and his slacks had just the right crease on the pants. “Gen tell you about your first appointment? Ms. Maxwell?”

I nodded, reaching out to take the file from him. “Sure did. We already got a file going?” I opened the folder and let my eyes roam over its contents, just soaking everything in the way you look at a beautiful sunset.

“No,” he said, shaking his head as he took a seat, “I like to keep track of who’s coming and going out of the wealthy community, and I recognized the name from Richard telling me about her. Recent customer of his, and seems to be friends with Sheila Pearson, Jessica’s friend. Jessica’s actually the one who recommended us, I think, since Ashley knew about Richard working here. That, though, is just some clippings on Ms. Maxwell’s father and his hedge fund.”

“Hedgefund, huh?” I whistled appreciatively as I glanced up at him. “We’re cooking with gas, then?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Family’s old money. But break-ins happen everywhere, even in The Rock. Just thought you should know what you’re dealing with. One remarkable thing, though. He came out of the recession smelling like roses. Nearly doubled their holdings, and it’s just kept climbing.”

I nodded. That wasn’t too surprising. Plenty of people came out of the recession doing well, especially if all they were losing was money on a balance sheet. “Anything besides her family in here? We know anything about her?”

He shook his head. “She’s pretty low-key. Just seems like the normal debutante, wealthy heiress bag. Like I said, just thought you should know. That’s it.” He patted the arms of his chair and stood to leave.

I shut the file for a second and glanced up at him. “Hey, Pete? Can I talk to you?”

He settled back down in his seat with a tired look. “About the case? Or…?”

“About you. And, well, that girl Gen brought back from Oklahoma. Mary.”

He sighed, his jaw and teeth working a little bit.

A few months back, during the fiasco with the Skull and Bones outlaw biker gang and Jessica Long, Peter had disappeared to Oklahoma to meet with some corporate types. He didn’t come back with any work he rustled up on in the Sooner state, though. Instead, he’d come back with a girl. A young shifter named Mary Waynescott, who’d been staying out on his property outside of town.

It had been a touchy subject with him, and he’d refused to really speak on the matter with the rest of the pack, just saying she needed time and space to adjust to the new area, to her new school. No word on her family, where he’d gotten her, or who she was. None of that. Only that she was Gen’s great-niece, and not to ask too many questions because she wouldn’t answer them anyway.

With that last part in mind, I raised my hands. “I ain’t gonna ask about her, Peter, where she comes from, any of that, don’t worry. Alright? You’ve been clear.”

He sighed through his nose and nodded. “What, then?”

“You doing okay? You seem tired, is all.”

He glanced away, frowning a little as he looked at a blank spot on the wall and seemed to try and figure out the best way to word whatever he was about to say. “She’s…troubled. I knew she was and, I mean, aren’t we all? But she’s still just a young girl. So, yeah, nights are hard for her.”

I settled in my seat and shifted as he spoke. “I just, we—the guys—we’ve been thinking, that’s all…” I trailed off as I caught the look on his face. He wasn’t happy, that was for damned sure. “I’m just saying, if you need any help, you let us know, okay? We don’t necessarily want to do anything without your say so, but we can do things like grocery shopping and such, man. Pick up the slack. Look, I helped raise my younger brother and sister, so I know it’s hard. But we’re a team, Pete. And just cause you’re the leader, that don’t mean you’re not part of the team, too. You can ask for help.”

A look of relief came over his face, one that said he was glad he didn’t have to fight with me over whatever decision he’d made and was going through with. He nodded. “I’ll think it over,” he said as he rose from the chair. “Your offer, I mean. Eventually, I want her to meet all of you. Just not yet. Give it time.”

I nodded and glanced down at the time on my desk phone. “Will do. Just remember our offer, okay? You’re strong, boss, but even Hercules needed help sometimes.”

Laughing, he stopped at my office door. “That was just in that crappy TV show. Hercules never had any help.”

“Whatever,” I called back. “See if I ever offer you any handouts again!”

Frowning, I pushed the matter to the back of my mind as I returned to the file Peter had dropped off. I spent the next ten minutes or so going through it, looking over the quick rundown Gen had made when she’d taken the initial phone call. All seemed pretty cut and dry, except for one part that really stuck out like a sore thumb to me. The alarm had never been triggered, and nothing valuable had been stolen.

That was odd. I grabbed a pen from my little desk organizer, circled those two points and, after a quick glance at the time, started to go back through it to see if anything else seemed out of place. A few minutes into my second run-through, my phone’s intercom beeped. “Frank?” Gen’s voice called. “Your nine-thirty is here.”

“Be right there,” I replied, jogging the file back together and removing just the legal sheet before grabbing one of my own smaller pads. I left the file on her father and his business back on my desk and headed up front. I didn’t necessarily want her to know we’d been doing research on him or where her money came from. Not at a first meeting while we were trying to get details of the incident itself.

I got up and headed out to the lobby, walking past Jacob just lounging back in his chair in the office, hands clasped behind his head, feet up on his desk. Jake was an ex-cop from LA who worked most of our missing persons and skip-tracing cases. He did his time in the military, just like we all had, and went straight into the academy after he got out. He’d done a stint in their robbery and homicide division and had a good nose when it came to this kind of thing. Might he’d be able to give me some pointers or see something I didn’t. I knocked loudly on his open door and popped my head in.

“Frank,” he said with a nod, not even glancing up from the monitor. Like all of us, his sense of smell was better than a Bloodhound's.

“Hey, Jake. Got a minute?”

“What do you think, cowboy?”

“I think you’re watching a soccer game on a pirated streaming service that Lacy set up for you.” Lacy was our IT girl and Gen Richter’s granddaughter. Where Gen was our den momma, she was our company mascot.

He grinned and glanced over at me. “It’s called football, you heathen.”

I rolled my eyes. “Got a client up front, had a break-in last night.”

“That the one that smells like Beverly Hills?”

“Never smelled it before, but I’ll take your nose’s word on that.”

“Want me to take a look at it later?”

“Run it cold?” I asked.

“You know how I prefer it,” he said with a nod, his feet still up on the desk. “Gives me less preconceptions about the scene.”

“You just prefer that I leave you alone while you’re watching a game.”

“Match, dammit. Get it right if you’re gonna give me shit about it.”

“Where’s the fun in that, partner?”

“Lemme know when they got your sorry ass going wherever, and I’ll ride out with you. Deal?”

Honestly, Jake wasn’t slacking off on his work. He didn’t have an active case at the moment and, when we were free, our time was our own. He’d just never invested in a computer or a decent internet connection at his cabin way out in the middle of nowhere, and there weren’t any bars in the area that showed his soccer games. Whenever he did get assigned a case, his snout pressed to the grindstone just as hard as any of ours, and I knew it.

But what good is a buddy if you can’t give him a little shit?

“Deal.” I tapped the door twice, then headed off to meet Miss Ashley Maxwell.

I rounded the corner of the glass offices to the little lobby to meet my client. I stopped as soon as I got a look at her. You could’ve blown me down with a feather.

I mean, I knew she’d be good-looking. Most of these rich socialite girls were, since they took after their mothers.

But, damn, she was beautiful, even with the despondent, exhausted look on her face. Just everything about her—the way her long blonde hair fell across her shoulders, the way she crossed her legs with her sandal dangling from her foot, and her billowing vintage dress that still clung to her form—was striking. Even the way she smelled, faintly of amber and some kind of exotic incense I hadn’t smelled since I’d visited my buddy at the University of North Texas. This was one amazing-looking gypsy, even if she was wearing second-hand vintage clothing.

As I stopped to catch my breath in the lobby, she turned her long neck and looked right at me with eyes the deepest blue I’d ever seen, the kind of blue you expected the ocean to be when you were a kid.

I swallowed hard, put on my biggest, most confident smile. “Ms. Maxwell?”

She smiled a little uncertainly and stood from her seat.

“I’m Frank O’Dwyer,” I said, stepping forward and offering my hand. “I’ll be working your case.”

“Ashley,” she said as she brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear and smiled a little wider and more genuinely. “Please, you can just call me Ashley.”