Tough Justice Series Box Set: Parts 1-8

Tough Justice Series Box Set: Parts 1-8 Carla Cassidy Gail Barrett Carol Ericson Tyler Anne Snell Justice is worth every sacrifice!All eight parts of this chilling, high-octane FBI serial!Special Agent Lara Grant has finally put her life as an undercover agent in the Moretti crime organisation behind her and started a new assignment in New York City. Until a dramatic sniper attack leaves Lara's face - and name - all over the media. In the blink of an eye, her cover is blown, her identity exposed. Then a woman's body is found branded with the Moretti tattoo. Someone knows who Lara is...and exactly how to make her pay.... Contents: • Tough Justice: Exposed (Part 1) by New York Times best-selling author Carla Cassidy • Tough Justice: Watched (Part 2) by Tyler Anne Snell • Tough Justice: Burned (Part 3) by Carol Ericson • Tough Justice: Trapped (Part 4) by Gail Barrett • Tough Justice: Twisted (Part 5) by Gail Barrett • Tough Justice: Ambushed (Part 6) by Carol Ericson • Tough Justice: Betrayed (Part 7) by Tyler Anne Snell • Tough Justice: Hunted (Part 8) by Carla Cassidy All 8 parts of this chilling, high-octane FBI serial available in this box set! Special Agent Lara Grant has finally put her life as an undercover agent in the Moretti gang behind her and started a new assignment in New York City. Until a dramatic sniper attack leaves Lara’s face—and real name—all over the media. In the blink of an eye, her cover is blown, her identity exposed. Then a woman’s body is found, branded with the ritual Moretti tattoo. Someone knows who Lara is…and exactly how to make her pay... This box set comprises: Tough Justice: Exposed (Part 1 of 8) by New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy Tough Justice: Watched (Part 2 of 8) by Tyler Anne Snell Tough Justice: Burned (Part 3 of 8) by Carol Ericson Tough Justice: Trapped (Part 4 of 8) by Gail Barrett Tough Justice: Twisted (Part 5 of 8) by Gail Barrett Tough Justice: Ambushed (Part 6 of 8) by Carol Ericson Tough Justice: Betrayed (Part 7 of 8) by Tyler Anne Snell Tough Justice: Hunted (Part 8 of 8) by Carla Cassidy Tough Justice Series Parts 1-8 Exposed Carla Cassidy Watched Tyler Anne Snell Burned Carol Ericson Trapped Gail Barrett Twisted Gail Barrett Ambushed Carol Ericson Betrayed Tyler Anne Snell Hunted Carla Cassidy Table of Contents Cover (#u39b38e0f-14df-53cb-a7c7-12bf0dbf65ca) Back Cover Text (#u916366be-13ba-5190-b4a0-618c62244139) Title Page (#uf6c66f00-9337-5ea1-8332-2a4d80eee7a6) Exposed (#ue88932f6-0438-5a7a-add3-f452eaa07773) Back Cover Text (#uc0f949d8-8ccd-5ff2-8539-11bef0b8bf04) About the Author (#ua497799a-3188-5c67-b999-032ea27b8414) Dedication (#ud3cdf56c-b585-5419-a22e-298960588e72) EPISODE ONE (#u8737d899-d6a6-54f3-84f9-eb2787b94aea) PROLOGUE (#u46ec3469-6cf4-5e1f-9a3b-e3a981d2f2f3) CHAPTER ONE (#ua4152bfc-a0b5-5676-9f7f-deec6557d5b0) CHAPTER TWO (#u85609c05-d974-5e4f-9e7d-838e8159ceb8) CHAPTER THREE (#ub26247db-b9e4-54a4-82cb-af542ef9f22c) CHAPTER FOUR (#ucc4d66ba-fc5e-5c16-92c6-b699eae17808) CHAPTER FIVE (#u77645fcc-8a1e-5be1-a08b-f1bf4ec1f71a) CHAPTER SIX (#ua1446dca-574c-55dc-b10f-fec15a7325cc) CHAPTER SEVEN (#ue2eabad9-6dc5-5d21-ba02-108b4f0410d8) CHAPTER EIGHT (#u91ba6e3a-f461-56c2-a47a-b7cef308d1d5) CHAPTER NINE (#ud73444fc-09c6-5d80-bcbb-7ab896245a34) CHAPTER TEN (#uf1587aeb-2553-5344-ac31-4111f0a69d47) Watched (#u62893dc3-854b-5485-bb19-cc4eab89e578) Back Cover Text (#uf7de24ab-6d7c-5de2-9929-5f173faf4c7a) About the Author (#ud6a96e27-0b74-580a-a836-36ae61e8f774) Dedication (#uef7ea111-10e1-54c0-82ef-b52d31d541d4) EPISODE TWO (#uc59d9753-8aa5-595d-9100-073f652ae866) CHAPTER ONE (#u781d74d7-ce0e-548e-a283-ab1f75575aee) CHAPTER TWO (#ufd153cf5-9d29-5b37-a91c-57c03d7bfc13) CHAPTER THREE (#u3ea10e4a-1c95-5f14-9bbb-337124f72d78) CHAPTER FOUR (#uafeedcec-1c02-55ac-a33b-ad082bb21016) CHAPTER FIVE (#u0ce97b34-e0fe-551c-aa00-81c3fb9872ab) CHAPTER SIX (#ue80bff2b-f7ab-5918-b83b-607890343a59) CHAPTER SEVEN (#ub1d9ecc3-5907-529d-80cb-565228b600e1) CHAPTER EIGHT (#u87f2451d-726f-534f-b6c0-3ec2495d9c61) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo) Burned (#litres_trial_promo) Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) EPISODE THREE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo) Trapped (#litres_trial_promo) Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Dedication (#litres_trial_promo) EPISODE FOUR (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) Twisted (#litres_trial_promo) Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Dedication (#litres_trial_promo) EPISODE FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) Ambushed (#litres_trial_promo) Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) EPISODE SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) Betrayed (#litres_trial_promo) Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Dedication (#litres_trial_promo) EPISODE SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo) Hunted (#litres_trial_promo) Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) Dedication (#litres_trial_promo) EPISODE EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo) CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo) EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo) Copyright (#litres_trial_promo) Exposed (#ulink_cd32783c-0a33-5ccc-9a35-c4ec5968d49d) Carla Cassidy A new job. A new case. A new criminal...? Special Agent Lara Grant will do anything to get her mark—until her last undercover case, infiltrating the notorious Moretti crime ring, forced her to get close to the top. Way. Too. Close... Now starting a new job in New York City, all Lara wants is to leave the ghosts of her past behind. Until a dramatic sniper attack leaves Lara’s face—and real name—all over the media. In the blink of an eye, her cover is blown, her identity exposed. Then a woman’s body is found, branded with the ritual Moretti tattoo. Someone knows who Lara is—and exactly how to make her pay... Part 1 of 8 in the chilling, high-octane FBI thriller TOUGH JUSTICE from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and authors Tyler Anne Snell, Carol Ericson and Gail Barrett. On Carla Cassidy: “[An] action-packed romantic suspense starring an amazing female and her deceiving beloved.” —The Best Reviews on Deceived “[A] taut, fast-paced romantic thriller... Romance shines.” —Publishers Weekly on Every Move You Make CARLA CASSIDY is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author who has written more than one hundred and twenty novels for Harlequin Books. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from RT Book Reviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from RT Book Reviews. Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. To the Tough Justice team, who worked overtime to make this happen! EPISODE ONE (#ulink_156afad0-3993-56c8-879d-70f6df91bb39) Exposed Lara Grant is an FBI agent with a past she desperately wants to forget. Now she’s in New York, on new assignment, where very few people know her. Until a deadly adversary from her past puts her right in the line of fire... But when Lara’s back is against the wall, there’s only one way forward. With guns blazing! PROLOGUE (#ulink_2fd90ebb-aabc-5f2d-9076-67c6891127ce) The ledge outside of the tenth floor window of the hotel had a beautiful view of Central Park. It was also dangerously narrow and covered with pigeon crap. A cold late September breeze sliced through FBI Special Agent Lara Grant as she stepped out of the window of room 1021 and onto the ledge. She leaned with her back against the window frame and eyed the man who sat on the ledge about five feet to her right. She shouldn’t be here. She’d been in the middle of a meet and greet with her new unit when the call had come in. Talking down potential jumpers wasn’t in her new job description, but the man had asked for her specifically by name. She had no idea who he was, had never seen him before in her life. It was nine-thirty in the morning, and the last place she wanted to be was on a breathtakingly small ledge trying to stop a stranger from committing a very public and messy suicide. “Bad day?” she asked. “Bad life,” he replied. He didn’t look at her but, rather, stared straight ahead. “Are you FBI Agent Lara Grant?” “You asked for me and here I am. What’s your name?” she asked. Despite the coolness of the day, his forehead shone with perspiration. She tried to gauge how best to connect with him. What persona could she pull out of her professional hat to get him down to safety? Tough talk or sweet and honeyed? Too soon for her to tell. “Sean.” He leaned over and looked down below where Lara knew the NYPD had gathered, along with a growing crowd of looky-loos and local reporters. “Sean what?” “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.” His voice held a weary hopelessness that shot tension through Lara. It had been her experience that there were two types of people who crawled out on a high ledge and threatened to jump. The first were the people who wanted drama and were usually easily talked down from a window or a bridge. The second were the serious ones, people who were more than willing to take the plunge to end their lives. Her initial observation was that Sean was dead serious. “What’s going on today, Sean?” She kept her voice conversational and nonthreatening. “I just can’t take it anymore.” “Take what?” Lara made no move toward him. Her job was to keep him talking until a team on the ground got her some personal information about him that she could hopefully use to get him off the ledge and to safety. “You wouldn’t understand.” “You obviously thought I would. You asked for me specifically to come here and talk to you.” She could hear the crowd below now, some asshole yelling “jump.” Sean wasn’t a small man. Despite his seat on the ledge, he appeared tall and muscular; but as he looked at her, there was the darkness of impending death in his eyes. “I was wrong. I thought you might be the one to understand everything, but nobody will.” “Try me,” she replied softly. “Talk to me, Sean.” Sweet and honeyed instinctively felt right for now. He shook his head, closed his eyes and leaned back against the building. “Sean, at least tell me your last name. It doesn’t seem fair that you know mine, and I don’t know yours.” “Dunst. I’m Sean Dunst, and I deserve to die.” “Sean Dunst,” she repeated. “It’s nice to meet you.” Lara was wired and knew an officer on the ground could hear what she said. With his full name they could now hopefully get her some information that might be useful. Another cold gust of wind whipped around the building. “It’s freezing out here, Sean. Why don’t you come inside where it’s nice and warm and we can talk?” He shook his head and didn’t reply. For the next three hours he refused to speak. Lara kept up a running conversation in an effort to make a connection. Her legs shook from the effort of balancing on the ledge. In her long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans she wasn’t dressed for the wind. She fought against shivers that threatened to throw off her balance and send her crashing to the ground below. It would be just her luck to have survived everything she had in the past to meet her end here and now because of some screwed-up guy on a ledge. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting hungry, Sean. I skipped breakfast this morning, and I’ll bet you didn’t eat, either. Why don’t we order up some room service with a pot of hot coffee, and we can talk inside,” she said, and still he didn’t reply. What was taking so damn long? Why hadn’t anyone whispered in her ear some information that would aid her in getting this guy back inside and down to safety? This needed to end. “I’ve done things...terrible things,” he said, finally breaking his long, agonizing silence. “Haven’t we all?” “Not like this.” He began to cry. Not silent, seeping tears, but, rather deep, ugly cries. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed, snot bubbling out of his nose with the force of his hysteria. “I’m sure things aren’t as bad as you think,” Lara replied. At least he was talking again. “You can’t understand. Nobody can. I’ve done horrible things.” He swiped at his nose with the back of his long sleeve and looked at her. “I need to be forgiven.” She was cold and tired and starting to get a little pissed off. “I can’t forgive you for something I don’t know about. Tell me what you’ve done, and maybe you can forgive yourself.” Her earpiece crackled and filled with a deep male voice giving her details. A nine-year-old girl named Tina. Found deceased...murdered near Dunst’s home. Primary suspect...not enough evidence to convict. The guy on the ledge was a suspected child killer. For just a moment Lara wanted to shove him off herself. “Tell me about Tina.” He visibly stiffened. When he looked at her again it was with knowing eyes. He’d killed the kid, and he realized now that she knew it. “You see why I have to jump?” he asked softly. “It’s the only way out for me.” “You’re guilty?” She held his gaze, her voice reflecting none of the revulsion that bubbled up inside her. “Yes.” The single word tore from his lips, and his features twisted with inner torment. Lara continued to stare at him, her face schooled to reflect nothing. “And you believe you deserve to pay?” “Yes.” The answer was a sibilant whisper. “Then how dare you try to take the easy way out,” she replied harshly. She’d changed her mind. He wasn’t going to jump. She knew it with a gut instinct that had served her well over the years. If he was a serious suicide he would have already flung himself off the ledge. He wouldn’t have sat here for the hours that he had. “Man up, Dunst,” she said, dropping the pleasant conversational tone she’d previously used. Sweet and honeyed definitely wasn’t cutting it. “You know you don’t want to jump. Come inside, and deal with whatever you need to like a man.” It took another long hour to finally talk him into giving himself up. She climbed back through the window, and thankfully he followed her into the upscale hotel room. Once they were inside, she cuffed him with his wrists behind his back and then led him toward the stairs that would take them to the ground floor and into the custody of awaiting officers. Ten freaking stories, but she didn’t want to throw him into an elevator where other hotel patrons might be present despite the police effort to keep them out. It was nearly two o’clock. Over four hours she’d wasted on this creep who had finally stopped crying and now wore a weary resignation on his face. “Why did you ask for me?” she asked when they’d descended halfway to the ground level. “It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters now. My life is over.” What did matter was that Lara was cold and tired and more than ready to put this child killer in jail. There was a special place in hell for men like him. They reached the lobby where not a soul was present. The police would have moved everyone out in the event that things went bad. She held Sean by the cuffs behind his back and paused to look outside of the lobby doors. It was a circus. Not only were there half a dozen NYPD cop cars, but also news vans and a throng of people held back from the entrance by some of the officers. Potential jumpers always drew a big crowd. A rivulet of apprehension worked through her. The last thing she needed right now was for her picture to appear in any news stories. She’d wanted...needed to stay low-profile. Dammit, this had the potential of ruining everything for her. Get a grip, she mentally commanded herself. She straightened her shoulders and fought against a sense of dark foreboding. She had a job to do, and no matter what the consequences, she had to see it through. That’s what she did...she did her job. Just get him into the back of one of the patrol cars and then your job here is done. You can get back to your new unit, and life will go on, she thought with determination. “We’re coming out,” she said into her wire. Getting a firm grip on Dunst’s handcuffs, she threw her other arm up to hide her face and then used her back to push out of the building doors. Shouts resounded, along with the click and whir of cameras. Halfway to the nearest patrol car, the sickening sound of a bullet hitting flesh jerked her to an abrupt halt. Dunst stiffened and then fell out of her grasp and to the ground beside her. He lay face up with a bullet hole between his eyes. Silence. The world stopped moving for a single moment as Lara stared down at the dead man and the blood seeping out and making a sickening puddle surrounding the back of his head. She looked up in horror, and chaos erupted. Police rushed in, onlookers screamed, and cameras continued to click. Lara backed away from the dead man. A sniper. She automatically pulled her gun from her holster and crouched, steeled for another potential shot as she focused her attention on the nearby surrounding buildings. Uniformed police ran in dozens of directions—some toward the nearest building where the shot had possibly come from. Others raced to her side, and more NYPD officers scattered the onlookers toward cover. Seconds ticked by, and when another shot didn’t follow the first, Lara’s first thought of public safety shifted to personal vulnerability, and a more primal instinct kicked in. She threw her arm up once again in an attempt to shield her features and raced toward her company-issued car in the parking lot. Her heart nearly beat out of her chest. Once inside she gripped the steering wheel tightly and stared at the scene in the distance. What in the hell had just happened? She’d done her job. She’d talked him off the ledge. It should have been a piece of cake to get him into a patrol car and on his way to jail. A cluster fuck. That’s what she saw before her, with cops wielding guns and running helter-skelter. People still screamed, and not only news people were taking photos, but also everyone with a cell phone captured the madness for posterity. How many had captured her image? She had to get out of there. She slammed her fists against the steering wheel and then quickly started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. She only hoped that no ghosts from her past chased after her. CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_f3d0eb65-fc7b-5eda-972a-fb210ea3c8a3) 26 Federal Plaza was the home of the Social Security Administration, Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other government agencies. At over forty-one stories high, the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building was a monolith of steel, glass, limestone and granite. Lara entered the building through a side door. The last thing she wanted to do was to make her way through the throng of tourists who always clogged the main entrance. She hit the small lobby, flashed her badge to the security agent and then raced across the terrazzo floor toward a bank of awaiting elevators. Once inside one of the elevators she punched the button for the twenty-third floor where the FBI was housed, and her new team, the Crisis Management Unit, should be waiting for her. She’d barely had time to meet them all this morning when she’d been called to the scene at the hotel. What in the hell had just happened? Who had fired that shot and why? And how much danger might she be in? Dammit, she’d thought she was safe. It had been almost two years. Who would have thought that an unknown man on a ledge and an audience frothing to see if he would jump could possibly undo everything she’d done in the past year in an effort to get her life back? Maybe nobody had gotten a clear photo of her. She’d tried to shield her features as much as possible when she’d ushered Sean Dunst out from the hotel. Still, she knew she was probably fooling herself. The second that bullet had slammed into him, she’d dropped her guard, and who knew what photos had been taken in that split second? Hopefully she was overreacting. It had been a long time, with no indication that there was anyone left who might want to do her harm. Maybe she shouldn’t have come back home to New York? The elevator door whooshed open, and once again she flashed her creds to security before heading down a long hallway to the back of the building where her new team of talented agents had been assigned to work on the kinds of cases that nobody else wanted. This was what she had been born to do, to work within the law as much as possible but to not be afraid to slightly blur the lines in order to achieve ultimate justice. She passed the receptionist desk and nodded to Penelope Zimmerman who, rumor had it, was like a pit bull when it came to keeping out the unwanted and fielding phone calls from kooks. Lara fought against the panic that threatened to crawl up the back of her throat. Maybe all of the news reports would only show Sean Dunst’s dead body. Who cared about the FBI agent who had gotten him off the ledge? Dunst’s unexpected murder was the real story, not her. All she needed was a little good luck on her side, but then when had that ever happened? The minute she opened the door to the conference room she knew things were potentially bad. All of the team was there, but Lara first looked at her boss, Supervisory Agent and Unit Chief Victoria Russo. As always not an ash-colored hair on her head was out of place, and she was impeccably dressed in a black suit and a crisp white blouse. It was only when Lara gazed at Victoria’s blue eyes that she knew things might be as bad as she’d expected. She’d known Victoria for a long time. The tough woman had been Lara’s boss when they’d both worked for the DC department. Victoria knew more about Lara’s background than anyone else on earth. Her glare cut through Lara, as if seeking to look into her very soul. Lara felt as if Victoria was whispering in her ear, telling her that Victoria knew Lara had just been through hell, but Lara was strong enough to handle it. She hoped she was...she had to be. She sat at the long conference table across from her new partner, Nick Delano, and straightened her back. Victoria gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. “Welcome back, Lara,” she said, letting Lara know it was going to be business as usual after all. Lara looked across the table, where her new partner was watching her intently and with open interest. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, Nick Delano’s bold attractiveness was only enhanced by the scar on his right temple. She might find him physically appealing, but she wouldn’t go there. The last time she’d opened herself up to a man, it had been with deadly consequences. Besides, she wasn’t even sure she liked her new partner yet. She’d scarcely had time to interact with him that morning before she’d been called to the hotel to meet Dunst on the ledge. “What happened out there?” Mei Wang asked as she flipped a strand of her long dark hair over her shoulder. “It must have been pretty tough out on that ledge for so long,” Ty Jackson, Mei’s partner, added. Ty was an African-American man with dark eyes that radiated a keen intelligence. Cass McDonner looked up from the laptop in front of her. “I’m working to get as much background on Dunst as possible.” Cass was the team’s tech guru. Lara had worked with her in the DC department. When Victoria had moved to the New York City department, Cass had asked to move with her. Cass was nothing short of a magician when it came to gathering information and with all things computer related. She would be a valuable member of this new team. “We’re all waiting with bated breath for a blow-by-blow of what happened out there,” Xander Harrington, the final member of the team, said. Lara spent the next few minutes filling in the details of the hours on the ledge. “All I had to do was get him into a patrol car, but we’d only taken a couple of steps out of the building when he was shot right between his eyes.” “It had to be an experienced sniper to make a shot like that,” Nick observed. “We have plenty of cases lined up to work on, but this is now top priority for our team because it involves one of our own,” Victoria said. “We have questions, and we need to get some answers. Why did Dunst specifically ask for Lara? Why was he killed and by whom?” Cass looked up from her computer once again. Her funky purple-rimmed eyeglasses enhanced her hazel eyes and clashed with her red hair. “So far what I’ve managed to find out about Dunst is that he’s a small-time criminal with a drug problem. He’s a user and a low-level dealer. I can’t find a phone number for him, so he must use burners when he needs to make a call. We need to find out if he had one with him when he was shot. His rap sheet mostly consists of breaking and entering, minor drug charges, shoplifting and petty theft.” “And murder,” Lara added. “What do we know about Tina, the young girl he confessed to killing?” Cass clicked a few keys. “Nine-year-old Tina Cole. She disappeared on her way home from school two weeks ago. Eyewitnesses saw her walking away from the bus stop with a man who looked like Dunst, and his home is only two blocks away from the Cole family home.” Cass paused to push her glasses up more firmly on her nose and then continued. “Tina’s body was found in an empty overgrown lot three doors down from Dunst’s place. He was immediately identified as the prime suspect, but not enough evidence surfaced for a search warrant or to pick him up and charge him. Unfortunately most of the eyewitnesses were just kids, and the investigation into her murder was still in the preliminary stages.” “He’s in hell now,” Lara replied darkly. Justice served. “What about Tina’s parents?” “John and Heather Cole. John works for the post office, and Heather is a registered nurse at a Brooklyn clinic. John was at work when Tina was kidnapped, and Heather was stuck in traffic on her way home. Cameras confirmed this. Neither were told that Dunst was a potential suspect in the case.” “So it probably wasn’t a revenge killing by one of her parents,” Nick said. “Was she their only child?” Mei asked. Cass nodded and clicked more keys on the laptop. “This just popped up. Unfortunately, you’re very photogenic,” she said and turned her computer around so that Lara could look at the monitor. She’d thought she had prepared herself, but as she saw the photo on the news feed, it was like a hard punch to her gut. Dunst’s body was on the ground, and, standing next to him, her mouth opened in surprise, was Lara. Her shoulder-length brown hair, her green eyes and complete facial features were there for everyone to see. Cass turned her laptop back to face her as Lara’s mind raced with black thoughts of utter destruction. She’d been outed by a damned child killer on a ledge. “We now have a new situation on our hands,” Victoria said briskly. She held Lara’s gaze for a long moment and then looked at each of the others. “I didn’t see a need to fill you in on each other’s background. You all know the basics, but now that’s changed where Lara is concerned. You need specifics.” Everyone at the table looked at Lara with curious speculation, but she kept her eyes focused on Victoria and mentally prepared herself for her boss to drag her back into nightmare territory. “You know about the Moretti crime syndicate, right?” Victoria asked. “They were all taken down over a year ago,” Ty said. “Nasty organization based in Chicago, but with ties to New York and other cities.” “That’s correct,” Victoria replied. “The boss, known only as Moretti, eluded the FBI for five years. The organization was involved not only in gun and drug sales, but also human trafficking, including children. A little over two years ago, Lara went deep undercover into the organization in Chicago, and after a year she managed to gain the trust of the high-level operatives. She learned the location of a meeting where the elusive Moretti would be present, and the FBI swooped in and made the arrests. For the past year Lara has been in a safe house while the trials occurred. Moretti and most of his crew are now in various federal prisons, with Moretti out on Long Island. But when the FBI made the raid they didn’t get everyone who was involved in the criminal activities.” Once again Lara felt the weight of her team members’ stares. She’d hoped to come into this new position without dragging any of her past behind her. She’d wanted a clean new start, but that wasn’t going to happen now. “We have to assume that, with Lara’s photo out there, it’s possible that somebody in the Moretti ring might see it and know that it was Lara who infiltrated them two years ago and brought them down. Now that it’s clear Lara is back in New York, it’s also possible that somebody is looking for revenge.” Victoria looked at Lara. “Maybe it’s time for you to disappear again for a little while, until we see how this all plays out.” “No.” The single word fired out of Lara like a gunshot. “I’m not hiding any longer. I spent over a year in a safe house, and I’m not going into lockdown now or ever again.” No way. No how. She needed to get her life back on track. “How high might the risk be to Lara?” Xander asked. “As I said, with Lara’s help we managed to get Moretti and some of his men behind bars, but we don’t know who might have slipped our noose,” Victoria replied. “And we don’t know how far Moretti’s reach might be beyond his prison walls.” “I’m not backing down,” Lara said firmly. She’d given up enough of her life because of the monster Moretti. She wasn’t about to sacrifice another piece of her soul to the disgusting man and his powerful ring. She brought him down, and that’s where he’d stay. She clenched her hands into fists beneath the table. She needed this job. She needed this new position to work out. Her undercover work hadn’t gone as planned. The last thing she wanted was for this new gig not to work, and she’d potentially be relegated to desk duty for the rest of her career. “I’ve got her back if any threats come her way,” Nick said, his dark eyes unfathomable as he held Lara’s gaze. “We all have her back,” Mei said. The same sentiment rang out from everyone around the table. Lara might have been grateful if these weren’t all new teammates, if she’d developed a trust with any of them. But she hadn’t had time to build any confidence in them, and ultimately knew that at this moment, she could only depend on herself. Victoria looked at her again, a question lingering in her eyes. “I’m here to stay,” Lara said with a grim firmness, even as her heartbeat accelerated. Although Moretti was in prison, even while she’d spent so much time in the safe house in the darkest, deepest recesses of her mind, she’d always known somehow that it wasn’t finished. The horrendous nightmares that had plagued her over the past year or so would continue to haunt her, but they were reminders that she’d survived the deadly Moretti web once, and, if necessary, she was determined to again. She consciously willed the self-doubts away. New job. New start. Moving forward. “There’s been no indication that the syndicate is even operating anymore,” Cass said. “The FBI has been monitoring the situation since Moretti went to prison. Nothing has come up to even suggest that they’re back in business. That’s why it was approved for Lara to come back to New York and join this task force.” “Then that’s good news, right?” Mei said. “Maybe with Moretti behind bars the whole operation fell apart.” “That’s been the general belief of all of the agents who worked the case in Chicago,” Victoria said. “Maybe Lara’s not in any danger from anyone,” Xander said. “Maybe by cutting off the head of the snake, the rest of the snake died.” “And I hope it was a slow and painful death,” Lara muttered under her breath. That case had forever changed her. She thought she’d been prepared. All that training...instead the case had destroyed any innocence that she might have had left from her lonely, crappy childhood. It had made it difficult for her to trust anyone and had ripped out a chunk of her heart that she would never get back. Victoria looked at Lara. “Right now I’d like you and Nick to continue to investigate Dunst and his murder. Talk to his friends or any family he might have. Find out what connection he had to you and why a low-level criminal would warrant a sniper shot between the eyes.” She turned her focus to encompass the others at the table. “The rest of you will make sure the Moretti ring has been out of business since their boss went to prison. This will give Lara and Nick the freedom to investigate Dunst and close the case quickly. Cass, see if you can get hold of a list of any visitors Moretti has had in the past year and a record of any of his phone calls. If there is no movement, then Lara is safe here in New York working on this team. Also find out if a phone was on Dunst when he was killed.” “On it,” Cass replied. Before Victoria could say anything else, Lara’s cell phone rang. “Sorry,” she murmured as she pulled it from a clip on her belt. “It’s an officer from the scene at the hotel earlier,” she said when she saw the caller ID. She punched it on speaker and set the phone on the tabletop. “Officer Cruz, this is FBI Special Agent Lara Grant.” “Agent Grant, I just thought I’d call to let you know that we found something odd on Sean Dunst.” “First, let me ask you a question. Did Dunst have a phone on him when he died?” Lara asked. “Negative, no phone was found.” “Then make sure your men do a thorough sweep of the hotel room to see if he left one there,” she said. “Now, what did you find on him?” “A black ink pad and a wooden stamper.” Lara frowned and looked around the table at the others. An ink pad? She stared back at the phone. “What did the stamp look like?” “I just sent you a photo.” Lara quickly checked. The past collided with the present, creating something close to madness inside Lara’s brain. “Thanks for the info,” she managed to say and then ended the call. The photo showed a letter M superimposed over an upside down M. She turned to show everyone the image. Everyone except Victoria looked at her expectantly. “That’s the insignia of the Moretti crime organization.” Lara’s voice was flat, not reflecting the raging turmoil that twisted her gut. “Everyone who worked for Moretti or who was trafficked by him had that symbol either tattooed on their arm or someplace else on their body. Dunst was connected to Moretti.” “Why would low-level Dunst have something like that in his pocket? Did he use it on the little girl?” Ty asked. “Negative,” Cass replied. “According to the autopsy report Tina had nothing like that on her body when she was found.” Lara barely heard the conversation of suppositions and possibilities as it swirled around the table. An icy chill had taken over her entire body. She feared that the ghosts she’d dreamed of chasing her in her nightmares were now very real monsters, and they had finally found her. CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_54e4bced-5cf2-5ebc-9cec-3ae45c3f2677) Getting to Brooklyn from Manhattan was a bitch at just after five o’clock in the afternoon, especially if you didn’t take public transportation. Lara rode shotgun in Nick’s company-issued black sedan, and for the first five minutes in the car neither of them spoke. Lara was still trying to process the shock of the ink pad and stamper found on Dunst, and Nick’s sole concentration was on maneuvering in and around whizzing taxis, belching buses and the honking horns of tourists who had no idea how to drive in the snarl of vehicles at rush hour. When they hit the Brooklyn Bridge, Nick cast her a sideways glance. “We spent almost an hour this morning talking before you were called away, and you never mentioned that you were instrumental in taking down members of the Moretti crime syndicate?” There was a tone in his voice that made her believe he might have already pegged her as either being arrogant or secretive. While the first was definitely false, the latter was partly true. She did have secrets that only a handful of people would ever know, but that had nothing to do with her partner relationship with Nick or the job they now worked. She stared out the passenger window. “It was a tough job, and after that I went into lockdown for a long a time. That was equally tough.” “You want to talk about it?” “No.” He cut her another quick glance. “Ah, a woman of mystery.” “No, nothing like that. It’s just a part of my past I’d rather forget. I deal in the here and now.” It was the only way she could function. “If we’re going to work well as partners, then we need to trust each other. You can trust me, Lara.” She turned in her seat to give him her full attention. “Those are just words, Nick. Trust is earned by action, and I don’t know you well enough yet to invest my complete trust in you.” “I’m an open book. What you see is what you get,” he replied easily. She eyed the scar on his temple, his sharply defined handsome features and the darkness of his eyes. “Yeah, right,” she said drily. “Tell me about the team. Since I had to leave unexpectedly, I didn’t really get a chance to get to know them. What I do know is that we were all handpicked for this new unit, and I know both Victoria and Cass from working with them in DC. Tell me what you know about the others,” she said. “Mei is smart and tough. She also speaks several languages. We were partners a few years back. She’s good. Ty has a ‘particular’ sense of humor, but underneath, he’s solid. He’s divorced and has no children. Xander comes from a wealthy background and has a five-year old daughter, but he’s never married and definitely isn’t afraid to speak his mind. They obviously all have specialties that brought them to Agent Russo’s attention. She handpicked us all for a reason.” “And what’s your specialty?” Lara asked. “That’s easy. Definitely my charisma,” he replied with a sexy grin. She narrowed her eyes at him. She was not amused. “If you’re watching my back, you’d better bring something more than charm to the table,” she retorted. His smile vanished. “Tell me what you know about Russo. You said you worked for her in DC. What’s her story? What kind of a boss is she?” “She’s widowed and has a nineteen-year-old daughter. Anna is a sophomore at Columbia, and Victoria is very much a proud mother bear. She’s also very intelligent and can be one tough lady, but she’s fair. She has high standards and expects her agents to produce results.” “Then we’d better figure all of this mess out. I wouldn’t want to let the boss lady down on our very first assignment.” He paused a moment and then continued, “I hope you aren’t rusty after the year off duty.” Lara’s back stiffened. He might be hot to look at, but he was definitely treading in total jerk territory. “Don’t worry about me,” she said tersely and turned her attention out the passenger window. “On my worst day I’m still a better agent than most.” At least that’s what she needed to believe. The Moretti case had shaken her confidence to the core and kept her from sleep on far too many nights. Cass had pulled up Dunst’s current address, a brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The four-story residence had been his childhood home and had been left to him when his parents had died several years prior. Much work had been done in Bedford-Stuyvesant to clean up the crime and decay in the neighborhoods, but there were still areas where the drug dealers and gangs ruled the streets, and people didn’t leave the relative safety of their homes after dark. Unfortunately, it was on one of those streets that Dunst had lived. Dunst had died not only with an ink pad and a stamper in his pocket, but also a key ring. The key ring had been delivered to Lara and Nick by an NYPD officer just before they’d left to check out Dunst’s digs. Dunst’s place was located in the middle of a street of row houses, all of them showing the signs of hopeless neglect and economic hard times. “It’s hard to believe there are million-dollar homes and condos just a couple of blocks from here,” Nick said as they departed his car. “According to Cass, he lived here alone and has no family. It would be easy to keep Tina in here and nobody would ever know she was here.” She had to focus on the job and not the fact that her partner apparently already entertained some doubts about her ability. Lara pulled her gun from her shoulder holster as Nick got out the keys to open the door. Knowing that Dunst had been a drug dealer and criminal, there was no telling who or what they might find inside. “I should be the one with the gun drawn,” Nick said. “You have the keys. I have the gun,” Lara replied. If he thought she was going to play a secondary, submissive role to his alpha dog, then he was sadly mistaken. She wouldn’t play secondary to anyone under any circumstances. Nick knocked on the door first. “Hello? Anyone home?” Lara shifted her eyes from the door to the houses on each side. A blue curtain moved at one of the side windows on the house on the right. No sound drifted through Dunst’s door. “FBI. We’re coming in,” Nick yelled. He unlocked the door, and Lara stepped in front of him, the barrel of her gun her lead as she entered a dirty, cluttered living room. Newspapers and magazines nearly hid a worn chocolate-brown sofa, and beer cans and fast food wrappers spilled across the top of the wooden coffee table. An orange crate held on top of it an ancient television that had probably never seen cable service. “Clear,” she murmured. Nick moved ahead of her, his gun now filling his hand as he headed for the doorway straight ahead. Lara followed behind him into a kitchen where the small table appeared to sag under the weight of pizza boxes and opened cans. Dirty dishes overflowed from the sink, and the old, cracked linoleum floor was sticky beneath her feet. “Quite the neat-freak,” Nick said sarcastically. They continued to clear the entire house. Dunst’s bedroom was easily identifiable. The double bed was unmade and sported gray sheets Lara suspected had at one time been white. Drug paraphernalia littered the top of the dresser, and the faint scent of marijuana still lingered in the air. They checked drawers and closets, seeking some connection he might have had with Lara or with the Moretti ring at the time it had been operational. “When I was undercover I met a lot of men who worked for Moretti, but I don’t remember ever seeing Dunst,” Lara said, unable to hide her frustration. “Why did he ask for me to go out on that ledge? Why me specifically?” “We’ve only just started investigating. Maybe more digging will give us the answers.” The next bedroom held a single bed and a small chest of drawers. The bedspread was pink, and a doll sat on the pillows, staring at them with big blue unseeing glass eyes. There was also a coloring book and a small box of crayons on a nightstand. Despite her need to maintain an emotional distance, Lara’s heart cringed as she thought of little Tina locked up in this room for two long weeks before her death. Had she been terrified? How long and how hard had she cried for her mommy and daddy? “Why did he have to kill her?” She spoke more to herself than to her new partner. “And why didn’t he stamp her?” “Maybe he thought he could sell her to members of the Moretti syndicate, but found out that he had no takers, that nobody from the organization was working anymore. He couldn’t just let her go. She could have identified him, so he had to kill her,” Nick suggested. “Maybe, but after Moretti and some of his crew were arrested, several violent gangs tried to take over Moretti’s territory both here and in Chicago. But they all wound up dead or arrested. So, who did Dunst think he could sell her to?” “Maybe just a local pedophile willing to pay a good price?” “Then why the Moretti symbol stamp?” Lara asked. “I don’t know. Let’s check out the rest of the house, and then we can interview some of the neighbors,” Nick replied. The upper two floors of the brownstone were completely empty except for cobwebs and mouse droppings. “He must have sold or pawned anything of value for his drug habit,” Nick said. They searched everyplace in the house to try to find something that might provide a clue as to Dunst’s reason for asking for Lara or any connection to the supposedly defunct Moretti syndicate. They found nothing. Hopefully they would learn more by talking to some of the neighbors and people out on the streets. Since it was Friday night, the lowlifes would soon take over the area. * * * It was twilight when Nick knocked on the door to the right of Dunst’s place where Lara had earlier seen the curtain move. A middle-aged woman answered the door, and they identified themselves as FBI agents. “I assume you’re here because of what happened to Sean,” she said as she led them into a spotlessly clean living room where two young boys were playing a video game. “Gary and Greg, upstairs to the playroom,” she said as she gestured Nick and Lara to a beige-and-brown plaid sofa. After a bit of grumbling, the two kids turned off the video game and headed up the stairs. “Your name, ma’am?” Nick asked and pulled a small notepad and pen from his shirt pocket. “Rhoda Watson, and I just have to say that I know it isn’t nice, but I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said with a raise of her pointed chin. Her cheeks flushed slightly with color. “I’m sorry, but he was a creep and a braggart, always talking about the good old days when he worked for some big crime boss.” “Moretti?” Lara asked. Rhoda frowned and nodded her head. “Yeah, I think that’s the one. I don’t know what he was into in his past, but he was nothing but a scuzzy dope dealer, and then there were all those rumors when little Tina Cole was found dead.” “Rumors?” Lara leaned forward. “Just word out on the streets that maybe he and his girlfriend had something to do with her kidnapping and death. I’ve got kids of my own, and it was bad enough knowing he lived right next door before the Cole girl was found.” “Do you know of anyone who might have wanted him dead? Did he ever mention any specific threats against him?” Nick asked. She frowned thoughtfully once again. “No, but he ran with a rough crowd and bragged about what a big man he was. Who knows who he might have double-crossed in the dope business or in one of the gangs that are in this neighborhood?” “You mentioned a girlfriend?” Nick asked. Rhoda nodded. “Sheila Currothers. She’s been dating Sean for a little over a year.” “She doesn’t live with him?” Lara asked. “No, but she spent plenty of time next door. She would have known that little girl was there. She lives in the Applegate Apartments a block over. I’m not sure what apartment number, but if you can’t find her there, she strips most evenings at Nasty Nate’s, a dive off Macon Street.” Lara exchanged glances with Nick. Nick stood and pulled out a business card. “If you think of anything else that might help us find the person responsible for Sean’s death, please, give me a call.” Rhoda nodded, but there was a dark fear in her eyes, the fear of potential reprisal, of payback to her or her family. Lara knew they wouldn’t hear anything more from her even if she did learn something worthwhile. “I’m hoping we can catch Sheila at her apartment instead of having to enter a place called Nasty Nate’s,” Nick said as they left the Watson brownstone. “Great minds think alike,” Lara agreed. It took them only minutes to arrive at the Applegate Apartments where, thankfully, a manager was on site to give them Sheila’s apartment number. It was obvious by the condition of the building that Sheila’s standard of living wasn’t much better than Dunst’s. The three-story brick structure looked as if it hadn’t been updated or cleaned since the early Fifties. Weeds and overgrown bushes plagued the unkempt yard area, and two rusted benches just outside the front door didn’t welcome anyone to sit and relax. Worn gold shag carpeting lined the hallway that took them to the stairs. It was a walk-up with no elevator, and of course Sheila lived on the third floor. A mixture of smells assaulted Lara’s nose as they climbed upward. Urine, weed, a strong scent of sauerkraut and utter hopelessness all mingled together to form a sickening odor. Lara knocked on the door of apartment 312, and her knock was answered by a thin tall blonde woman with large breast implants and red-rimmed blue eyes. She was clad in a red-and-yellow silk dressing robe, and she pulled the belt more tightly around her waist as she ushered them inside. The living room was furnished minimally, but was fairly tidy if one ignored the colorful handful of G-strings that hung from the doorknob on the door that presumably led to the bedroom. “You’re here about my Dunstie.” She motioned them to the sofa and then sank down into a chair facing them and grabbed a tissue from the box on the end table next to her. “I just can’t believe he’s gone.” She blinked her big blue eyes. “I mean, he is really gone, right? What I saw on television was real, not some silly joke he played on me or a crazy reality show.” Okay, not the brightest bulb in the room, Lara thought with an inward sigh. On a good day Lara didn’t possess a lot of patience, and she had a feeling Sheila Currothers was quickly going to get on her last nerve. “Yes, what you saw on television was very real. Sean is dead,” Nick replied, his deep voice without emotion. Sheila balled up the tissue in her hand. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without him. He was so good to me. Oh, I know he didn’t do everything right. He wasn’t a perfect man. I know about him selling drugs and some other things...but at heart he wasn’t a bad man. In the last month or so he’d cleaned up his act. He wasn’t using or selling drugs anymore. And at least he never hit or beat me.” “Tell us about Tina,” Lara said, cutting to the chase. “Tina?” Sheila feigned innocence but couldn’t quite play it off. Lara saw the tells, the tightening of her slender fingers around the tissue, the tension that pulled her overly plumped lips tighter and one...two...three quick blinks of her eyes, eyes that now had a sharp, hard gleam. Maybe she wasn’t as stupid as she wanted them to believe. “Yeah, you know, the nine-year-old little girl Dunst kidnapped and then murdered.” Nick leaned forward, his dark eyes radiating a dangerous glint. “Did you know he was into abusing and killing little girls?” “That’s not true. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sheila crossed her arms over her ample chest with her chin lifted in a show of belligerent defensiveness. “I don’t know anything about a kid.” “I think you do,” Lara countered. “Sheila, I was up on that ledge with Dunst this morning for hours. I was the last person he spoke to before his death, and he told me all about Tina.” Of course, Dunst hadn’t mentioned anything about his girlfriend, but Sheila couldn’t know that. “And right now you’re looking at potential kidnapping and murder charges,” Nick said. Sheila uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. “You can’t pin any of that on me. I had nothing to do with it. I don’t know why he took her. She was just there at his house one day, and he told me he had to keep her for a while.” “Tell us about the stamp,” Nick said. Sheila frowned. “Stamp? I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about. What kind of a stamp?” Lara drew in a deep breath, her emotions shooting back and forth between anger and a small sense of compassion for the woman who now found herself at the center of a horrendous crime. “He was found with an ink box and a stamper on his body,” she replied. Sheila shook her head. “I don’t know anything about that. I never saw an ink box or stamper.” “Sheila, it’s in your own best interest to work with us and tell us everything you know,” Nick said. She looked from Nick to Lara, as if weighing her options. The feigned innocence was gone, replaced by a weary resignation as she held Lara’s gaze. “You’ll tell the cops that I cooperated?” Lara nodded, and Sheila released a deep sigh. “He finally told me that he was supposed to sell her, but in the end he just couldn’t do it. He said she’d be abused and broken, and so he killed her instead. He said that if he did as he was told it would be a fate worse than death for her. He killed her to save her.” Once again her eyes moved between them, as if seeking understanding and possible absolution. Nick looked at Sheila as if she were speaking a foreign language, but it was a language Lara knew very well, and it sent cold chills racing up her spine. Was the Moretti syndicate back in business? Why would they contact such a low-level criminal as Sean Dunst to carry out such orders? And if they were back in business, then how close were they to Lara? CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_a59d3834-3e69-59ba-802b-cdcd6f2644d9) It was nearly eleven o’clock when Nick and Lara finally headed back to 26 Federal Plaza. Two NYPD detectives working the Tina Cole murder case had been summoned to take Sheila into custody, and Nick and Lara had spent a couple of hours out on the streets around Dunst’s house, asking questions and reconfirming impressions they had already received. Dunst was known in the neighborhood as a blowhard, a wannabe. He was a loser whose only claim to fame was that he’d supposedly once had ties to the Moretti crime syndicate. But according to Cass and people they talked to on the streets, there was absolutely no evidence to support that Sean had ever been anything but a petty criminal and dope dealer. “I’d like to know who orchestrated Tina’s kidnapping and set up her potential sale. Aside from the fact that somebody killed him, I don’t believe Dunst had the brains to pull something like that off on his own,” Lara said as they crossed back over the Brooklyn Bridge. “He obviously didn’t have the stomach for it, either,” Nick replied. “Guilt apparently drove him to that ledge this morning.” “And a highly skilled sniper made sure he wouldn’t give us any real information once he got off that ledge,” Lara replied in frustration. “If I’d known about the stamp while I was up on the ledge with him, I would have definitely asked him a lot more questions.” Although fear simmered deep inside her, she refused to give into it until they had more concrete information. She’d learned to live with fear the entire year she’d worked deep undercover. In many ways the feeling, coupled with a hard edge of anger, had become a familiar, almost comforting emotion. “Who kills a kid to save her?” Nick asked incredulously. “And what kind of a woman thinks something like that is okay?” His deep voice was rife with judgment. Lara had once had a black-and-white sense of judgment, too. But, during her year undercover she’d met too many people who were not necessarily evil, but rather lost souls whose backgrounds had never given them a chance to do much of anything other than make bad choices. She’d learned how easy it was to fall off the straight and narrow. “Maybe a woman who is already living a fate worse than death,” she replied thoughtfully. “We know Sheila is a stripper. I would guess that she probably also prostitutes on the side. Who knows what her childhood might have been like? It’s obvious she lost her self-respect and any sense of worth she might have had a long time ago.” “Are you defending her actions?” “Not at all.” She felt his eyes on her, but she remained staring straight ahead. Still, she felt the need to say something more. “I just saw a lot of bad things when I was undercover. I can’t begin to explain the depravity, the utter soullessness of some human beings.” “That’s why I love what I do, getting the evil off the streets and into prisons. Isn’t that why you do it? Or is it because of your father? I heard somewhere that he was a highly decorated New York detective?” “He was.” The last thing she wanted to talk about, the very last person she wanted to think about was her father, who had passed away several months ago, four years after he’d been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. “Then I guess crime fighting runs in the family,” Nick replied. “That’s about all that runs in the family. At least Dunst didn’t stamp her,” Lara said, not so subtly letting Nick know that she had no interest in a conversation about her personal life and wanted to stick strictly to the facts of the case. “We need to dig deeper into Dunst’s life,” Nick replied, obviously getting the message. “Whoever he was playing with weren’t just petty criminals. The shooter who took him out wasn’t some shmuck with a rifle and a little bit of good luck. That shot took an extraordinary amount of skill.” Lara looked out the passenger window. The darkness outside seemed to creep into her soul. “You know, it’s very possible that this had nothing to do with Moretti,” Nick said. “It could be the work of another gang trying to gain territory control and deliberately misleading us with the stamp.” “I suppose that’s possible.” She hoped that was the case. She had too much to lose if Moretti decided to seek revenge against her. “Want to grab something to eat before we get back to headquarters?” Nick asked. “There’s a great bar and grill not far from here.” “No, thanks. I don’t mix business with pleasure,” she replied. His lips turned up in what was quickly becoming a familiar grin. “It’s nice to know that you think eating a meal with me would be pleasurable.” She frowned at him with a hint of irritation. “I’ve had a long day, I could be in a really pissy mood if I thought about it for too long, and I just want to get home and get a good night’s sleep before starting again in the morning.” Boundaries. She definitely needed to set strict boundaries with Nick, especially tonight when she was feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable. She’d hoped to never hear the name Moretti again, and she’d been immersed in horrendous memories and terrifying questions about him and his potential reach from prison for most of the day. “All right then,” Nick said when he’d parked his car in the underground garage dedicated to FBI and other official vehicles. “Then we’ll start fresh in the morning?” “Sounds like a plan,” Lara agreed. She got out of his car and walked away from him without another word. * * * As the train whooshed from station to station toward her Upper West Side apartment and the lights flickered off and on, Lara refused to think about anything until she was safe at home and behind closed, locked doors. She departed the subway and then walked the two blocks to her apartment building. “Evening, Jerry,” she said to the night doorman who stood just outside the front entrance. “Good evening, Ms. Grant,” he replied and unlocked and opened the door for her. “Have a nice night,” she said as she slipped inside and headed for the elevators. Thankfully, she met nobody on her way up to her twenty-fourth floor apartment. She didn’t make nice on the best of days, and this definitely hadn’t been a stellar day. She breathed a sigh of relief only after she’d unlocked her apartment door, deposited her keys on the small table in the foyer and stepped onto the thick beige carpeting in the large living room. She’d decorated the space minimally...a black sofa and chair, glass-topped coffee and end tables and a large flat-screen television mounted to the wall. There were no photos, no sentimental knickknacks, nothing to personalize the place she now called home. That’s the way she liked it. No pictures or trinkets to evoke memories of her childhood or anything from her past. There was really nothing much there worth remembering. She headed for the bathroom, wanting more than anything a long hot shower and then a good night’s sleep. Hopefully, she wouldn’t suffer one of the nightmares that had plagued her since she’d stopped her undercover work. After soaking beneath a pulsating spray of hot water for a sinfully long time, she got out, toweled off and changed into a short navy nightshirt and then headed into the bedroom. As with the living room, this space was equally impersonal. A king-sized bed, a black lacquered dresser and two matching nightstands that sported contemporary lamps in shades of black and beige, and that was all. The only time it became more personal was when she placed her badge, her gun and her cell phone on the nightstand on the side of the bed where she slept. She turned off the overhead light and crawled beneath crisp white sheets and closed her eyes, but her tense body refused to relax into the pillow top mattress. Her brain was in overdrive. Who was behind Dunst’s actions? Who was the mastermind behind his kidnapping of a young, innocent girl? He was obviously supposed to stamp her with the Moretti insignia and then sell her. To who? And who had killed him? She tossed and turned for several minutes and then got out of bed, knowing from experience that sleep would be elusive until her brain quieted down. She left her bedroom and poured herself a glass of whiskey and then, as an afterthought, carried not only the glass but the bottle as well with her to the sofa. Was it possible, as Nick had suggested, that another gang was at work and trying to throw off the investigation by mimicking the trademark tattoo? She made a mental note to herself to ask Cass to research all of the gangs working in the area and which one might be following in the footsteps of the Moretti operation. She took a deep drink from the glass, the burn of the alcohol spreading welcome warmth through her. Unable to sit still, she sprang to her feet and began to pace. Back and forth she walked in front of the coffee table. The events of the day fired off in her head like a fast-paced movie, only she didn’t have the luxury of a vicarious thrill. This was her life and not a Hollywood blockbuster with a predictable plot and a happy ending. She’d gone undercover to infiltrate the syndicate in an effort to locate the elusive leader known only as Moretti. For five long years the FBI had chased dead ends in an effort to find the man whose name was whispered with both fear and adulation by the men and women who worked for him. In the year she’d been undercover she’d cultivated a closeness with the handsome arms broker, Andrew Moore, in an effort to gain the information she needed. As her undercover role of arms dealer, rising up the ladder from running guns, she’d finally learned of the place and time when Moretti and both high-level and some medium-level operatives were meeting. She’d contacted the FBI, who had swept in and successfully made the arrests. Lara had gone to a safe house for almost a year, and she’d believed she’d never have to worry about any Moretti operatives still working in either Chicago or New York or anywhere else. She moved to the window and cracked her blinds to peer out and down at the streets below. Were there people out there right now plotting her destruction...her death? She twirled the blinds back closed, refilled her glass and slumped down on the sofa. She hoped Nick was right, that this was all some sort of a copycat thing going on. She frowned as she thought of her new partner. She wished she had a better read on him. Throughout their time together that day he’d exhibited a faint lack of trust in her and her abilities. She had a feeling his brief displays of flirtatiousness came easily to him and was a default that hid far deeper secrets. Could they work together as an effective team? She didn’t know. It was too soon to tell. All she did know for sure was that she wasn’t at a place in her head to trust anyone. There were times she didn’t even know if she could trust herself. With this troubling thought in her head she downed her drink and headed back to bed. * * * “Eve.” The name she’d used while undercover echoed in her brain. “Eve!” She came awake and bolted to a sitting position with a sharp gasp. She fumbled for her gun, and at the same time her cell phone rang, and she realized that somehow in her dream the ringtone had become Andrew Moore’s deep voice calling her by her undercover name. She grabbed the phone and saw that it was just after seven in the morning. Russo’s number. “Victoria?” she said as she answered. “Lara, I need you to go to a crime scene in Central Park.” Lara turned on her bedside lamp, opened a drawer and pulled out a pen and paper. “Where?” “By the reservoir on a jogging trail around Ninety-Third Street. Local authorities are already on the scene but have been instructed not to touch anything until you and Nick get there. I’ve already contacted Nick.” “What kind of a crime?” Lara wasn’t sure why she’d be sent out to Central Park on another case instead of continuing to work the Dunst case. “A murder, and from what little I got from the officers on the scene, it’s probably tied to Dunst.” Lara’s heart dropped to the floor. “On my way,” she replied. She wanted to ask Victoria a hundred more questions, but the only way to get answers was to get to the scene as quickly as possible. Within minutes she was clad in a long-sleeved white sweater that hugged her slender body and a pair of her expensive black jeans that fit her like snakeskin, but also had enough stretch to allow her to move easily. With her gun in a shoulder holster and her badge and cell phone fastened on her belt, she grabbed a black suede jacket and left her apartment. Her heart thundered in time with every quick step she took toward the elevator. The murder was tied to Dunst? How? Dunst was dead. What was going on? Somehow, someway she had the terrible feeling that a thread of something evil had begun to unravel. She touched the butt of her gun beneath her jacket for reassurance. Where would the thread lead? And how much of the fabric of her life would be destroyed as it continued to unstitch? CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_3bb480c9-ebb3-594c-a7f7-6a6401268d51) Lara took a taxi to Central Park, knowing that parking there would be a bitch, especially with a crime scene on the popular jogging trails that surrounded the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. The autumn-colored leaves on the trees in the area would have made a beautiful backdrop, if not for the fact that she was headed to a murder scene. It was relatively easy for her to find the right area. A wide perimeter had been set up by more than a dozen of New York’s finest. One of the cops was dealing with joggers who appeared on the trail, turning them away and instructing them to take another path. Nick was already there, and he approached her before she even got a chance to flash her badge at the nearest stony-faced officer. He motioned her ahead and then stopped and stood far enough away that she couldn’t see the victim or the actual crime scene. “What have we got?” she asked. “Victoria mentioned a murder.” Nick nodded. No sexy grin this morning. No charisma oozing from him. His eyes were dark and flat, and he was definitely in the pissed-off yet professional zone every cop or FBI agent went to when confronted by a murder victim. He might have a charming side, but she suspected this was the true Nick Delano, with hard edges and a dangerous power that he kept tightly controlled. “Young blonde female clad in running clothes and shoes. Another early morning jogger found her on the trail. He’s being held in the back of a patrol car for us to question,” Nick said. “How was she killed?” Lara asked. “The medical examiner isn’t here yet to make a final determination, but it’s obvious she was stabbed in her chest.” Lara frowned in confusion. “Victoria said something about this potentially being tied to the Dunst case. What’s up with that?” Nick’s well-defined jawline tensed, and as he took her by the elbow she caught the smell of minty soap and a pleasant, clean-scented cologne. He propelled her forward. “I think it’s better for you to see the victim to answer your question about the connection with Dunst.” Lara steeled herself as ahead on the trail she spied a prone figure in a bright pink-and-yellow jogging suit and matching shoes. Pink and yellow...such bright and cheerful colors to die in. They got close enough to see the victim’s eyes staring straight up and the bloody mess on her chest. “Weapon?” Lara asked curtly. Stabbed in the chest while going for a morning run. Knife? Ice pick? What had been used to steal this young woman’s life? The weapon could say a lot about the killer. “Not found yet,” Nick replied. “Officers have been combing the area, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was taken away by the killer. Otherwise, it would have just been left in her chest.” “I still don’t see what this has to do with Dunst,” Lara said. “Look on her right cheek,” Nick said, his voice deeper than usual. The victim’s face was turned just enough that Lara had to walk around the body to get a look at her right cheek. When she did, a gasp of shock escaped her. Stamped onto the youthful, clear skin was the unmistakable MM insignia. It had obviously been done with the same kind of ink pad and stamp that Dunst had had in his pocket at the time of his death. She turned a startled look at Nick. “What in the hell is going on here?” It was a rhetorical question. Nick didn’t have an answer. She didn’t expect one. She scanned the area. There wouldn’t have been a lot of foot traffic or eyewitnesses at around six or six-thirty in the morning, but there would have been a few early birds on the trails. Still, it should have been difficult for the killer to stab the victim and then bend over her prone body to take the time to stamp her cheek. The killer had to have looked as if he belonged on the trail, which meant he would have probably been clad in some sort of running clothes. “Any ID found?” she asked the nearest cop. “We were told not to touch anything until you arrived,” he replied. Nick bent over the body and carefully plucked a slim wallet from one of her back pockets with gloved fingers. He opened it. “Laura Bowman, twenty-three years old.” Lara winced. Twenty-three years old and her life was finished, cut short by a knife from some perp. “Call it in, and let’s see what Cass and the others can find out about her background. Meanwhile, I’m going to interview the man who found her.” Lara headed toward the patrol car where a man sat in the backseat. She tried not to think about the ink imprint on Laura Bowman’s cheek. Right now she just needed to get information and not attempt to process any of it. There would be time for that later when they had more facts at hand. James Carlson was a thirty-six-year-old fitness freak who loved to run in the early mornings when he didn’t have to contend with the hobby runners. He worked as a trainer at a well-known gym and was still pale and shaken as he told Lara about nearly running over the dead girl. “I’ve been jogging along these trails for the past five years, and I’ve never seen anything like that poor woman,” he said. “I’ve seen drunks and druggies and homeless people scurrying away as the sun came up, but nothing that even comes close to this.” “Have you noticed her on the trail when you’ve run here before?” Lara eyed Carlson from the top of his short brown hair to the tip of his light gray running shoes. The person who found and reported a murdered body was always the first suspect, but she didn’t see a speck of blood or any sign to indicate that he’d had anything to do with the killing. It would have been difficult to stab the victim and then lean over her to stamp her cheek without getting some blood transference. He also couldn’t fake the ashen color of his face or the utter horror that emanated from his pale gray eyes. “No, I’ve never seen her before this morning, but I started out a little later than usual today,” he replied. “Just my luck to decide to have an extra cup of coffee and be here a half an hour later than normal.” “Did you see anyone else on the trail?” He shook his head. “No, it was just me...and her.” His face took on a new paleness and he looked as if he might puke. “I’ve never seen a dead body before. God, I don’t think I’ll ever get this out of my head.” She spoke to him a few minutes longer, and then, after getting his contact information, she let him go. She didn’t believe he was the perp. Her gut told her he was just some luckless guy who had happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. By that time the medical examiner had arrived, and she joined Nick who stood several feet away to let Dr. Herman Boze do his job. “You okay?” Nick asked her. Lara looked at him in surprise. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?” “You keep rubbing your arm. Did you bump it or something?” Lara realized she was rubbing her arm. Over and over again...obsessively...compulsively. She quickly stopped and stared at the stamp on the victim’s cheek. She could just blow Nick off, tell him she’d bumped it and leave it at that, but instead she opted for a little bit of honesty. “When I was undercover I was tattooed with that same insignia on my arm. The actual tattooing wasn’t so bad, but getting it removed was a long, extremely painful process.” “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Nick said softly. There was genuine empathy in his voice and in his dark eyes. “Yeah, well that was then and this is now,” she replied with a forced toughness in her tone. The last thing she wanted to do was reveal any weakness to anyone, especially her new partner. She didn’t want or need empathy from anyone. What she needed was answers. It was close to noon by the time the body had been removed and the area had been thoroughly searched by the officers on scene. Dr. Boze’s initial assessment was that she had been stabbed twice in the heart, and her body temperature indicated that her time of death was around six-thirty or so that morning. He’d have more information for them after he conducted a complete autopsy. “Did you drive here?” Lara asked Nick as everyone began to disperse from the area. “Yeah, why?” “I took a cab. Can I catch a ride with you back to headquarters?” Lara asked. “Sure,” he agreed. Minutes later they were in his car and headed back to check in on what the team had found out about the new victim. Lara was quiet, still haunted by the vision of the stamp on the young woman’s face. * * * When they arrived, only Mei and Ty were at their cubicles working on their computers. Victoria was probably in her office. Cass would be in her tech room where dozens of computer monitors lined the walls. The area was set up like a pod, with the large open center area holding cubicles that were the agents’ work spaces, and Cass’s room, Victoria’s office, several conference rooms and a break room shooting out like arms from an octopus. Xander came out of the break room, a coffee cup in his hand. “What’s up?” “We need a meeting,” Lara said. Nick knocked on Victoria’s door, and when she answered he requested the team get together in the conference room to discuss the morning activity and share information that everyone had dug up on the latest murder. It didn’t take long for everyone to be seated at the conference table. Nick and Lara filled them in on what they had discovered. “What were you able to find out about the victim?” Lara asked Cass. “She was twenty-three, a grad student at Columbia and lived in an apartment nearby. No criminal record of any kind, and according to the social media I checked, she was a vegan and had a long-term relationship with a boyfriend named William Goldman who works as an investment banker.” Cass looked up from her laptop. “So far she’s clean as a whistle, and it’s hard to believe she’d have anything to do with that scumbag Dunst or any of his creep acquaintances.” “Mei and I have already interviewed William Goldman,” Ty said. “We met him at his office at the Winthrop Investment Group. He told us that they had been dating for four years, and he appeared genuinely devastated by her murder, said he’d told her time and time again that she shouldn’t run alone in the park at that time of the morning. But she thought he was just being a ‘worrywart’—his phrase.” “He told us he left his apartment building at around six-forty-five this morning to go to work. Apparently he’s hungry and driven and even works on Saturdays. The doorman at his place confirmed his time of leaving the apartment,” Mei added. Lara frowned thoughtfully. “There’s no way he could have gone to Central Park, killed his girlfriend at six-thirty and then gotten back to his apartment, cleaned up and dressed for a day of work by six-forty-five.” “And the doorman was on duty all evening the night before and swears William didn’t leave the building at all until he left for work this morning,” Mei replied. “Apparently William is a creature of habit. He works six days a week, spends most of his evenings with his girlfriend in his apartment and then on the weekends they go out to dinner on Saturday nights. We went over his whereabouts for the last two weeks, and nothing unusual jumped out at us. We’ll continue to work to confirm his movements in the days and weeks before the murder, but I’d say he’s pretty well cleared off the suspect list,” Ty said. “I not only didn’t find anything to connect her to Dunst. I also didn’t find any connection to the Moretti organization on any level,” Cass added. “Then why was her face marked with the same stamp that was found in Dunst’s pocket?” Nick asked and looked around the table. “And who murdered her? She has to have some sort of connection to Dunst or Moretti. Otherwise none of this makes any sense,” Ty added. “Nothing has made sense since I went out on that ledge to talk Dunst down yesterday morning,” Lara replied. Had it only been yesterday? It felt like a lifetime ago that she’d been talking to Sean Dunst while an unusually cold September breeze blew through her to chill her bones. Xander had been silent throughout the conversation, occasionally sipping coffee from a black-and-gold ceramic mug. He set his mug down and leaned forward. “Why are we all wasting our time digging into the vic’s background and chasing down alibis for her boyfriend or anyone else? We all know why she was killed. It was because her name was Lara. Moretti now knows that Lara is FBI and busted him, and now he’s playing with her. He’s having some fun at her expense.” Xander leaned back in his chair and took another sip from his cup. Lara shot a quick glance at Nick, who was sending a death glare at Xander. “Yeah, right, that’s hilarious,” Nick said, his deep voice sounding oddly strained. “I don’t understand,” Lara said, her eyes still on Nick. “I thought her name was L-A-U-R-A.” She hadn’t seen the vic’s ID, only Nick had looked at it. Xander shook his head. “Her name was L-A-R-A. Just like yours.” “I didn’t want that information to cloud your mind while we did the initial investigation,” Nick replied, his gaze not quite meeting Lara’s. Wrong answer. Lara averted her gaze from him as a fiery anger lit inside her. How could she trust a partner who kept things from her? He’d just committed his first sin against her—withholding information. If he thought she would tolerate crap like that, then he was sadly mistaken. “But Dunst was killed before Lara’s face was splashed all over the news,” Mei exclaimed. “Dunst had to have known Lara was in New York before that.” Xander frowned. “You’re right.” “I’d say right now we’re still in the dark,” Ty replied. Lara was horrified at the thought that the poor young woman on the jogging trail might have been murdered...stabbed in the heart, simply because she had the misfortune of having the same spelling of Lara’s name. Was the knife through the heart a special message just for Lara? Was Moretti reaching out despite his prison bars to taunt her, to torment her? “Lara, I’m sorry,” Nick said. “Bite me,” she replied vehemently without looking at him. Victoria spoke for the first time. “Everyone calm down and play nice.” Lara knew the words were meant specifically for her. She stared down at the table as Victoria continued. “Maybe it’s time for Mei and Ty to go to Long Island and feel out some ofMoretti’s crew incarcerated there and see if they might know something about what’s going on now.” “If Moretti knows about what’s happened, if he’s somehow responsible for it, then he is probably expecting a visit from somebody from the FBI,” Lara said and looked up at Victoria. “He’s probably expecting a visit from you,” Xander replied. The thought of facing Moretti again was like a fist punch to Lara’s stomach. She’d thought she was done with all of this. She’d hoped to never have to talk to or see any of the members of the syndicate again...especially Moretti. “If he’s hoping for a visit from Lara, do we really want to give him what he wants?” Nick asked. “Or is it better to leave him twisting in the wind and frustrated for a while?” “I think Mei and Ty talking to his operatives is a good place to start, but if Moretti wants to talk to or see me, then I think maybe it’s better to just let him wait a bit,” Lara said. She wasn’t sure if her decision was what was best for the team or because of her reluctance to have anything to do with the man who had done so much damage to so many people, the man who was a master manipulator and the face of evil. “Then for now we wait on having any contact with Moretti,” Victoria replied. “Let’s just hope there’s not another victim while you’re waiting,” Xander said to Lara. Jerk. She glared at him. Still, she could only hope for the same thing. If indeed this was all tied to Moretti, she definitely didn’t want anyone else getting killed or hurt if his ultimate intended victim was her. She successfully fought against the shiver that threatened to waltz up her back at the very real possibility that Moretti was pulling strings and playing sadistic games to make sure that she was utterly and completely destroyed. CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_be96cb73-80e6-5394-90cd-aef709c91cca) “You should have told me.” Lara glared at Nick as the others left the conference room. “You should have immediately filled me in that her name was spelled the same as mine. You shouldn’t have waited for me to find out in front of everyone else.” “Yeah, you’re right. I probably should have told you immediately, but I didn’t want to have your brain go off in the weeds somewhere while we were conducting the initial investigation. If it was a bad call, then I really am sorry.” His apology sounded sincere, as it had the first time he’d told her he was sorry, but Lara was still pissed. It was information she’d needed to know. It cast the murder in an entirely different light. “It was a bad call,” she replied tersely. “Just don’t let it happen again. Don’t try to protect me, Nick. I don’t need it and I don’t want it.” “Got it,” he replied. He left the conference room, and Lara remained behind, alone for a moment. Get it together. Keep it together. They still didn’t know for sure that Moretti was behind everything. They had too many questions and far too few answers to know for certain just what had begun and where it might go. The one thing she was sure of was that the dead jogger that morning wasn’t the end of things. She feared it was just the beginning. She left the conference room, but instead of heading to her own cubicle to write up the necessary reports on the morning murder investigation, she headed toward the tech room to check in with Cass. As difficult as the past two days had been on Lara, they had to be doing a major number on Cass, as well. Cass’s younger sister, a troubled nineteen-year-old named Allie, had been missing for a year until her body had been found in a Chicago dumpster three years ago with the MM tattoo on her hip. It was believed that she’d been trafficked, controlled by a drug addiction and put out to prostitute for the syndicate and then was killed because she’d tried to escape. The discovery of her body and the obvious ties to Moretti had come as Lara was undergoing her training to infiltrate the syndicate. Lara had vowed to Cass that she’d do everything she could to bring down Moretti and get justice for Allie. Cass was a tough cookie, but her baby sister, Allie, had been her weakness. She’d been relentless in her search for her sister for the year that Allie had been missing and nearly destroyed when her body had finally been found. Lara knew those had been the darkest hours of Cass’s life. Lara entered the room that was a teenage video-game-playing boy’s wet dream. Computer monitors filled one entire wall, with Cass behind a large desk operating all of them with lightning fast-moving fingers on several keyboards. “Hey,” Cass said as she looked up when Lara entered the room and closed the door behind her. Cass pulled off a set of bright pink earbuds, and they landed on her upper shoulders like a colorful half-necklace around her neck. “Hey back,” Lara replied. “I just thought I’d check in with you and see if you were doing okay. How are you holding up?” Cass took off her bright purple-rimmed glasses, rubbed her eyes and then put her glasses back on. “I’m sure I’m as okay as you are right now. It’s just a bitch being pulled back into the muck of this crap. I thought we’d both put Moretti and all of that behind us. I never dreamed we’d be dealing with it all once again.” “We still don’t know for sure that we’re dealing with Moretti again,” Lara said. The words rang discordantly in the small room. A framed photo on the desk caught her attention. It was a picture of Allie. In the photo Allie’s long flame-colored hair was in charming disarray. She wore not only heavy black eyeliner but also sported several eyebrow piercings, a small lip ring and a Marilyn Monroe stud in her lower right cheek. She’d been an achingly young, beautiful and confused girl who had gotten mixed up in the wrong crowd and was now dead. She’d been murdered and then dumped like common trash. Cass noticed Lara looking at the framed photo, and she picked it up, her features softening as she looked at it. “Next week would have been her twenty-third birthday,” she said, her voice thick with suppressed emotion. “But, this is who she will always be to me, frozen in time at just nineteen years old. I’ll never get the chance to see who she might have become, what she might have accomplished if she’d lived longer.” Cass closed her eyes for a long moment, and her features radiated a flash of pain that resonated deep inside of Lara. Cass’s eyelids snapped back open, and she set the photo back on the desk. Any softness that had momentarily swept over her features was gone, replaced by a sharp hardness in her eyes and a firm set of her jaw. “I’m sorry, Cass. I wish we would have found her sooner. I wish we could have saved her. But we got Moretti once, and if he’s in any way responsible for what’s happening now, we’ll find the people working for him and get them, too.” Lara’s gut tightened. “I swear to you we’ll get them all this time.” Cass nodded curtly, and then turned her attention to the computers in front of her. It was an obvious dismissal, and Lara left the room to the sound of fingernails clicking away at the keys. * * * Nick knew he’d screwed up. Lara sat next to him at her cubicle, and he could feel the simmering tension that indicated she was still angry at him. Initially when he’d seen the identification of the dead jogger, he’d tried to write off the spelling of her name as a strange coincidence, but his gut had told him it was probably much more than that. He hadn’t wanted to muddy the investigation by being specific about the victim’s name at the scene. He hadn’t wanted Lara to jump to conclusions until they’d conducted the on-scene investigation. But, if truth be told, he’d also not mentioned the spelling in an effort to protect his partner for as long as he possibly could. It had been a bad call, and he should have known better. The problem was he didn’t know better even after spending most of the day yesterday with her. In fact, he had serious doubts as to whether they could work together effectively or not. His first reaction upon meeting her was that she was hot as hell. She had a taut body, tall and lean, and her green eyes had held a keen intelligence. But she definitely had sharp, brittle edges. Her lips thinned in distrust far too often, and her eyes were filled with dark secrets. She was prickly and hard to read...not exactly stellar characteristics for a new partner. After over a year in hiding, was she really ready to be back on the job? He just wished he could get into her head a little bit. On impulse he got out of his chair and walked over to Victoria’s office. He knocked and then entered and closed the door behind him. Victoria watched him as he sat in the chair opposite her desk. She leaned back in her chair and stared at him expectantly. “What’s on your mind, Nick?” “My new partner.” “What about her?” Nick leaned forward and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure if I can work with her. She’s completely closed off, and it’s obvious she doesn’t trust me at all.” Victoria’s eyes narrowed slightly. “It’s been less than two days. Figure it out, Nick. We’ve just been handed a high profile, very public case, and I need everyone to work together as a unit. We don’t have time for this. I assigned Lara as your partner, and that isn’t going to change. You’re a smart man, Nick. Make it work.” Nick stood, feeling slightly foolish that he’d even voiced any concerns. He should have given it more time. The last thing he wanted was for Victoria to believe he was a shit-stirrer. This wasn’t the first time in his life that he knew the best course of action was to keep his head down and deal with whatever. He tightened his jaw as inner demons attempted to raise their heads. “Consider that this conversation never happened,” he said. “I’ve already forgotten it,” Victoria replied and focused her attention back to her computer screen. He left the office and returned to his cubicle, irritated with himself. Partnerships took time to build, and he’d only known Lara for a little over a day. Be a professional. Make it work, he told himself. He thought of earlier that morning when she’d rubbed her arm as if it had ached. She’d been tattooed by the syndicate, claimed as one of their own and then had to endure the painful process of getting that tattoo removed. At least he could admire the inner strength she had to possess, a strength that had probably gotten her through the kind of horrors he couldn’t imagine. He had been in on major drug and gun deals, but human trafficking, especially children, took it to a whole other level. He leaned over toward her. “Lara, can you give me a time line as to when you might stop being mad at me?” She grabbed his wrist and turned it so that she could look at his watch. “Give me another five minutes or so, and we should be good.” She dropped his wrist and returned to her computer work. “Got it,” he replied and returned to his own computer where he was typing in a report from the morning activities. His report would be added to Lara’s and go into an official file of the murder of Lara Bowman. Nick had been to a lot of murder scenes in his career, but there had been something particularly tragic about a pretty young woman with her chest covered with blood and the morning sun shimmering off her blond hair and delicate features. Was it possible that somehow Moretti was orchestrating death and destruction from his jail cell? Had Lara Bowman been a hit to shake up his partner? That’s exactly what he hadn’t wanted in her head as they had processed the scene. Now he couldn’t get it out of his head. What connection could Dunst have had with Lara Bowman? On the surface they lived in totally different worlds. Who’d had Dunst under their control? Who was giving the orders and who had killed the man with a single shot between the eyes? Had that same person killed Lara Bowman, and was it really possible she’d been killed only because she had the misfortune of spelling her name the same as his partner? The team had their work cut out for them. But that’s why they’d all been chosen, to work the difficult cases. With his own personal dark family history he needed this job to work out, and once again he regretted his impulse to speak to Victoria about Lara. It had been a stupid move, and Nick didn’t consider himself a stupid man. Hopefully Mei and Ty could get some answers when they went to the federal maximum security prison located in Selden, Long Island. Moretti and his crew had been in prison for well over a year now. Maybe one of the low-level creeps would be willing to trade a little information about what was going on for a bit more time in the yard or extra phone time or whatever. There was always a snitch somewhere in the crowd; it was just a matter of finding them and offering the right price to get them to talk. If any of them had information...if Moretti was really behind these latest crimes, then hopefully they could tap into a rat to find out what they needed. There was no question that Dunst hadn’t been acting on his own. The sniper bullet between his eyes said otherwise. The murder of an innocent young girl, a sniper shot to the forehead of a low-level drug dealer and a stabbing of a beautiful young woman on a jogging trail...how were they possibly connected? His stomach growled, reminding him that it was well past lunchtime, and he hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast that morning. He glanced at his watch. Seven minutes had passed since he’d last spoken to Lara. He pushed his chair away from his desk and leaned toward her once again. “I have an idea.” “That’s novel.” She didn’t bother to look at him. “Very funny. I was thinking maybe we’d grab something to eat and then head back over to the hotel where Dunst died.” “And why would we do that?” She turned in her chair, and her green eyes stared at him without emotion. “Because I’m starving and I’ve been reading over the initial reports that NYPD sent us when Dunst was killed, and I can’t find any interview with the doorman. And how did Dunst afford to stay in a place with a doorman? He used cash, but from where? The police interviewed the manager who was on duty at the time and several hotel patrons and other staff, but not the doorman.” “And doormen usually know more about people than anyone else in a building.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Okay, we can grab a hot dog off the street truck at the corner and then head back over to the hotel and see if any information was missed.” “You eat dirty water dogs off street trucks?” He looked at her incredulously. “You don’t?” she countered. “I never have before,” he admitted. Lara pushed back from her cubicle and stood. “Then I’m about to rock your taste buds.” Minutes later they stood in front of one of the many food trucks that dotted the streets in all parts of the city. It sported a bright red-and-yellow awning, and the older Hispanic man working it greeted Lara with a smile. “I’ll have the House Special,” she said to him. “Give me what she’s having,” Nick said. He was just glad that Lara seemed to be over being angry with him. The scents wafting from the cart caused Nick’s stomach to growl again. He’d always steered clear of the food carts and trucks, afraid of getting salmonella or some other dreaded disease. He’d just never thought it was right to eat food that came on wheels unless you were a senior citizen and the food was being delivered to your door. The man handed them each a hot dog with mustard and ketchup, smothered in chili and topped with cheese. Lara grabbed a handful of napkins and passed several to Nick. They stood next to the truck to eat. Lara ate in small, concise bites, managing not to spill a single drop, while Nick finished his dog in four big bites, wiped a spot of chili from the front of his leather coat and then ordered a second one. “Okay, I’ll admit it; those were the best hot dogs I’ve ever eaten. But if I come down with Ebola or some other deadly disease, it’s totally on you.” For the first time since he’d met her, she smiled. It was a real, genuine smile that momentarily lit up the darkness in her eyes and transformed her sharply defined features into something softer, something utterly appealing. “We haven’t been partners long enough yet for me to be ready to be rid of you, although you might not realize how close you came to death at my hands earlier.” The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving him wishing she would do it more often. “Let’s get moving,” she said. “According to what I read in the initial reports from the NYPD, Dunst checked into the hotel around noon the day before he climbed out on the ledge,” Nick said. They were once again in a company-issued car, headed back to the scene of the original crime. “I can’t believe nobody thought to interview the doorman. How on earth was that missed? We need to speak to both the night and the day doorman. Maybe one of them saw something,” Lara said. “We also need to speak to some of the shopkeepers in the area,” Nick replied. “Hopefully somebody saw something that might be of interest to us.” “Why weren’t more interviews done just after Dunst’s death?” Her annoyance was obvious in her sharp tone. “That sniper bullet put everyone in an uproar. As you already know, NYPD scrambled to check rooftops and nearby buildings in an attempt to figure out exactly where the shooter had been, but they didn’t find anything to answer the question. Besides, I think it was also a matter of jurisdiction. The NYPD assumed we were on the case because of your presence there, and of course we didn’t officially invite ourselves into the case until yesterday afternoon.” “Witnesses forget, they get confused.” Her frustration was like a third living presence in the car. “I should have stuck around yesterday. I should have done some of the investigating on my own. I could have questioned people, maybe figured out where that shot came from.” “Lara, you were right to get the hell out of there,” Nick replied firmly. “Once that sniper bullet found him, you had no choice but to get out of Dodge.” “I was just hoping that my picture wouldn’t be taken, that nobody from the crime syndicate would recognize me as Eve, the woman who had worked and lived among them for a year. I was hoping the new job with the team would keep me out of the spotlight. I didn’t want Moretti’s crew knowing I was in New York.” “You acted smart, Lara. Besides, who’s to say that if you’d stood next to Dunst’s body one second longer a sniper bullet wouldn’t have found your forehead, too?” He glanced toward her. Her gaze met his, her eyes flat and unfathomable. “If Moretti is behind all of this, then I don’t believe he would have taken me out yesterday with a shot between the eyes. He would have considered that far too easy a death for me.” She broke eye contact with him and instead stared straight out the front window. “If this is Moretti’s work, then he’ll want me to suffer. He’s a sadistic bastard who won’t be happy until he’s taunted and tormented me into madness.” A short silence ensued. “Do you have any relatives or friends you talk to?” he finally asked. “People to maybe have drinks with and download?” “My mother was murdered when I was young, and my father died a few months ago from Alzheimer’s. I am close to Victoria and Cass, but other than that, I don’t have friends. I don’t need them. Besides, once you’ve gone deep undercover and lived that lifestyle, it’s hard to come back to whatever normal life consists of.” Definitely defensive, Nick thought with an inward sigh. Make it work, he reminded himself as they pulled up in front of the hotel where Dunst had died. CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_4d366cfd-1371-5242-9676-151927dbd942) A phone call to the night doorman had let them know that he hadn’t seen Dunst except for on the news after he’d been killed. The day doorman, Brandon Ainsley, worked from seven in the morning until seven at night. He’d not only been present when Dunst had checked in on the day before he’d climbed out on the ledge but had also been at the hotel on duty when Dunst had been killed. He was a clean-cut middle-aged man whose red-and-gold uniform was pristine, but his eyes held a hint of concern as Lara and Nick escorted him into the manager’s office where they could question him in private. “All I can tell you is that I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the man when he came to check in if he’d had a suitcase or some kind of luggage with him,” Brandon said. “Do you often have people checking in without luggage?” Nick asked. Brandon’s cheeks flushed faintly. “Not too often, but it happens. There are a few people who regularly check in without any luggage, but they’re only here for about an hour or so around noontime.” “Hookups,” Lara said. Brandon gave a curt nod. “They always arrive and leave separately, but there’s one couple who comes every Friday at noon and stays for about an hour or so. They’ve been meeting here for the last two years.” Probably a married man with his mistress. If the woman was willing to settle for that kind of deal, it wasn’t Lara’s issue. Of course it could also be a married woman with a little extra on the side. She wasn’t interested in hookups, which happened at every hotel in the city. “Back to Dunst,” she said. “You said he checked in around noon. Did he appear nervous or scared?” “Not that I noticed,” Brandon replied. “But to be honest, I didn’t pay all that much attention to him.” “Did he leave the hotel at all during the afternoon or evening?” She repositioned herself in one of the hard-back chairs the manager had provided for the three of them to use. “Once,” Brandon replied. “A black SUV pulled up to the curb out by the street, and Dunst came outside and talked to the driver. I don’t know exactly what happened between them because a shuttle bus of tourists pulled up. The next thing I knew the SUV was peeling out, and Dunst came running back inside. That’s the last time I saw him until I was pulled off my post the next morning by a cop who told me to go home and that somebody would be in touch with me later.” “Is there anything else you can tell us that might be helpful?” Lara asked. “Did you notice the license plate on the SUV? Could you tell anything about the driver?” Brandon shook his head. “No, I’m sorry, but the vehicle was too far away for me to see the driver, and at the time I didn’t pay that much attention because I didn’t know it would be so important later. Who could know what was going to happen?” He grimaced. Nick pulled out a business card and handed it to Brandon. “If you think of anything else, no matter how minute, that might add additional information for us, please, give me a call.” “You might want to talk to Sally... Sally Bernard across the street. She owns the T-shirt shop that sells tourist shirts and souvenirs, and she usually knows everything that’s happening out on the streets,” Brandon said as they left the manager’s office. “There isn’t much that goes on around here that she misses.” They spoke to several other hotel staff members without learning anything more before heading across the street to Sally’s Shop of Souvenirs. Sally Bernard stood just outside the door of her small shop. She sported long purple-and-green streaked hair, and a tattoo of a dragon crawled up her neck from out of the top of a T-shirt that read FBI—Ferocious Bitch Inside. “Cute,” Lara said without humor. “If I knew you were coming I would have chosen another one,” Sally replied, but her flippant tone said otherwise. “You sell many of those?” Nick asked. An irreverent grin curved her lips. “It’s one of my bestsellers.” Her grin dropped from her face as if snatched away by a quick thief. “I’m assuming you’re here to talk to me about that kid-killing creep who got himself offed. I swear the whole day was shot with all the cop presence in the area. Tourists ran like rats from a sinking ship away from here. My sales totally sucked for the day.” “Yeah, it’s always such an inconvenience when somebody gets murdered,” Lara replied. Two minutes with Sally and she already wanted to slap the woman. “We’ve heard that you’re the person to talk to about the goings-on in the area,” Nick said. Sally shrugged too-thin shoulders. “I hang out here in front of the store a lot, and I like to people watch.” Her gaze slid from the top of Nick’s dark hair to the tip of his shoes, and she sidled a step closer to him. “I especially enjoy watching hot men like you.” Lara fought a snort as Nick stepped back and glanced in her direction. “If you like man-watching, then you must have seen the man who was murdered at the hotel yesterday,” Lara said. “Actually, I didn’t see it at the time it happened, but I watched it on the news later,” she said. “Did you see him at any time the day before he was killed?” “Yeah, once. It was late in the afternoon, and he nearly got run over by a black SUV. I only noticed the SUV because it pulled up along the curb in a no-parking zone. Dunst...that was his name, right?” “Right,” Lara replied. “Dunst came out of the hotel and talked to the driver. I’m pretty sure they were arguing. I probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all, but their voices were loud and angry, but not loud enough that I could actually hear specific words. They didn’t talk long, and when they finished, Dunst started around the front of the SUV, and the driver peeled out, straight for Dunst. If he hadn’t jumped out of the way fast enough, he would have been a hood ornament.” Lara shot a volley of more questions. Had Sally seen the man inside the SUV? Had she noticed the license plate? Did Dunst go directly back inside the hotel? Had she seen the SUV again after that? Sally irritated her, both with her half-assed attention to Lara and her flirtatious smiles and eyelash-fluttering toward Nick. Not that Lara was a bit jealous or anything. It was the fact that they were discussing a serious issue, and Sally didn’t appear to take any of it seriously. “We’ve got a nine-year-old girl who was murdered, a man who was shot between his eyes and a jogger who was stabbed this morning,” Lara said irritably. “I need you to make sure that you have nothing more to add that might be helpful.” “Wow, I thought I was being as helpful as possible, and I’ve told you everything I know.” She plucked at her T-shirt. “Maybe I need to go inside and grab one of these to give to you...on the house.” “Honey, I don’t need to wear a T-shirt for people to know there’s one ferocious bitch inside,” Lara retorted. “Come on, Agent Hotness, I think we’re done here.” When they were back in his car, Nick looked at her with a hint of wry amusement. “It’s the scar,” he said. “I guess it gives me a dangerous edge that some women seem to like.” “How did you get it?” she asked. His eyes instantly shuttered, and his smile turned into a tight-lipped frown. “That’s a long story for another day,” he said and started the car engine. Lara fastened her seat belt and leaned back, intrigued by the fact that her partner obviously had some inner demons of his own. By the time they got back to the agency, Mei and Ty were still gone to the prison on Long Island, Xander had gone home for the day, as had Victoria. The only person still working was Cass, who had her door closed. “It feels like it was a week ago that we had a dead woman on a jogging trail,” Nick said with weariness. Lara agreed and looked at the industrial round clock on the wall. It was just after seven. “I guess there’s not much else we can do tonight. Why don’t we plan on meeting back here by eight in the morning?” “Tomorrow is Sunday, Lara. Don’t you remember that Victoria called for a noon meeting for tomorrow?” Nick replied. No, she didn’t remember. She’d probably been too focused on how angry she was with Nick to hear what Victoria had said. “The case is hot now,” she protested. “We should get an early start in the morning.” “And it will still be hot at noon tomorrow,” he countered evenly. “Lara, I have a feeling this is going to be a seven-day-a-week job until we solve it all. We can’t burn ourselves out in the first couple of days. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” “Okay, then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow at noon,” she agreed reluctantly. She grabbed the file folder she’d been keeping of everything that had happened since the morning before and then left the office. * * * Thirty minutes later she was inside her apartment and dropped the manila file on the coffee table. She then went directly to the small built-in minibar and poured herself a shot of whiskey. She liked her whiskey neat, her men hot and uncommitted, and she hated downtime. She’d had enough downtime in the safe house to drive her half-insane. She wanted action. She wanted answers sooner rather than later. Unfortunately answers weren’t coming easily. She swallowed the shot and then poured herself another and carried it over to the sofa. She turned on the television with the volume barely audible and leaned back in an attempt to relax. But, there was no rest for the wicked. She leaned forward and opened the file where she had paper copies of all of the reports, beginning with her time with Dunst on the ledge. She could have pulled it all up on her laptop, but sometimes she liked to read hard copies instead. She took small sips of her drink, enjoying the warm burn down her throat and into the pit of her stomach as she read each report word for word, seeking something, anything that might have been overlooked. When she’d finished the second drink she got up and carried her glass to the sink, washed it out and then put it back on the glass shelf where it belonged. There had been too many nights when she’d imbibed too many drinks in an effort to numb herself and fall into a dreamless sleep. She couldn’t afford to do that now. She had to be sharp and at her best game. As she walked back to the sofa a news story caught her eye, and she turned up the volume to learn that little Tina Cole had been laid to rest today in a private funeral attended only by family and close friends. A shrine had sprung up in the overgrown empty lot where her body had been found. Weighted helium balloons hung above small stuffed animals and handmade signs. Lara changed the channel and swallowed again the emotion that threatened to arise. Nine years old and Tina’s life was over, taken by a man who, according to his girlfriend, had cared for Tina too much to follow through on orders to sell her to somebody. Lara couldn’t help the squeeze of her heart at the thought of the poor little girl who had been helpless to stop the unexpected evil that had surrounded her. Lara had been ten years old when her life had forever changed. Her mother, Anna, had been murdered in what had eventually been deemed a home invasion, but was still a cold case without closure. Nobody charged. Nobody arrested. Bartholomew, Lara’s father, had been a good cop at work and a controlling, cold man at home. Still, Lara had loved her father. A feeling that had been complicated by doubt and hurt, as he’d become implicated in her mother’s death. She remembered the vicious fights that had taken place between her parents just before her mother’s murder. More than once Anna had threatened to take Lara and leave Bartholomew, and more than once Lara had heard her father say that he’d kill his wife before he’d ever let her go. The night before her murder there had been such a fight. Her father had been questioned per procedure following the murder, but ultimately had walked away from the investigation unscathed. The uncertainty of her father’s guilt ate at her, especially since his death. She just wished the case had been closed and a guilty party had been caught. At ten years old Lara had lost not only her loving mother, but also her innocence and her ability to trust. It struck her that at thirty-one years old Lara was now the same age her mother had been when she’d been murdered. The only family she had left was a half sister, Meghan, and Meghan had hated Anna and then Lara, because Lara’s father had abandoned his first wife and Meghan when Meghan had only been a year old. The two half sisters had virtually no relationship. Sometimes, in the darkest of her moods, Lara wished she had family. Her relationship with her father had become strained and distant before his death as she’d mentally questioned what part, if any, he might have had in her mother’s murder. Was it that hunger for connection that had made her make so many mistakes when it had come to the Moretti case? She had made mistakes, but ultimately she’d gotten her man. She could take some comfort in that fact. Still, what role, if any, did Moretti play in what was happening now? And why in the hell did she wish for her mother to be sitting next to her telling her everything was going to be fine? Irritated by her brain’s walk down memory lane, she got up off the sofa and went into the bathroom to shower and get ready for bed. She didn’t want to think about her father or Moretti anymore tonight. Her father had been a difficult man, but Moretti had been the biggest monster she’d ever known. Despite her desire to put it all out of her head, she couldn’t control her tumbling thoughts. She hoped Ty and Mei managed to get some answers from their time spent at the prison. Was it possible Moretti had somehow managed to have sleeper cells around the city, knowing it was her hometown, just waiting for Lara to eventually surface? Had the trigger for those sleeper cells to wake up and begin operating been the photo of her in the paper? No. Dunst had acted out before Lara had been photographed and identified in the news. A shower did nothing to wash the dark thoughts from her mind. She pulled on the sweatpants and tank top she usually slept in, but was reluctant to go to bed. She feared sleep and the bad dreams that visited her far too often. She jumped as her cell phone rang. She was surprised to see Nick’s number on the caller ID. “I’ve just been thinking,” he said after she’d answered. “Maybe it’s possible Dunst had gotten himself heavy into the drug scene and double-crossed somebody.” “But, his girlfriend said he’d been clean for the last month or so,” Lara replied. She sat on the edge of her bed, still vaguely surprised that he’d called her. “I have a feeling that half the time Sheila Currothers was too self-involved to know exactly what her Dunstie might be doing. It’s possible Dunst had started using or selling again, and she didn’t know anything about it. Or it’s equally possible that he was laying low for the last month or so because he owed somebody in a very big way.” “Maybe,” Lara replied dubiously. “And maybe he was ordered to kill himself or be killed by whoever he double-crossed,” Nick continued. “When he decided not to jump off the ledge, they followed through on their threat and shot him.” Lara would love to believe it was as simple as that; unfortunately, the scenario left out too many facts. “What about Tina? What about the ink pad and stamp he had in his pocket? What about the jogger this morning? I can’t believe she was into a drug culture of any kind, and her face was stamped with the Moretti insignia.” Nick sighed. “Yeah, I knew my basic theory was flawed and too simple. I guess I just needed to verbalize it to you. It’s all so damned confusing.” “Nick, I think this is just the beginning. I think things are going to get much worse.” Lara disconnected the call. She had no more to say. Only time would tell if she was right or wrong, and she prayed she was wrong. But, she knew true evil. She’d lived among it for a year. What concerned her was that her new team had no idea what they might be up against. What she feared the most was that her death certificate had already been filled out and was just waiting for the time of death to be added to make it official. CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_53499bdd-b8cd-5595-bba5-fd0d2ef1b09b) The team met briefly at noon the next day. The Crisis Management Unit was coordinating with NYPD, and an officer in charge had reported that they’d scoured the hotel room where Dunst had stayed, and no phone had been found. Hotel records had shown that no calls had come in or gone out of the room Dunst had checked into during the time of his stay, leaving the issue of a cell phone still a mystery. He had to have been contacted in some way in order to leave the hotel room to meet with whomever had been in the SUV. A preliminary autopsy report had come in on Lara Bowman. She’d been stabbed twice in the heart with a six-inch serrated knife that had yet to be found. Boze had also found slivers of wood to indicate that the knife had a wooden handle. They were all pieces of a puzzle that still didn’t fit anywhere. “Who did you talk to yesterday at the prison?” Lara asked Mei. “We tried to interview three members of the Moretti organization. The first was Lyle Brennen. He basically told us to get screwed, and that was it,” Mei replied. “He was a low-level operative. I doubt if he’d know anything about what Moretti is up to now,” Lara said. “The second we talked to was Brett Noland. He had more colorful language for us and told us he wouldn’t take a million dollars to turn on Moretti because a dead man couldn’t spend any money,” Ty said. “And the third we tried to interview, Jacob Withers, refused to even meet with us. We plan on trying to talk to a few more today.” “All of the guys you mentioned were definitely low on the food chain in the organization,” Lara said. “You need to talk to some of the mid-level operatives to see if they know something.” “Names,” Mei said with a pen in her hand and a piece of paper before her. Lara frowned as she thought of the men who had been a part of the madness of Moretti. After the convictions, they were broken up and sent to various federal penitentiaries. “See if Jimmy Bannister or Ramone Espinoso will talk to you. Both of them are at Long Island and were mid-level men who worked both the drug operation and the prostitution side of things.” “Got it,” Mei said. “And hopefully one of them will know something and be in a sharing kind of mood.” “Yeah, right,” Xander said sarcastically. “Maybe they’ll be all warm and fuzzy for you.” Lara ignored him as did everyone else at the table. She had quickly learned that Xander had no filter. He just said whatever popped into his head at the moment. “Why don’t we have a complete update at seven in the morning?” Victoria said. “Of course, if anything comes up in the meantime, let me know.” With that the meeting ended. Mei and Ty left to go back to the prison to finish up interviews. Xander was going to check with more friends and relatives of Lara Bowman to see if anything connected her to Dunst. Cass planned to stay in her tech room and monitor crimes around the surrounding areas to see if anything that might be tied to what they were dealing with popped up in any other part of the city or back in Chicago. Nick and Lara agreed it was time to talk with Tina’s parents. They headed back to Brooklyn, neither of them speaking on the ride. Lara spent the time steeling herself for talking to grieving parents who had just laid their only child to rest the day before. She didn’t deal well with emotions, her own or other people’s, and she knew there was no way this wasn’t going to be an intense, emotional interview. She pulled the collar of her suede coat closer around her neck despite the fact that the temperature in the car was just fine. It was that damned inner chill that she’d been unable to shake since the moment she’d heard about the ink pad and stamp in Dunst’s pocket. She glanced over at Nick. His taut jaw and the faint throb of a vein at his temple let her know that this was an interview he’d like to skip, as well. There was no skillful way to interrogate grieving parents. There were no words to fix their world that had exploded apart with the untimely death of their child, in this case an only child. They hadn’t called ahead. They’d been afraid that John and Heather Cole might refuse to meet with them. The last thing they’d want to do was relive the nightmare, but no stone left unturned, Lara reminded herself. No matter how difficult it might be for everyone involved, they all would have to sit through questioning. Although the Cole brownstone was only a couple of blocks away from Dunst’s, the difference in the neighborhoods was like night and day. The street where the Coles lived was clean, the houses neatly painted, with many of them sporting the last of late fading summer flowers in window boxes or along the walkways. Dunst’s street was for criminals and lowlifes; this area was for families and people who shared a pride of ownership and communal bonds. They found a parking space two houses down from the Coles’ place and got out. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon; the autumn air was warm enough that several people sat outside on their stoops, and one woman was pulling weeds in what was left of a flower garden. They all eyed Nick and Lara with suspicion as they climbed the steps to the Cole house. “Are you ready for this?” Nick asked. “No.” Lara knocked on the door. The woman who answered wore grief like a heavy shroud. Her shoulder-length brown hair was lank, her blue eyes swollen and red. Lara flashed her badge, and immediately Heather Cole backed away from the door. “John,” she called, her voice on the edge of hysteria as her entire body began to shake. “John!” John Cole was a big man, his grief less on display until you looked into the torturous depths of his hazel eyes. He instantly placed a supporting arm around Heather’s shoulders, as if to shield her from whatever might come. “Everyone wants to talk to us now, but where was everyone when we first reported Tina missing?” His voice was gruff and filled with a barely suppressed anger. “We’re very sorry for your loss, and we know how difficult this all has been for you, but we need to ask you some questions,” Nick said with a softness that surprised Lara and made her immediately decide that he would definitely take lead on this particular interview. John heaved a deep sigh and then motioned them to follow him and his wife into the living room. John and Heather sat side by side on a floral sofa. Nick sat in a matching chair across from them, and Lara found herself drawn to a large bookcase that took up one wall in the room. She was vaguely aware of Nick asking questions while she stared at the array of photos that surrounded the television on the shelves. An ornate silver frame held a picture of John and Heather on their wedding day, both looking painfully young and blissfully happy. There was a picture of Tina getting on a school bus. She’d been brown-haired and blue-eyed just like her mother and had a beautiful smile that would light up any room. The photos were the chronicles of the life of a beloved child. First day of school, first missing tooth, a romp at the beach...each picture was like a small dagger plunged into Lara’s heart. There would be no more photos to add to this particular collection. There would be no first date or prom, no first day at college or any other momentous occasions frozen in time by a camera. Her gaze fell on a photo of Heather holding a newborn Tina wrapped in a pink blanket. Lara stiffened, drinking in the picture and easily imagining the softness of the blanket, the sweet scent and the soft coos of a baby held in loving arms. She reeled away from the pictures, unable to stand looking at another one. Nick was showing John and Heather a photo of Lara Bowman. “Has either one of you ever seen this woman before?” he asked. They both looked at the picture and then shook their heads. “Did she have something to do with Tina’s kidnapping?” Heather asked in a faint, trembling voice as she swiped a tear from her cheek. “I mean, we know now that Sean Dunst actually took Tina, but did this woman have a hand in it, too?” “No, nothing like that. She’s another victim. She was found murdered yesterday morning on a jogging trail in Central Park,” Nick explained. John frowned. “Then what does she have to do with what happened to Tina?” “We’re trying to tie together several cases but can’t really tell you any more than that,” Nick replied. “Nobody can tell us anything,” John said, his anger back in his voice. “Nobody can tell us why this Dunst person chose Tina or why he held her for a two whole weeks before killing her. Was she specifically chosen, or was she just so cute he couldn’t resist her when he saw her?” “She was such a good girl.” Heather began to rock back and forth, tears oozing from her eyes. “She never gave us any trouble. Before she’d leave for school each morning she’d tell me she loved me much much. ‘I love you much much, Mommy.’ That’s what she’d say every day. Now I’ll never hear her sweet little voice again.” Out. Lara needed out. No matter how thick she’d believed her defenses to be, this house, this very room held too much raw grief. It was strangling her, and she couldn’t draw enough air. She shot Nick a quick glance and then left by the front door. She stood on the stoop and drew in deep breaths in order to get hold of herself. Loss pierced through her like a jagged dagger. Her chest ached as if she’d received the stabbing knife wounds that had stolen the life from Lara Bowman. Was Lara at the center of all this? Were these deaths happening because of her? No, she couldn’t think that way; otherwise she’d lose her mind. They’d figure this out. They’d catch the people responsible. Failure simply wasn’t an option. She took another deep breath and drew on the place inside of her that held no emotion, the place of toughness that was her strength. While undercover she’d seen plenty of young victims, and she’d had to stuff her feelings away in a place where they couldn’t be accessed. It had been the only way for her to survive. By the time Nick finally joined her on the stoop she had managed to get herself under tight control again. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m fine,” she snapped sharply and hurried down the stoop to his car. His simple question had managed to twist emotions and feelings she didn’t want to possess all out of whack again. She’d believed her emotions had died first in the year undercover and then in the time that she’d spent in the safe house. After all she had done, after everything she had seen while undercover, she’d needed to numb herself in an effort to stay sane. It was still a coping mechanism that usually served her well. They got into the car, and thankfully Nick remained silent. Lara had gone to the dark side of her mind, and at the moment she didn’t want any intrusion. Images from the past ripped at her soul as she lost a battle to clear her mind. By the time they’d driven for a few minutes, she looked out of the window and frowned. “Where are we going?” They were headed toward the East Village, not back to the agency. “Just trust me,” he replied. She looked at him warily and sat forward, the seat belt cutting into her chest. At the moment she was too fragile to trust anyone. “Nick, you’d better tell me right now where you’re taking me before I open the door and bail.” “Take it easy, Lara,” he said with a touch of irritation. “I’m taking you someplace where we can have a beer or two and kick back and relax for a little while. I think we’ve both earned it after this last interview.” She leaned back and drew in a deep breath. God, she’d stab somebody in the eye right now for a cold beer and a chance to clear her mind. He parked along the street in front of a small pub named O’Toole’s. “My apartment building is on the next block. I come here often just to unwind,” he said as they walked toward the front door. Inside the place was relatively small. The booths had red leather seats that matched the stools in front of the long dark wooden bar. It was one of those neighborhood joints where everyone knew your name, and on this Sunday afternoon there were only two men seated at the bar watching a muted television showing a football game. U2 played softly overhead as Nick led her to a booth where he slid into one side, and she slid into the other. Immediately a saucy red-haired young woman with a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose appeared at the side of their booth. “Hey, Nick,” she said and then offered Lara a friendly smile. “What can I get for you two?” Within minutes they each had a frosty mug of beer in front of them. Tension still knotted in the pit of Lara’s stomach from the visit to the Coles. She wasn’t sure if having a beer with Nick was a good idea or not. But, she definitely wasn’t ready to go home to her apartment and be alone with her thoughts. “Tough interview,” he said and took a drink of his beer. “The worst,” she agreed. “Thanks for doing it. I hate having to talk to people who have lost their children.” She took a long draw of the beer. “One of the horrible things of working undercover in the Moretti organization was knowing that he was trafficking children and not being able to do a damn thing about it without blowing my cover.” “How did you manage to hook up with the organization in the first place?” His dark eyes gazed at her curiously. Lara leaned back in the booth and took another drink of the beer before replying. Memories of that time rose up to form a lump in the back of her throat. She coughed and swallowed hard against it. “The FBI did a great job creating an alias for me, complete with a background as a minor arms runner in Chicago. I spent a couple of weeks hanging out in a bar that I knew several members of the Moretti syndicate frequented, and it was there I connected with the organization and was taken in, running guns for them.” She paused to take another drink and then continued. “I’m sure I was thoroughly checked out before being brought onboard. The FBI created a life for me that included an arrest for illegal gun sales. According to the fake records, the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, but it was enough to get me into the organization. Then it was just a matter of time, and slowly gaining everyone’s trust. I ended up working for the most reprehensible people who were doing terrible things, and I also discovered some of them had dualities to their personalities.” She finished her beer in two deep swallows. Don’t think about Andrew. Not here, not now. Not ever. “Yeah, but it’s not like a trained, professional agent like you would be taken in by some stupid sob story from drug dealers and human traffickers.” Nick gestured the waitress for another round of beers. “I never lost sight of the ultimate goal, but I’ll admit that a few of the people got a little bit under my skin with their stories. Like there was one drug courier who got into the business because his son needed expensive cancer treatments, and he needed cash to pay the medical bills.” She stopped talking as the waitress delivered their drinks. When the woman had left their booth Lara took a sip of the fresh beer and then shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about all of this anymore. We’ve got enough to deal with in the here and now.” For a long moment she was mired in the events of the past couple of days. Little Tina’s murder, Dunst’s execution and Lara Bowman sprawled dead on a jogging trail...an upward spiral of anger filled her. “I’ll tell you what will really piss me off,” she finally said aloud. “If we find out that Lara Bowman was killed only because she shared the same spelling of her name as mine.” A grad student, working to stay healthy, a woman with a bright future ahead of her and a man who had loved her...her life snuffed out by a knife in the heart because she had the misfortune to be named Lara. A heavy weight sat in Lara’s stomach. Again she was plagued by doubts. Was she smart enough to handle what might be coming her way? Was she really competent to do the job? She sighed and fought against an encroaching darkness from the past that threatened to consume her. Nick was silent for several long minutes and then finally spoke. “Five years ago my partner was killed because I wanted a sandwich.” His deep voice held a hollowness that rang a like chord inside her. “Jimbo, that’s what everyone called him,” Nick continued. “He was a big man, with an even bigger heart. Everyone loved Jimbo. He was constantly dieting, and on that particular night the last place he wanted to stop was at a deli shop, but I insisted. It was stupid and selfish, but I told him just to wait in the car, and I’d run in and grab my sandwich. I’d just paid for my order when I heard the gunshot.” He stopped talking for a long moment and then finally continued, his eyes focused into his mug. “Some bastard had crept up on the car and shot him through the head. He never had a fighting chance. We didn’t catch the shooter. We believed it was probably somebody we’d arrested at some point or another. Jimbo was dead because I wanted a damned pastrami on rye.” He looked up at her with haunted eyes. She didn’t speak. There was nothing she could say. Lara knew all about guilt, and there was never anything anyone could say to make it go away. Something like that was a mark on your heart forever. If his story was even true. Maybe he’d just concocted it in an effort to create a bond with her. Maybe it was an attempt to manipulate her into sharing her own deepest, darkest secrets. “Loss is always tough,” she said. He eyed her with open speculation. “I guess you learned that when you were young, with your mother’s murder.” His words ripped off the scab that was over the old wound in her heart. Lara stared down into her own mug as memories of her mother played through her mind. “She was an amazing person. She was beautiful and loving, and nothing was the same when she was gone.” She picked up her mug and took a drink in an effort to dislodge the lump that had once again risen in the back of her throat. She rarely accessed memories of her mom because it hurt too much, and she had so many questions about the senseless crime. “What about your parents?” she asked in an effort to take her mind off her own pain. Nick’s features tightened. “I’m not close with my father, and my mother is in hospice battling cancer.” “Oh, I’m sorry.” He shrugged, his dark eyes unreadable. “It’s life, right. You don’t have to like it. You just have to deal with it.” The problem was that deep in her heart Lara wasn’t sure she was dealing appropriately with anything. Although she sensed she and Nick had more in common than she’d initially believed, she still was afraid to trust him. She took another drink of her beer and then scooted out of the booth. “I need to go.” “But it’s still early,” he protested. “I’ve got some things to do...personal things,” she replied. Just as she’d needed to escape the Cole house earlier, a driving desire to get away from Nick filled her. He got up, as well. “Then I’ll drive you home.” She waved him back down into the seat. “Don’t worry about it. Finish your beer and relax. I’ll just get a cab.” The minute she stepped out of the pub a new overwhelming desire struck her. It was just after four in the afternoon, and if she hurried she could manage to get there before darkness fell. Don’t do it, a little voice whispered inside her head. But she rarely listened to the voice that held good sense, and she knew better than to try to stanch what had suddenly become an obsessive need. All she had to do was get home, grab her blond wig and fake identification, and she would be on her way to a place she wasn’t supposed to go, to a place that called to her with a primal need she couldn’t ignore. CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_32979938-8454-5a29-943a-b58e61794559) The long blond wig and heavy makeup transformed Lara. She stared in her bathroom mirror and tried to talk herself out of going, but it was no use. She needed to go, even though she knew it was dangerous, even forbidden. “Just be careful,” she whispered to her reflection. She whirled away and left the bathroom, eager to get on with it despite any misgivings. With a fake identification and matching credit card in her pocket and an empty briefcase in hand, she left her apartment. Jerry, the doorman, didn’t blink an eye. He knew she was an FBI agent, and he never asked questions. They did have an agreement that if anything strange happened concerning her apartment, then he was to contact her immediately. She headed toward the nearest subway and descended the stairs, her mind carefully schooled not to think. She didn’t even want to try to talk herself out of what she was going to do. She rode the subway until the second stop and then exited and went up to the street. From there she caught a bus, always vigilant for anyone who might be following her. She made no eye contact with anyone and had changed into a white blouse, a brown pair of slacks and a tweed coat. She looked like any other city businesswoman just trying to get ahead by working on the weekends. It had been speaking to Tina’s parents, seeing the photos of the child they had lost that had amped Lara for this secretive trip. She had to check...she had to make sure everything was okay. It was a drive she’d only made three times before, and nobody knew about her trips. As far as she was concerned, nobody ever had to know. She rode the bus for twenty minutes and then departed it and hailed a cab to LaGuardia Airport. Each time she’d made this trip she always varied her mode of transportation, either coming to LaGuardia or to Kennedy airport to rent a car. She hoped to make it virtually impossible for anyone to tail her. Once inside the airport it only took minutes for Ramona Wendall to rent a sedan and head out for the hour and a half drive to the small upstate town of Maywood, New York. These covert trips always balled a fist of anxiety in her stomach, and this afternoon the knot was particular tight as her head continued to fill with visions of Tina and thoughts of the conversation she’d shared with Nick. Nobody except for Victoria knew the true hell that she had gone through while undercover. The things she had seen, the things she had done, would haunt her for the rest of her life. Even though she had done the right thing, there was a piece of her that had been sacrificed in the process. She glanced in her rearview mirror often, but was certain that she hadn’t been followed. The farther she got from the city, the prettier the drive became. The road narrowed to two lanes, and dense stands of trees glowed red and gold and brilliant orange, their leaves dancing in a light breeze. Under different circumstances she might have found the drive relaxing, but there were few things or places in her life where she ever found true peace. Since the time of her mother’s murder her life had pretty much sucked. Not that she was the type to wallow in self-pity. Rather, the loss of her mother and the unsettling thoughts of wondering why she’d been murdered had created a burning anger inside Lara and had shaped the person she’d become. She’d taken her anger and transformed it into drive and ambition, into the desire to be the kind of FBI agent people respected. Lara’s mission was to get as many murderers and other criminals as possible locked away for as long as possible. Ultimately it had been the Moretti case that had really changed her. It had hardened her, and she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to fully trust anyone again. She was positive that the experience had made it impossible to go back to whoever she had been before going undercover. Her thoughts turned to Nick. She’d have to stay on her toes where he was concerned. She’d already told him far more about her life and about being undercover than she’d ever intended. He was way too easy to talk to, and he’d shared a piece of his own past tragedy with her in an obvious attempt to bond. She would only allow him to get so close, and then she’d shut it down. She had secrets that, if revealed, would not only destroy her professionally and personally, but would also endanger others. She simply couldn’t risk it. As she saw the sign indicating that she was about to enter the small town of Maywood, her fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and a new burst of anxiety again bubbled up inside her. With everything that had happened over the past couple of days, she just needed to assure herself that everything was still okay in Maywood. She took a right off Main Street and then traveled several blocks and took another right that placed her on a beautiful tree-lined street where the homes were modest but well-kept. The lowering sun cast the houses in warm golden shades. Her heart drummed a frantic rhythm as she drove down the first block and then halfway down the second. She pulled up to park across from a cheerful yellow house and expelled a pent-up shuddery sigh she hadn’t realized she was holding in. She unclenched her tightened fingers from the steering wheel and dropped them into her lap. They were outside. Lara could see that they were okay. Relief fluttered in her heart. The three of them sat on the porch swing, apparently enjoying the last minutes of the unusually warm fall day. David Minnow, an accountant, was dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans. His wife Faye’s short bobbed blond hair sparkled in the last of the sunshine, and in front of her in a Bjorn was seven-months-old little Emily. Faye was a stay-at-home mom who loved to make beaded jewelry and dote on both David and Emily. Together they all made a picture of the perfect family. They were the perfect family; both David and Faye were good people who loved little Emily...thank God they were all safe. Emily wiggled and danced in her confinement, and both David and Faye were laughing. Lara hit the button to lower her passenger window just enough that she could hear their laughter. The sweet, joyful sound welled emotions so overwhelming that Lara’s eyes momentarily misted with tears. She stabbed the button to raise the window and put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb before she might draw any unwanted attention. Why did she put herself through this? Why did she torture herself? She swiped angrily at an errant tear that had the audacity to escape her eye. She never cried. She never allowed herself the release. They were safe and happy, and there was no reason for her to make this drive to assure her of that fact. They were doing just fine and didn’t need her checking up on them. You can’t come here again. Besides the fact that it’s a risk, you can’t put yourself through this anymore. The words echoed in her mind as she headed back to New York City. This would definitely be the last trip she made to the small town of Maywood, she promised herself as she swiped yet another unwanted tear away. * * * At seven o’clock on Monday morning everyone was gathered around the conference table. Lara felt ragged and weary. She hadn’t gotten home from upstate until after ten, and then she hadn’t been able to sleep. Residual emotions had raged through her until she’d finally resorted to sitting at her computer. The final autopsy report on Lara Bowman had been emailed to all of the team members by Victoria, and Lara had taken several hours reading the findings and looking at the diagrams, but finding nothing new to what they already knew from the preliminary report. She’d spent time staring at her darkened ceiling and trying to figure out what had happened to any phone Dunst might have had. The person in the SUV had to have contacted Dunst, in order for him to come out of his room and down to the street. Unless smoke signals had been used, there had to be a burner phone somewhere, but where? It had been in the early morning hours when she’d finally fallen asleep. Even after two cups of coffee she was cranky and frustrated at the lack of progress in moving forward. What she’d thought had been a hot case had now turned far too lukewarm. “We spent yesterday afternoon talking to the men Lara told us about, the mid-level operatives in the Moretti organization,” Mei said. “They were surly jerks, but none of them appeared to know anything about Moretti being active again.” “Of course, we have to keep in mind that we were interviewing convicted felons,” Ty added. “We have no idea if they were being honest with us or not.” “Did you offer them anything in an attempt to turn them?” Xander asked. “Otherwise what reason would they have to tell the truth?” “I got the feeling that we could have offered them a luxury hotel room complete with free room service for the rest of their lives, and they still weren’t going to talk.” Mei frowned. “I definitely think they’re all still terrified of Moretti and what might happen to them if they cross him in any way.” “A shiv in the back by somebody Moretti still has under control or a hanging from a bedsheet in their cell orchestrated by a corrupt prison guard would do the trick,” Lara said. “The men who worked for Moretti both revered and were terrified of him. They believed his power was omnipotent. I’m really not surprised that none of them will talk.” “But you got him,” Nick said, his gaze surprisingly warm as he looked at her. “Everyone thought Moretti was omnipotent, but you brought him down.” “It was a team effort. We got him behind bars, but that doesn’t mean we stopped him from operating in some form or another,” she replied. “Maybe you should go and talk to the man himself,” Xander said to Lara. “You worked with him for a year.” “I worked with a lot of people, but I didn’t really know Moretti. Nobody knew him. He was the mystery man behind the scenes. Besides, if his goal is to get me to the prison to see him, I still think we should make him wait.” Lara didn’t feel ready to face the monster in the cage. She knew how manipulative he could be, and he had every reason in the world to despise her above all others. “We haven’t even confirmed for sure that this is Moretti’s work.” Cass spoke up. “It could still be a copycat thing, a local drug gang trying to pin their crimes on Moretti to keep us from investigating them. I’ve been checking into that angle, but I don’t have all the information yet. Figuring out who the power players are in this town when it comes to gang members and their activities isn’t a small task.” “But what would Lara Bowman have to do with a gang? There’s nothing in her background to tie her to that particular lifestyle,” Ty said. “We just don’t have enough facts,” Nick said, his deep voiced laced with frustration. “A call came in overnight on the TIPS line about Lara Bowman’s murder,” Victoria said. Lara sat up straighter in her chair, a welcomed shot of adrenaline rushing through her. “What kind of a tip?” Action. God, she needed some action that could move things forward and keep her out of her own head. “A man named Sam Wilmington was near the reservoir when Lara Bowman was murdered. He said he may or may not have some information that might be helpful. NYPD is going to check it out and let us know if anything relevant comes out of the interview,” Victoria explained. Lara leaned forward, every sense she had as a trained FBI agent on alert. “I need to take this,” she said. If it was possible that this might be a break in the case, then she wanted it firsthand. “We...we need to take this,” Nick said with a hint of irritation in his voice. Lara flushed warmly at the not-so-subtle reminder that she had a partner. “Nick and I should be the ones doing the follow-up. I want this, Victoria.” Lara held her boss’s gaze intently. Victoria hesitated a moment and then nodded. “All right, I’ll let NYPD know that we’re doing the interview.” Victoria tore off a sheet of paper from a notepad and handed it to Lara. “Here’s the address.” “We’re on it,” Lara said, already leaving her chair as Nick did the same. “The rest of you keep digging into the backgrounds of the victims. Check out the local gang members and see if you can find a link between them and the three murders,” Victoria said. Lara didn’t hear what she said after that for she had already left the conference room with Nick at her heels. They both pulled on their coats before leaving the building. Overnight a blustery front had moved back in from the north, making for an overcast, windy and cold day. “Where are we headed?” Nick asked once they were in his car. “Lower Harlem,” she replied. “He lives off 120th Street.” Nick nodded. “I wonder why it took him so long to call in?” “It’s only been about forty-eight hours since her body was found. But, we’ll find out why he didn’t call in immediately when we talk to him. We need something, Nick. I feel like I’m still up on that ledge with Dunst, only I’m the one thinking about jumping because I’m so damned frustrated,” she said. Nick cast her a quick glance and then focused back on the road. “There will be no ledge jumping as long as I’m your partner.” “Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal, but I’m definitely feeling a bit homicidal. As despicable as Dunst was as a human being, I want his killer caught. Even more importantly, I want the person who stabbed Lara Bowman to death in my gun sights, but not before I get some answers from him.” “You know, we haven’t really considered that it might be a woman who stabbed Lara. It’s always been thought that women are more apt to stab than men.” “It was a male perp,” Lara replied confidently. “We know from the autopsy report the knife nicked a rib to get to her heart. That takes a lot of strength.” “Or a shitload of rage.” “If Moretti was behind the murder and it was ordered strictly because her name was the same as mine, then there would have been no rage involved. It would have been a cold, emotionless kill for a price,” she replied. And that’s what made it all the more evil. They fell silent until they were in Sam Wilmington’s neighborhood. Over recent years lower Harlem had become increasingly gentrified. Sam Wilmington’s apartment building was twelve stories high, and according to his address he resided in a loft on the top floor. He greeted them at the door and introductions were made. He was a middle-aged man going bald, with eyes that appeared both troubled and exhausted. He was an artist, specializing in metal designs, and most of the floor space was dedicated to his work. “I have living space on the other side of the loft,” he explained. As they followed him across the room it was like walking through a junkyard with welding tools and metal sculptures of abstract items Lara couldn’t begin to recognize. Was Sam successful as an artist? At one time the rent for one of these loft spaces had been cheap, but those days were long gone. She made a mental note to ask Cass to run a full background on the man, especially a financial workup. God, she was definitely grasping at straws if she really believed that Moretti or some rival gang would hire a middle-aged starving artist to stamp and kill anyone. Besides, if he hadn’t called the TIPS line, nobody would have even known that he was in the park on the morning of Lara Bowman’s murder. The living area he’d spoken of was small and sparse, consisting of a kitchenette with a table for two, a love seat and a television. There was a doorway that she assumed led to a bathroom. He motioned them toward the love seat and then pulled up one of the table chairs to sit in front of them. He raked a hand through what was left of his sandy brown hair and released a deep sigh. “I don’t know if what I have to tell you will be of any help to you at all.” “Why don’t you tell us what you know, and we’ll be the judge of whether it’s helpful,” Lara said. “That morning when Lara Bowman was murdered, I was there. I mean, I didn’t see her murder, and I wasn’t on the trail, but I was close to the reservoir, and I apparently saw her just before she was killed.” “What were you doing there?” Lara asked. “I had just arrived when she ran past. I like to see the sunrise from the reservoir. It kick-starts my creativity for the day.” “So, you saw Lara that morning,” Nick said. “Yeah, I saw her. It was hard not to notice her. I mean, she was pretty.” His cheeks flushed with color. “But I didn’t stop her or speak to her or anything like that. I was just sitting down on the bench when I noticed another guy on the trail just behind her.” “Another guy?” Once again Lara’s adrenaline spiked. “Did you know him?” Nick asked. Sam shook his head. “I’d never seen him before. I mean, he might not have anything to do with what happened to her.” He frowned. “That’s what kept me from calling until this morning after I saw on the news she’d been murdered. Like me, he could have just happened to be on that trail and have had nothing to do with her death. But, I finally decided I needed to tell someone about him.” “You did the right thing,” Nick assured him. “What did he look like?” Lara asked. “It was still dark out, but I could see he was wearing a gray jogging suit, and he was tall and he wore a baseball hat. Even with the hat I could see that he had blond hair. I didn’t pay him enough attention to notice much of anything else.” “Oh, come on,” Nick said with a faint hint of derision. “You’re an artist. Surely you can give us a little more detail than that. How old was he?” Lara flashed her partner a look of annoyance. Couldn’t he see that hard-ass cop attitude wouldn’t get them what they needed? The man was distraught and needed a gentle hand. “Mr. Wilmington... Sam...this is really important. You might help us catch a murderer,” she said softly. Sam held his hands out helplessly. “He could have been anywhere between his mid-twenties to his forties. The early morning light made it hard to tell, and like I said, I didn’t know this was going to be important when I noticed him.” “We still don’t know if it is important. What did you do after you left the reservoir?” Lara asked. “I met a friend for breakfast. We meet every morning about the same time. He’s an artist, too. Watercolors.” He gave them the friend’s name, address and phone number and the name of the deli where they’d had breakfast. “I’ve got to be honest with you, if I didn’t have a solid alibi for the time around the murder, I wouldn’t have made that call this morning. The people who work at the deli know me. They’ll tell you that my friend and I eat there almost every morning around the same time.” “You were afraid you would be a suspect?” Nick asked. “Wouldn’t you be?” Sam retorted. His eyes squinted as if he was fighting back emotion. “I keep thinking I should have followed behind her. Maybe if I’d just struck up a conversation with her or something, then I could have stopped her from being murdered.” “Or you could have wound up as a second victim,” Nick replied. Sam nodded, his eyes even more troubled. “Check out my alibi. There are regular customers who eat at the deli who don’t know me. They’d have no reason to lie for me.” “I believe him,” Lara said a few minutes later when they were back in Nick’s car. “But we’re still going to check out his alibi just to be sure.” “And then I think we should head back to Sally of the splendid T-shirts and see if she noticed if the driver of the SUV was a blond man wearing a baseball hat.” Lara nodded. At least they had a new lead to follow, a lead that hopefully would bring them some answers. Fear knotted tight in her stomach, a fear she knew wouldn’t go away until she knew exactly what was going on, exactly what kind of monster might be targeting these people...potentially targeting her. She desperately needed answers before she spiraled down into the bottom of a whiskey bottle or the fear and doubt inside her became so great she became of no use to anyone. CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_0dbb5388-ae74-5a02-a3df-8817a97f6657) “If there was another person around our victim at the time of her murder and if he isn’t the perp, then why didn’t he call the TIPS line?” Lara asked. “Maybe for the same reason Sam hesitated before calling. He was afraid he would be seen as a potential suspect.” “If Sam’s alibi checks out, which I’m pretty sure it will, then we have a mystery man on the trail at the same time Lara Bowman was murdered.” Lara frowned thoughtfully. “And Cass has already checked the security camera located on the trail near where Lara was murdered. The one that might have shown us the actual murder taking place was broken.” “As are half of the cameras in Central Park,” Nick replied drily. “We should have Cass pull footage from all of the cameras around the time of the murder and see if we can get a glimpse of a blond man wearing jogging clothes and a ball cap entering or leaving the park.” Lara pulled out her cell phone and made the call. By that time they’d arrived at Dawson’s Deli to check out Sam’s alibi. Owners Sherri and Harold confirmed that Sam and his friend, Kevin, were regulars. “Kevin gave us the watercolor over there,” Harold said and pointed to a framed watercolor of white lilies floating on a greenish-blue pond. “And you’re sure they ate breakfast here Saturday morning around seven o’clock or so?” Nick asked. “Positive,” Sherri replied. “The two of them come in like clockwork every morning. They order the breakfast special and talk art.” “How long do they usually stay?” Lara asked. “A couple of hours or so,” Harold answered. “Have you ever seen either of them in here with a tall blond man?” Lara asked, even though her gut told her they were on the same kind of dead end that they’d been on for the past four days. “No, no blond man that I ever remember,” Sherri said, and Harold nodded his agreement with her. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy, Lara thought bitterly. It seemed as if they were working with a dozen puzzle pieces from a dozen different puzzles, and the only thing they all had in common was that damned MM stamp. By the time they reached Sally’s Shop of Souvenirs, Lara had worked up a head of steam. Impotence wasn’t a piece of clothing she wore well, and yet that’s exactly what she felt dragging heavily around her shoulders. She didn’t like it, the weight of little Tina’s death and of Lara Bowman’s murder. At the moment a reckless anger trumped any fear she had for herself. Sally stood in the same place in front of her store as she had the last time they’d come to ask her questions, only today she wore a long-sleeved bright yellow shirt with orange writing that read Tourists Gone Wild in NYC. “Back again, handsome?” she asked, her gaze lingering on Nick. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, and her hair looked less bright without the sunshine overhead. “Yeah, and his very hot partner is standing here right next to him,” Lara replied. Sally grinned at Nick. “Does she ever lighten up?” “Only if you feed her raw meat,” Nick replied, deadpan. “When you saw that black SUV pull up and talk to Dunst on Thursday, did you notice what color of hair the driver had?” Lara asked after a pointed glare at Nick. “I told you the first time you asked me, I didn’t see the driver. I didn’t see his face or his hair or anything.” She flipped a strand of her own purple-tinted hair and looked appealingly at Nick. “Look, if I could help you, I would. But I was watching Dunst wave his hands around and yell into the SUV, not who was driving it.” “It’s okay. You can’t tell us what you didn’t see,” Nick replied. “We appreciate your time.” “I’ll always make time for you, big boy,” Sally replied. “She’s a piece of work,” Lara said when they were back in the car. “I thought she showed impeccable taste.” He gifted her with one of his sexy grins. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she replied irritably. “I was just trying to lighten you up a bit. You’ve been unusually on edge all morning.” Since when did he know her well enough to know that she was unusually anything? “I am on edge. Aren’t you? Don’t you feel it, Nick? The terrible sense that something else bad is coming?” “You don’t think Lara Bowman’s murder was the end of it?” Laura fastened her seat belt and then turned toward him, knowing both her fear and her simmering alarm were in her eyes for him to see. “No, like I told you on the phone, I don’t think her murder was the end of things. I think it’s just the beginning, and there are more bad things to come.” Her words hung in the air between them, as if suspended by sheer dread alone. Nick said nothing. He started the car, and they remained silent as they returned to 26 Federal Plaza. * * * If she’d hoped that any others on the team might have found and developed a new lead, her hope was soon dashed. As the team members began to trickle in, it took only one look at their tired, frustrated faces to know they were returning empty-handed. Lara was seated at her cubicle, rereading for the hundredth time the files relating to Sean Dunst, Tina Cole and Lara Bowman when Cass approached her. “There are thirty-one security cameras in Central Park,” she said. “Almost half of them aren’t working either due to technical issues or vandalism. The ones that are operational are monitored by a private security company. I’ve got a call into the company to get those files for review to see if we can catch sight of the mystery blond man.” “How long do you think it will take you to look at the files once you get them?” Lara asked. “A couple of days to look at all of them, but I’ll start with the cameras that were close to the murder scene, and hopefully that should only take an hour or so once I get the files.” “Why haven’t they fixed the cameras that aren’t working?” Lara asked. Cass shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you, but if I was to guess the answer is bureaucracy and budget cuts.” Cass didn’t wait for an answer. She returned to the tech room, and Lara focused back on the files in front of her. “Maybe we should talk to Sheila again,” she leaned over and said to Nick. Was it possible the stripper girlfriend might know more than she had told them? “We can talk to her again if you think it might be useful,” Nick said. “But to be honest, I think it would be a waste of time. She isn’t going to say anything to further incriminate herself, and it’s possible Dunst really didn’t share any real information with her.” “You’re right,” Lara said with a sigh. “I just hate sitting around waiting for another shoe to drop.” “Maybe there isn’t another shoe to drop,” Nick countered. “We’ll figure it out, Lara. Somehow, someway we’ll get the person behind everything.” Lara turned her chair back to face her desk. Nick’s words had rung with an optimism Lara didn’t share. Experience had taught her that just when you thought it was over, it wasn’t. Just when you thought you were safe, you weren’t. It was six o’clock when they all gathered in the conference room to get updates from everyone. “I got the files from the security company a couple of hours ago. I’ve managed to go through footage from the two cameras closest to the murder scene at around the time of the murder, and there’s no tall blond wearing a jogging suit on tape,” Cass said. “He might have managed to elude the cameras, but I’ve still got a lot of files to go through and might pick up a sign of him either entering or leaving the park.” “I’ve gone over all of Lara Bowman’s social media, checked her outgoing and incoming phone calls and texts on her phone and spoken with friends and family and her boyfriend,” Xander said. “At this point I feel like I know her better than my old girlfriend. I can’t find any connection she had with Dunst or the Moretti syndicate. If she hadn’t had that stamp on her cheek, I would have ruled her out as just another victim of random crime in Central Park.” As each of the members talked about their activities of the day and nobody had anything new to add, the heart that Lara rarely acknowledged she possessed sank lower and lower in her chest. Time was their enemy. Every day, every hour that passed, witnesses forgot what they saw, and stories got muddied. It was true what was said about the first forty-eight hours, and all of the murders had already passed those crucial first hours. It was just after seven when they all left for the day. Lara stepped outside and pulled up the collar of her jacket against the cold wind. The clouds created a darker twilight than usual, and she hurried toward the subway station. The subway was crowded, but she managed to snag a seat. Her gaze swept the occupants of the car. Always looking for trouble. Always anticipating problems. That’s what a year undercover had done to her. She leaned back against the seat as the lights overhead blinked and the subway began its screeching halt at a stop. Another stop and then a block walk and she’d be home. Hopefully she was exhausted enough that her sleep wouldn’t be haunted by any nightmares. However, by the time she got off the subway near her apartment building, instead of heading inside, she went to the parking lot down the street where she kept her personal vehicle. The exhaustion that had gripped her earlier had passed as she’d gotten a second wind. She got into her car and headed toward Rockaway Beach and her father’s house, her thoughts turning from the chaos of the cases they were working on to the chaos of her childhood. Her mother had been a strong but loving woman. The only memory Lara had of love and gentleness from anyone had come from her mother in the first ten years of Lara’s life. After her murder, life had become a barren desert when it came to trusting or loving anyone. Her father hadn’t been a warm and loving kind of man. All the softness in Lara’s life had been buried with her mother. Her father had died and had been buried while she’d been in the safe house, and Lara hadn’t been back to her childhood home since then. She knew it was time. She needed to deal with it. She had to go through the house and either pack up things she wanted to keep or throw out everything. The house was paid for, and she needed to get it ready to go on the market and be rid of it and those memories forever. She drove slowly, dreading what she needed to do. She’d thought she was ready to go inside the house and start a list of things that needed to be done, but she wasn’t sure she was really mentally prepared for the task. What she needed to do was find an answer that made sense as to the three murders that had taken place. But that wasn’t happening tonight. As she drove she realized she was rubbing her arm again, as if attempting to rub away the MM tattoo that had already been removed. She frowned and placed her hand back on the steering wheel. Moretti had marked her once with the tattoo. What she needed to find out more than anything was if somehow, someway he had marked her again, this time as a traitor who deserved every bad thing his evil mind could come up with. She was halfway to the house when her cell phone rang. She punched the button on her steering wheel to answer the call. “Special Agent Lara Grant,” she said. “Ms. Grant, it’s Jerry, the doorman.” Lara’s nerves instantly screamed in dreadful anticipation. Something had happened; otherwise he wouldn’t have called her. “Yes, Jerry,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know that a package was delivered here for you a little while ago.” “A package?” Her heartbeat accelerated to a frantic pace. “What kind of a package?” “It looks like a present. Is it your birthday?” “Jerry, I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She murmured a goodbye and ended the call. As she turned her car around to head back to her apartment building, she heard the resounding noise of the other shoe clattering to the floor, and she knew with a horrifying clarity that she’d been right...it wasn’t over yet. CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_4b021b50-dd36-5286-88e1-e1570a933161) It was just after nine when she parked her car in the lot and hurried toward her apartment building. The ride back here had seemed endless, and panic clawed up the back of her throat even as she told herself over and over again to keep calm. She wasn’t expecting a package, and there was certainly nobody in her life to buy her a gift. The dark foreboding was back as she anticipated something bad about to rock her world yet again. “Good evening, Ms. Grant,” Jerry said as he opened the door for her. “Since I knew you weren’t at home when the package arrived, I put it on a shelf in the storeroom. Would you like me to go get it for you?” “Thanks, Jerry, but I’ll just grab it as I go up.” She was grateful that her voice didn’t betray any of the fear and anxiety that bubbled inside her. “You can’t miss it. It’s wrapped in bright pink paper and has a big silver bow.” “How did it arrive?” she asked. “It was a young man on a bicycle,” Jerry replied. He frowned. “Unfortunately, I’m not sure what company he was from.” “It’s fine, Jerry. Thanks.” Lara headed for the storeroom, and her mind raced. A bright pink package with a big silver bow. Maybe Nick had sent her a present. Although it would be highly inappropriate, maybe it was some sort of apology gift for not telling her about the spelling of Lara’s name. But they’d already moved way past that. The storeroom was located in the small lobby area. It was basically a shelved closet holding new lightbulbs and cleaning supplies and a variety of maintenance items. She immediately spied the package. It was impossible to miss it. It was about the size of a shirt box, and the only thing on it was the huge silver bow and her name and address neatly printed on an address form in black ink. After putting on gloves, she tentatively picked it up. It wasn’t heavy, although something shifted around inside of the box. She got into the elevator, and as she rode up to her apartment floor, her mind whirled. Maybe it wasn’t anything bad. Maybe she had a secret admirer? Maybe one of the other men on the team? She immediately dismissed this idea. She’d noticed Xander eyeing Cass with obvious interest, and she was certain she wasn’t Ty’s type. He was too nice of a guy to be drawn to a woman like her. She reached her apartment, unlocked the door and placed the package on her coffee table. She shrugged off her coat and hung it, then removed her gun, her holster and ID, all the while staring at the package. She went to the minibar and poured herself a drink and then walked around the coffee table, eyeing the package with trepidation. The wrapping paper didn’t appear unusual. It was neatly fastened with regular clear tape. She downed her drink, sat down on the sofa and pulled off the bow and set it aside. She didn’t like surprises. She didn’t like secret birthday parties or unexpected gifts, and she definitely didn’t like mystery packages. Her heartbeat quickened once again. She pulled the tape from one end and then ripped away the wrapping paper to reveal a plain white box. She hesitated a moment and then lifted the lid and peered inside. She frowned and pulled out a handful of photographs. Oh God...oh no. A familiar yellow house. David Minnow, his wife and little Emily sitting on the porch swing. Faye and Emily in the center of a blanket in the yard. There were more, and each one was a heart-stopping punch to Lara’s gut. “No,” she whispered. “No. No,” she repeated as a frantic alarm rang in her heart and electrified every nerve in her body. She shoved the box to the floor and dropped the photos in a jumble on top of the coffee table. She fumbled for her cell phone, her chest so tight she thought she might be on the verge of a heart attack. Her first call was to Victoria. When she’d finished telling her boss what she had received, Victoria had only three words in response. “Call the contact,” she said. Lara hung up, her fingers trembling with terror as she punched in the number for U.S. Marshal Peter Linden. Had she done this? Had her secret visits not been as secret as she had believed? Had she been followed? Oh God, no. Guilt battled with fear, and by the time Linden answered his phone, she was nearly hysterical. “This is Special Agent Lara Grant. Code Red. I repeat, Code Red. He knows.” * * * * * Watched (#ulink_9884a918-93ef-5ecf-978d-1a88a385dc90) Tyler Anne Snell He’s got his eye on her...and won’t quit until she’s dead! Special Agent Lara Grant is back in her enemy’s sights, but this time she’s not alone. She has a brand-new team and Lara knows she’ll need to trust them with her life. Starting now. When a lead becomes a victim, Lara and her team are thrown. Lara put Moretti away for life—so how can a guy who is still in prison be pulling strings? There’s only one way to find out. But when Lara comes face-to-face with the monster from her past, will she get answers? Or unleash hell? Part 2 of 8 in the chilling, high-octane FBI thriller TOUGH JUSTICE from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and authors Tyler Anne Snell, Carol Ericson and Gail Barrett. On Tyler Anne Snell: “[A] well-plotted page-turner with great lead characters.” —RT Book Reviews on Manhunt TYLER ANNE SNELL writes and reads a little bit of everything but has a soft spot for thrillers, mysteries and sexual tension. When she isn’t writing or reading, she’s rewatching her favorite TV series or playing video games. The first book she finished in one sitting was a Harlequin Intrigue. It taught her to appreciate the power of a good book. Tyler lives in Florida with her same-named husband and their mini lions. Visit her: www.tylerannesnell.com (http://www.tylerannesnell.com). For my husband, Tyler. You may have the same name as me, but your patience, love and enthusiasm far outshines mine. Your nonstop encouragement means the world to me. Just like you! EPISODE TWO (#ulink_a5e3d5b7-a8fe-52b2-8814-17849ab18996) Watched Special Agent Lara Grant wanted a new start on a special task force dealing with untouchable cases. But their first case? Involves her. She’s now front and center confronting the sins of her past—and all roads point to Moretti. Her partner, Nick, wants to help, but each move they make, the killer is three steps ahead. What does it take to stop a monster? Lara is about to find out... CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_ba60014e-96f3-54e3-8cd6-a76965cb05e0) Lara’s back slammed against the wall. Instead of tasting pain or fear, all she could taste was pleasure. She moved against the man with a vigor she reserved for no one else. He was made up of flames and water. Pouring over every inch of her skin yet leaving nothing but heat in his wake. His kiss was passion. His touch was sensational. He was all-consuming. Lara crashed her mouth into his, begging for more as he spread her legs wide. She moaned against his lips, hungry for what would happen next. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered, voice filled with grit. She was about to say the same of him when he thrust deep inside of her. All words left her mind. All Lara Grant felt was absolute pleasure. She matched his rhythm in the dark room with ease. Two dance partners familiar with all of the steps. They moved in tandem, never breaking from each other’s lips, while bringing both closer to climax. Hands in her hair, nails on his back, bare chests against each other, his hard length sliding in and out of her pleasure. Andrew! Lara’s eyes flew open, and she all but jumped out of her bed. She was no longer in that room. She was no longer with that man. “No,” she yelled into her empty bedroom. Her chest heaved up and down. Sweat adhered her tank top to her skin. Ripples of pleasure still pulsed between her legs. “Oh God.” Pure revulsion coursed through her, slowly replacing any gratification that the dream had made her feel. She closed her eyes tight, willing her body to focus on anything else. But there he was, naked and waiting. “No,” she repeated into the quiet. Her fists balled in the sheets, and she closed her eyes tight. She was at the brink of tears, while a storm of emotions raged within her racing heart. But Lara Grant didn’t cry. Not easily, at least. “Pull it together.” She took a deep breath, and the man behind her eyelids was replaced by the image of a box with pink wrapping paper and a silver bow. Its contents made her body move before she realized what she was doing. She opened her eyes and blinked several times, looking for her phone. Dialing an alarmingly familiar number, she ran her hand through her hair. “It’s Grant,” she greeted when the man answered, not wasting any time. “They’re safe?” The U.S. Marshal didn’t sigh in frustration or get angry at her insistence—he wasn’t that kind of man—but she did catch the weight of exhaustion that dragged down his response. It reminded her that she hadn’t been the only one who’d had a long night. “Like I told you the last two times, yes, they’ve been moved,” Peter Linden answered. “And, no, once again, they weren’t followed.” Lara exhaled, shaking slightly with relief. “Are you sure you don’t want to know the location of the safe house? I gave you the phone number. I can give you the location, too.” A stab of anguish broke through Lara’s temporary relief. She knew the answer she needed to give, but it was as far away as what she wanted to say as something could be. The couple of times she’d visited the little yellow house, she’d used every safety precaution she’d been taught throughout her career or even picked up undercover. Rented cars, aliases, always checking her rearview for anything out of the ordinary. Not once did she suspect that someone had been watching her and the family. Not even for a moment. Lara’s fists balled again. She should have known better. People like Moretti had ways of finding out what they wanted to know, with or without bars in front of them. For the family’s safety, she shouldn’t know where they lived. She shouldn’t be able to find them. “I’m sure.” For now, anyway. Lara didn’t try for small talk, and Peter didn’t expect her to either. They ended the call, and once again Lara was alone. The alarm on her phone was due to go off within the hour, but she knew she wouldn’t be getting any more sleep. She wouldn’t chance another encounter with the man she couldn’t forget. Lara tried to push the entire thing out of her mind by taking a long shower and starting the day. The water—unlike the man—was cold. It shocked her system into a state of focus and determination. She had a job to do. She couldn’t afford any distractions. Not when she was dealing with Moretti. She dressed in a white blouse that tucked into a pair of tight, dark jeans and put on her holster beneath a jacket. Her ID wallet went into an inside jacket pocket, and her badge clipped to her belt, out of view—like her gun—unless she wanted it seen. Her thoughts slid to her partner as she looked herself over in the mirror. She didn’t need his approval of how she looked—she didn’t need anyone’s—but she found a small part of her would have liked the acknowledgement. It was an unnerving thought she didn’t look deeper into as she put on a pair of black ankle boots. They gave her an inch of height without sacrificing the comfort she’d need for tracking down leads all day. Today was going to be the day they found a lead worth following. They had to put an end to this case and fast. The little yellow house stuck in her mind’s eye as she locked up her apartment and made her way downstairs. They just had to finish it. Jerry, the doorman, was already off of work, probably exhausted at having been extensively questioned about the package the night before. He’d given them nothing that could be used to find out the who, why or when. Because that would have been too easy. Now he was replaced by Ron, who worked the day shift. Ron knew all tenants by name, even hers, despite only being there for a short amount of time. “Have a good day, Ms. Grant,” he said as she walked past. She smiled and paused. “Thank you, Ron.” She pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down her cell number. “Can you do me a huge favor and call me if anything or anyone comes in or asks for me?” He nodded and took the number. “It’s very, very important that you not open whatever package it may be and, if it’s someone asking for me, that you don’t tell them you’re calling me. Jerry already has the same instructions. Got it?” Ron gave her a small salute in absolute sincerity. “You got it.” She thanked him again and made her way to the subway. Her eyes searched the crowd of people dotting the sidewalks and the tops of the buildings. If she’d been followed to the family in the little yellow house, what made her think she wasn’t being followed now? * * * Nick and Cass were in the conference room when Lara got to 26 Federal Plaza. A box of bagels was sitting on the table. It made her stomach growl in greeting. “You’re here early,” Nick said. His current conversation with Cass had his brows still drawn together in concentration. Lara suspected that he wasn’t even focused on what he’d just said as way of good morning. It made her instantly intrigued. “Trouble sleeping,” she dismissed. “What’s up?” “I found a new Dunst-related lead,” Cass answered. Nick handed Lara a sticky note with an address. “One of the crime scene techs found two separate receipts at Dunst’s apartment with the same address on it. I checked it out, and it’s a Laundromat that he apparently used to frequent.” Lara raised her eyebrow. “Okay...” She didn’t see the connection to a lead. “That’s what I just said,” Nick added. Cass let out a sigh. She pinched the bridge of her nose before answering. “Geez, guys, have more faith in me, okay?” she deadpanned. “That Laundromat is twenty minutes—on a good day—away from his apartment. To go there he’d have to hop two different buses, passing three other Laundromats. Including one a block away from his apartment.” Lara and Nick’s eyes widened in unison. “So why would our guy go that far out of his way?” Cass snapped her fingers. “Looks like that’s what the two of you need to find out.” She started to leave. “And while you do that, I’ll continue searching through Dunst’s electronic life. Be careful.” “We’ll try,” Nick said. He turned and pushed the bagel box over to Lara before pulling one out for himself. He wore a pair of jeans that looked as if they’d come straight out of a ’90s Levi’s ad. They were a faded navy and fit him nicely. Coupled with a gray shirt and his leather jacket, Nick Delano was the perfect cross between street and agent. “What do you think it’s all about?” he asked when they’d gotten into the car. Nick had taken to the driver’s side without question. That was fine by Lara. She’d have more freedom to eat her bagel. “What? The Laundromat?” she asked, taking in a considerably larger bite than she’d meant to. Apparently she was hungrier than she’d thought. After receiving the box with the pictures, she hadn’t even thought about eating dinner the night before. “Yeah. Why would a lowlife truck it that far away to do clothes? You think it’s a cover for something?” Lara shrugged. “I can’t say until I see the place and the people who frequent it. All we can safely bet is that it isn’t human trafficking. Sean Dunst killed Tina Cole to save the little girl, remember?” Even as she said it, Lara squirmed in her seat, uncomfortable at the thought that, in his mind, Dunst had been merciful. Nick nodded. “It could be a meeting place for whoever he was trying to work for.” That perked her up. “Which means, if this lead pans out, we could take down more than just one bad guy. Something I hear you’re good at.” He cast her a sly look. One that told her he was teasing her. It pushed her earlier dream to the forefront of her mind. She tensed, trying to get away from the memory. Nick must have taken her silence as a sign that he’d overstepped. He changed the subject to the weather. It carried them to a handful of blocks lined with crumbling brick storefronts and the occasional run-down apartment complex. No high-rises here. “Park there so we can scope the place before we get out,” Lara said when they were a block over from Dunst’s apparently favorite Laundromat, the Fluff-N-Fold. Nick pulled into an empty spot between a beat-up Buick and a rusted Honda. He cut the engine with a grunt. “No wonder Dunst liked coming here.” He peered through the windshield at the Laundromat in the distance. “It’s just his style.” They pushed out into the crisp morning air with the knowledge that all bystanders would pick up on the fact that they were law enforcement of some kind. It was simply inevitable. Even if they hadn’t been wearing jackets that were styled to hide their guns and badges, Lara knew they had the posture ingrained within them. One that she had taken pains to strip before going undercover. It didn’t matter how good your cover story was, if your body language said a different thing. Pedestrians walked up and down the sidewalks. Few gave them wary looks while fewer let their glance stick. Lara preferred it that way. She’d never valued lack of attention until she had been undercover. “You ready for whatever we find?” Nick asked, moving his jacket a fraction to get better flexibility if he needed to pull his gun. His eyes caught on a few people leaving the Laundromat. They stopped at the curb while one pulled out a cigarette. “Yeah.” She covertly unsnapped the strap from her holster. If she needed to pull her piece, it would be easy. The Laundromat might have had a slightly goofy name, but the fact remained that the Fluff-N-Fold had been interesting to Dunst. And they had no idea why or what was behind its doors. “Let’s go,” Nick said, picking up the pace. They were a block away, moving closer to their target, while keeping their eyes on their surroundings for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary. That’s when Lara really took in every detail of the two men who had exited the Laundromat moments before. “Wait.” She grabbed Nick’s arm, stopping and turning him to face her. She angled her body so his partially hid her from plain view. “What is it?” Lara did a quick mental slideshow of faces from her past. Recognition flared. “There,” Lara said, voice dipping low. She nodded to the two men standing in front of the Laundromat. One had a cigarette between his lips while the other eyed a woman talking on the phone on the other side of the street. “I know them.” Nick coolly turned his head for a better view, knowing not to be obvious. She knew he was cataloging each man’s details. The one with the cigarette was the younger of the two. Short dreads, a thick brow, and spotty facial hair, he wore baggy dark jeans and a graphic tee with a cartoon woman in a tank top across the front. His body wasn’t lean but skinny. The man next to him was a different story. His stomach extended outward, barely contained by his own shirt. He wore a red beanie and dark, dark sunglasses. Between the two, Lara knew he was the more aggressive one. “They were a part of the Moretti syndicate,” she explained. “Two low-level lookouts that came and went without making any real noise. Never gave their actual names, just cycled through a list of dumbass nicknames like ‘Beat’ and ‘Snoop.’” “They weren’t rounded up with the rest, I see,” Nick commented. She shook her head. “No. When the bust went down at the Chicago warehouse Moretti was running, they were nowhere to be found.” “You figure they’re still working for Moretti?” Lara didn’t think on that too much. Once again she shook her head. “If Moretti was a big fish, they were a small patch of dirt on the ocean floor. He barely used them when he was thriving. I doubt he’d reach out to them when he’s behind bars. But, that doesn’t mean they don’t know about our buddy Dunst.” Nick’s lips quirked up into a sly smile. Lara couldn’t deny it was attractive. “Then why don’t we go say hi?” CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_e9b552aa-2bda-5e3e-bc46-5e5b9fdcf440) “You think they’ll recognize you?” Nick asked. Though his tone was easy she could tell his demeanor had shifted as they walked toward the men. He was getting ready for whatever might happen next. Whether or not the men ran or fought, which were both likely responses. She, too, rolled her shoulders back, gearing up. “Which me?” she joked. “Undercover me or FBI agent caught on the news me?” Nick snorted but didn’t have time to answer. Beanie lost interest in the woman across the street and turned back to his friend. He whispered something, and soon both men were looking their way. Dreads dropped his cigarette. “Looks like they recognize you,” Nick said. Lara felt her leg muscles tighten. They were about to take off, and her partner knew it. Normally she would have felt excited—ready for a chase, ready for the thrill—but now...the stakes were different. They were higher. This case wasn’t like the ones from her past. Each new move left her tense, each new development left her anxious. The two men and the chase they were about engage in gave her, in no way, any thrills. Being undercover for so long had shattered her self-confidence. Now was the time to get it back. In unison the two men turned on their heels. “I’ll take Dreads,” Lara said. “And you—” A heavy pop pierced the air. The man she’d just planned to chase tipped backwards and fell hard against the sidewalk. Nick yelled something unintelligible and threw his weight into Lara, pushing her into the wall of the storefront they’d been passing. Another pop sliced through the air. Lara watched as Beanie was shot right between the eyes. “Fuck,” Nick roared, using the hand that didn’t have Lara’s shoulder in it to pull out his gun. Lara shrugged out of his protective hold and pulled her gun out and up, as well. She spun on her heel as Nick shouted something to the bystanders screaming on the street. Lara wasn’t listening. Her focus had shifted to the once-again elusive sniper, following what she guessed to be his trajectory. Had he been following her? The buildings around and behind them were all between one to five stories, each varying. Lara mentally pulled up an aerial view of the two blocks behind her, thanks to the map of the surrounding location Cass had blasted to their phones on the ride over. Lara tried to remember which building had roof access. But, then again, the sniper could have easily done it from a window. She inclined her head up, keeping her gun low. Nick yelled something, but she didn’t listen. Two blocks away someone was standing on a rooftop, an unmistakable gun at his side. Whoever he was, he must have realized Lara could see him. He waved. And then Lara was running. “Sniper, roof,” she yelled back to her partner as an afterthought. Her hands were firmly around the grip of her gun, her eyes on the figure in the distance. The unknown shooter hadn’t readied his gun on her but instead squatted down out of sight. Most likely breaking it down for an easier escape. “Lara,” Nick yelled after her, but she didn’t stop. She needed to catch the son of a bitch who kept taking out their leads. Was the sniper the top of the food chain or just an enforcer for the person at the top? So many questions flooded her mind as she tore down the sidewalks, yelling at bystanders to move out of the way and get back inside. Why people were rushing outside with their phones in hand after shots were fired was beyond her. The sniper was out of view still as Lara made it to a five-story, decrepit apartment building. An internal war quickly waged within her. She hesitated. Which way would the sniper try to flee? Coming down the apartment’s internal stairs or elevator and leaving through the lobby would be the easiest but, then again, most obvious. What would Lara do? She ran around to the alleyway to the left of the building. The fire escape. Hesitation gone, she ran to the middle of the alley to the ladder. It hung halfway down, forcing her to put her gun back in her holster and jump for it. “Come on,” she wheezed out, an inch too short to grab the bottom bar. A clattering made her pause. She looked up through all of the metal to see her perp rushing down the escape. From her vantage point she couldn’t make out any details. Or if he had the gun with him. A surge of energy went through her. She took a few steps back and ran and jumped for the ladder. Her palms connected with the metal. Lara let her adrenaline course through her as her training from the academy kicked in. Using her upper arm strength, she grabbed the next rung with her hand and started to pull herself up. Her arms shook, burning as she moved to the third and then fourth step. She’d always been diligent with her training, even more so in lockdown, but still she struggled. The clattering above her stopped just as she made it to the first landing. She looked up to see the sniper paused at the fourth one before turning around to run back up. She’d been made. “FBI, stop or I’ll shoot,” Lara yelled. She pulled out her gun as she ran the length of the landing and swung around to the stairs leading to the next one. Glancing up, she knew her command had been ignored. It was also a lie. She didn’t have a clear view of the perp and especially not a clear shot. Her boots were loud against the metal, no longer trying to be stealthy. As she rounded the second floor landing, an elderly man popped his head out of his window with wide eyes. “I’m calling the cops,” he yelled after her, disgruntled. “Good,” she yelled back, breathing heavy. The sound of her perp’s footfalls ceased while she was running up the next set of stairs. He was back on the roof and, if he wanted, could easily take her out as soon as she made it up there, too. But as Lara climbed higher, she realized she didn’t believe he’d kill her. At least, not yet. When Dunst was killed, he could have done the same to her easily. Dreads and Beanie hadn’t been too far from her and her partner and in clear view of the apartment building she was currently scaling. The sniper could have put a bullet in them both, before they would have even known what was going on. Why spare her life in those two instances only to take her out now? Still, when she made it to the top of the fire escape, Lara slowed and steadied her gun. She might have believed her life wasn’t in danger, but that didn’t mean she was going to be stupid. With every intention of shooting the perp down if needed, Lara popped up to survey the rooftop. The door to the building was centered to the left while a half wall enclosed a relatively empty space, save a few beer bottles and trash. Lara didn’t care about the litter. She scanned the roof for her sniper. But he was gone. Cautious yet quick, Lara ran to the door leading into the building and searched around it to make sure her perp wasn’t hiding. When she found nothing, she went back to the door, ready to continue the foot race through the apartment complex. Lara cursed loudly. The door was unlocked but not budging. “Dammit,” she bit out. Moving a few steps back, she took a deep breath and ran at the door, throwing her shoulder into it at the last second. Pain burst in her arm, but the impact did nothing to the door. Whatever was on the other side was heavy and stationary. She’d have to hit it a lot harder to get it to move. With another deep breath she walked back even farther and turned, ready to make another go, when she heard a commotion on the other side of the door. On a reflex she barely noticed anymore, she raised her gun and planted her feet apart, ready. She didn’t want to kill the sniper, but she could put him out of commission so he couldn’t escape. The sound of scraping preceded the doorknob turning. Lara’s body was almost vibrating, every part of her keyed up in anticipation. Finally the door swung wide. “Lara?” Nick held the door open, his own gun in hand. He pointed it away from her at the same time she moved her aim away from him. It was a good thing neither partner had itchy trigger fingers. “I chased him up the fire escape,” she rushed. “He escaped through there.” “He didn’t take the stairs, and the elevator is out of service,” he called back to her as she followed him into the stairwell. “He’s either hiding or trying to move around us,” she surmised. He nodded. “Let’s go to the lobby and cut off his escape routes until backup gets here.” Lara wanted to complain—she wanted to scour every inch of the building for the sniper right then—but knew Nick was right. The building was too big. If they went floor by floor looking for their perp, then chances were if he was on another floor he could just as easily leave without notice. So she followed Nick down the stairwell, tight-lipped and equipped with razor-sharp focus. Not once did someone enter the stairwell with them, and not once did they hear any other shots or yells. When they got to the small lobby they found a woman and her teenaged son checking their mail at the boxes. They were understandably startled by the two plain-clothed FBI agents and their guns but managed to answer Nick’s questions. “No, I haven’t see anyone come through here,” the mom said. “It’s just been us.” “There’s a back door down there,” the teen answered next and pointed beyond the door to the staircase. “And then the front door.” Nick told the mother and son to go inside their first-floor apartment and not come out until the cops came. They did as they were told. “I’ll watch back, you get front,” Lara ordered, already moving away from him. The slow crawl of defeat was making its way through her adrenaline-addled body. Their window to catch the elusive sniper was rapidly closing. “Roger,” Nick answered. “Be careful.” “No promises.” * * * Two hours later and the feelings of defeat became concrete. When backup arrived in the form of NYPD officers and the rest of their team, the entire complex had been searched, as well as the surrounding buildings. No gunman was found, and no witnesses could claim to seeing anything out of the ordinary. Whoever their sniper was, he was good. And not just at killing. “I don’t get it,” Nick growled when they were all back at the office. “Why take out two low-level thugs when you could just kill us?” Lara pressed the bag of ice against her shoulder. She may not have been successful at breaking down the door, but that didn’t mean she’d avoided the pain from attempting it. “Who would care about these guys? These—” Nick gave Lara a look “—not even big enough to be little fish lackeys?” Xander ran a hand through his blond hair and popped a piece of gum in his mouth. He’d been the first of their team to arrive on scene, retracing the path Lara had taken before combing through the rooftop for any evidence that might link them to the sniper’s identity. Mei and Ty were still there attempting the same. So far no one had found any. Not even the Laundromat held anything damning or out of the ordinary. The team was hitting wall after wall. A place the sniper seemed comfortable perching atop. Lara fisted her hands at the thought of the unknown person destroying any chance they had at finding the truth. It was as if they were chasing a ghost. “Well, apparently someone does care,” Xander said. “About what? We’ll find out. Until then we need to keep in mind that, for whatever reason, they’re certainly not afraid to let the world know.” He turned his blue eyes toward her. “And they’re using you to lead them to anyone who wasn’t busted.” “I agree.” Victoria entered the meeting room with her phone in one hand and a tablet in the other. Lara took in her boss’s appearance with appreciation. Most people would have been ruffled—physically—from everything that had happened, but Victoria Russo exuded nothing but calm. Her black-and-burgundy pantsuit fit like a glove. It was pressed perfectly, matching a pair of black high heels that gave the already tall woman even more height. The outfit walked a fine line between femininity and power. She went to the head of the table but didn’t sit down. “Which means we’re being watched. Or, more aptly, you are being watched.” She gave Lara a look akin to a mother being protective over her child. “So, Xander and Nick, I’m sending the two of you back to the apartments to help sweep farther than what the NYPD did. Ask everyone if they saw anything. I have a hard time believing our perp vanished into thin air without leaving so much as a trace of evidence behind.” The agents nodded, and Lara started to stand with them. “And, Lara, you’re going to check out a lead where our potential witness can’t be killed.” The way everyone was dropping around her, Lara couldn’t believe such a guarantee could be made. “How can you be sure?” she drawled. Victoria’s lips thinned. “Because this one’s already dead.” CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_3c3bf154-9b15-5e0b-89f2-c54634c3d02d) Lara stepped around a throng of tourists only to be forced to sidestep a construction cone. She looked at its orange plastic, faded and overused. It was quite the contrast from the sleek red glow of the Macy’s sign above it. The sound of one popular song or another played through the doors and followed her along the white tile until she was at the mouth of the women’s clothing department. She felt the tenderness in her shoulder and the soreness in her legs from her earlier activity, but she knew she needed to push it from her mind. Victoria had been alerted to a female victim, found in a Macy’s dressing room with a stamp across her cheek. Other than that she hadn’t known anything else. The MM stamp was a blaring red flag. It was the insignia of the Moretti syndicate. However, the connection between the victim, Lara and their current case was unclear. Another question she hoped they’d be able to answer. A group of NYPD officers were mulling around the dressing room opening. One spotted Lara and made his was over. “Nice to see you again,” the officer deadpanned. Lara didn’t know his name, but she remembered his face from her first meeting with Dunst at the hotel. He held up the crime tape tied between clothing racks across the aisle and let her in without any trace of humor. Lara couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t anywhere near cheery either. Her stomach knotted as she focused on the forensics guy ahead of her with his kit. He was being motioned to the dressing room, past a mannequin sporting a floor-length floral dress and a matching pair of black pumps. The officer next to her followed her gaze and let out a long exhale. “Ready to see her?” Lara nodded. She needed to see the stamp in person—to confirm its validity. It was one thing to see it in a picture or on security camera footage. It was an entirely different feeling to see it in person. On cue a phantom pain twinged in her upper arm. She rolled her shoulder back and nodded again, more to herself. “Yes, I need to see it.” The Macy’s dressing room had been vacated save one officer and the man tasked with logging all of the forensic evidence. All personnel were stationed outside of the dressing room lounge, being questioned for what they had or hadn’t seen. The door to the room closest to them was opened. Lara braced herself for what was waiting. The unnecessary murder of a woman and the connection that tied her to Lara. Because there was a connection. The only question that remained was how? The man she was with gave a nod to the officer, and soon Lara was staring at a woman crumpled on the floor at the back of the little space, obviously dead and obviously marked. “Female, early thirties, dark hair, a MM on her cheek,” the officer said as if reading off notes. Lara took in these details as she scanned the woman’s tan body. Short and skinny, she was on her side and was topless. “In the middle of trying on swimsuits when she was killed,” he added. Lara’s eyes jumped to a pink bikini top still on a hanger in the corner. “How was she killed?” Lara asked, not wanting to step inside for fear she’d damage evidence. “The medical examiner will call it when he gets here, but, just from the lack of evidence around here, I’m going to guess she was strangled,” the forensics guy answered. He motioned to the victim’s neck. “See the bruising?” He was right. Around the victim’s neck was a dark mark. “It looks too thin to be from someone’s hand,” she noted. “I agree. I’d guess it was by wire or string or—” he pointed to the bikini top “—it could have just as easily been that.” “Strangled with a bikini, that’d be a first,” the officer said. Once again, there was no humor in his words. “How was she found?” Lara asked as she watched the forensics guy look closely at the three walls boxing him and the victim in. “Did anyone hear the struggle?” The officer shook his head. “An employee came back from putting out clothes and saw the door opened, even though the number tag was still on the outside. It was around then she realized she couldn’t find her room key.” “So our attacker lifted it, used it to open the door, slipped inside, and potentially used a string bikini to strangle our victim?” Lara asked, bewildered. “How did no one hear that?” “My guess?” the forensics guy chimed in. “Our victim is notably petite. If she was adequately surprised, then she could have also been easily overpowered.” At that he looked around the space. “There are no marks, scratches or dents on the walls. If you’re being attacked in a confined area where someone is trying to kill you, my thoughts are that you would try to utilize what’s around you or at the very least make a much bigger mess.” “Unless your attacker is bigger and stronger,” Lara supplied. The man nodded. “In my opinion, our victim didn’t have a chance.” The three of them, despite being strangers, gave the woman at their feet a small moment of silence. The helplessness she must have felt—the fear—while being killed in a public place was enough to make Lara’s heart hurt. The officer cleared his throat, and the moment passed. “This is the women’s dressing room, though, correct?” Lara asked. “It’s my turn to take a guess and say our perp was a woman, too, so to avoid arousing suspicion versus a burly man just walking in and out with anyone raising an eyebrow.” She turned to the officer. “I’d like the security footage from the cameras around the entrance into here.” The man didn’t seem too enthused to fulfill her request, but he didn’t fight her about it either. Which was good. She would have let him know real quick who pulled rank. “Do we have a name for our shopper?” Lara glanced at the woman’s face. In profile she almost looked peaceful. “Elizabeth-Something,” the officer answered, pulling out his notebook. Lara let out a breath. Not Lara, she thought. The cop flipped the book open and found his notes. “Grant,” he read. “Elizabeth Grant.” And just like that the relief was gone. Dammit. Lara followed the officer to the security office and retrieved the tapes. “The camera facing the entrance stopped working a few minutes before the victim was found,” he said. “I’m assuming you also want the other footage from the floor?” Lara shook her head. “I want the footage from the entire building.” The officer snorted. “Of course you do.” Lara collected the recordings before returning briefly to the crime scene. Dr. Herman Boze, the medical examiner, was held up in traffic, and the forensics guy had already left. An officer remained in the doorway of the dressing room, but no one else was around. “I’d like to take one more look, if you don’t mind,” she said. He checked her credentials again, then stepped aside. He didn’t follow her in. Elizabeth Grant was right where she’d left her. One cheek pressed against the dressing room floor, the other facing up against the down draft of the air-conditioning. The MM breaking up the smooth of her skin. She’d had a life before that morning. She’d had a future. Now all she had was a stamp on her cheek. “I’ll make this right,” she whispered. “He won’t get away with what he’s done.” As she made the promise, Lara couldn’t help but picture the man she’d destroyed. Or, at least, the man she thought she’d destroyed. Lara rolled her shoulders and left Elizabeth Grant behind. * * * The way back to the office was spent in a fit of building rage. Lara’s knuckles were white. Her grip on the steering wheel was the only thing keeping her from screaming. Elizabeth Grant was dead because of her. There were no two ways about it. She had been used as a message, a way to shake Lara. And it had worked. She took the stairs to the twenty-third floor slowly to work out her strained emotions. Not losing her drive but evening out her aggression. She needed to be sharper. No more doubts. More focused. Moretti was a sore spot for her. One that was more than being prodded. If she let him get under her skin, then she ran the chance of losing sight of the endgame. Stopping him. Once and for all. Lara exited the stairwell and walked right up to her cubicle with more of a calm exterior than she perhaps actually possessed. Nick’s monitor was on, but he was nowhere in the room. She’d sent him a text just after she’d left Macy’s, letting him know she was headed back to the office, but he hadn’t responded. The rest of the team was also absent from the main room. She hoped that meant they had found a lead—something—that they were currently following. Lara didn’t waste time wondering. She had her own lead to chase. Cass was standing behind her chair, facing away from the door, when Lara knocked. Even before she turned around, it wasn’t hard to see she was stressed. Her shoulders were stiff. She turned quick. An expression akin to alarm crossed her face. It transformed into a sweeping stare of comprehension, before stopping on the cases in her hand. “I heard about the woman,” she greeted, walking forward with her hand outstretched. Her purple glasses were pushed to the top of her head, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Lara handed the CCTV footage over. “Was it true? The stamp, I mean.” Lara didn’t want to, but she nodded. “Yes.” Cass sat back in her chair and swiveled around. “Where?” Her voice was clipped. “Her cheek.” Cass nodded. Her head tilted slightly. Lara bet she was looking at the picture of Allie on her desk. They didn’t speak for a moment. Lara didn’t want to intrude on her thoughts, but, then she knew she had to do just that. “She was found in the dressing room. No cameras at the entrance. The top DVD is from the camera closest, but the security guard said it went inactive for a few minutes,” she explained. “During the attack,” Cass supplied. “More than likely, yes. Officers already went through it. Said they didn’t find anything, but there has to be something.” Cass slipped her glasses down to her nose. “And I’ll find it.” Voices sounded in the hallway. “They’re back,” Lara said, hearing Nick. “I’m going to see if they found anything.” Cass waved over her shoulder. “Go. I’ll find you when I find something. But, Lara...” She turned in her chair. Her expression was blank. Lara saw something she’d missed when she’d first come in. Cass looked exhausted. “Yes?” “What was the victim’s name?” It was Lara’s turn to stiffen. “Elizabeth Grant,” she bit out. Cass’s expression hardened. “I’ll look for a connection between our victims,” she said, already turning back to the wall of monitors. “Thank you, Cass.” Lara followed the voice to the break room. Nick had his phone to his ear, leaning against the counter. He acknowledged her with a small nod. “Call me if you find anything,” he said. “No matter the time. Understand?” Whoever was on the other end of the line must have. Nick ended the call moments later. “NYPD,” he said, motioning to his phone. “I’m assuming that means no luck on your end.” Nick shook his head. Lara wasn’t surprised. “No one saw anything,” he said. “Our sniper vanished in the wind.” Lara ran a hand over her face and winced at the movement. Her shoulder was still tender. “I’m surprised you didn’t catch him,” Nick said, his eyes at her shoulder. “The way you tore after him.” He went over to the refrigerator and opened the freezer side. Moving a few things around, he pulled an ice pack out. “Can we talk about how you might think to use some caution every now and again, though? Running toward a sniper tends to fall into the dangerous category. Not to mention, careless. You could have been killed.” He threw her the pack. She caught it with her left hand before placing it against her right shoulder. She couldn’t deny it felt good. “I think dangerous is a part of our job description,” she said, drily. “Including but not limited to running headlong into the unknown.” “Except this wasn’t the unknown,” he pointed out. “It was right up to the sniper who’d just picked off two potential leads only a few feet away.” “So I should have let him get away without a fight?” Lara asked. She dropped her voice, ice finding its way into the resolve behind each syllable. “I couldn’t and wouldn’t let that happen. Whoever this sniper is, he needs to be stopped. He knows something, and he knows who else knows something, too. Little fish to catch a big fish.” Nick didn’t combat that idea. He went back to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water. After he took a long drink, he gave her a grin. His passive admonishment was over. For now. “Scaling a fire escape and using your body as a battering ram... It was impressive.” Lara didn’t deserve the respect behind his tone. She readjusted the ice pack. “Impressive but ineffective. If I would have caught him, then that would have been impressive.” His grin turned into a smirk. “You don’t take compliments well, do you?” He didn’t give her time to answer before his lips turned down. The humor there was gone. “So, what did you find on your end?” Lara wasn’t a fan of sighing, but frustration pushed the breath between her lips. She felt her body momentarily sag as she answered. “Nothing good.” CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_5bdcc995-6bef-5f9a-b58a-4301ba38a886) “Are there any connections between the victims? Lara Bowman and Elizabeth Grant.” Lara took a seat next to Cass, who had set up at the head of the conference table. Victoria stood between them, her face pinched in concentration. Nick and Xander were on the other side, varying looks of enthusiasm while Mei and Ty finished eating their fast food farther down. Everyone was tired and frustrated. This case was wearing on them. “No,” she answered. “As far as I can tell the killer is likely doing local online searches for those who fit their criteria—your name—and then stalking and killing those who match up.” “There has to be some kind of pattern we can uncover,” Mei said around a bite of food. “We need to figure out what connection to Lara might be used next.” Nick evened his gaze at his partner. “What’s your middle name?” “I don’t have one,” she answered honestly. “You don’t have a middle name?” Ty jumped in, a half smile pulling up his lips. “So you’re like Cher or Madonna.” “They don’t have last names. I clearly have that,” she corrected, a little too harsh. His smile dropped. She had to remind herself that he was only trying to lighten the mood. She readjusted in her seat. “I guess for the first time in my life, I’m glad I never got that middle initial.” “Don’t celebrate yet. If someone’s already gone through the trouble to kill those with your name, I doubt they’ll let the lack of middle name stop them,” Xander pointed out. He was right. “If it’s really Moretti ordering these hits to toy with you, maybe he’ll target women with names from when you were undercover,” Ty offered. “What was your cover name?” Lara felt the hesitation behind her response. Saying the name had become an odd sensation. It represented a time in her life where everything had changed. Where she had been thrust into a world of black and white that had quickly turned gray. She moved the ice pack from her arm and set it on the tabletop. “Eve Johannsen.” For whatever reason, she averted her gaze from Nick as she answered. “So, what?” Xander cut in. “We’re supposed to warn all the Eves and all the Johannsens in New York City to be careful? To walk in pairs wherever they go?” Victoria shook her head. “Even if we did decide to go that route, I’m afraid it would only lead to making them unnecessary targets. Plus, not to be that person, but we don’t even know if Moretti is behind these murders. The only connection we’ve found so far has been the MM stamp and—” she looked at Lara “—I don’t need to remind you that his syndicate ran far and wide. It could be someone else entirely pulling the strings.” Lara didn’t want to, but she had to agree with that. However, if it was Moretti, she knew he’d only be interested in going after her real life. The real Lara Grant. “What’s the plan now?” Mei asked. Lara adjusted the ice pack on her shoulder. She wasn’t sure what to say. They’d hit that proverbial wall again. One that they desperately needed to climb. “Currently, there’s nothing we can do.” Victoria’s tone was calm, determined. “We’re waiting for the postmortem to be done on our victim, and the NYPD are doing their due diligence, running down Elizabeth’s friends and family. They’ve been told to let us know the second they come up with anything. So, for now—” she glanced at Lara’s shoulder before scanning the rest of the team “—take the night to rest.” Lara’s brows rose as she readied herself to protest. She needed to keep working. To keep moving. “An exhausted agent makes for a useless agent,” Victoria tacked on, an edge clear in her voice. She wasn’t giving them a suggestion. She was giving them a command. No one protested, and soon the group dispersed. Lara lagged behind, close to her desk. She pictured Elizabeth Grant again. Was it fair that she should be allowed to relax while Elizabeth’s life had been snuffed out that day? “Hey.” Nick came up beside her, keys twirling around his index finger. “I’m assuming you aren’t liking our latest assignment.” Lara didn’t smile. “Not particularly.” She grabbed her bag and slipped her jacket on. Her shoulder still bothered her but not as much as taking a temporary hiatus did. “I didn’t take you for someone who liked the term ‘rest.’” His lips quirked up in the corner. It made the attractive man even more so, but Lara wasn’t in the mood to banter. “She was in the middle of trying on swimsuits,” Lara said. “Overpowered and strangled in a dressing room while trying on a pink bikini.” Nick’s smirk turned down. His expression darkened. “We’ll get them,” he said, voice low. “Whoever they are, whoever is behind this, we’ll get the sons of bitches.” Lara wanted to point out that the fact that they weren’t even sure who they were dealing with was already a step backwards that they couldn’t afford, but Nick spoke again. “But Victoria is right. Sometimes we need to regroup—to step back—or we might miss something that’s right in front of us.” The way he said the last part caught Lara’s attention in a way that surprised her. Suddenly the space between them didn’t seem so expansive. She took a slight step backwards, dipping down to scoop up her keys. “That may be true, but that still doesn’t mean I know how to rest. I probably couldn’t if I tried right now.” “You mean after the chase today you aren’t the least bit tired?” Lara shook her head. “I’m weirdly still amped up.” Nick laughed. “I know what you mean. Why don’t we grab a beer, and we can try out this whole ‘resting’ thing together?” Lara raised her eyebrow. “If that’s a pickup line, I’ll have to tell you it’s a crappy one,” she said, smirking. However, the part of her that had stirred at the mention of “together” already had her answer. Nick held up his hands to show his innocence. “Even though we’re new partners, sharing a beer or two is par for the course,” he answered reasonably. “Plus, if you don’t come I’ll be forced to drink alone.” He turned, and she started to walk out with him. She was still having problems trusting him—anyone—but to be successful in closing this case, she needed their partnership to work. “Nick Delano isn’t a fan of the bar scene? Color me surprised,” she joked. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Agent Grant,” he shot back. “Ditto,” she replied quietly. * * * Nick ordered two beers as soon as they sat down. The bar, nicknamed The Pit, was filled with what Lara was realizing must have been cops. “That explains why this place is busy, and it’s not even five yet,” she commented after making the observation to Nick. “What better way to rest than drink among your equally burdened brethren?” he said with an influx of sarcasm. “Not to mention, we get one hell of a discount.” Nick got their beers and slid one to her. They clinked the bottles together, and both took long drinks. “So, if you won’t tell me about your time as Eve Johannsen, then maybe you can tell me about Lara Grant?” He raised his eyebrow in perfect unison with his smirk. If Nick wanted her to open up, she’d definitely need the alcohol between her hands. “What do you want to know? My favorite color?” she said, trying to make this work. The very attractive man across from her was broaching a subject that she rarely talked about. Would she ever have a life—undercover or not—that didn’t make her cringe to openly discuss? “Wow, that’s a pretty personal question,” he said, feigning offense. “I wasn’t going to ask something that serious until after you’d had a few.” He shrugged. “But since you brought it up...” Lara followed by example and took a good drink off of the top. She didn’t always like the taste of beer, but right now it was welcomed. “I like black,” she answered. “It’s simple, classic, chic.” “Your favorite color is black,” he deadpanned. “What? Was I supposed to say pink?” The agent shook his head. “I never pegged you as a pink-loving kind of woman.” Lara raised her eyebrow. “And why is that?” Nick leaned against the bar top and smirked. “Because I think you’re a bit more difficult than that.” He raised his beer up, and she couldn’t help but clink to that. “My favorite color is red, if you were interested,” he continued. “But since you didn’t ask...” Lara laughed, surprising herself. She knew he deserved more from her than the quiet that she wanted to supply. He was her partner, after all. A man who believed in the bond that came with that title. Lara took another swig. So Lara did something she hadn’t been able to do while undercover. She opened up about herself. “Okay, you want to know about me? Shoot.” She held up her bottle. “But be warned, just because you ask doesn’t mean I’ll answer.” Nick’s eyes widened in mock delight, and he thrummed his fingers against the bar and gave her an appraising look. “Okay, let’s jump right in. Where are you from? Local or transplant from somewhere humid as hell?” “Rockaway Beach,” she answered. “Ah, I’m all Brooklyn baby over here.” “That seems fitting.” He flashed her a grin. “If my mom had had it her way, we would have left for the coast instead,” he continued. “But Dad had his hands in the pies here.” “May I ask what pies we’re talking about?” Lara asked, interest piqued. “He’s an attorney,” he answered, no pride evident in his voice. “The kind interested in money and fame and all the trimmings you get from those two mixed. He’s the guy you see on the news blocking senators all the way down to drug lords, swearing up and down every one of his clients is one-hundred percent innocent.” Nick snorted, rolling his eyes. “I don’t get it, but to each their own.” Lara didn’t know how to respond right away. His admission was brief but seemed oddly personal. His face had hardened, his eyes had gone momentarily into slits. She didn’t think he’d meant to open up that much so soon. He took another drink. Lara decided it was only fair to give something of hers up in return. “As you know, my dad was a detective. Queens NYPD. Retired a few years back,” she said. “I’m still operating under the assumption that a majority of kids of cops become cops themselves. Or, some version of them.” Nick laughed. “I’d have to agree with you there. In the academy I met quite a few people with law enforcement in their family.” “It’s like a disease,” she said, giving him a sly smile. He held his beer out to clink to that. “So what does your cop father think of his FBI daughter?” Lara felt the small smile she’d had freeze in place. The mask she wore when concerning her family snapped on. What was suddenly a somewhat light conversation became heavy. “He told me he was proud once,” she hedged, taking a long pull of her drink. Nick didn’t respond. He was waiting on her. “We didn’t have the best relationship before I joined, so we didn’t really talk about work.” She shrugged. “What about you? Is your hotshot pops proud of your FBI status?” Nick’s entire expression seemed to change as he wrangled a grin into place. It was a truly remarkable one at that. Even though it was a half-cocked smile, it held all the trappings of open anger. “You’d have to ask him that,” was all he said. His words sent a chill across her skin. One that had nothing to do with her proximity to the handsome man next to her. Lara didn’t pry. She recognized a complicated past when she saw one. So, instead, she focused on peeling back the label on her bottle and pondered the man beside her. Nick Delano had a sharp sense of humor, but he was also tough and serious when needed. He was FBI and had, for whatever reason, found his way to their task force. Believing the man had anything but a complicated past would have been naive. “My dad was a tough man and even tougher father,” Nick said after the silence had stretched too long. His voice was low, with an edge to it that warned of a deep wound. Yet another thing Lara could relate to. “You stepped out of line, and he wouldn’t hesitate to put you right back on it. I never knew if that was just the man he was raised to be or if that’s what the job did to him.” He shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. He is what he is.” “I’m gathering it wasn’t the most fun to grow up with him.” “Some admired his ambition, especially when he started out, and in a way I guess you could have called it impressive. He dealt with high-profile cases—like I said, senators even—and he won them even when his client was as guilty as they came. But those people who revered him—sang his praises after seeing him work a courtroom—didn’t have to live with him. He ruthlessly pursed his public image of perfection, strived for absolute control, and ran his home with an iron rod.” Nick was starting to get heated. That much was obvious. He was traveling down a slippery slope that, Lara guessed, didn’t end well. Maybe he realized that. His eyes took in his bottle with new interest and he gave a half-shrug. “I’m not one to sit here and complain about my daddy issues, but suffice it to say, my father believed in his career more than he ever believed in his family. It’s a miracle any of us survived.” Nick finished his drink and ordered another. Lara quickly caught up and followed suit. They waited in silence for the bartender to replace the beer. Then Nick started up again. It made Lara grateful he seemed to trust her enough to open up. Could she do the same? “It wasn’t all bad. My mom was tough, too, but, you know, in a different way. A better way, I always thought.” A wisp of a smile trailed his lips, a nice break from the darkness. “She tried to make my brother and me as happy and healthy as she could. Tried to keep us close...” Even though he wasn’t looking directly at her, Lara saw his gaze deepen in a way that suggested he wasn’t still in the bar. “It didn’t work, but damn if that woman didn’t try. She still tries, even when battling cancer in a damn hospice.” His grip tightened on the bottle so quickly Lara thought the glass might break. She fought the urge to touch him—to give him comfort she so rarely obtained herself—yet her hand stayed still. Instead she tracked the trail of cold left behind as she took another drink of beer. Finally he loosened his grip, and with it the moment passed. He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened. “And that’s my origin story. Can you do one better?” Lara let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Now he was joking. The dark mood had lifted. Lara didn’t want it to return. She smiled and hoped it looked convincing. “I don’t think that’s a game I want to win, Agent Delano.” “Hey, with our jobs we have to do all we can to find the humor in the everyday. Am I right?” His smile had come back but seemed to still be fractured somehow. A broken smile was better than no smile, right? “So, how dysfunctional is Lara Grant’s family?” For a moment everything slowed. Lara shifted in her seat. Indecision clouded her thoughts. Nick had opened up to her, without provocation. He had been right before. She was his partner, and with that title came a certain amount of trust. She could follow his lead, rip the Band-Aid off... But Lara Grant had trusted the wrong people before. So she gave him partial truths and hoped they’d be enough. “I was ten when my mother died. My father passed away from Alzheimer’s at the end of my lockdown. Beyond that...” She paused. “Well, let’s just say any family reunions would be severely lacking in attendance.” Nick held his bottle up to hers. Lara touched it. Another cheer between them. “But, hey, silver lining?” Lara sobered. The image of the man with dark eyes filled her mind. “At least that means Moretti can’t go after my family. They’re gone.” Nick didn’t have the hesitation that Lara had harbored before. He stretched his hand out and, touching her chin, tilted her gaze up from her bottle to his eyes. They were also dark. The contact surprised her, but she didn’t pull away. “We’ll stop him,” he said, voice charged. “He’ll pay for what he’s done, and then all that will be left is a name no one will remember.” Every part of Lara began to vibrate. The walls she’d built around her emotions began to shake. When she spoke, it was terrifyingly honest. “I’ll remember,” she whispered. Nick’s fierce expression sharpened. “Then we’ll have to make you forget.” And then his lips were on hers. CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_d78528fc-c2c4-55c5-95e4-67661a3616aa) His kiss was hard. It pushed against Lara’s lips with a need so poignant that she was stunned into immobility for a moment. Or maybe she wasn’t as still as she’d thought. She felt her body reach out to him just as she returned the kiss. She wanted Nick Delano, and she wanted him badly. And that was a problem. Lara froze. Nick broke the kiss. She glanced around them to see if anyone had noticed the two FBI agents locking lips, but no one seemed to care. They were in their own little worlds with their own little worries, not caring about the two at the corner of the bar. The cold of the bottle still in Lara’s hand seeped into her skin and acted as a blaring reminder of who she was and what she couldn’t do. The proverbial bucket of cold water to the face, in miniature. “I—I have to go,” she stammered out, pulling out some money for the drinks. Heat crawled across her body. Her heartbeat raced, and it was all she could do to control her breathing. Nick also seemed to be going through a myriad of feelings. The kiss, she believed, had probably happened on impulse. Either way, Lara hopped off the stool, reached for her keys on the counter and averted her eyes. “Lara, I’m sorry,” Nick tried, voice lower than normal. “Stay.” “I have to go,” she said, more resolutely. She was out of The Pit in a flash, the door swinging closed behind her. Nick didn’t follow. It gave her the break she needed. She took a few steps away from the entrance and put her back against the wall. No one seemed to pay her any mind as she closed her eyes. I can’t do this, she thought. I can’t do this again. Whatever was between Nick and her, whatever attraction threaded them together, she was going to have to ignore it. They had to keep things professional. They had to... If only for her sanity. She took another moment, trying to calm her excited body, before nodding to herself. Without a backwards glance Lara headed to the subway and made her way back to her apartment. Instead of focusing on her partner, she busied her mind on trivial things. Focusing on the chill that bit at her despite her coat and trying to recall how empty her refrigerator was, Lara Grant knew that thinking about Nick Delano would utterly distract her. Yet another thing she couldn’t afford. * * * Victoria looked up from the desk but didn’t smile. The older woman wasn’t in the mood and neither was Lara. After getting back to her apartment the night before, she had tried to rest until finally falling into an uneasy sleep. One that had been interrupted by a call from her boss the next morning. Now Lara sat down opposite the woman, unsure of what it was she had been called in to talk about. “I’ve tried to avoid this,” Victoria jumped in, interlocking her fingers on the desktop. “But I think it’s time you pay a visit to Moretti and find out what he knows about the Black Stamp Serial Killer. That’s what the newspapers are calling the killer.” Lara felt her face contort into a blank slate. Thinking of talking to that man again made her blood run cold. Distancing herself from him and everything he had done was easy to do with him behind bars. Talking to Moretti in person—in prison, no less, thanks to her—was a different ballgame. He had become the head of a massive organization, running most of it off of fear. No matter her part in his and its downfall, seeing him was an intimidating thought. “I’d send the others, but, firstly, I don’t think he’d talk to them, and secondly, I’m not sure I’d believe anything he did say since we know how well he lies. You know that better than anyone.” Her expression softened. It didn’t last long. “And because you do know him, maybe he’ll betray himself somehow, even by his expression, and you can get something from him.” Lara shifted in her seat just thinking of being across from Moretti again after all of this time...”Listen, you’re the only one who managed to bring down the son of a bitch and his entire empire,” Victoria added. “His reaction to you might be interesting. So, let’s see where it leads.” “It’s leading to murder,” Lara reminded her boss. Victoria didn’t hesitate in her response. “It could be him behind everything so far. It could be anyone remotely connected to his organization pulling the strings. Either way, we need to find out.” She pulled her hands apart and shifted her gaze back to the papers she’d been looking at when Lara had walked in. “Now, go.” Just like that the conversation was over. * * * The farther she walked down the hallway, the colder her heart became. Whether it was fear or anger, she couldn’t tell. Each step closer to the meeting room, what made Lara, Lara became quickly encased by something she didn’t like. Something that made her want to stop following the guard in front of her and leave the federal maximum security prison in the dust. But she owed it to Tina Cole, Lara Bowman, Elizabeth Grant, Cass’s sister Allie and the many other victims to stop Moretti once and for all. “Agent Grant?” Lara’s gaze left her current point of fascination on the cinderblock wall beside them. She hadn’t realized they’d come to a door. The guard gave her a questioning look. “Are you?” he prompted again. “Excuse me?” Lara was so far into her own mind she’d missed what he’d said. “Are you ready?” The guard had no idea of who she was and how she was connected to the man he, among many others, was tasked with keeping locked up. He had no way of knowing the trepidation she was currently battling. His question was just a formality. So she gave him an equally formal reply. “Yes, sir.” The guard let her into a small room with stained concrete flooring and more badly paint-chipped walls. Horrible fluorescent bulbs buzzed overhead, doing nothing more than giving an already gloom-filled atmosphere more gusto. Lara took up a seat at one of three booths lining the wall. “I’ll be right outside the door,” the guard said. “Yell if you need anything. They should be bringing him in any minute now.” Lara thanked the man and watched as he shut the door behind him, leaving her alone with her thoughts. You can do this. He’s just a man. One locked behind many, many bars. You can do this, Lara. Pull it together. The sound of footsteps made her back go ramrod straight. For one wild moment she wondered how she looked. Would he see a difference now that she no longer was pretending to be Eve? Should she stand? Would that make her look more threatening? All of these questions were pushed out of her mind the instant the door opened. Lara held her breath. Moretti was movie-star gorgeous and charismatic as hell. Even in an orange jumpsuit. He was led in by a balding guard who probably had no real idea of just how dangerous his charge was. Dark, thick wavy hair and brown eyes almost black. In the right light it looked as if he had no pupil at all. Like peering into the eyes of a snake. Or maybe even the devil himself. Moretti met Lara’s stare with his own. The guard uncuffed him, and Moretti took his spot across from her. He didn’t sit down right away. Instead he lowered his gaze to her body before bringing it back up. A slow, calculating gesture that set Lara’s skin to ice. They each picked up their phones, the cord stretching as Moretti continued to stand. “You,” he said, voice like velvet. Lara didn’t respond. With just one word, he’d managed to intimidate her. How could one man be that powerful? His lips were downturned, and his nostrils were flared. He was angry. “I expected you, but a part of me thought you wouldn’t show. Not after what you’ve done.” He slammed his fist down on the tabletop. Despite her resolve to stay firm, she jumped. “Hey,” the guard warned. Lara could hear his voice through Moretti’s phone. Moretti’s eyes turned to slits. For one long moment he stood still, hunched slightly over, fists balled. His stare was unrelenting. Lara willed her body not to shy away from him, to hold his eyes with her own. The guard didn’t warn him again. Maybe he did know a bit about the man known as Moretti. He’s just a man, she told herself again. A man I ruined. Moments stretched a bit longer until Moretti took his seat. The corner of his lips turned upwards. His eyes widened to normal. Even his fist unclenched. “I have to admit, I’m glad you came,” he said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that pretty face of yours. I was afraid you’d forgotten about me, Eve.” His smirk turned deadly. “Or should I say Lara?” A chill ran over every inch of her body. Moretti was rotating through a full range of emotions. It was unsettling and put her on edge. She needed to steer the conversation toward her own goals. Not his. “Two murders,” Lara said, finding her voice. “A woman with my first name, and another with my last name. Both with the MM tattoo stamped on their cheeks.” She touched her own to strengthen the image. “Are you, or are you not, ordering these hits as some kind of payback?” He didn’t flinch at the accusation. He didn’t even seem interested. Instead Moretti’s smile came back with force. “Not the nice greeting I was hoping for,” he said. “A simple ‘How are you’ would have better suited the situation. I mean, really, at least the other agents eased into the conversation.” That derailed Lara’s next response. Before she could keep her expression from changing, her eyebrow rose up in question. It made Moretti laugh. “Oh, Lara, surely you’ve realized by now I’m an absolute treasure trove of knowledge,” he said, more factual than boastful. “Which means I’m a little bit more valuable than you’re giving me credit for... Others haven’t made that mistake.” Lara couldn’t believe it. “The FBI is trying to cut you a deal,” she stated, not asked. Moretti’s smile grew into one that he seemed to know would insert itself right beneath her skin. He leaned back slightly in his chair and rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “I still haven’t decided what I am and am not comfortable with sharing, but if they give me the right incentive? I just might be able to part with a few names and stories. I mean, what are a few trafficking client names in exchange for getting out of this lovely place a few years earlier?” Lara’s face heated. “They’ve offered you sentence leniency?” Moretti wagged a finger at her. “Lara, you know I’m not allowed to discuss what goes on in private sessions,” he said, close to tsking her. “I could get in trouble. You could get in trouble. And we certainly don’t want that, do we? That would be an absolute shame.” “You’re right,” she said, feeling the burn of his low-lying threat behind seemingly innocent words. She could play that game, too. “I wouldn’t want you to get into any more trouble. You’ve already lost all of your wealth, prestige and freedom. It would be a shame to add dignity to the list. But...” She made a show of looking him up and down. “Let’s be honest, that’s next in line, isn’t it?” Like a switch being flipped, Moretti’s body reacted to her even tone. His smile sharpened, his nostrils flared twice like a bull ready to charge, and he fisted his free hand, popping his knuckles slowly. Those dark eyes narrowed in on her. But, he didn’t say a word. “Again. Two murders,” she continued, circling back to her original point. “Was it or wasn’t it you?” He kept quiet. “Did you have them killed as some kind of demented payback?” Moretti threw his head back with a laugh that shook his entire body. “Payback? How would that be payback?” he asked when the laughter had subsided. “Payback would be hot sex together and then slowly strangling you.” Lara’s eyes widened. “Hell, the word payback doesn’t even begin to describe what you, Miss Lara Grant, deserve.” His smiled was wiped away in an instant. Lara’s heartbeat quickened. The change in his emotions was giving her whiplash. “Don’t you agree?” Lara ignored the question. She’d had enough. She pushed her shoulder farther back. “Do you know who the killer is?” Lara asked, voice low. She could feel the edge of her cool cracking. She needed to know if he was pulling the strings. No more verbally dancing with him. Moretti took another long moment. Lara readied herself for a more aggressive approach. She needed answers. Hell, she’d even take just one at this point. But, she bet the man across from her knew this. He knew she needed him. She hated him for it. “When we met again, I had hoped it would be more fun than this. You’ve disappointed me, again, Agent Grant.” He stood. “Moretti,” she warned. “Answer my question! Do you know the identity of the killer or not?” “Of course I do.” Moretti smiled. “Guard, we’re done here.” CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_e651af6c-ee01-599f-9626-766c6f49e622) Lara spent the drive back to the office submerged in a sea of inner turmoil. Instead of the rage she’d felt after leaving Macy’s and the body of Elizabeth Grant, she felt almost exclusively shame. She’d let a man in prison—one she’d had a large hand in bringing down—mentally stun her. He’d intimidated her on the opposite side of freedom without even touching her. All within the span of five minutes. Of course I do. His admittance had, and simultaneously hadn’t, surprised Lara. He was a proud man. If he had a hand in something, then he would own up to it—without incriminating himself, of course. Or else he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he had running the syndicate. He was also a man who got off on playing with the people around him. His truths and lies were instruments, always working to form a larger picture. One that she hoped she wouldn’t see. What part did he have in the murders? In the actions of the so-called Black Stamp Serial Killer? What was his next move? Did he know about the family? Lara should have found all the answers out during her visit, but all she’d found was regret at not being stronger. How could she keep others from dying because of her if she could barely stand her ground to a man dressed in an orange jumpsuit? She slammed her hand against the steering wheel. The action revived her earlier anger. Was Moretti really talking to a different part of the FBI? Would they really give a man like him perks and sentence leniency for what he knew? Lara swore beneath her breath. Of course they would. “Why the hell is another section of the FBI dealing with Moretti?” Lara asked, barging into Victoria’s office on a wave of anger that hadn’t moved since she’d had the thought a half hour later. Victoria looked up from her desk with no amount of surprise across her expression. It only made Lara admit to the main reason she was so pissed off about it all. “All the work I did—everything I sacrificed—to shut this man down, and now it could be undermined by bureaucracy? What’s the fucking point then?” Lara’s chest was heaving. Her face was hot. Her hands were fisted. Victoria’s eyes traveled to each detail before she spoke. “Dismantling Moretti’s crime syndicate was a massive win for us—for the ‘good guys’ in general. We were able to get a plethora of criminals off of the streets as well as guns, drugs and trafficking victims. All of this is true, and all of this is in such a large part due to what you did. And for that no one within this organization or any other can fault you.” She intertwined her fingers. “However, Moretti was a supplier—a man who got people what they wanted. Narcotics, weapons, women and children. To us those people are thought of as monsters—scum—but to Moretti? They were clients.” Lara started to feel the steam of anger whistle out. The point Victoria was getting to was one she’d never considered, too caught up in the man to think about his connections. His, as he said, knowledge. “While I don’t know the extent or frequency of these other agents and their meetings with him, I have always known that even behind bars, Moretti is still of interest to the FBI.” Lara took the seat opposite her boss with no grace. Suddenly she felt tired. They both knew Lara wouldn’t continue her outburst—if she did, Victoria wouldn’t have had it—and so Lara recounted the story of her meeting with Moretti. If she judged Lara as harshly as Lara judged herself, she didn’t voice it. “What’s your take on him?” she asked when Lara had finished. “My take? I honestly don’t know,” she admitted. “He’s clever, he’s connected, and he’s certainly capable. His admission of knowing the identity could be his way of playing us or he knows everything. He’s snowed me before, and this could be him doing it again.” Victoria exhaled but didn’t lose her impeccable posture. “It was a long shot,” she said. “One we needed to take.” Lara nodded. She may not have liked it, but she agreed they’d needed to search every avenue. Even the ones that she’d hoped to never travel down again. “I have a meeting now, so you’ll have to excuse me,” Victoria said a moment later. Her tone hardened. She was in full work mode. If Lara thought the team was in the shit trying to find the truth and the killer, she knew Victoria was in even more with the higher-ups. The pressure she must have been receiving was probably intense. It made Lara appreciate her job versus her boss’s, despite everything that had happened. Lara followed the woman out and started to walk back to her cubicle. “And Lara?” Victoria’s tone alone would have stopped Lara. It was fully authoritative. “Yes?” “I want you to go see Dr. Oliviero,” she said. “Now.” Lara didn’t make the fish out of water face, but she certainly felt it. Victoria must have picked up on the lengthy hesitation because she held up her hand. A physical show of her position. “This isn’t a suggestion. Don’t insult my intelligence by saying you’re fine after your meeting with Moretti,” she said, voice dropping in case anyone could hear them. “You came into my office in a blaze of emotion. You can’t do that again. You don’t need to. He’s one of the best, Lara. Use him.” Victoria had no more to say and took her leave. Lara, on the other hand, stood still for a moment. Was Victoria right? Probably. But did that mean Lara wanted to follow orders? No. However, her feet began to take her down a path she figured might become familiar as the case carried on. They led her to a separate floor and right up to an office with a shiny silver nameplate across its wood. Lara brushed her knuckles against the door. She tried to focus on the nameplate and not the storm of emotions that had been unleashed within her. It was true, seeing Moretti had shaken her up and now she was nursing a kind of anxious high. One that had managed to break down her ability to compartmentalize. One that she needed to come down from. “Come in,” a man called after the second knock. Lara took what was supposed to be a calming breath and pushed inside. Dr. Luca Oliviero, assigned to help their task force with case profiles and also acting staff psychologist, didn’t show surprise at seeing her. Which was odd since she was certainly surprised that she was standing at his door. He stood from behind his desk and smiled. He was tall and imposing yet exuded a demeanor of comfort. Thick salt-and-pepper hair, silver eyeglasses over dark eyes, he was a man who looked the part of psychiatrist. One who was very good at his job. “Lara, I hadn’t expected to see you today,” he greeted. He motioned to one of the plush chairs across from him. It was a calming gray. Like rain clouds in the distance. Far enough away that they couldn’t threaten. If he knew they were going to be talking about her specific problems and not the team’s he would have directed her to the lounge area to his right. As it was, he settled back into his chair and gave her his full attention, ready to provide his professional insight. “I hadn’t expected to see you today,” she admitted with a small smile. “Victoria sent me.” Dr. Oliviero titled his head to the side in question, but he never voiced it. Instead he waited for Lara to present her concerns first. Not pushing her, not applying pressure until she cracked. He was letting her open up on her terms, not his. She hadn’t spent a lot of time with him, aside from their first preliminary meeting, but she had instantly liked the man. “You said you’d read though my file from after my time undercover?” she asked, jumping right in. He nodded. “Yes, and before then, as well. It’s my job to read each team member’s transcripts from previous sessions. It’s important that, because of the particular high volume of stress this job can incur, each agent’s psychological health is taken care of, as well as monitored and recorded. That includes yours. It’s why they give me this office with such a great view.” He gave her an easy smile and motioned to the windows behind him. They looked out over Broadway. “But, you already knew that.” It was true. Lara did already know the answer to her question. When she’d accepted the job on the new task force, her file—everything on her and her time at the FBI—had been transferred to NYC. But, still, she had needed him to confirm it out loud. Or else she might have not opened up at all. “I saw Moretti today,” she started after a rush of an exhale left between her lips. “In prison, I mean. As a part of a case. Not in a dream or nightmare or whatever. I saw him. He was only a few feet away.” Dr. Oliviero’s brows pushed together. “I take it this is the first time you’ve seen him since—” “The trial,” she finished. “Yes. I never thought I’d see him again, truthfully, but...it was a necessary evil.” Lara shifted in her seat. She knew the good doctor didn’t miss the movement. He had an impressive and extensive resume of dealing with the mental side of health. He was also no stranger to body language. And Lara’s was screaming she was dancing through a part of her past she’d rather not tango with ever again. “And now you’re having a hard time shaking the visit,” he summarized. “Yeah.” Lara rubbed the side of her arm. She suddenly felt vulnerable. She hated it. Dr. Oliviero waited. “Moretti...” She paused trying to find the right words. “There are predators in this world. There always have been, and there always will be. People who do unimaginable things with little to no reason behind their actions, aside from the basic need to watch others suffer. I know this. During my FBI training and career I’ve been shown the most violent, senseless and heinous crimes committed by equally monstrous people. We’re told—and taught—to detach from it, to distance ourselves from the—the horror so we can seek out justice. To rid the world of the bad and to protect the rest. But...” The words she’d found became lost. “This case—Moretti—has gotten to you.” Lara nodded. She didn’t know what else to say. “Let’s talk about what seeing him triggers for you,” he continued. She readjusted herself again. Victoria’s stern order blared in her head. Though Lara didn’t like to open up about her past, her boss had been right. She needed to find a way to sort out her tumultuous emotions, and Dr. Oliviero was going to help show her how. “Your father was a powerful NYPD cop, a sergeant before he retired. Correct?” Lara felt herself nod, but it was a clipped, jerky movement. Her willingness to delve into her life quickly took a turn. “Yes. He passed away recently,” she said. Words cold even to her ears. “Alzheimer’s.” “I’m sorry to hear that.” Lara gave a small nod of acknowledgement while an onslaught of memories assaulted her. Among them, always accompanying thoughts of Bartholomew Grant, was a pain that stretched across Lara’s heart until sinking to the pit of her stomach. An image of the man wasn’t the cause. It was the memory of a woman that pulled at her heart strings. Anna Grant’s body, photographed crumpled on the floor, surfaced behind Lara’s eyes. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about my father,” Lara said into the quiet. “Can we focus on Moretti instead?” Dr. Oliviero interlaced his fingers. His dark eyes softened. There was no way he didn’t know her family’s past. “Sure,” he said. “Thanks.” “So, why don’t you tell me about Moretti? Or, should I said, his organization.” Lara shifted in her seat. “What do you mean?” “Recount your infiltration into the syndicate. Tell me the details that you remember clearly and, therefore, hold them more closely. Technically, we were supposed to do this when you resurfaced from undercover, but with the trial and your father’s passing, etc... I was giving you a bit of time.” When Lara didn’t say anything, he added on, “Relaying a story—a very challenging, emotionally and physically, story—to another person can be proven to be very telling. Not to mention, therapeutic. Seeing Moretti, a man who has become such an invasive part of your life, can trigger emotions and stress that you might not even realize are there, flowing beneath the surface. Walk us through the beginning, and let’s see how you feel once you’re done. Okay?” The beginning. Lara sat straighter in her seat. She’d told this story before—had to as part of the job—but still she hesitated. Her time undercover felt like a dream. One that had turned into a nightmare. The words came slowly at first. It wasn’t as if she’d never told the story before. She’d had to tell it many times over. However, now, when faced with the realization that her retelling might somehow betray herself, she found the clipped, rehearsed words she’d told her superiors didn’t want to come. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of what she’d done. In fact, she’d been told before that she should be proud. It wasn’t every day one undercover agent was able to orchestrate the downfall of an infamous crime leader like Moretti. Yet, how could she brag after what she’d done? “Moretti’s organization ran three things,” she started, building up to the memory she was supposed to recount. “Drugs, guns and humans. All three veins were expansive, strong and thriving. I originally requested I go undercover in the human trafficking side—I wanted to save as many as I could—but was told that’s why I couldn’t. I wasn’t there to save people in the short-term. I was supposed to find a way to get to Moretti. Cut the head of the snake from the body and save everyone in the long-term. Dealing directly with hard stuff like heroin and meth was also something everyone decided I would avoid. That left running guns. Smuggling ammo and weapons would put me in direct line with the top tier of the syndicate if I played my cards right. So, that’s what I did.” There was a man named Spike, and he was waiting for her inside the bar. It was a total dive and had more drunken customers outside on the sidewalks than in. All huddled together, talking loudly and smoking one last cigarette before they stumbled back to wherever they came from. She knew all of this because “Eve” had been coming to the bar for months. She recognized the people who frequented the joint just as quickly as she recognized the people who didn’t. Faces became familiar to her and vice versa. So when she saw a man with an aged fedora sitting at the edge of the bar, head bent low over a pint, she breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was he finally there, but he was sitting in her spot. “Hey, Shorty,” Eve greeted the bartender, leaning against the bar. Shorty, real name unknown, gave her an appraising look and a nod. She wasn’t wearing a low-cut blouse or a high-rise skirt but a skintight black shirt and form-fitting leather pants. Her body may have been covered, but still she caught attention from the locals as soon as she walked in. “Who’s the hat in the corner?” she followed up. “He’s in my seat.” Shorty paused his pouring to glance over to the man. “He was a local way before you,” he answered. “Though I haven’t seen him in a while.” He shrugged. His bar might have been a hotbed of criminals converging, but Shorty was clean among all the scum. He ran his business right, serving whoever had the cash to pay. “They call him Spike, if I remember right.” The man was called Spike and was nastier than the scabs grown on the inside of some of the patrons’ arms. Thin, tall and with pale blond hair that was perpetually greasy, Spike also had a twitch. Even in the dim light of the bar, Eve could see that. She supposed she’d form one, too, if her job entailed gun-running for the infamous Moretti. Then again, that’s exactly what her goal was. Eve ordered a beer on tap and pulled a pen from her bag. She took two of the paper coasters no one used and scribbled on the top corner of one when Shorty turned away. When her beer was ready, she took it and the coasters over to the bar stool next to Spike. She sat down with a twinge of excitement. “This seat taken?” she asked. His eyes, a dull blue, scanned her body, pausing on her more intimate areas before returning to her face. She met his stare with smile. “It is now,” he replied, perking right up. Spike had been profiled as a man who craved attention from beautiful women but had gotten turned down by so many that he’d grown a complex against them. He’d eat up the attention, fall over himself to please his target, but the moment something didn’t go his way, he’d resort to violence. Aside from drug charges on his record, he’d also had two nasty past assault charges. Eve sat on the bar stool and slid the unmarked coaster beneath her drink. The other remained in her hand. “I haven’t seen you around here before,” she started. “But Shorty says you’re a local? Must have been on vacation the past few months.” “You could say that.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve never seen you here before. You’re no local.” Eve had been ready for his suspicion. It was well deserved, but he wouldn’t know that for a while. “I had to relocate recently,” she said, pausing to take a big swig of her beer. “Let’s just say my career took a turn, and now I’m looking for new opportunities.” She half shrugged. “I heard this was a good place to start.” Eve knew how Spike operated within the syndicate. He was low on the totem pole, a physical mover of product between transactions, but he knew the people who could connect her to the higher-ups. She also knew that Spike rarely stayed in one place long, only cycling back to his favorite bar between jobs. This might be her only shot at getting an introduction in the foreseeable future. Before he could reply, she put the other coaster on the bar top and slipped it over slowly, tapping the top corner with her index finger. Spike’s eyes widened as he took the symbol she’d drawn in. He put his glass over it. “And what kind of business are you in?” he asked, voice lowering. “In a place like this it can’t be anything good. Unless you’re a cop.” Even as he said the word, fear and anger moved across his expression. It was her turn to snort. “I’m definitely no cop,” she defended. “I’ve got the arrests to prove that.” She contorted her face into obvious resentment. “Oh, yeah?” “Apparently cops don’t appreciate unregistered guns.” Spike’s suspicion didn’t ebb, but his interest did grow. “So what? Now, outta all the bars in the city, you’re here talking to me?” She gave him a sly smile. “Let’s just say we have a mutual friend that said this bar has the best beer on tap on this side of the city.” She winked. Spike sat up straighter, his chest slightly puffing out. “Really? Did our mutual friend tell you what that is?” He pointed to the scribble on the coaster. The MM looked distorted, cut off by the bottom of his glass. “I didn’t need him to. I’ve known what that is for a while.” Spike’s eyebrow rose. “It’s a rumor,” she explained. “It’s a promise. It’s stability and power. It’s a career someone like me craves.” She dropped her volume. “It’s why I’ve been coming to this shithole bar for months. I have product, I have experience, and now I’m looking at you.” Spike appeared surprised, yet still intrigued. “And who the hell are you?” “Eve,” she said, outstretching her hand. “Now, let’s talk business.” And so Eve Johannsen was born. CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_b4ff4225-d60a-5ca6-a3c4-098ef00b3330) “By now Spike probably has realized he shouldn’t have trusted me as much as he did,” Lara said to Dr. Oliviero. “But I think he liked the attention.” “The attention?” “I made sure to respect him. I was interested in what he had to say, and I let him know it. We met back at the bar a few times before he finally set up a meeting with someone who could get me in. All I had to do was pass the background check.” “Which, I assume, was very thorough.” Lara nodded. “Dismantling Moretti’s organization was a big thing for us. We had only the best working on my cover, creating a comprehensive, solid background. One that, even through back channels, would check out.” Another memory surfaced as she spoke. “But, still, I was nervous. The man in charge of vetting me had earned a reputation for being thorough.” She took a breath. “The last time I saw Spike was the first time I met Andrew.” “Tell me about that,” Dr. Oliviero said. He still didn’t have his notes out, but she suspected his memory was sharp. She wasn’t sure. Her attention was on the past. “It’ll be okay so long as you’ve been straight with me so far,” Spike said, a cigarette between his lips. They stood in the alley behind a dive bar not so different from the one where they’d first met. It was well past midnight, but the crowd inside was still buzzing. Their regular spot had changed at the request of the man who would help decide if she was in or not. “Like I said, if I was a cop I would have already turned you in,” she said with a sly smile. “And I definitely wouldn’t have bought that auto rifle from you.” Spike smirked around his cigarette “I ‘spose that’s true.” They shot the shit for a few more minutes before a car parked in front of the mouth of the alley. Eve’s body tensed. The gun in the back of her jeans burned her skin, ready to be used if necessary. She had no backup near. They hadn’t wanted to risk being detected. “That’s him,” Spike said. He threw his cigarette on the ground and twisted the heel of his shoe over it. “Good luck, Eve.” Spike walked away as the new man walked up. Eve’s eyes widened at the sight of him. He stopped a few feet away. “Eve Johannsen,” he greeted. No question in his tone. She pushed her shoulders back and nodded. “That’s me.” “My name’s Andrew Moore,” he said in introduction. “And I’m the judge and jury for what you’re trying to become a part of.” “So, does that mean I’m in?” “If you weren’t, I wouldn’t have come here and given you my name.” He smirked. “Your background check came back satisfactory. Get in the car. We need to talk.” Despite the situation, she felt a thrill of excitement. Eve was finally in. Now the real work would begin. “Andrew was Moretti’s third tier and had command over all arms operations,” Lara said, finished recounting her first exchange with the man. “From that moment on, he became my direct boss...as well as my mentor.” “You spent a lot of time with him.” She nodded. “Describe him to me.” The words paused on her tongue. She thought back with hesitation before beginning. “Handsome, in one word. Strong in another. He held himself with importance but never arrogance. Dark hair, dark eyes, mysterious. A trifecta that was only amplified by his charisma.” Lara balled her fists against her lap. “And how do you feel about him?” “It bothers me how attractive I find him still and—” she averted her gaze a moment “—how physically drawn to him I was. I know it sounds horrible, but he was so different from the others. He was kind and patient with me and always had my back.” Lara brought her fist up and slammed it against the desktop. “How is that possible? How is a man like him able to make me feel...” She let her words trail off. The flare of anger quickly doused. Dr. Oliviero was neither alarmed nor angry at the outburst. “How is a bastard capable of that?” Dr. Oliviero unlaced his fingers. He stretched over the desk and patted the top of her fisted hand. “I think that, once we explore that, you will find more peace about what happened during your time undercover.” * * * Exhausted. Lara couldn’t find a better word for what she felt standing in her apartment an hour later. The good doctor hadn’t pushed her when she’d said their session that day was done. He hadn’t tried to talk her into opening up another can of worms. The exercise of examining what seeing Moretti had triggered within her seemed like a bust. But, the session had done its intended job. Lara was no longer riled up at visiting the head of the snake in prison. However, their talk had opened another wound. And it was time to try and heal it. Almost an hour later and Lara was standing in front of a small, brick-wrapped Cape Cod and trying her best to not feel like a child. Bartholomew Grant’s last home. It never got easier thinking about the man. Whenever she did, the image of Anna sprang up and blossomed. Normally a child’s thoughts of a mother weren’t synonymous with the father potentially being a murderer. Lara sighed, feet planted firmly on the sidewalk. She had spent the first years of her career poring through the case files of her mother’s murder and hadn’t found a thing. All of that hard work had been for nothing. That meant her mother’s killer was either buried beneath a tombstone Lara hadn’t visited or was possibly still out there, a free man or woman. Regardless, whatever answers Bartholomew had once known had died with him. Now all Lara had left of either parent was a few yards away, hiding behind walls covered in aged brick. Lara felt her feet filling with lead. She needed to go inside to do what she’d come to do. Since Bartholomew had gone into hospice care, the Cape Cod and all its things hadn’t been touched. It was Lara’s job to sort through it all and set everything right. If such a thing was possible. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to move. “Hey, girl!” Startled, Lara turned to see a woman in too-tall stilettos waving from down the street. It had been a while since she’d seen her unusual friend. Lara waved back. “Hey, Lola,” she greeted as the woman had made her way over. Along with her unrealistic shoes, she wore a skimpy outfit of a black bustier and a leather miniskirt. Her bleached blond hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, falling somewhere near the middle of her back. She was twenty-six and pretty. Two details that kept her career as a prostitute thriving. “Long time no see,” Lola said, stopping next to her. They both faced the house. “Sorry, work became complicated.” “I hear that.” Lara internally cringed. For years she’d tried to convince Lola to leave the streets—she could be so much more—but the woman had always refused. She’d had a hard life. One that had weighed upon her so long that Lara suspected the idea of anything different might scare her away from ever trying. The first time she’d met Lola was when her father’s mental state had gotten bad. Lara had pulled up one day to see Lola and him walking hand in hand down the sidewalk toward the house. She hadn’t been wearing leather then, but her outfit had been just as shocking. High-heeled boots that laced up her shins and thighs and a red dress that dipped low and rose high. She hadn’t bleached her hair yet, but she’d already been sporting her long ponytail. “Your dad?” Lola had asked when Lara, wide-eyed and ready to raise hell, had approached them. “Yeah, and you are?” Lola didn’t seem to mind the harsh tone. She outstretched her free hand. “Call me Lola, your friendly father walker.” It had taken a longer conversation after seeing her dad back to the house to get the full story. Lola had noticed Bartholomew walking around aimlessly, confused. She’d remembered seeing him watering the flowers in front of the small Cape Cod and had offered to walk him home. Apparently it hadn’t been the first time, either. Since then Lara had grown an odd attachment to the woman, speaking with her during her visits to the house. Sure, Lola led a life Lara didn’t approve of, but the woman was funny and sharp. Despite their differences, Lara felt an equality between the two. A balance between quiet and loud. Plus, after everything the woman had endured, Lola had managed to hold on to her good heart. Lara respected that. They continued to look at the house in silence for a moment. Lara reflected on her relationship with the woman next to her. They were quite the team. The FBI agent and the prostitute. “You know, when my father was dying from cancer, I told him I was totally off drugs.” Lola finally spoke up. “I said I was a bank teller, too. Made good, honest money and lived a good, honest life. I think he died happy.” Lara didn’t look away from the house, focusing on the front porch. “You know, you could be a bank teller,” she tried. Lola let out a laugh. It sounded almost hollow. Lara took the woman’s hand in hers and squeezed. They lapsed back into a companionable silence for a moment. “I need to get back to work,” Lara said, dropping her friend’s hand. “Take care of yourself, Lola.” The younger woman bumped her shoulder against Lara’s. “You too, Miss FBI. Don’t be a stranger.” The tapping of her heels against the concrete moved away, but Lara stayed still for a while longer. She wouldn’t go into the house today. She couldn’t find the strength or resolve to make her feet carry her up the sidewalk and through the door her family had once used daily. No, Lara wouldn’t be tackling that portion of her past right now. She turned on her heel and headed back to her car. An overwhelming sense of loss in her wake. * * * Lara went back to the office with little enthusiasm. There were no new leads. The other shoe would drop, she was sure, but at the moment it seemed firmly laced up and on. She fell into her desk chair with a sigh that matched its creak. Her day had, in a nutshell, been draining, to say the very least. The past had not only shown its face, it had bothered to force her hand in its own and had taken her for a stroll. “You saw Moretti.” Nick popped his head up over the cubicle wall to her left. If the day hadn’t already taken its toll on her emotions, seeing her partner she’d made out with in a public bar and then ran from would have rubbed her the wrong way. As it was, she merely met his gaze with one she knew embodied her tired frustration. “It didn’t go well.” She made a finger gun and shot. “Bingo. And before you ask, no, I don’t want to recount our conversation or tell you what I felt after seeing him. Just know it was a bust, and I don’t want to talk about it past that.” Nick held up his hands, ready to defend himself, when Lara’s phone vibrated. She sighed, ready for whatever shit storm she was sure it would bring. Drink tonight at Hot Spot, Eve? Lara froze. “What’s wrong?” Nick asked. She handed him the phone, already standing with the intent to go straight to Cass to see if anyone currently working at the Hot Spot was named Eve. Though, she doubted it would be that simple. “The other shoe.” CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_1112be35-1193-5876-b4aa-2d2a65962a63) The Hot Spot was located in Union Square on Fourteenth Street. It was large, had an eclectic, urban vibe and was obviously popular. A constant stream of patrons flowed from the sidewalk inside while the sound of chatter and clinking glasses floated out. Lara shifted her weight from one boot to the other. Now she was standing across the street, trying to ready herself. For what? A dead body to be found or a dead body to be made? Lara rolled her shoulders back and gave herself a nod. It was time to find out, either way. Without focusing on Ty dressed down and leaning against the wall of the building next door, looking intently at his phone, Lara walked into the Hot Spot. As she suspected, the place was packed. She stopped just inside the door and scanned the crowd. Mei sat a few tables away from the bar, a glass of water in front of her. The seat opposite was empty. She checked her phone and looked around before checking it again. The frown that grew at not finding the person she was looking for made the cover that she was waiting on a date that much more believable. Lara spotted Nick next. Perched on a bar stool with a beer in his hand, he had positioned himself in the middle of the bar. From his profile, Lara could tell he was tense. His eyes were focused on his beer, but she had no doubt he was well aware of his surroundings. Xander had agreed to cover the back of the building, setting up a camera after casing the alley. He was out there now, attempting to look like a man on a smoke break. Ready and waiting. Lara walked farther into the moving throng of people bustling around, talking and drinking, a rolling sea of post-work lemmings. She rescanned the room but had no idea what she was even looking for. Women and men of varying ages, ethnicities and garb filled the Hot Spot. Some looked her way, others didn’t care. Was one of their names Eve? Was she going to be killed tonight? Maybe she already had been? Lara’s stomach tightened. She spotted the hanging bathroom signs and made her way through the crowd. The image of Elizabeth Grant lying on her side in the Macy’s dressing room pushed to the forefront of her mind. She hoped she wouldn’t find the same scene waiting for her again. The bathrooms were at the end of the hall, close to the back door for employees only. If the Black Stamp Serial Killer had wanted, he could have easily snuck in from the alley earlier in the night and taken out his prey with little to no visibility. At least now Xander was in position, watching all of the team’s collective backs. Lara pushed into the public two-stall bathroom with her hand already on the butt of her gun beneath her jacket. The soft sounds of a radio looping Nineties music filled the blue-walled bathroom, mixing with the smell of spilled perfumed hand soap and stale cigarettes. Making the scenery much different than the bar down the hall. Both stall doors were closed. “Anyone in here?” Lara asked, hand not leaving her gun. No one answered. She dropped down to look beneath the doors, careful not to put her knees on the tile. Lara let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding on to. There were no feet or bodies on the ground. Still she pushed open each door to make sure. Bathroom’s clean, she texted her team. She moved her jacket back so it would conceal her piece again and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair lay flat against her head, mimicking the wariness she had been battling since being called by Victoria that morning. Her eyes also told the same story. On a normal day the green of them looked alive. Now they stared back at her with a dull glint. The beginnings of dark circles ringed beneath them. She let out another breath. It shook. Nothing was going right. Nothing was making sense. Cass had tried to trace the cell number that had texted her but it couldn’t be traced. Of course it couldn’t be traced. That would have made things slightly more controllable for them. Having one answer instead of just another few questions of who the texter was and how had they gotten her number. Cass had also checked. No one named Eve worked at Hot Spot. Lara let out another not-so-stable breath. Waiting for their killer to strike had her more keyed up than she had originally thought. Her attention returned when her phone vibrated in her hand. Nothing suspicious out front. Moving back to the van in five, Ty responded. On the heels of that text came Xander’s. All’s clear out here too. Which meant whatever was going to happen was going to take place inside of the packed bar. Lara gave her reflection a smile before leaving. It was weak, and not even she bought its authenticity. Mei was in the middle of doing another scan of the room as Lara walked past to the bar. She was doing an excellent job of looking dejected. It made Lara wonder if the female agent had been stood up before. That thought led to the man sitting at the bar. Nick had opened up to her about his past, and she had let her guard down enough to let him see the more personal side of her. One topic they hadn’t broached was their past relationships. Was he the man who would wait at a bar for his date, or was he the man who kept the other waiting? On cue Lara’s cheeks heated. Her lips tingled at the memory of their quick kiss in another bar. The heat that pulsed through them where they had joined. The craving to push the boundaries until nothing was between them but skin and sweat. Lara shook her head. She needed to refocus and ask the bartender if they knew any regulars who went by the name Eve. It was a simple plan—direct, even—but Lara needed to find the connection and quick if they had any chance of potentially saving a woman’s life. She went to the end of the bar, to the far left of Nick, and cleared her throat. The two men hanging against the counter paused their conversation long enough to shuffle to the side, giving Lara barely enough room to squeeze in. She thought about flashing her badge or gun to make them learn some manners, but all entertaining thoughts quickly flew out the window as Lara’s eyes settled on Hot Spot’s current bartender. Lara found her connection all right. Slinging drinks as if she’d been born to do it was none other than Meghan Leary. Her sister. What the hell? Meghan was thirty-two, had long brown hair, wide hazel eyes, legs that kept going, and Bartholomew Grant’s strong nose. What she didn’t have was the same mother as Lara. Bartholomew had left Meghan and her mother when she was barely one for a pregnant Anna. It was something that her half sister never forgot and definitely never forgave. Meghan claimed Lara’s mother stole her father. It had created an always present rift that had widened tenfold when Anna was killed. “Your home-wrecking mother got what she deserved,” the eleven-year-old Meghan had yelled, chilling the young Lara right to the bones. Meghan’s mother and all her close family and associates had alibis for the murder, so any bitterness they had all felt had been just that. But that didn’t stop Lara from not fighting the rapidly growing disconnect between her and her half sister. They’d barely had contact before then, and, Lara quickly calculated, the two hadn’t talked or seen each other since they were teens. And now here she was, staring at a memory in the flesh. But was that memory the one haunting her now? The one sending the texts? Catching Nick’s eye, she pulled his gaze to the phone in her hand and started a message to her team. The surprise seems to be in the form of my half sister, the bartender. Not sure how’s she connected. Meghan Leary. Cass, check her background? Lara didn’t get a chance to see if Nick read the text before the bartender moved over to her. “What can I get—” Meghan stopped. Her question fell away. Her hand and the rag in it froze midair. Lara might not have liked her half sister, but right then and there she made a decision without any concrete facts. Meghan wasn’t the instigator. She was a potential victim. Meghan’s surprise at seeing Lara was so pronounced, so genuine that for a moment Lara forgot to speak. “What the hell are you doing here?” Apparently Meghan could handle the shock better than her younger sister. Her face twisted into a scowl. She still hadn’t forgiven Lara for the actions of their father. “We need to talk,” Lara said, raising her voice above the conversation next to her. Meghan’s frown turned to an expression of incredulity at her request. Before she could refuse, Lara pulled out her badge and placed it on the bar top. “Now.” Meghan looked between the ID and Lara. “I heard you were FBI,” she finally responded. There was no note of surprise or appreciation in her tone. “I have a twenty-minute break coming up in five. Can you at least wait until then?” Lara wanted to say no. She wanted to tell Meghan that for once in her life she needed to absolutely listen to Lara. And to do it now. However, as Lara looked at her only living relative, she couldn’t help but back down. “I’ll stay right here until then,” she consented. “Your five minutes start now.” Meghan rolled her eyes and went back to taking orders. Five minutes later, on the dot, Lara led them to the table against the wall that Mei had vacated. She took the seat opposite the woman and marveled at how much she’d changed since they’d seen one another. Taller, for sure. Curvy but purposely so. A cluster of outlined birds was tattooed below her collarbone and Lara quickly noted the several piercings on the woman’s right ear. Meghan the bartender wasn’t as clean-cut as she had been when they were younger. What had once been an almost prissy, preppy disposition had obviously evolved throughout the years they had been apart. Lara wondered if Meghan was cataloging all of the changes in her. Were there any? Yes, there were. She felt it in her bones. The day her mother had been killed had changed her. The day her father had been blamed had only pushed her further. Meghan might still see her as the naive, innocent little girl she’d once been. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/carla-cassidy/tough-justice-series-box-set-parts-1-8/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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