Tough Justice Series Box Set, Parts 1-8

by Carla Cassidy

  “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

  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.