Hard Knocks

by Zoe Sharp

'The guy in the passenger seat was closest. He got out first, so I shot him first. Two rounds high in the chest.'

It should have been an easy introduction to Charlie Fox's new career as a bodyguard. In fact, it should have been almost a working holiday. She just has to look after the gawky fifteen-year-old son of a rich computer programmer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Trey Pelzner is theme park mad and in theory all Charlie has to do is baby- sit him on the rollercoasters.

The last thing anyone expected was a determined attempt to snatch the boy, or that Trey's father and their entire close protection team – including Charlie's boss, Sean Meyer – would disappear off the face of the earth at the same time.

Now somebody out there wants the boy badly and they're prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way. Evading them, in a strange country, takes all the skill and courage Charlie possesses.

As she soon discovers, once you've hit the first drop there's no going back, and you'd better hang on tight because you're in for a wild ride.

Nominated for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel.

‘Sharp's aim is dead on in her stunning US debut, the fourth book to star ultra-cool biker chick Charlie Fox. The no-nonsense, 26-year-old Charlie, a former British Army soldier (and survivor of a gruesome gang rape) has joined the protection agency of her ex-lover, Sean Meyer. On her first assignment, Charlie finds herself on a too thrilling roller-coaster ride in Florida, guarding geeky 15-year-old Trey Pelzner, son of Keith, a computer whiz working for a small software company specializing in accounting and data manipulation. After an attempt is made on Trey's life, Charlie calls for backup that turns out to be anything but and soon discovers that Keith – the developer of a faulty stock indicator program – has vanished, as has Sean. Action-packed, tightly plotted and with an irresistible first-person narration, this crisp, original thriller should win Sharp (Hard Knocks, etc.) plenty of American fans.’ Publishers Weekly starred review

FIRST DROP

Charlie Fox book four

excerpt

part of Chapter One

. . . The Demon coaster was across the other side of the theme park. Scarlet-painted bits of its twisted superstructure were visible over the tops of the trees as we drew nearer. It looked immense and tangled, with no obvious sense of direction. Signs we passed informed us that Demon was newer, higher, and faster than anything we’d ridden so far. I was amazed Trey hadn’t headed straight for it, and said so.

He shrugged. “It’s a steelie,” he said, dismissive.

“A what?”

“A steel coaster, not a wooden one. They’re OK, I s’pose, but woodies rule. They’re, like, awesome.”

I tried not to think about the ride quality of something that didn’t live up to the bone-shaker we’d spent half the morning on.

The queue line for Demon was certainly no shorter. We weaved our way in guided by a maze of stainless steel barriers. If you touched them your hands came away sticky with the sweat from a thousand nervous palms. I’m not sure mine were any drier.

As we moved deeper in we came to a split in the path, manned by a young attendant who only had a couple of years on Trey at most.

“Singles to your left,” he said as we approached.

Trey started to go left. I caught his arm.

“Hang on a moment, what does that mean?”

He tried to shake me loose. “If you go in the singles line it means you get on the ride faster ‘cos they use you to, like, fill up the empty seats.”

“No way,” I muttered, steering him off to the right. “We’d rather go on together, thanks,” I told the attendant, who shrugged and pointed us wordlessly in the other direction, his attention already lost.

As we joined the end of the long, shuffling line Trey was back to sulking again. “Oh man,” he complained, “anyone would think you were my mother.”

I didn’t know what had happened to Mrs Pelzner. She could have been off visiting her folks, spending her divorce settlement, or dead. It was difficult to respond to Trey’s jibe without knowing which, so I let it pass.

“Look, Trey,” I said, making a valiant stab at tolerance again. “The company your dad works for has hired me to keep you safe. It’s hard enough doing that on a bloody rollercoaster to begin with, but there’s no way I can do my job if we don’t stick together. You don’t have to like it,” I added, as he opened his mouth to protest, “but that’s the way it is, so learn to live with it.”

Yeah, right, his expression said, but he didn’t speak to me again as we shuffled our way to the front of the queue line.

I had to admit, privately, that the singles route did seem to be moving much faster. I swear I saw one kid go round twice in the time it took us to get there.

I even saw the good-looking guy again who’d been in the wooden coaster gift store. I only spotted him because one of the attendants held the car back while she made him take off his hat and sunglasses. So this one really was going to turn you upside down and shake the change out of your pockets.

The guy was a little sheepish to be singled out for censure. He looked around as though hoping no-one else had noticed. And when it was uncovered like that I couldn’t help getting the feeling that I knew his face from somewhere.

I only had a moment’s glimpse before the car was released and clanked its way up the first lift hill. After what seemed like an eternity, the clanking stopped, there was a pause, and then the usual screaming started.

They were running two sets of cars on this ride, so it wasn’t long before the last run was in and emptying. I was worrying too much about what was coming next to bother racking my memory for where I might possibly have known the Oakley guy from. As the attendant checked the overhead harness was down securely over my shoulders and buckled to the seat between my legs, I had other things to occupy my mind.

I was in for a big surprise.

After the woodies that had been my introduction to coasters, the steelie was a revelation. It was blisteringly quick, yes, but it was smooth the way a sports bike ridden hard on an open road is smooth. It inverted us so many times I lost all comprehension of which way was ground and which was sky, but for the first time I began to see what all the fuss was about.

“Now that,” I said when it was over, “is more like it!”

Trey immediately lost all interest in further turns on Demon. He hurried out along the ride exit, his amusement now blighted by my unexpected pleasure. I realised belatedly that all I would have had to do to curtail my earlier torment would have been to make a show of enjoying it. At that moment I could cheerfully have strangled him.

I went after the kid, determined not to scurry to match his petulant pace. Outside I spotted him over by some shops, perched on a low concrete wall with his arms folded and shoulders hunched. He was too cross even to put on an act in front of the two teenage girls who were sitting next to him. As I walked across the open area between us, I saw the guy from the coaster again out of the corner of my eye, now back in his Oakleys and his Yankees cap.

And something about the predatory way he moved sent the hairs rising on the back of my neck in a way no rollercoaster, however scary, would ever be able to do.

He was already closer to Trey than I was and moving closer still, focused on him, intent. His shirt was