Armed 'N' Ready

by Tee O'Fallon

  “Was she awake when you found her?”

  He looked at Cox. “What?”

  “I asked if she was awake when you found her?”

  The agent wore an expression that told Nick he needed to pull his shit together and pay attention.

  “Yeah. In the shower. Washing her dog,” he added as a quasi-plausible explanation as to what could be taking her so long.

  Several agents and other officers looked his way and snickered. Word traveled fast during a search warrant, so he assumed everyone else knew exactly where he’d located Ms. Hardt.

  “I see.” Cox grinned. “Not as much as you did, I’m guessing.”

  He glared at Cox, making no effort to disguise his irritation. “She was wearing a bathing suit.” Granted, a little one.

  For a Feeb, Cox was okay, but the implication that Nick really was a voyeur pissed him off. Not only had he done his best to minimize the woman’s embarrassment by keeping the other uniforms from entering the bathroom, but he’d tried to get the only female officer on site upstairs ASAP to deal with the situation.

  Ignoring the jibe, he returned his gaze to the Accurint report in the folder. “Andi Hardt received her master’s from Columbia School of Business, then became a financial planner at an investment firm in New York City. After ten years with the firm, she picked up stakes, moved to Massachusetts, and opened the Dog Park Café.” Attached to the Accurint report was a printout from the restaurant’s website dated yesterday. He noted the ad in the upper right corner of the page. Bartender Wanted. Call Andi. A phone number was included, and he guessed it was either the number for the pink cell he’d grabbed upstairs, or another phone associated with the café.

  “Interesting.” Cox made a few notes on a pad. “She and Myer both graduated from the Columbia School of Business, and they’re into financial planning. I’d say there’s a history there. With what we got from her bank, it looks like she’s buried at least up to her ass in Myer’s mess.”

  “Looks like.” Nick tapped the keyboard idly with his fingers. “Photo upstairs aside, we’ve been surveilling him for six months and until now, never caught her once at the house. The only people we saw coming and going besides him were the cash mules dropping off envelopes in the mailbox. Could be something changed between them.”

  Cox made another note. “Let’s get a subpoena for his and Andi Hardt’s cell phone records. Eventually we’ll get the laptop, and maybe we’ll see a pattern of calls between the two of them right before he makes a dirty financial transaction.”

  “Possibly.” Nick closed the folder. “But the subpoena requested records going back five years, and there was only one transaction between Myer’s tainted account and one of Andi’s accounts. If she’s his accomplice, I would have expected to see more than one.”

  “Agreed.” Cox nodded. “We’ll have to ask her about that. No matter her answer, she won’t be happy when she finds out what we did to her account. The court order was served on her bank yesterday just before closing.”

  “That oughta get her attention.” Of that, he had no doubt.

  It sure looked like she was Myer’s accomplice, but he’d learned long ago that not everything was what it seemed, and people weren’t always who you thought they were. Some kept their personal torment carefully hidden beneath a veneer of happiness.

  Until it’s too late to help them. He knew that firsthand.

  He tossed the folder on the table then stood, preparing to storm upstairs and throw Ms. Hardt over his shoulder, regardless of whether she was dressed or not.

  Calm your ass down.

  Just because she triggered all his switches was no reason to behave like a total dick and make a fool of himself. He clicked his mic. “Malloy. Where is she?”

  Malloy came back instantly, only not over the radio. “Right here, Sarge.”

  His—and every other man’s—eyes were riveted to the stairs. The room went totally silent as Andi Hardt glided down the staircase with what Nick could only describe as a combination of athletic grace and royal bearing. On anyone else, the khaki shorts and blue tank he’d grabbed for her would have looked drab. On her it was alluring. With her blond hair braided and a few wispy strands escaping around her high cheekbones, Daisy Duke had nothing on her.

  Again, get your head out of your ass.

  She was a suspect and most likely a player in a major money laundering scheme. On top of that, she was sleeping in Myer’s house and was probably his girlfriend, his accomplice, or both. Whichever one it was, he’d get the truth out of her, including finding out where Myer was holing up.

  A few steps from the bottom, she paused. Cornflower-blue eyes looked straight at him. When she quickly averted her gaze, he detected a faint blush on her high cheekbones, and he understood why.

  Unlike the other men in the room, he was the only one who’d seen her practically naked.

  Chapter Two

  At the bottom of the stairs, eight sets of male heads turned to Andi, although only two men stood when she entered the dining room—one wearing a dark blue shirt that said Federal Agent on the front, and Sgt. Nicholas Houston.

  When she met his penetrating gray eyes, her face heated. Groaning inwardly, she wondered if he’d regaled the rest of the cops and agents in the house about discovering her in the shower. They probably assumed she’d been totally nude.

  Reality check.

  With that itty-bitty bikini, she might as well have been naked. Though she hated to admit it, he’d exhibited surprising chivalry by preventing his colleagues from storming into the bathroom before she could cover herself.

  “Miss Hardt,” the agent said as he indicated the chair Sgt. Houston had vacated. “I’m FBI Special Agent Randy Cox. Please, have a seat.”

  Crossing her arms, she gave his proposition some thought. “Am I under arrest?” Couldn’t hurt to ask that question again.

  “No,” he said without hesitation, alleviating only a speck of her mounting unease. “You’re free to leave at any time, but we’d appreciate your cooperation.”

  “What kind of cooperation?” She moved closer to the dining room table and found the other officers in the room watching her with obvious curiosity. “I’m not sure I want to answer any questions until you tell me exactly what’s going on and why you have a search warrant for this house.”

  “Fair enough.” Cox sat, then beckoned her again to do the same.

  Reluctantly, she did. Next to the chair lay the giant black K-9, although the dog’s head remained on the floor. The animal’s only movement was a flick of his golden gaze in her direction.

  He really is beautiful. Resisting the urge to run her fingers through the thick black coat, she refocused on her predicament.

  These men were being extremely evasive, but she’d play their game. At least long enough to get some answers. Not that she would automatically believe anything that came from their mouths. She’d learned the hard way to exercise more caution before trusting people. The one time she hadn’t, she’d nearly been burned to a crisp.

  She noted Sgt. Houston remained standing behind her, and she felt his presence like the grim reaper waiting for her to drop dead so he could collect her soul. Something about him unnerved her, and it wasn’t because of the awkward way they’d met. He was trying to intimidate her, and it was working.

  No, it’s more than that. It’s him. He was way too masculine and unyielding.

  Like a solid brick wall.

  “This is a copy of the search warrant.” Cox handed her a document consisting of several pages stapled together. “Take a few minutes to look it over.”

  She picked up the warrant and began reading. At the top of the first page in bold letters were the words U.S. District Court. She’d only dealt with the courts one other time in her life. A time I’d rather forget. The document was signed by a District Court judge and authorized federal agents to search Joe’s house and his office in Springfield.

  “Flip to Attachment A, the second page.” Cox did the
same with what looked like a duplicate of the warrant. “This is a list of the items we’re authorized to seize.”

  She scanned the dozen or so numbered items on Attachment A. Articles of incorporation for Joe’s business, business licenses, emails, computers, laptops, various storage devices such as thumb drives and DVDs, and cash. But it was the last item that took her completely by surprise.

  “Guns?” She snapped her gaze to Cox then twisted her neck to look behind her at Houston. Sgt. Houston watched her impassively, without a flicker of emotion, although she noted a hardening of that rock-solid jawline. She began shaking her head. “You can’t be serious. This has to be a mistake.”

  “Again, there’s no mistake.” Houston repositioned himself at the edge of the table. “You and your boyfriend are up to your eyeballs in money laundering for a gunrunner.”

  “Whoa. Wait a minute. Me?” She stared at Houston, her eyes as wide as they could possibly go. “You must have me confused with someone else. I don’t have anything to do with money laundering or a gunrunner. And what do you mean, my boyfriend?” For a second, she didn’t know what shocked her more, that she and Joe were being investigated by the FBI and the state police for money laundering and gunrunning, or that they all assumed she was his girlfriend. Then again, she’d been in his bathroom at six in the morning, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that they’d jumped to that conclusion. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she insisted.

  Houston’s tone hardened. “Then why are you here?”

  “My place has plumbing problems, and since Joe was going to be out of town for a while, he offered me his place to crash for a couple nights.”

  “Where is he now?” Cox asked.

  “I already told Sgt. Houston I don’t know, and Joe didn’t say. Did you ask his parents, or his brother or sisters?”

  “We did,” Houston confirmed. “They have no idea where he is. When was the last time you talked to him?”

  He looked at her so intently that she felt his gaze boring into her like twin lasers, and she had the distinct impression he was angry. Well, I didn’t do anything.

  “Yesterday,” she answered. “Right before he left. He gave me keys to the house.”

  Cox jotted something on a pad. “Did he say when he’d be back?”

  “No.” She twisted the edges of the warrant in her hands. Again, it hit her that he’d always let her know when he’d be returning. This time he hadn’t.

  Cox tapped his pen on the pad. “You used to be a financial planner in New York City. You and Myer both went to Columbia for your business degrees. Did you ever work together?”

  “No. After graduation, Joe moved to Massachusetts. I stayed in New York.”

  “Are you working together now?” Cox asked.

  “No.” The warrant audibly crinkled as she all but gouged her nails clean through the papers.

  “There’s a photo of you and Myer upstairs in his bedroom,” Houston interjected. “The two of you look pretty cozy. If you’re not his girlfriend, and you’re not his accomplice, what’s your connection to the guy?”

  “We’re friends.” When Houston arched an eyebrow, it was obvious he wasn’t buying her story, but it was true. Now, anyway. “Okay, we dated and lived together while we were at Columbia, then after we graduated, we decided our romance had died a quiet death and we were just good friends, so we broke it off.” And in all the years since, she hadn’t had a meaningful relationship with anyone. Except for Steve, and that had been a disaster that still haunted her.

  Maybe it’s my fault for being so gullible.

  She swallowed the shame inside her. Given the dire predicament Joe was in at the moment, there were more important things at hand than whining about her personal crisis. And as for her gullibility, she lived with Joe for two years and knew every aspect of his personality. There was no way she could have missed such a huge part of who he was. It wasn’t possible. There has to be an explanation.

  “After we broke up,” she continued, “Joe moved here to Springfield and opened his own company, but we remained friends and spoke regularly on the phone.”

  “About what?” Sgt. Houston asked.

  “About everything. Business, his new clients, his new house, restaurants he’d been to lately.” That was something they’d shared—a love of good food, wine, and beer. While they’d been together, they frequented so many restaurants and wine tastings she’d lost count.

  Cox looked up from his notes. “What did you discuss about his business?”

  “That it was going well, but not quite as well as he’d expected.” She bit her lower lip. The first time she’d seen Joe’s three-story McMansion and pricy new silver Mercedes, she had thought they were a bit extravagant considering the income he said he was pulling in. “But recently, he told me he got a new client and business was picking up.”

  Cox’s brows drew together sharply. “What new client?”

  “He didn’t say.” Her gut twisted with more worry. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but she had asked who the new client was, and he’d smoothly avoided telling her.

  “What’s your connection with his business?” This from Sgt. Houston.

  “There is no connection. I told you already, we never worked together.” Their suspicion and mistrust were beginning to piss her off.

  “Then what brought you from New York City to Springfield?” Cox asked.

  Christ, these two are relentless. She’d been swinging her head back and forth, answering their questions as best she could, but it was getting annoying.

  “Joe knew I was fed up with the grinding commute into Manhattan and that I was looking for a change. He said there was an old restaurant on a nice piece of property about to go up for sale, and he suggested it might be the perfect location for me to open my place.” That was only part of the reason she’d moved. The real truth was that she’d needed to get as far away as possible from Steve and her former employers. But Cox and Houston didn’t need to know that.

  “I opened the Dog Park Café about a year ago.” The best decision of my life, and I’m damned proud of it.

  The only good thing to come from Steve’s treachery was that it pushed—no, forced—her to discover her brass ovaries and then do whatever it took to realize her dream: opening a cozy, inviting café and dog park that catered to humans and canines. She’d never regret the monumental change, but at thirty-five she was starting a brand-new life for herself. Alone.

  Cox threw down his pen. “You left what had to be a highly lucrative income in a big city to open a restaurant in the middle of the woods?”

  She nodded. “Lots of people try new things when they get fed up with the rat race. New York is a place of incredible opportunity, but after a while it sucks the life out of you.” And it had. “The commute alone is enough to drive a person crazy.” That part was true. Even her language had deteriorated during the daily drive into lower Manhattan. She’d invented several new curse words that would make a truck driver applaud her ingenuity.

  Sgt. Houston made a hmph sound. “Are you and Myer still intimate?”

  She glared at him. “That’s none of your business.”

  “It is if you’re working with him,” he shot back.

  Gray eyes bored into her, and she really did feel as if she were under a spotlight. His spotlight. Not for the first time since she’d come down the stairs, her face heated until she squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. Looking away from those piercing, knowing eyes, she swallowed before answering.

  “I am not sleeping with him. We haven’t been together since grad school.” When her response was met with silence, her face grew hotter, and she clenched her fists, glaring at Houston. “And for the last time, I’m not working with him.”

  “Did Joe invest in your restaurant?” Cox asked, rescuing her from more of Houston’s humiliating interrogation.

  “No, I bought it with my own money. I put everything I had into the place.” Including cashing out most of her retirement nest e
gg. If her venture failed, she was toast.

  She realized this was a tag-team thing, the two men intentionally peppering her with question after question in an attempt to catch her off guard, so she’d inadvertently spill some kind of secret or get caught in a lie. But she had no secrets. Well, almost none. And she definitely wasn’t lying.

  “What’s really going on here?” Again, she swiveled her gaze from Cox to Houston and back again. They might not be lying outright, but they definitely weren’t telling her everything. “Joe isn’t the kind of person to have anything to do with guns. He doesn’t even like guns.”

  “Maybe not.” Cox leaned back in his chair. “But he has no qualms about laundering money for those who do. The question is how much you’re involved.”

  “I’m not. How many times do I have to tell you that?” Her stomach clenched with the shocked realization that despite what she kept telling them, they still thought she was Joe’s accomplice.

  She noticed for the first time that when she spoke, the baby-faced agent sitting at one of the laptops clicked away on the keyboard. Whenever she stopped talking, he stopped typing.

  He’s making a transcript of everything I say.

  “I’m thinking I may need a lawyer.”

  Cox let out an audible breath, then crossed his arms, giving her the clear impression that he was annoyed with her threat to seek legal counsel. “That’s your prerogative.”

  “Yes, it is.” She mimicked him by crossing her arms. “I know my Constitutional rights.”

  “Before you decide to lawyer up”—Sgt. Houston leaned down until his face was inches from hers, giving her a massive dose of his manly fresh scent—“allow me to put this in perspective for you. Last week, I was first on scene at a shooting. A fourteen-year-old girl was caught in gang crossfire. She took a bullet to the head. Her brains were splattered all over the sidewalk. Your ex-boyfriend is a bookkeeper for the same dealer who put that gun—and hundreds, if not thousands of others just like it—on the street. Thanks to them, Springfield is now a mini war zone. So, if you’re sincere about cooperating, then you’ll answer the man’s questions. All his questions. If Myer’s innocent, then the facts will support it. If he’s not, he’ll have to answer for his crimes. Trust me, we wouldn’t be here if he were innocent. Your innocence is also in question.”