A Thriller · Coming September 15, 2026
The First Call
He found their mistake. They set the trap.
The mistake was a typo. The correction was a manhunt. John Thorn noticed the transaction, and by morning he had lost his firm, his name, and the night he meant to propose.
The Premise
Those in power can make you a terrorist by Thursday.
John Thorn checks numbers for the richest family in America. He is very good at it. That was his first mistake.
The transaction was small. Buried. Routine, except that it never should have existed, because money that funds a massacre is not supposed to touch a legitimate account. Someone got careless.
And they know he saw it.
Within hours, there is a federal task force with his name in its mouth. His face on every screen in America. A machine built to find terrorists, aimed by the people who create them. His accounts are dead. His name is a weapon pointed back at him. Every friend is now bait.
He can run. His brother taught him how, years ago, as if he knew.
But the woman he was going to propose to on Wednesday night is still out there. And they know exactly what she means to him.
Some mistakes get corrected. Others get buried.
Three men. She turns toward the en-suite bathroom. To the left of it on the wood-paneled wall is the button carefully concealed in a carved wooden egg at its border. She reaches out toward the button and the panic room it opens. Her fingertip finds the edge of the carved egg, the cool smoothness of it, and for a brief moment, she believes she is going to make it. Then a hand closes on her right shoulder, large and certain, and before she can turn or scream, another hand covers her mouth with a cloth that smells of nothing she can name. She has time to think that she was right there. Then the room goes black.
From Chapter One
Where to Buy
David Rhue spent twenty-five years supporting and deploying businesses with their financial systems. A solution architect by trade and a storyteller by conviction, he writes thrillers about what institutions do to the people inside them. The First Call is his debut. He lives in Florida with his family.
The Particulars
Format
Publication Date
Price
Length
ISBN
Categories
eBook
9/15/2026
$9.99 USD
118,127 words
979-8-90678-598-5
Thriller
September 15, 2026
The First Call