DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series) (49 page)

Close protection – the perfect choice

It's Sean who asks Charlie to go undercover to the bodyguard training school in Germany where the events of
HARD KNOCKS
take place. Charlie agrees as a favour to him, but gradually realises that close protection work is the perfect choice for an ex-Special Forces trainee who never found herself quite in step with life outside the army that rejected her.

By the time we get to
FIRST DROP
Charlie is working for Sean's close protection agency and he accompanies her on her first assignment in Florida. By now she has come to terms a little with her violent abilities – or so she thinks. But then she's plunged into a nightmare in which she has to kill to protect her teenage principal.

Which is why, at the start of
ROAD KILL
, Charlie was a little in limbo about her life and her career in close protection. Until, that is, one of her closest friends is involved in a fatal motorcycle crash and she agrees to take on an unpaid bodyguarding job. She and Sean are soon drawn together to protect a group of thrill-seeking bikers on a wild trip to Ireland.

The second book to be set in the US,
SECOND SHOT
, starts with a bang – or rather, two of them – when Charlie is shot twice and seriously injured in the course of her latest bodyguarding job in New England. The events of this novel strip away Charlie's usual physical self-assurance and leave her more vulnerable than ever before as she tries to work out what went wrong and still protect her client's four-year-old daughter from harm. Charlie is also forced to confront how far she's prepared to go in order to save the life of a child.

By
THIRD STRIKE
, Charlie and Sean are living in New York City and working for Parker Armstrong’s exclusive close-protection agency, where Sean has become a junior partner.

In this book, I really wanted to finally explore Charlie’s difficult and often destructive relationship with her parents – and in particular with her father. Charlie has to protect her mother and father from harm at all costs, but is hampered by trying not to let them witness just how cold-bloodedly their daughter must act in order to be effective at her job. It puts her in an often impossible situation, brings her relationship with Sean to an explosive head, and causes her father to reveal a side of himself everyone will find disturbing.

Not only that, but the story ends with big questions over Charlie’s entire future.

By the start of
FOURTH DAY
, where Charlie, Sean and Parker Armstrong are planning a cult extraction in California, Charlie has still not solved the problems that arose during the previous book – nor has she found the courage to explain it all to Sean. When she volunteers to go undercover into the Fourth Day cult, she’s looking as much for answers about her own life as about the man who died.

It's this battle with her own dark side that is one of the most fascinating things for me as a writer about the character of Charlie Fox. I wanted a genuine female action hero, but one who had a convincing back story. I've tried to ensure she stays human, with all the flaws that entails – a sympathetic character rather than just a 'guy in nylons' as someone described some tough heroines in fiction.

In
FIFTH VICTIM
– involving a deadly kidnap plot among the jet-set of Long Island – there are complications with Sean’s ongoing condition, and Charlie’s increasing awareness that her boss, Parker, views her as so much more than a mere employee. Charlie is forced to make decisions that will change her life forever.

After the shock of Sean’s drastic change in attitude, it is up to Charlie to guide him through leading a protection detail at a big charity fundraiser in New Orleans in
DIE EASY
. But the reappearance of an unwelcome ghost from their army past proves confusing as well as frustrating for both of them. And when the situation turns deadly, Charlie is left not knowing who she can rely on. By the end of it, she − and Sean − will have reached a crossroads in both their professional and personal lives . . .

The instinct and the ability to kill

Characters who live on the fringe have a certain moral ambiguity that we find seductive, I feel. Charlie has that obscurity to her make-up. She discovers very early on that she has both the instinct and the ability to kill. And although she does it when she has to and doesn't enjoy what it does to her, that doesn't mean that if you push her in the wrong direction, or you step over that line, she won't drop you without hesitation.

Dealing with her own capacity for violence when she's put under threat is a continuing theme throughout the books. It's not an aspect of her personality that Charlie finds easy to live with – a difficulty she might not have if she was a male protagonist, perhaps? Even in these days of rabid politically correct equality, it is still not nearly as acceptable for women to be capable of those extremes of behaviour.

But Charlie has evolved out of events in her life and, as you find out during the course of the series, things are not about to get any easier. I do rather like to put her through it! She's a fighter and a survivor, and I get the feeling that if I met her I'd probably like her a lot. I'm not sure she'd say the same about me!

Although I've tried to write each of the Charlie Fox books so they stand alone, this is becoming more difficult as time goes on and her personal story overlaps from one book to the next. I'm always expanding on her back story, her troubled relationship with her parents and her even more troubled relationship with Sean, who was once her training instructor in the army and, when she moves into close protection, he then becomes her boss. He continues to bring out the best and the worst in her.

And their relationship is becoming ever more complicated as the series goes on. In the next outing, Charlie is struggling to deal not only with the dangers faced by her client, but also from the one person she should be able to trust with her life . . .

If you’ve enjoyed this Charlie Fox crime thriller, check out this excerpt from the first in a new series by bestselling author Joel Goldman:

Public Defender Alex Stone confronts one of the worst nightmares for a criminal defense lawyer when she wins an acquittal for a guilty man, Dwayne Reed, who is soon charged with another murder. Alex defends him again until he threatens Alex’s lover and she has to decide which side of the law she is on and how far she’ll go to protect the person she loves.

Praise for Joel Goldman’s previous works:

“Joel Goldman is the real deal!” NYT bestselling author John Lescroart

“Fast, furious and thoroughly enjoyable, THE LAST WITNESS is classic and classy noir for our time, filled with great characters and sharp, stylish writing.” NYT bestselling author Jeffery Deaver

“DEADLOCKED, the fourth Lou Mason case, is the best and . . . and when the action starts it is a real page turner delivered by a pro.” Mystery Scene Magazine

“SHAKEDOWN is a really fine novel. Joel Goldman has got it locked and loaded and full of the blood of character and the gritty details that make up the truth. Page for page, I loved it.” NYT bestselling author Michael Connelly

“A masterful blend of rock-solid detective work and escalating dread. THE DEAD MAN is both a top-notch thriller and a heart-rending story of loss, courage and second chances. I loved it.” NYT bestselling author Robert Crais

www.JoelGoldman.com

Chapter One

“Your Honor, you can’t let the jury see these photographs, not if my client is going to get a fair trial,” Alex Stone said, thrusting an eight-by-ten glossy toward the judge. “The victim’s severed penis is sticking out of his mouth! But that’s not even the worst one.” She threw the photograph onto her counsel table and picked up another. “This one with the rats is beyond the pale even for a prosecutor running for re-election like Mr. Bradshaw. And the other ten are no better.”

Tommy Bradshaw answered, his calm demeanor a parent’s rebuke. “Then the defendant shouldn’t have cut off Wilfred Donaire’s penis and stuffed it down his throat. And he shouldn’t have gutted Mr. Donaire and left him in his backyard so the rats could turn him into an all you can eat buffet.”

They’d battled each other since law school, staying up all night drinking and arguing the law or giving each other advice about their love lives. They were on law review together and graduated in the top ten of their class.

They remained close after law school, duking it out in court, soothing their wounds afterward over drinks and dinner, sharing holidays and regular days, good or bad. Alex couldn’t think of another person she’d shared so much of herself with except for her partner, Bonnie. But none of that entitled Bradshaw to an inch of slack in the courtroom.

Alex wheeled around, glaring at him. “That is exactly what I’m talking about, your Honor. Mr. Bradshaw wants to inflame the jury with these disgusting photographs and hope they’ll forget that there’s no physical evidence to tie my client, Dwayne Reed, to this crime. He has to prove more before he should be allowed to poison the jury.”

Bradshaw stroked his chin, shook his head and offered the gap-toothed smile that helped get him re-elected as Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney the year before, the first African American to occupy the office.

“We’ve done plenty. For starters, we know from the witnesses that have already testified that the defendant and the victim, Wilfred Donaire, were rival drug dealers. We know that Dwayne Reed threatened not only to kill Mr. Donaire but that he would, and I quote, ‘cut the motherfucker’s dick off and shove it down his throat if he don’t stay off my fucking corners.’”

Alex jumped on Bradshaw’s argument. “And every one of those witnesses made a deal with the prosecutor in exchange for their testimony. They’re back on the street selling drugs and my client is on trial.”

“Judge,” Bradshaw said, “we argued this issue at the preliminary hearing and again during pretrial motions. You made the same ruling both times and said that you’d allow this evidence to come in. Nothing has changed.”

Judge William West, heavyset with hooded eyes, rocked back in his chair looking down on the attorneys from his perch behind the bench. Known by the criminal defense bar as Wild West, he was a prosecutor’s best friend, giving them the close calls and handing down the stiffest sentences. His courtroom was the last place Alex wanted to be with a client like Dwayne Reed.

“And,” the judge said, “I told Ms. Stone I would allow her to raise the issue again at trial before I let the jury see the pictures. I’ve excused them from the courtroom so that both of you could put everything on the record that you want before I make a final ruling. Now, Ms. Stone, do you have anything else to say on this matter?”

Alex ran her fingers through her short, brown hair, twisting the ends, an unconscious habit from childhood whenever she was stressed. They’d been arguing over the photos for half an hour. It was a lost cause. She’d known that from the start but she was a public defender who specialized in lost causes, defending the Constitution as much as her clients.

The long odds only encouraged her. Long, lean and ropy from years of early morning workouts; she only knew one way to live and one way to try a case. Bear down and go all out.

Judge West hadn’t let her drag out the argument because he might change his mind. He’d done it so that the appellate court would realize that he’d bent over backwards to be fair to Dwayne Reed and uphold his conviction. She was spinning her wheels and everyone in the courtroom knew it. She slipped on the black suit jacket she’d draped over her chair after the jury left.

“No, your Honor. I don’t.”

“Very well. The State is seeking the death penalty based on the aggravating circumstances surrounding the murder. These photographs establish the manner of death and go to the State’s claim of aggravating circumstances. Therefore, I will allow them into evidence. Mr. Bradshaw, after the bailiff brings the jury back in, you may pass the photographs to them.”

***

The courtroom was still as, one by one, the jurors examined the pictures. A few covered their mouths while others winced as if they’d been punched. The men winced and squirmed and several of the women narrowed their eyes and ground their teeth as they stared at Dwayne Reed.

He was twenty-three, six feet tall, with a broad, muscled torso and a tattoo of fingers curled into a fist creeping above his shirt collar against his ebony skin. Head down and slumped forward in his chair, picking at his fingernails, he radiated boredom and resentment.

Alex had pounded away from the beginning of the trial on the absence of physical evidence that implicated her client; building a firewall against this exact moment, telling Dwayne she knew the judge would admit the photographs into evidence. She expected the jurors’ reactions, hoping they’d get past the photographs once they began deliberations but Reed wasn’t making it any easier.

“Sit up and act like you give a shit,” she whispered to him.