Bøger af Dustin Stevens

"You know how when people show up at an emergency room, they're admitted based on severity? Someone with the sniffles gets told to wait in the corner while a bullet wound gets rushed into surgery?"Tilting my head back in understanding, I replied, "I take it rainbow fentanyl is a bullet wound?" "Rainbow fentanyl is a shotgun blast to the chest."When Hawk Tate went to bed the night before, he took the massive winter squall raging along the western front of the Rocky Mountain range as a sign the winter tour of Yellowstone Park scheduled for the next morning wasn't meant to be.What he had no way of knowing was that while he was safe in his bed, a small plane was passing high overhead. A vessel en route from Seattle to Denver, with no choice but to try and push through.A doomed effort, forcing them down into the most remote part of the park with cargo that many parties will do anything to recover. Including kidnapping Hawk and his partner and demanding they take them to the crash site.Heavily outnumbered, and working under a dwindling timeframe, Hawk is forced to lead a race deep into the most isolated wilderness in the continental United States. A fight for survival, pitting him not just against the crew holding them captive, but the raw savagery of the elements.A battle against both man and nature, requiring every bit of experience amassed in both his time as a guide and as a DEA agent long before...

"Six years ago, you voted to send troops into Afghanistan. One of those soldiers was my son, who never made it back. Now, I'm here to ask you, was it worth it?"The gathering was supposed to have been a perfunctory media exercise on retiring Senator Jackson Ridge's last day in office.When a grieving mother slips in and poses that simple question though, everything from Ridge's own legacy to American interests in Afghanistan are called into question. Racing against a ticking clock and powerful figures that would prefer to keep things happening across the globe a secret, Ridge must call on every last favor he accumulated over the course of his time in office in search of answers.Answers that ultimately have him looking at more than just the life of a fallen soldier when trying to decide if, in fact, it was all worth it...

In our line of work, there is no such thing as being a victim of success. There is just success.We can't stop what we're doing for fear of emboldening someone any more than we can stop evil men like him from existing. What we can do is stop them from hurting anybody else.For much of the last year, the liaison position thrust on Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner Billie, forcing them to split time between the Columbus Police Department and the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation, saw them doing an increasing amount of work for the latter. Cases handpicked by the governor with the hope of currying goodwill on his own behalf, sending them to nearly every corner of the state.An arrangement Reed was growing increasingly wary of, and when a body turned up in The Bottoms where he and his partner used to spend much of their time, he was more than willing to take it. A chance for them work in familiar territory with familiar colleagues, as well as a shot to bring justice on behalf of the young woman who was brutally murdered and displayed in a park for all to see.A task that had just begun when other victims surfaced.The makings of a serial spree targeting working girls throughout the city, with each addition bringing new details to light. The emergence of patterns hinting at the type of killer Reed and Billie had barely heard of, much less encountered before. Someone driven by delusions of grandeur, making it clear that every last detail was done with intention.Including the involvement of Reed and Billie themselves...

"Tell me, Ms. Wernick, are you familiar with the term Badger Games?"Months after returning home to the mountain community of Big Bear Lake to heal after suffering through a terrible car accident, Erika Wernick is settling back into small town life. Her body is healing while she spends more time with her mother and old friends.A return to the life she once knew, made possible by trading her position on the desk at The Seattle Times for a staff role at the local paper. A position that allows her to reintegrate with the community where she grew up and provides a space to highlight the work she is doing with The Hobby Lobby. A group of law enforcement retirees who use their newfound freedom to examine hobby cases they picked up over their careers, along with several other new ones tossed their way thanks to the spotlight provided by Erika.The most recent example of this is a double murder that occurred four years ago. An apparent crime of passion that took place at a casino and resort during the state's annual 4th of July bash, the killer found with the murder weapon in hand.Or so the world was led to believe.Put on the case by the retired detective who started - and was told to stop - investigating long ago, Erika and the crew delve into a case that quickly unravels into something much larger than anticipated. Taking them from the scorched sands of the southern California deserts to the hallowed halls of the state capital, they discover those same powers who didn't want things examined years before still exist.As do the lengths they are willing to go to keep secrets buried in the past...

College phenom running back Tyler Bentley is the ultimate success story.The son of a single mother from a wayward stretch of highway in Western Wyoming, he heads to Midwestern football powerhouse Ohio Tech and becomes a star, MVP of the Centennial Bowl, runner-up to the Heisman Trophy.He is also the ultimate fall from grace story when a freak play occurs, leaving his knee shattered.Seeing an opportunity, the SynTronic medical corporation convinces Tyler to use their newly-designed KnightRunner knee replacement, promising him that he'll be back on the field long before the upcoming season. Everything they promise comes true up until the product malfunctions, costing Tyler his career and his leg.Now, leaning on the help of his one-time teacher Shane Laszlo, Tyler must take his battle from the gridiron to the courtroom. Laszlo, an Ohio Tech alum himself just a year removed from law school, has his own score to settle with SynTronic, an incident occurring years before with repercussions far greater than the loss of a limb.Together, they will go into the biggest case Ohio has ever seen...

"I don't have long now. "But I wanted to say goodbye and tell you this was no accident. It was a big black truck that ran me off the road...on purpose...""Call Rem...find truck...promise me...love you guys."The last words Courtland Alder ever heard from his wife were the pained gasps of a voicemail. A farewell as she sat along the side of the road, the front end of her car impaled against the thick trunk of an oak tree, expressing how much she loved him and how proud of him she was.Before telling him to call his brother and find the man who did it.Reeling from the devastation of such a loss, Courtland is joined by his older brother Remington, the two of them forced to sift through his wife's seemingly idyllic life. A young attorney who started her career in corporate law before moving into nonprofit work eighteen months ago, dedicating her time to helping those less fortunate.A client base inadvertently taking her across paths some of Austin's seedier underbelly. Overlords and business interests with many secrets, some of which they will go to any lengths to keep hidden.What those same people don't know is the Alder brothers also have secrets. Mysteries buried and dormant for years, hidden away behind their new lives and careers and waiting for the right moment to be unleashed once again...

A round not meant to kill, but illuminate...Just days removed from the front lines in Afghanistan, a decorated Army sniper steps through the front door of an Agricultural Commission meeting in his hometown of Hamilton, Montana.Rifle in hand, he fires off two shots, neither hitting a soul, before taking three rounds himself.A frenzy wages outside the hospital where he lies in a medically induced coma. Local law enforcement and prosecutors parade in front of the cameras, blaming the actions on a maladjusted serviceman and using the incident to bolster their own standing. Veterans in the area bristle at the treatment, threatening to lash back at any time. Townspeople claim they no longer feel safe on the streets of Hamilton.Scared and fearful, his younger sister places a call to the Legal Services clinic in Missoula. On the other end is Drake Bell.Convinced by the girl all is not what it seems, Drake enlists the aid of his friends, the Zoo Crew, to begin digging into the case.What unfolds is a story far afield from what is being pedaled to the masses, one with tendrils reaching back generations, threatening the livelihood so many in the area hold most dear...

Never did I imagine her triggering the self-destruct. The absolute last resort, for when things were so bad there was no choice but to wipe it all away. A means of escape made possible by obliterating all that was forty years in the making.Destruction that is complete and total, all but a basic outline of the two main structures reduced to rubble. Charred and debris flung outward in a wide arc.A dark smudge of black and gray against a pristine white background.APPLESAUCE. One word. Ten letters. All capitals.This safe word was drilled into Ham time and again as she was growing up. A phrase meant to let her and the numerous other girls passing through the refuge know danger was near. One of the various forms of evil they were all hiding from had somehow found them tucked deep in the Idaho wilderness.A simple term Ham never once heard put to use during her formative years there, the numerous precautions taken to keep them safe more than sufficient. Defenses that have now somehow fallen short, meaning that when the single word arrives in her texts from an unknown number late one night, there is no doubting the sender or the unspoken meaning behind it.She needed to get to Idaho. Now.Just minutes removed from her most recent assignment, Ham begins her trek north. A mad dash through the night where she arrives to find the only home she's ever known destroyed. The closest thing to family she has left forced to go on the run.It's the beginning of a sprint far more intense than anything she's ever encountered. A race to find her surrogate relations and keep them safe while unraveling the various forces and motivations acting against them.A list of possibilities that goes back decades, with reach and resources far greater than anything Ham could have imagined...

Huntsville, Ohio is the kind of place young boys dream of growing up.A small town where football players are the top of the social hierarchy, and heroes are held in high esteem long after their final game is played.For the past three years, Clay Hendricks has realized that dream unlike few others. As the starting quarterback for the Hornets, he has dated the head cheerleader, been greeted by name everywhere he went, and served as the visible leader of the community as a whole. Now, faced with his final game, Clay is forced to actually make peace with the impending conclusion of it all.In doing so, he slowly starts to realize that what he was doing all those years was far greater than just playing quarterback and that the impact football had on himself, his family, and his community is far greater than being just a game.

Detective Roese looked up, a strand of lank hair hanging across her face. Blood staining her bare hands and forearms, she kept her weight pitched forward, pressing down on the sucking chest wound, fighting desperately to prevent another tally on the list of recently deceased."You can't go out there. Best case, you never find him in the middle of all this. Worst, it's a trap."Outcomes Reed had already considered and dismissed, his faith placed in the inky black K-9 partner by his side. "Even a ghost leaves a scent."Months into the new hybrid role that was created for Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner Billie, things have returned to some semblance of normalcy. A summer spent working the graveyard shift out of the 8th Precinct with the Columbus Police Department and only the occasional side job for the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations. A stretch allowing them to put the chaos of the spring behind them and to largely avoid any interaction with the governor who selected them for the role.Their moment of peace ends abruptly with a call to the small town of Piketon in the middle of the night. A request for outside presence to oversee an investigation into the sudden and inexplicable death of seventeen-year-old Bridger Van Cott. The star quarterback of the local high school team was found dead behind the wheel of his Trans Am six days before the season opener, the vehicle festooned in the colors of the team's rival and first opponent.For a community still reeling from a tragedy of national proportions just a few years prior, the newest incident has the potential to become volatile. Reed and Billie's first task is to tamp the simmering tensions and avoid. a collision brewing between neighboring communities, Their second, to determine what happened to the young man who was already awarded a full scholarship to play major college football next year. Someone with no known enemies or medical conditions and a crime scene containing no signs of a break in or struggle.A murder so perfect, it was almost as if it was committed by...a ghost.

Staked out in the Anza-Borrego Desert in the dead of night, young photographer Lake Pawlak is awoken by a clandestine meeting, bearing witness to something she never should have seen. Barely escaping, she turns to the authorities for help, bouncing through the criminal justice system before landing on the doorstep of DEA Special Agent in Charge, Mia Diaz.Not yet knowing what, or even who, it was Pawlak saw, Diaz is forced to call in a favor to Hawk Tate, a man whose story had always served as a cautionary tale in the Administration.Six months before, he had emerged from the shadows for the first time in half a decade, managing to simultaneously right a long dormant wrong and confirm that every story ever whispered about him was true.If anyone can keep the girl safe long enough for the DEA to investigate, it's him.Standing opposite is a conglomerate spanning from California to Ecuador, their interest aimed at eliminating Pawlak and protecting the empire they worked so long to build, the breadth of it encompassing most of the greater Los Angeles area. Employing a network of aliases and informants, soldiers and spies, they aim their concentrated energies on finding the unlikely duo as they attempt to stay hidden.

Three years ago, Charles Doyle was an average American millennial.At twenty-eight years old he was content to still live in the bedroom he grew up in, working as a manager at the fast food chain he first joined in high school. Upon the death of his father, Charles realizes there might be something more for him out there and decides to try his hand at the potential of social media for introducing himself to the masses.Starting as a web series of self-exploration, Charles soon finds himself seduced by the allure of faceless followers. What began as a first cigar or shot of whiskey soon escalates much faster, an entire new persona developing. Told after the fact, Going Viral follows first-person insight into the mind of a man that in just six short months manages to go from an anonymous face in suburban America to internet novelty to ultimately death row inmate Chaz D.

Ohana, the Hawaiian word for family, whether by blood or by circumstance, is the tale of Dyson Nicks, a graduate student from Montana.Just weeks removed from losing his parents in a tragic car accident, Dyson Nicks decides to take himself as far away from home as he can for the holiday season.What was supposed to be a retreat to Oahu soon turns ugly. Within minutes of arriving, he is initiated into the unseen side of Hawaii. Theft, violence, and territorialism mark the flip side of paradise, the side most people refuse to believe exists.Through time, will, and pure dumb luck, Dyson serves to carve out his own niche within the island community. With the aid of Mahana, a local girl hiding from a past just as scarred as his own, he begins to find his way forward again.Through the kindness and generosity of strangers, he discovers the true meaning of ohana and how it comes to define Hawaiian life.

Not a condition, but a symptom...Nothing about the case seemed to follow the previous patterns Drake Bell experienced in his young career. The local public defender's office claimed a conflict of interest and turfed one of their potential clients his way. The incident in question was a single vehicle accident, the victim a fourteen-year-old girl left in a coma and fighting for her life.The client, someone completely new to town, was intent on accepting their guilt in the matter.Something about the story strikes a chord with Drake, compelling him to investigate further. Faced with his new client's trepidation, their insistence on self-incrimination, and the uncertain future of the young girl still in critical care, he flings himself into the case.Things soon begin to shift when he finds himself on a quest that is part medical mystery and part history lesson, trying in earnest to understand the condition afflicting his client and what it means for her situation. Running short on time, Drake calls on the myriad skills of the Zoo Crew.Together, they uncover a trail stretching back more than a hundred years, involving some of the oldest wealth and industry in the state, and those that would do anything to continue protecting it...

Six years.Six long years have passed since the tragedy that took Hawk Tate's wife and daughter. Ended his career with the DEA. Sent him into self-imposed exile, living and working in the rugged terrains of Yellowstone Park.Since he heard the voice on the other end of the line.The last time the two spoke, things didn't end well. It was made clear the blame for the fate of Hawk's family was placed squarely on him, that as far as the caller was concerned he had suffered the same ending. But now, after all this time, something happened, something strong enough to make them reach out, asking for his help.Something strong enough to strike to the core of who Hawk is, once more beckoning him out of the shadows...

"His life is not a vacuum. The things he says and does, decisions he makes, reverberate in ways he can't begin to fathom."In the year since his tenure as Governor of Montana came to an end, Carson Wirth's life has been little more than a victory lap with time spent back in his hometown of Helena, free to make the perfunctory rounds as something of a minor celebrity. Someone to give the occasional guest lecture at the local college or to offer a sound bite on the evening news.His existence isn't without its benefits, but when an opportunity presents itself to insert himself into a newly vacated United States Representative seat, Wirth jumps at it, envisioning an entirely new act for his career.An act that many others aren't nearly as excited to see come to pass.Hours after stepping off the stage to receive his endorsement from the outgoing representative, Wirth wakes up alone in an old farm outbuilding. Handcuffed to a steel chair bolted to the floor, he embarks on a night painstakingly put together by his captors, each moment meant to impart the full repercussions of every decision he made overseeing the state.Some with consequences reaching far beyond anything he ever intended...or even imagined.

More than twenty years ago, a bomb ravaged the federal courthouse in Missoula, Montana, leaving behind only a pair of fingerprints in the rubble.One belonged to Maryline Harper, a woman incarcerated for the crime since. The other? A man named Glen Whisenhunt that hasn't been seen or heard from since.Now more than two decades later, a case of domestic violence turns up a connection to the heinous act from so long ago, one that immediately embroils many of the key players in the Missoula legal community. Among them are the original prosecutor of the case, a man facing an impending election in dire need of a win. An FBI agent that feels his time in Montana has reached an end. The local police officer that made the original arrest, her personal and professional life becoming entangling in a way she never thought possible. And most of all, the young attorney that is hired to defend the man now standing accused of the bombing from long before.Working through and around one another, each of these people must fight to unravel something that has been more than twenty years in the making...

Staked out in the Anza-Borrego Desert in the dead of night, young photographer Lake Pawlak is awoken by a clandestine meeting, bearing witness to something she never should have seen. Barely escaping, she turns to the authorities for help, bouncing through the criminal justice system before landing on the doorstep of DEA Special Agent in Charge, Mia Diaz.Not yet knowing what, or even who, it was Pawlak saw, Diaz is forced to call in a favor to Hawk Tate, a man whose story had always served as a cautionary tale in the Administration.Six months before, he had emerged from the shadows for the first time in half a decade, managing to simultaneously right a long dormant wrong and confirm that every story ever whispered about him was true.If anyone can keep the girl safe long enough for the DEA to investigate, it's him.Standing opposite is a conglomerate spanning from California to Ecuador, their interest aimed at eliminating Pawlak and protecting the empire they worked so long to build, the breadth of it encompassing most of the greater Los Angeles area. Employing a network of aliases and informants, soldiers and spies, they aim their concentrated energies on finding the unlikely duo as they attempt to stay hidden.

A boy of just six years old, Austin Roberts finds himself perpetually in the way at the post-funeral gathering of his great uncle Jack.Frustrated and alone, he wanders out onto the front porch to find his great uncle Cat, Jack's brother, sitting alone, an old album on his lap. Oblivious to the world around them, the two begin an unlikely conversation and together embark on journey that stretches almost seven decades in length.Page by page, Cat imparts the story of the album to young Austin, using a series of seemingly mundane and unconnected objects to tell the story of the Robert brothers from long ago.Beginning with their humble upbringing by a single mother on the river bottoms of rural Ohio to the day they left home to serve in the Korean War, through their capture and escape from an unmarked prisoner of war camp and on through the lives they returned to, the album tells a story of bravery and brotherhood that knows no bounds.

"You want to go to the Zone of Death? Now?" I asked, my brows rising in disbelief. "Agent Rowe, I don't care if the damn president is holed up in that cabin, you're not getting there tonight." Two years ago, rookie ATF agent Harper Rowe witnessed the death of her partner and mentor in a fiery explosion at the headquarters of a man they'd been investigating. The start of what became an obsession, tracking the man she held responsible for six months before finally apprehending him. The first major score of her career, elevating her to a full-blown agent and providing some modicum of justice for her fallen friend. Accountability that lasted until the prison transport van was hijacked three weeks ago, releasing the murderer and seven other criminals back onto the streets, renewing the fixation Rowe experienced so long ago. Total focus meaning that when a rumor was floated through the detention center where the prisoner was held that he might be hiding in one of a few cabins found in a sliver of Yellowstone Park beyond the jurisdictional reach of any law enforcement agency, she shows up on Hawk Tate's doorstep asking for his help. Aid he only begrudgingly extends, culminating in a violent blast eerily similar to the one from years before. Total destruction that claims one life and just narrowly misses taking both of theirs. A trap that becomes the inadvertent start of a partnership between Hawk and Rowe that sends them both careening across the Pacific Northwest. A mad dash to uncover who was behind the attempted assassination, revealing layers and connections going back years, connecting to prior relationships and experiences both will need to draw from if they are to make it out alive...

"It's time for you to go be who you are, or the next time something happens, you won't be any help to any of us."Two months ago, the unthinkable happened. Ham's family was attacked, pulling her back to the wilds of Idaho from her life on the opposite end of the country. A return trip that saw her do whatever was necessary to protect them, culminating not just with the removal of the threat, but in the destruction of the only home she - or the many young girls who now live there - have ever known.Forced on the run across state lines, the time since has been spent slowly rebuilding. A process Ham has willingly engaged in, consciously putting the growing restlessness within her at arm's length. A calling from both the life she had built and the skills she worked so hard to attain.A second self-imposed exile that ends with her handler reaching out. Contact he wouldn't normally dare make, if not for the extreme nature of a new case he knew would speak to her personally, paralleling something they both witnessed during their time in the military together.Seven hundred miles away, a vicious attack known as an annihilation has taken place. A coordinated strike, encompassing three different sites, all aimed at a particular family. Three generations of an agricultural dynasty completely wiped from the earth in a single night.The event completely upends the small community where they reside and draws Ham into a much different role than what she's accustomed to. A partnership with local law enforcement that takes her from the small towns dotting the western half of Oregon to the capital city of Portland seeking the people and reasons behind such an attack.A search that eventually becomes a hunt, at long last letting the true nature kept bottled for months rise back to the surface...

Just months before Hawaii's gubernatorial primary election, a body is found on the floor of the open air capitol, a macabre scene specifically manipulated to draw attention to a sitting governor with waning political support.Frantic, he calls on the Honolulu Chief of Police Walter Tseng, demanding that the perpetrator be brought to justice as swiftly and silently as possible, fearful a scandal might destroy whatever chance still has at gaining re-election.Blackmailed into complicity and unable to draw from his active force, Tseng calls in Kalani Lewis, a young detective three months off the job. Still battling her own demons from an investigation that resulted in the death of her partner, Kalani is forced back into action, pulled into a life she isn't certain she still wants to be a part of, a family friend that was once a military policeman and now a full-time surfer as her only support.Inch by inch they work their way through the investigation, navigating mounting crime scenes and intense bureaucratic pressures as the election looms ever closer, the killer growing more emboldened by the day...

For a moment, she looked as if she had turned to stone. Any slight twitches of her facial muscles ceased. Even her chest stopped rising and falling as she took in air. Everything went completely still, her eyes glazing as she stared down at the mug in her hands. A pause that lasted several seconds before she snapped her eyes upward and asked, "There were more?" "Yes.""How many?" When Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner, Billie, received a direct summons to the personal residence of Governor Thomas Cowan, he assumed it was another escalation over the particulars of their new position as liaisons between the Columbus Police Department and the state Bureau of Criminal Investigations. Another overstep by the highest ranking elected official in Ohio, trying to bring Reed and Billie directly under his control. What he didn't expect was to enter the man's home and find that, not only was the case presented to them legit, but unlike anything they had ever seen. A friend and associate of the governor, kidnapped, sedated, and tattooed across the entire length of his forehead. PRIDE. A single word, with no clear cause or motivation, until a second victim turns up the next day. GREED, proceeded in order by SLOTH. The fabled seven deadly sins, branded on people from across the state. Victims with no obvious connection between. Knowing more attacks will come, Reed and Billie fling themselves headlong into a search unlike anything they've encountered before. A hunt that brings them in contact with people trying desperately to keep secrets from the past hidden. Secrets someone is fighting to make certain they never forget.

Four is the story of a man simply known as Number Four.He's known to his employers as Number Four because he operates by four concrete rules at all times. He's known by this reputation because he's the clean-up man, just like the fourth batter in a baseball lineup.He is the clean-up man of the contract killing world. If a contract goes awry, a target gets away, or somebody is seen, he's the man called to control the situation. Ruthless, efficient and believed by some to be little more than a myth, Number Four is the kind of man nobody ever wants to have to use twice.Ten years before Theo Mavetti, head of an independent crime syndicate in Boston employed Number Four. Trying to save a few dollars, Mavetti crossed Four and very nearly lost his family for it. Now a new situation has presented itself, and as it begins to close in on Mavetti and his way of life, he has no choice but to make the call.As high ranking officials and public personas begin turning up the victims of perfect crimes, the Boston Police press harder and harder on the case. Dern Beckett, an intense and rugged man from the mountains of Wyoming, leads the investigation and begins unraveling the connections that reach from offices on Capital Hill to billion dollar industries to the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.Number Four focuses on the three different sides and the high stakes game of cat-and-mouse each must play.

Two days.In a span of just two days, the paths of three complete strangers are forced together in a way none of them could have foreseen or even thought possible.Two days ago, Eric Winston was about to be a made man. As the head of Mjollnir Industries he had operated at the forefront of the criminal underworld for over three decades and was finally getting his chance to join the big leagues. An international conglomerate of businessmen and government officials that come together to form one of the largest drug rings in existence. Winston's final task before being officially brought on board is to host a one night, winner take all event featuring the best underground fighters in the world. Everything was in order, until a competitor backed out...Two days ago, Will Honeycutt was an anonymous Portland firefighter, doing his best to provide for his young family. When the St. Rita's Orphanage burned to the ground and he pulled a half dozen children to safety, he inadvertently thrust himself into the public eye. Now, accompanied by local surgeon and brother Heath, Will sets off to begrudgingly attend a banquet in his honor.Two days ago, FBI special agent Mike Manus was doggedly working the case that killed his father nearly three decades before. When a call comes in that could finally unlock the puzzle he's spent his entire career trying to solve, he boards a plane in pursuit of what he hopes will finally be absolution. Operating as the head of a joint task force with the Portland FBI and the marines, Manus will do everything he can to avenge multiple fallen agents and finally put his own long-tormented conscience to rest.Twelve is a tale that effectively melds the three seemingly unconnected worlds of Winston, Honeycutt, and Manus. Over the course of only two days, their stories become inexorably linked to one another, moving forward in a tightening spiral that will remain with all three for the rest of their days.

"You remember that game we used to play when I was a kid? The one where you would let me pick out a code word, and if ever anything was wrong, all I had to do was call and say it, or yell it out when you came to pick me up?" "Well, this morning I woke up to find this." Turning the phone my way, she thrust it out at arm's length before her. Two words, totaling just nine letters. Mom! Hungry! Twenty-five years ago, Rand "Bear" Bryant's worst nightmares came true when his work with the FBI's Fugitive Task Force followed him home. One of the suspects he and his team were pursuing showed up at his home in the middle of the night. A crew of armed men descended on the Bryant house, intent on snuffing out any interest in them, no matter the cost. Bear and his family survived the bloody, brutal affair, though not without scars. Wounds his wife and daughter couldn't overcome sent them fleeing to the Pacific Northwest. A place as far removed from him and the associated trauma as possible, while still remaining in the continental United States. A distant location Bear spent decades visiting before ultimately relocating for retirement as well. He maintained a constant vigil, a state of overwatch, to ensure nothing like what took place that night ever happened to his family again.A self-appointed post he maintained until told not to by his daughter exactly five hundred days ago.A firm directive rescinded after receiving a text message in the middle of the night from her own teenaged daughter, in dire need of help. Fearing the worst, Bear's daughter shows up at his doorstep seeking help in a way only he can provide. The start of a whirlwind stretch that sees the two of them plunge back into a life he had left behind, while at the same time trying to navigate their own rocky history. Another bloody, brutal affair they can only hope to survive again...

Every great team needs someone to do the little things...Deep in the heart of winter, things are shifting for the Zoo Crew. Drake Bell is wrapping up his last days in law school and preparing to take the bar exam. Kade Keuhl finally relented and agreed to apply for his private investigator's license. The ski lift at the local Snow Plaza grounded everybody from hitting the slopes. And Emily, Drake's former college flame, is back in town looking to make him an offer that could alter everything moving forward. A hundred miles east of Missoula, just outside of Butte, the mansion of a reclusive billionaire is burned to the ground. A radical new accelerant is used to reduce the place to rubble in a fraction of the expected time, leaving local law enforcement stumped and heightening the impetus to apprehend whoever is responsible.Fearing the heightened scrutiny that could come with such an event, a quick arrest is made. The man accused of the heinous crime is working to provide for his young wife and impending child--a former Montana Grizzly that calls on his teammate with one simple request: Prove he didn't do it.Working under the constraints of expectations and growing unrest, Drake and the Zoo Crew go to work to unfold a deeper story than anyone anticipated.What started as a simple case of arson soon stretches back a decade, encompassing land deals gone bad, deep personal ideologies, and activism taken to an ugly extreme...

"The money's in the treatment, not the cure..."On the brink of the first official weekend of summer, Drake Bell's agenda was set: Join his friends, The Zoo Crew, for a birthday celebration of one of their own. Take advantage of the slow period in the annual Missoula calendar, with classes at the university having wrapped and commencement just days away. Get outside and relish in all the warmth and adventure Montana has to offer.Thoughts locked on his impending plan, he was completely unaware of the story unfolding just thirty miles north of town. The tale of a young man with deep ties of his own to the Crew, recovering from a painkiller addiction, found dead in a short-term rental. An apparent accidental overdose, the cause of death so clear it doesn't warrant much of an investigation.Emphatic there is no way her son would ever do such a thing, the young man's grieving mother reaches out to the Crew. Imploring them to take a look, to put her conscience at ease, they reluctantly delve into what happened.They soon uncover a plot far greater than any of them could imagine. A scheme skirting the edges of treatment and rehabilitation. Federal and local jurisdiction. Patient rights and basic humanity.All in service of a sleight-of-hand game Drake never knew existed...

Because forever is a really long time...For the last six years, Tim Scarberry called Portland, Oregon home. Placed there by the Witness Protection Program, he assimilated into his new existence, trying to gain some level of enjoyment from the life he never asked for...or wanted.A life that is completely destroyed by a single phone call, nothing more than a message telling him the last remaining tether to his old life was severed in a tragic and unexpected way.Having no choice but to abandon his adopted life and return to his roots, Scarberry finds himself dropped into a situation more harrowing than he ever dreamed.Allied with a single sheriff's deputy--a young woman he knew only briefly in his youth fighting battles of her own--the two face a network of illegal gun runners, apathetic bureaucracy, and federal agency, ultimately squaring off with the very thing Scarberry's been trying to avoid for so long...

Never a more random group of misfits had the world ever seen...Fresh from a summer legal internship in a windowless office on the east coast, all Drake Bell wants is get back to Montana, reunite with his friends, catch some fish, and maybe do some hiking.By all accounts, it's a solid plan for his final year of law school... and one that's thrown far off course by the first case to walk through the door of the legal clinic where he's assigned.Eight months pregnant and closing fast on her due date, the girl is scared. What was supposed to be a simple surrogacy agreement went tragically wrong, with other young girls just like her coming up missing... or even worse.She's on the run with no one else to turn to.Drake manages to push his reluctance aside and agrees to take the case, fast uncovering that what appears to be a simple transaction is actually something much larger, encompassing some of the biggest names in Missoula County--names with the clout and the conviction to do whatever they must to ensure their secret remains hidden.