Tracking Shadows (Shadows of Justice 4)

by Black, Regan

  She'd fallen for the oldest disguise in the book. But she had a few surprises of her own. Though she hated doing it, she projected a thousand spiders crawling along her skin and rushing over the man holding her. His resistance surprised her. She struggled to hold on to the distasteful illusion until he finally released her with a panicked cry. She promised herself a soothing hot, real-water shower at the earliest opportunity.

  Pressing her advantage she slid out of his reach, crushing his foot with her own. He howled, trying to get away, but the crates made it impossible. She swiped at the nearest camera, twisted around, and landed a punch that knocked him out.

  "You okay?" a female voice called from the truck's cab. "What the hell is the problem?"

  "Got it handled," Trina replied, hoping the truck's engine masked her voice.

  "Good. Almost there."

  'There' had to be the storage center. She wondered if Mary had roped them into an upgraded climate controlled unit. Would serve them right.

  She felt the driver pause at the gate, heard the squeak as it rolled out of the way. Having memorized the layout, when the truck lurched forward and made two turns, she knew they were headed for the larger units at the outer edge of the complex.

  Interesting.

  She mentally sorted through her options since she hadn't been prepared for kidnapping people when she went out this evening. Letting them go meant they'd tell their boss. Keeping them trapped in the truck or storage unit was a temporary situation, but killing them felt too permanent. She didn't even know what sort of contraband they'd brought in.

  Ben groaned a bit as she patted him down, searching for weapons or anything useful. Reaching inside his jacket, she seized the cell card, and did a mental hallelujah when she found a pack of plastic zip ties in a pants pocket.

  She scowled at Ben while she cuffed his wrists around the rack built into the truck, refusing to ponder how he intended to use them.

  "Never underestimate a nice guy," she muttered to his unconscious form. Joel had taught her to assume the best in people, but in her experience life required a tough practicality that bordered on cynical.

  She completed her search, relieving Ben of the knife at his hip as the truck eased to a stop. The engine died and Trina prepared for the driver's unhappy reaction to finding Ben wasn't in control back here.

  Hearing the driver's door open and slam shut, Trina crouched on top of the crate closest to the door. Her position increased her advantage with the bonus of blocking any view of Ben.

  The driver was complaining about the wrecked camera as she pulled up the cargo door.

  Trina attacked with every ounce of her pent up frustration. She didn't bother creating a hallucination, she simply overpowered the woman, flying at her and knocking her down to the storage unit's concrete floor. The element of surprise and the impact stole the driver's breath and Trina capitalized on the weakness, locking her legs around the woman's rib cage. She held fast even after the woman went limp, expecting the fake. Not a fair fight, but an efficient one, and soon the woman was trussed up with zip ties, swearing a blue streak the moment she came to.

  "You'll die, you miserable thief."

  Trina wished for a gag as the insults continued with increasing creativity, but she settled for examining the cargo.

  "Cigarettes? That's all?" It seemed questions were more effective than a gag as the woman finally shut her mouth. "Who are you working for?"

  The driver glared so viciously, Trina instinctively stepped back. "I've heard Slick Micky instills a cult-like loyalty."

  Oh, she tried to stifle it, but the driver's natural instinct to defend her boss flashed on her face like a neon sign.

  "So if he's Ben, does that make you Jerry?"

  The driver only rolled her eyes. Of course it was a horrible joke, but Trina wanted the driver to understand who had the pertinent details.

  She tapped the cell card. "I bet Ben's got all the numbers I need right here. Names too probably."

  "No way. He knows better."

  "We'll see."

  The driver thrashed around, but the ties at her wrists and ankles held fast.

  Trina tapped the card, recalling the last call Ben accepted on the dance floor. The driver's pocket started ringing. "Nice to meet you, Darlene."

  Darlene sneered and shoved her shoulder into Ben's. "Idiot."

  "I take it he's new?"

  "You'll take whatever you want anyway. What are you going to do with us?"

  Trina ignored her, leaving the truck to inventory the rest of the storage unit. A clever modification, she saw, glancing up at the non-standard door rails. Darlene had driven the truck straight in and closed the door. Mary would have bragging rights forever if she discovered this. Trina moved on to the crates and boxes of various sizes lining the walls from floor to ceiling, leaving just enough space to maneuver and unload the truck when it was parked.

  She smiled to herself when Darlene started swearing and thrashing again. She peeked in a few of the unlabeled crates, but didn't find anything more exciting than coffee beans. The contraband was all too boring for a serious smuggler like the Slick Micky.

  Maybe that was the idea. Trina returned to the truck, shooting her own glare at Darlene. The woman looked like she'd tangled with a small tornado, her arms twisted and one leg caught between the racks in the truck and her shoulder.

  "You really need to relax."

  "Screw you."

  Trina chuckled. "Ben'll have a heart attack when he wakes up."

  "Probably." She blew at her wispy bangs. "You're the girl he just met at the Levee." Darlene swore again. "Gawd. No wonder the assassin gig didn't work out. He's so damned green."

  "What?"

  "He asked you out right?"

  "Not that. The assassin thing." She motioned for Darlene to elaborate.

  "Why should I help you?"

  Trina infused her voice with all the fear-inducing power she possessed. "Because I am the assassin."

  Darlene, seeing exactly what Trina wanted her to see, started to cry. "He was making it up. Had to be." She choked and snuffled. "Wh-who would believe that crap about how he was gonna kill Micky until a gargoyle talked to him and someone from Micky's place found him and saved his ass?"

  "What?" Trina had witnessed a variety of odd reactions to the hallucinations she created, but this topped the list. "Talking gargoyle?"

  "Stupid, right?"

  Dancing, let's-have-drinks Ben didn't look like any killer material she'd ever seen, especially when he was unconscious. Then his face clicked in her memory. His eyes specifically. He'd been one of the guards disguised as a squatter in the abandoned house that was really a guard post. The king of smuggling was pretty damned confident if Ben really had been hired to kill him. Although, she couldn't see Ben as a real threat either. Still, Slick Micky, his reach and his resources were starting to live up to the ridiculous hype.

  Trina returned to the present problem with more confidence knowing she was dealing with Slick Micky's people. "How did you get access to this unit?"

  "I rented it." Darlene shook her head. "I'm surrounded by idiots."

  "Fair enough." She deserved Darlene's scorn for asking a stupid question. "Guess we're done here." Trina hopped down from the truck and went around to the cab, beaming at the wealth of technology she found. Some days the stars did line up in her favor.

  She tuned out the thuds and thumps that confirmed Darlene's renewed determination to break free, but she turned up the audio feed in case Darlene woke Ben and tried to plot something. Darlene's taunts and insults carried into the cab, claiming Trina would never figure it out. Comical really. Even if the master key was still on Darlene, it only took a quick skim through Ben's cell card and the truck's secrets tumbled free. Oh how she appreciated an intuitive programmer.

  The emergency beacon was easy to find, and trickier to fool, but it was possible. She pulled up the recent history which included video of the area. Praise God for paranoid smugglers. Scanning t
hrough, she found the perfect ambush point and sent out the distress call.

  And if Slick Micky doesn't show? The pesky little voice in her head was annoying.

  Clearly he had money to burn, the bastard. How big was the operation? How many layers did she have to dispense with before she could deal with the man himself?

  She twirled Ben's cell card between her fingers and carefully considered the likely moves of her opponent based on what she knew of his employees. April. Darlene. Ben. Mary. No, not Mary. She didn't fit the profile. Too flighty. She was simply working at a business exploited by a vicious smuggler.

  Trina ghosted the card's signals and copied as much of the truck's recent history as possible while she considered her next step.

  Her instincts said Darlene and Ben would go to the mat for their boss out of devotion. They didn't look like substance abusers, but she knew not all mind control techniques and drugs left obvious, outward damage. Especially not if the user was new to the process.

  Her own career was such proof of how dark secrets didn't leave visible marks. Trina was swamped for a moment with the faces of her many kills. It stole her breath before she identified the rare, bewildering assault as guilt. With a shiver, she put it behind her, breathing slow and deep as she straightened her shoulders.

  Clearly, Ben and Darlene would die before giving up Slick Micky. She wondered if the reverse was true. Did Slick Micky earn that loyalty because he'd die for any of the people on his team?

  The cold logic that kept her at the top of her profession said there was only one way to find out.

  Chapter Nine

  Micky came awake in an instant. One moment eyes closed, the next wide open, with a clear view of a stark white ceiling. Not his own bedroom. Finally he remembered he was in the infirmary.

  Well he'd certainly put in top of the line equipment, judging by the comfortable bed beneath him.

  Relieved by the absence of sensors and oxygen hoods, he started fiddling with buttons on the bed rail.

  His first attempt tilted his feet higher than his head. Dizzy, he gave up, rolling to his side in an effort to escape the automated contraption.

  A nurse came bustling in from the other side of the room. "Sir, you shouldn't be up yet."

  He studied her face, but her name escaped him. "I'm fine."

  With impressive speed, she had the bed positioned like a recliner and she nudged him back into place. "I have orders."

  "I'm usually the one giving them," he grumbled.

  "Well that's a bonus."

  "What?"

  "Your memory is intact."

  "There was doubt?"

  "Based on the blood work and that odd substance you chose to inhale, the doctor told me to expect anything."

  "We have a doctor?"

  The nurse ignored him, measuring vital signs with equipment that scared him. A sweep of his brow popped a light on the monitor near his head. He reached over to angle it so he could see better and the nurse deftly angled it back.

  "You don't know what any of it means anyway."

  "I would if you told me." He instantly regretted the challenge as she explained in graphic detail about the normal ranges of blood pressure and pulse rates. "Boring," he said when she finished.

  "That brings us to core body temperature," she intoned as if she were lecturing first year med students at Harvard.

  "You don't scare me."

  "Whatever you sniffed at should scare you."

  "Did Chloe come in for treatment?"

  The nurse gave him a chiding look. "Patient privacy."

  "But I'm her boss."

  "In that case, she appears to be fine sir."

  "Thank you." He didn't want to consider losing someone else. Sis had been a buffer between him and the mules, but he did care about every individual on his team. "So when will you cut me loose?"

  "As soon as the doctor clears you." She pressed a remote into his hand and smiled.

  Micky grumbled, but the nurse ignored him as she left the room. Looking at the remote, he pressed a few buttons and the entertainment display slid up from the foot of the bed. He was more than a little annoyed to find the news channels were offline. The machine monitoring his vital signs beeped and scolded him, making him wonder if the theory about denying a news junkie his fix really was better for the patient's overall health.

  Well, he couldn't change it, so he tried to find something amusing or informative. Pausing at a documentary on Bio-dome research, he tried to learn something. But the narrator focused on the personality conflicts of the researchers rather than the advances and discoveries they were making in their plastic bubble.

  He made a mental note to check with Lorine. She and her young son had been with him awhile now and she possessed the unique combination of amazing intelligence and the ability to communicate with the average person. She'd be a better narrator for something like this. Maybe he should make a call.

  Micky sighed. Why the hell did he care about the Bio-dome show? He flipped through channels looking for something, anything else, when the transparent screen shifted to the office logo of his attending physician. Micky sat up a little straighter and tried to look healthy.

  "Good morning," the doctor said absently. His eyes were on his desk, probably on the report from the nurse. The doctor frowned, then looked up and studied Micky through the web-cam. "You look better."

  "Thank you."

  The doctor asked a series of stupid questions to verify Micky was indeed living in the present again.

  "Well done, well done. I'll put a stamp on your release."

  "Wonderful." Micky suppressed the urge to toss back the sheet and leap from the bed. "Do you have any idea what I inhaled?"

  "Yes and no. The components are all known, but I've never seen such a combination. I'll send you the results." He cleared his throat and started fidgeting.

  Micky recognized a morals lecture and sighed. "What?"

  "I don't pretend to understand your business."

  Micky waited.

  The doctor scowled, clearly upset. "If you're dealing this substance I recommend you quit. Regardless of the profit margin. It's too volatile."

  "I'll take that under advisement." Butting heads with the doc was the last thing he wanted this morning. He reached for the remote. "If that's all?"

  "Push fluids today. If you feel lightheaded, breathless or start wheezing, come in for a breathing treatment. The nurse has my orders to check on you periodically."

  "Got it."

  "Cooperate with her."

  "Doc," he warned.

  "You'll read this report?"

  Micky relented. The man was a valued member of his team even though he believed Micky was a hard core criminal. "Yes. I'll read it. I can't promise you this is the last time I'll be close to the stuff. But I swear I'm not the one distributing it."

  Technology couldn't blunt the doc's obvious relief. "Thank you." He leaned back in his chair. "I included the recommended counter agent, should you have another problem."

  "Didn't realize there was such a thing for a pot overdose."

  The doc shook his head. "Read the report, Micky."

  Micky raised the remote in a salute and disconnected. But he didn't have to read in bed. He summoned the nurse and asked for a hard copy of the doc's report. He skimmed the bewildering chemical analysis and studied the cause and effect written in plain English on the following pages.

  The hell with rest, he had to investigate this issue to protect his girls. His instincts were screaming that he'd been duped by the new nicotine supplier. He'd done the homework, researched the source.

  And still managed to get poisoned. Nearly killed if the doc wasn't being dramatic. Which, Micky knew, the doc didn't go for. One reason he kept him on was his level head in any emergency.

  Micky thought about how the dock pick up would have gone if he hadn't been there training Ben. It flashed through this mind like a movie. Driver and loader, confirmation of product at the pick up point, and
on to storage for unloading and inventory.

  Two more members of his team, his family, would be injured or dead by now.

  Sabotage was a coward's game but not knowing the source made it a very real threat. Plenty of his enemies had the motive, but few had the reach and inside information to do this.

  A brutal chill of dread raced over his skin as he plucked off the last sensors and pulled on his clothes. He was stomping his feet into his work boots when Jim stormed through the infirmary door.

  "You're up already?"

  "We've got trouble up at the docks. Have you heard from Ben or Darlene?"

  "How'd you know about that?"

  "About what?" Micky recognized Jim's grim expression as something more serious. "I'm fine. Just tell me what the hell you're talking about."

  "We have a distress call. From Darlene's truck."

  "Damn. I knew that deal was too good."

  "I've got a team ready to respond –"

  "Great. Tell them they can back me up."

  "C'mon, boss. You can't possibly be ready to go out there."

  Micky shouldered him aside, heading out the door. He heard Jim's booted feet behind him, but he refused to discuss anything in the open hallway. They stood silently in the elevator and as much as he appreciated how well Jim knew him, Micky was reminded of the staggering responsibility he had to those who were loyal and depending on him.

  "Tell me everything," Micky demanded when they reached his apartment. He signaled for the run down while he brewed a pot of coffee.

  "The usual feed from the truck was corrupted shortly after Darlene reported a successful pick up at the docks. Is coffee good for you?"

  He glared.

  "The stimulant –"

  "The report. Please." Still Jim hesitated. "Leave the medical assessment to the professionals." He pulled out a second mug. "I'll share."

  Jim shook his head. "I've had my fill for now. The last signal from the truck is choppy, but it could just be glitchy tech. Looks like she made it to the storage unit and things went all to hell."