Tough Justice Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  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

  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. “T
here 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 resol
ve 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

  “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.”