Page 2 of The Rough Ride (Sanctuary, Inc. #3)

L iz opened the package of chocolate sandwich cookies, dunked one in her fresh mug of decaf espresso and savored the flavors as she chewed.

Her body hummed with satisfaction. It was mid-afternoon, and she’d caught herself nodding off at the computer screen.

The sweet treats would propel her to quitting time.

She reached for a third cookie, reconsidered her strategy, and fumbled around the top drawer of her desk for the bottle of all-natural energy she kept for emergencies.

Got it. She poured half into her coffee and put the cookies away.

In a little while, the B vitamins would kick in and this afternoon slump would be a memory.

She’d been up most of last night pacing and crying.

And when the crying and pacing finished, the phantom pain in her AWOL foot started.

There were dark rings under her eyes and lead in her ass today.

All she wanted was six hours of solid sleep.

Six hours to ensure she didn’t drool on her keyboard at work and miss an important, life-saving detail.

Liz reached for her mug and took a couple hearty slugs. She logged into a social media site and waited while it sprung to life with a list of notifications from her friends.

She didn’t have real friends. Not anymore.

Not since Iraq, and certainly not since Ella had been born.

She had work and a fussy baby and a mother who’d taken an early retirement package from the postal service to babysit Ella.

She had guilt. A shitload of it. Working mommy guilt, survivor’s guilt, daughter guilt, and a case of baby-daddy guilt that she had no idea how to address.

Liz typed in the next name on her list. The social media page loaded, and she scanned for unusual posts, replies, threats, and possible hints at terrorism.

Not exactly what she trained for but doable, and her mid-management position paid very well—like, six figures well.

She had thirty names she was responsible to track via social media every day.

Known abusers, traffickers, and religious and political extremists.

Most of them had rap sheets and a half-dozen fake names.

It was up to her to keep pace with them as they slithered between identities.

She rather liked the challenge, and her workplace persona at the moment was that of Dottie Ryan, a buxom, pouty blonde bombshell who liked it a little rough.

Liz maintained eight to ten different online personalities for herself during any given week.

When she wasn’t this tired, she’d disappear into the cyber world for hours, hoping to thwart the next shopping mall bomber.

Just last week, her efforts nailed a trafficker who lured young teens to his house under the pretense of being a math tutor.

The week before that, she’d stumbled onto a bullied kid posting his suicide plans.

A co-worker stuck his face into her office. “There’s birthday cake in the lunchroom if you need a pick-me-up, Liz. I figured you’d be interested because it’s chocolate. ”

She didn’t turn around but held up her coffee mug. “Already got some, thank you.”

She glanced at the photo of svelte Dottie’s persona on the screen and then at her own tummy that she hadn’t firmed up since Ella was born.

Dottie wouldn’t stuff her face with chocolate to make up for lost sleep or lack of friends or a non-existent sex life or a missing foot that still felt like it was there sometimes.

Of course not. Dottie would strut in her ho-red stilettos and drive the cyber-freaks insane.

This job was a bit like playing cyber-Barbies. Liz used a government program to invent fake people with pseudo lives. Not to be confused with the online sockpuppets who flooded the internet to sway public opinion. No, she used the faux identities to draw out extremists.

Her favorite persona was that of Marion Trent, a mousy, brown-haired librarian in search of a cause.

Marion’s homepage was a continual stream of invites from men wanting an American bride and religious and political zealots petitioning her to check out their videos.

Marion was prime beef in the hungry world of cyber-hunting.

She was unattached, advertised her virginity, and had more online boyfriends than any sane woman could handle.

A newish hire named Carmen jogged into Liz’s office and plopped a laptop in front of her. “Read this. Does it impress you as boys preparing for a school shoot?” Carmen stood back and crossed her arms.

Liz glanced at the pictures first. Guns—lots of guns.

Boxes of ammo. Two young men with hunting caps, pointing their trigger fingers at the selfie screen.

The posts and replies were in another language.

“I can’t read it, Carmen. If it was Pashtu, I’d make sense of it, but my Spanish ends with hola and gracias. ”

“Oh yeah.” Carmen leaned in and enabled the translation. “Here you go. Sorry.”

The little office was quiet except for their steady breathing and the sound of the air conditioning system.

“I don’t know,” Liz murmured. “See, this kid is in a photo with a hanging deer. It could just be that they’re hunters.”

“I’d agree with you, but twenty-four hours ago, he posted on one of the cheerleader’s timelines that he had something very special for her at lunch tomorrow.

Three days before that, he and this cheerleader broke up.

I checked. They’re no longer in a relationship with each other.

” Carmen scrolled and highlighted the posts.

“He didn’t happen to mention a birthday or making up or something?” Liz loosened her ponytail and massaged her head.

“No. He just said it was a big surprise and wanted to see her at lunch.” Carmen fingered the silver dog-tag necklace she always wore.

“Well, these kids are either planning something, or stupid. Posting pictures of each other with guns online throws a red flag. They’re underage, another flag.

The reference to lunch is a red flag. I’d take it to the boss and let her decide if she wants to alert the locals and the feds.

Erring on the side of caution makes sense. ”

She wheeled around and gave Carmen a big smile. “Great work. You may have found something. Report back and let me know what the upper crust decides. Otherwise, I’ll worry about it right through lunch tomorrow.”