Hot Target: A Novel

Chapter One

Cosmo's mother was driving him crazy. Well, okay, to be fair, it wasn't his mom, but rather her choice of music that had pushed him out of her condo, into his truck, and back down the 5, here to San Diego.

He parked in the lot next to the squat, ugly building that held the offices of Troubleshooters Incorporated. The sun was warm on the back of his neck as he crossed to the door. As usual, it was locked, apparently Tommy Paoletti had had no luck yet finding a receptionist for his personal security company. But he had installed a system that would allow him to let people in without having to run all the way out to the door twenty times a day.

A surveillance camera hung overhead, and Cosmo looked up at it, making sure Tommy would be able to see his face as he hit the bell.

The lock clicked open as a buzzer sounded, and he went inside.

"Grab some coffee I'll be right out," Tom shouted from one of the back offices. How's your mom??

Much better, thanks, Cosmo called back.

And she was. Right after the accident, when Cosmo had first gone to see her, she'd been in a lot of pain. Her face had been almost gray, and she'd looked old and frail lying in that hospital bed.

But she'd been home a few days now and was feeling far more her old self.

Which was great.

But, dear sweet Jesus, if he had to listen to the soundtrack from Jekyll & Hyde one more time, he was going to scream.

You just haven't had enough time to appreciate it, his mother had told him. A few more listens and!!

Oh, no. No, no, Mom. I've heard it quite enough, thanks.

Cosmo poured himself some coffee from the setup in the Troubleshooters waiting room.

He'd actually liked Urinetown. He could handle repeated listens of The Full Monty, too. And West Side Story, if done properly, could bring tears to his usually super-cynical dry eyes.

But most of his mother's very favorite Broadway musicals were those which Uncle Riley had dubbed screamers. They were filled with hyper- emotional ballads with crescendos that swelled to triple forte, delivered by sopranos or tenors who, as Riley had insisted, deserved immediate arrest by the too-too police.

Uncle Riley had gotten away with it, but God help him if Cosmo ever said anything like that aloud.

Not just to his mother, who would give him her best injured look, then subject him to several hours of lectures on true music appreciation.

But God help him also if he talked about such things to the other men in SEAL Team Sixteen.

They would look at him as if he were, well . . .

Gay.

Which he wasn't.

Not even close.

Not, of course, that there was anything wrong with it.

Shoot, with his mother, it would've been easier if he had been. He might've been born with some special genetic ability to actually enjoy Jekyll & Hyde. And Phantom and Les Mis and all the other screamers he'd gritted his teeth through, as he'd taken his mother to see them through the years.

Cos took his coffee and sank down into one of the new leather sofas in the Troubleshooters waiting room. Buttery soft and a light shade of honey brown, they replaced the former mismatched collection of overstuffed chairs thrift shop rejects that had cluttered the area in front of the receptionist's desk.

Whoa, the walls had been repainted, too.

Magazine racks, potted plants, real lamps instead of overhead fluorescents . . .