Harlequin Intrigue June 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: To Honor and To ProtectCorneredUntraceable

by Debra

  Juliet forced herself to relax. She’d feel better once Evan’s initial meeting with Vince Cady was complete. So much rode on this one event.

  Her brother Sawyer stuck his head in the door. “Heard from Karcz?”

  “A couple of hours ago. Everything seemed good. Meeting scheduled for eleven.” Juliet looked down at the clock on one of the computer screens she had open. Five minutes to eleven. Moment of truth.

  “Cam and I are headed into DC proper. Bomb threat issue and the Bureau needs some extra hands. All available agents are headed in.”

  Juliet nodded. “Okay. Well, I’ve definitely got it covered here. Just waiting for Evan to check in after the meeting. Nothing I can really do except wait. But in case he needs any emergency info I want to be standing by.”

  “Okay, sis. We’ll be on cell phone silence because of the bomb threat. FBI on the scene is concerned that the perps might be using a cell to detonate, so they’re jamming all frequencies.”

  “I’ll figure something out if I need you. I’m expecting a boring day.”

  Sawyer left and Juliet went back to her work. One computer actively monitored the Baltimore Police Department. They had no idea what was going on with this case, so could actually stumble in and do harm if she wasn’t careful. She’d give them info on a need-to-know basis, if it looked as if they might interfere with the case somehow. She’d also been reading through the files of Vince Cady’s known associates all morning. Nothing terribly interesting there, either, but Juliet wanted to make sure she was up to speed on all the names and faces.

  She almost missed it. Amid the chaos of the monitors and files, hypervigilant in her effort to make sure she could provide any support Evan might need—overcompensating for guilt much?—Juliet almost missed the single communiqué that could bring the entire operation crashing down.

  It was an automated email from the Omega system. It had filtered through the Virginia courts and correction system, and provided a list of three people who had been released from a Richmond jail on bond this morning at eight o’clock. Omega’s system only red-flagged info concerning criminals or suspects in their database—people Omega had caught, were currently trying to catch, or planned to catch in the future.

  The system listed one of the releases, a low-level hired thug named Mark Bolick, because of the agent who had apprehended the suspect: Evan Karcz. At first Juliet didn’t pay the communiqué any attention. As an analyst, she had multiple lists like this come across her computer screen every day.

  Mark Bolick had been arrested last month during an altercation between the crime group DS-13 and some Omega agents, a situation that had almost left her brother Sawyer dead. Most of the members of DS-13, including the dirty ex-FBI agent running the crime ring, had been killed. But some had been arrested, including Bolick. Evan had been undercover, not directly involved in the case. But because Sawyer, the agent in charge, had been in critical condition, Evan had arrested the remaining bad guys. Not common practice in undercover work.

  Mark Bolick in and of himself wasn’t much of a problem. Juliet didn’t know why he was getting out on bail so early and didn’t really care. The problem was Bolick had ties to Vince Cady, based on information she’d read in the files this morning. Although he didn’t seem to be a big part of Cady’s organization, he was dating Cady’s niece.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Bolick, after sitting in jail for over a month, would be heading up to Baltimore as soon as possible, probably to see his girlfriend. But it wasn’t a stretch to think he might check in with Cady immediately.

  And he’d be sure to remember the man posing as Bob Sinclair as the one who had arrested him just a few weeks before. That would mean the end of the case for Evan.

  And probably his life, especially if they’d already discussed any details about anything. Or maybe just because Cady or one of his men would see it as an opportunity to get rid of an undercover cop.

  Juliet immediately speed dialed Evan’s phone. A call was risky, but at least produced immediate communication. Evan would be able to talk his way out of it, make up some excuse to Cady about why he was taking the call.

  But he didn’t answer.

  Juliet immediately sent a text from her computer to the same number. Aunt Suzie had a heart attack. Mom needs you to come home right away.

  Aunt Suzie was the signal for general emergency. Come home right away meant to get out of there now. Evan wouldn’t have any details, but he would know what the message meant.

  Juliet sat staring at her computer, waiting for the screen to give a received message. All Omega-issued phones had the capacity to show if a message had been received. Helpful, but not foolproof, since it couldn’t notify the handler if the agent was the one who had actually read the text. Just that it had been accessed.

  Juliet didn’t necessarily expect Evan to respond, depending on what was going on in the meeting with Cady, but she did want to know the warning had been received.

  But nothing. She sent the text again, just to be sure. Still nothing.

  Multiple scenarios ran through her head ranging from the benign—Evan was in a momentary situation where he couldn’t access his phone or didn’t have a signal—to the catastrophic—he had already been exposed as an undercover agent and executed by Vince Cady.

  Juliet gave it five more minutes, sending the message three more times.

  Nothing.

  She looked at her watch and did some quick calculations. Eleven-fifteen. Evan should definitely already be meeting with Cady by now. And it was a hundred fifty miles from Richmond to Baltimore, so it was conceivable that Mark Bolick could’ve already made it there, too. She needed to find out where Evan was and get in touch with him.

  Juliet opened the program that allowed her to use Evan’s phone as a tracker. She entered in the code for it and waited.

  Device not found.

  Juliet entered in the code one more time to be sure. Nothing again. Now she really began to worry. There were too many unknowns in this situation. She had to make a decision. She didn’t want to blow the operation for nothing, but neither was she willing to risk Evan’s life.

  She called the contact number she had for the Baltimore PD. Quickly she explained the situation to a ranking officer there, asking him to send out a unit to check the location of Evan’s meeting with Cady near the Baltimore Pier, explaining the need for speed but also stealth, if possible. The officer assured her of their cooperation and that he would call back shortly.

  It didn’t take long, about fifteen minutes—although it felt much longer—for the officer to call her back. His response had Juliet immediately running down the hall to Burgamy’s office.

  “Dennis, we have a problem with Evan in the undercover op,” she told her supervisor, without any preamble. She explained about Mark Bolick.

  “Have you contacted Baltimore PD and GPS for his phone?”

  “Yes, for both. I’m not getting any GPS location reading for his phone at all. BPD sent a unit to the location I provided, where Evan reported the meeting with Vince Cady would be held, but no one was there. They said it was completely empty, with no sign of any sort of struggle or foul play.”

  Burgamy stood. “Okay, that’s both good and bad.”

  Juliet knew what he meant. Evan wasn’t lying in a pool of blood somewhere, so that was good. But they had no idea where he was, and no way of contacting him. That was bad.

  Very bad.

  “It’s just a matter of time before Mark Bolick shows up while Evan is there.” Juliet tried not to pace around Burgamy’s office, but it was difficult.

  “Have Baltimore put out an APB on Bolick. Maybe we can catch him before he meets up with Cady and Evan. If he’s in Baltimore, he’s breaking his bond agreement, anyway, by being out of state.”

  Juliet had her phone out to make the call.

  Burgamy stopped her. “Juliet, you worked with Evan as this persona before. Do you know of any places he might have suggested to Cady? Neut
ral places that would make the guy more comfortable? Obviously, the meeting wasn’t going as well as Evan hoped if they aren’t at the location they agreed to, and his phone is completely offline.”

  This probably wouldn’t have happened if you’d gone undercover with him.

  Burgamy didn’t say the words out loud, and may not have even been thinking them. But Juliet could feel them floating in the air. Maybe it was just her own guilt talking.

  “I don’t know. Yeah. Maybe a couple of places.” Juliet could picture a few.

  “I don’t have any agents to send out. Everybody has gone into DC to help with this bomb issue. Until we know for sure Evan is in trouble, the bomb has to be my priority.”

  Juliet nodded. Burgamy was right; he couldn’t pull men off a known crisis for something that was only a possible one. “Okay, I’ll work with Baltimore PD. Hopefully this is just some sort of fluke thing and Evan will be in touch soon.”

  But her gut told her the opposite.

  Chapter Six

  From the very beginning this meeting with Vince Cady hadn’t gone the way Evan had hoped. It had started okay, a call with an agreed meeting time and place at an empty office building near the Baltimore Pier. The location allowed for privacy, but also a measure of safety for Cady. It would be easy to disappear into the nearby crowds if a quick getaway was needed.

  Evan had reported the meeting location to Omega, then had shown up, ready for Bob Sinclair to be anything and everything the drug lord needed him to be. But Cady wasn’t there. Evan had waited fifteen minutes, wondering with each minute that passed if the entire operation was a failure before it even began, before two thugs had shown up.

  “Where’s Cady?” he had asked.

  Neither had answered, just walked up to him and began frisking him. Thank God he wasn’t wearing a wire.

  “I don’t have a weapon,” Evan had told them during the pat-down. That had been a conscious decision. In some undercover ops he did carry a weapon, because that’s what the persona would do. But Bob Sinclair was a buyer and seller, not muscle for hire. In most situations, he wouldn’t have a weapon.

  Although Evan sort of wished Bob had one now.

  The thugs took his cell phone from his pocket and one walked outside with it. Then the other guy, still not saying a word, pulled out his own phone and dialed a number.

  He handed the device to Evan.

  “Um, hello?”

  “Mr. Sinclair, this is Vince Cady.”

  “I thought we were meeting here at the pier, Mr. Cady.” Evan tried to put just the right amount of annoyance into his tone. Bob Sinclair would want Vince Cady’s business, but would not be desperate for it.

  “Yes, well, we’ve had a slight change in plans for security purposes. I felt this was necessary, since we have never actually met.”

  “Okay, so what’s the new plan?”

  “Now that I know we are talking on a secure line and that no one else can hear us, I was hoping we could come up with a new meeting location.”

  This wasn’t totally unreasonable. It seemed as if Cady was a suspicious bastard, but that was probably why he was still in business.

  Evan thought fast. Juliet could still use his phone to track him, but if he could suggest somewhere he was familiar with, that would at least give Evan a slight advantage. Being outnumbered and unarmed was disadvantage enough.

  “Fine. There’s a group of warehouses near the Francis Scott Key Bridge.” Evan gave Cady the address. “It’s neutral and private. Let’s meet there.”

  “Sounds fine, Mr. Sinclair. My associates will escort you. And I will gladly replace your phone. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  Evan was about to ask what he meant, but Cady had already disconnected.

  “I guess we’re going to the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” Evan told the man putting the phone away.

  “Mr. Cady said there would be two of you.”

  Evan didn’t blink an eye. “Not today. The wife couldn’t make it.”

  The other thug walked in from outside. “Okay, it’s done. Are we ready?”

  “Can I get my phone back now?” Evan asked him.

  “No. It’s on its way to the bottom of the harbor. Sorry.” The man didn’t look a bit sorry.

  Damn. This meant Evan was totally on his own. Unless Omega had developed some super tracking software in the past six hours, his only contact with them was now a plaything for fishes.

  The ride to the warehouse near the Francis Scott Key Bridge was uneventful. Less than uneventful, almost completely silent.

  “I left my Jeep in hourly parking. Between my cell phone in the harbor and our little field trip, this is turning into an expensive day.”

  Nothing. Evan gave up on trying to engage them.

  The warehouses were what Evan remembered. A large area of identical buildings, almost all empty, surrounded by industrial structures. It would be easy to get lost, or end up in the wrong warehouse if you didn’t know exactly where you were going. Multiple ways leading in and out. Helpful for people who didn’t like being hemmed in. He and Juliet had done business at this very location as Bob and Lisa Sinclair.

  A door to one of the empty warehouses stood open and they drove straight in. There stood Vince Cady, leaning casually against his SUV, surrounded by four of his closest buddies. Evan got out of the car as it stopped.

  “Mr. Sinclair.” Cady walked toward him and shook his hand. The man was in his midfifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, short and trim. “It is good to finally meet you. I am sorry for all the subterfuge and drama of switching locations.”

  “You’ve got to have security measures. I understand.”

  “And where is the lovely Mrs. Sinclair I’ve heard so much about?”

  Evan hadn’t expected Cady to start asking about Juliet this early. “She’s not here.”

  “I can see that. Why is she not here with you?”

  “Lisa and I don’t do business together anymore.” Evan tried to keep it as broad and simple as possible.

  Cady stared at him for a long moment, one eyebrow raised. “I don’t like unexpected changes, Mr. Sinclair. I was told you and Mrs. Sinclair always worked together. That you were the brawn and she was the brains of your partnership, no offense intended.”

  Evan gave his most easygoing smile. “Well, now I’m both the brawn and the brains of the operation. Nothing has to go through a committee.”

  But Cady didn’t seem interested in Evan’s friendly demeanor. “From what I understand, Mrs. Sinclair has not been seen for quite a long time. Over a year in fact.”

  Evan shrugged. Cady knew more than Omega had thought. Evan didn’t want to give away any info by blabbering. “We went our separate ways. So what?”

  “I had heard such good things about you, Mr. Sinclair. About you and Mrs. Sinclair as a team.” Cady turned and walked back toward his men, who were standing by the car a few feet away. Evan was very well aware that he was in the middle of a warehouse surrounded by Vince Cady’s thugs. Highly armed ones.

  And he had no weapon and no backup coming.

  “But I’d also heard a few rumors, too. Rumors that you might be law enforcement and that Mrs. Sinclair was no longer with you because she’d found out that fact and left.” Now surrounded safely by his men, Cady turned back and faced Evan. “I so hoped she’d be with you today so that those rumors could be put to rest. But she isn’t, and I have no choice but to believe that you aren’t who you say you are.”

  So much for not worrying about any rumors surrounding the Sinclairs’ absence. Suddenly Evan found six weapons pointed directly at him.

  “That makes you a loose end. Unfortunately, I don’t allow any loose ends.”

  * * *

  JULIET HADN’T BEEN SURE exactly where she was going in Baltimore when she jumped into her car not long after talking with Burgamy; she just knew she couldn’t stay in the office. The Baltimore PD was being less than helpful, although, in their defense, Juliet wasn’t sure exactly what she
was asking them to do.

  Look for someone, somewhere in your city, who may be in danger, but may be perfectly fine.

  Baltimore law enforcement had their own problems, and right now Evan Karcz wasn’t one of them.

  They had put out the APB on Mark Bolick. And thanks to some cameras she’d accessed showing Bolick leaving the courthouse that morning, she knew what he was driving and his license plate.

  Given all that information, the chances of Bolick getting picked up by the police were pretty good. But the chances of that happening before he blew Evan’s cover were much slimmer.

  She would start at the pier. Maybe there was something the officers had missed. Northern DC to Baltimore was only forty-five minutes. Juliet was already halfway there.

  But the call came in before she ever reached the pier. Juliet’s heart stopped just for a moment when she saw it was her contact at the Baltimore PD. She put the phone on speaker and answered it, still driving.

  “Agent Branson—”

  Juliet didn’t bother to correct him about the incorrect agent title.

  “—the vehicle from the APB you had us put out has been spotted. A uniform radioed it in, but then was called to a nearby emergency and so wasn’t able to pursue.”

  Damn it. “Okay. Was the vehicle seen near the pier?”

  “No, near the Francis Scott Key Bridge.”

  As soon as Juliet heard the words she swerved across two lanes to reach the exit from the highway, ignoring the angry honks from other drivers.

  She was just a few minutes from the FSK Bridge, southeast of Baltimore. The officer gave her the last known whereabouts of Bolick’s car. Not far from the warehouses she and Evan had used for some buys when they’d worked together.

  Had he moved the meeting out here? If so, why hadn’t he let them know? Of course, it was possible that Mark Bolick was in this area for an entirely different reason that had nothing to do with Vince Cady or Evan. Or that the car the officer saw was the wrong one or no longer held Bolick.