Tough Justice Series Box Set, Parts 1-8

by Carla Cassidy

  She had hoped that before they got back to headquarters somebody would have called to tell them that the federal agents or the uniformed officers in the park had managed to catch Moretti, but no phone calls had come in.

  Victoria met them as they returned to work. “Ty and Xander have gone to the prison to see if they can get any information out of any of the former operatives about the escape and any hideaways Moretti might have had.”

  She frowned. “We had law enforcement at that statue within three minutes of the phone call, and yet so far he’s managed to elude any detection.”

  “He’s certainly not in the park anymore,” Lara replied. “He’s long gone from there now.”

  “I can’t figure out how he got out of the dragnet that was immediately set up at the park exits,” Victoria replied with obvious frustration. “How could he have escaped notice with Emily in his arms?”

  “Hey! Maybe he didn’t have Emily in his arms,” Nick said, suddenly. “It’s possible he handed her off to somebody else to take out of the park or left her with somebody when he made that call.”

  “And that somebody else might have been a woman,” Lara said, in sync with her partner’s thinking. “We had everyone in the area looking for a man carrying a baby, but I doubt if anyone would have paid much attention to a woman with a baby in her arms.” A new thrum of urgency filled her.

  “Did Moretti have any contact with any women prison guards or workers while he was in lockdown?” Nick asked.

  “If he did, he certainly might have been able to charm them into aiding and abetting not only his escape but anything else he might do after the escape,” Lara replied.

  Oh, how well she knew the deadly charm that Moretti could put on and take off as easily as a cloak around his shoulders. Once again she cursed herself for being so stupid and weak, for allowing herself to be charmed by a monster.

  “I’ll check into it,” Victoria said and turned on her heels and disappeared back into her office.

  Lara walked to her cubicle and sat, utterly helpless as to what to do next. It was almost noon, and they were no closer to finding Moretti or saving Emily.

  Had Emily eaten anything? Did Moretti even know enough to feed her baby food or mushed-up adult food? Did he know that she couldn’t yet eat regular grown-up food? Was she warm enough? Was she frightened? If Moretti had a woman working with him, then hopefully that woman knew something about taking care of seven-month-old babies. Still, this thought was little comfort. Emily needed to be back where she belonged.

  Once again she wondered if the answer to Moretti’s whereabouts was somehow hidden in the dark recesses of her mind, in buried memories of her private talks with Andrew.

  They were memories she hated to access because they reminded her of just how stupid she’d been, how easily she’d fallen for his lies of honoring a fallen buddy, of seeking the location of a poor young woman who had been trafficked by the evil Moretti.

  There had been no question that the sexual chemistry between them had been ridiculously hot. There was no question that she’d been instantly drawn to the sinfully handsome Andrew. The body definitely had no conscience when it came to physical attraction.

  She glanced over at Nick, who was reading something on his computer screen. There was also no question that she shared an intense sexual chemistry with him. Was it smart to sleep with her partner? Probably not, but Lara had no regrets where Nick was concerned. However, she had a million regrets about her relationship with Moretti. She’d betrayed the very badge she wore where he was concerned.

  Would Moretti contact her again? No, when...when would he contact her again? The first phone call and resulting chase had been another success at torturing her, and Lara knew in the depths of her soul that he wasn’t done with her yet.

  Moretti wanted her desperate and twisting in the wind, and then when he was ready, he would lead her to a final destination where he would try to kill her.

  There was no way the two of them could coexist in this world, especially as long as he had her baby. He had to know that as long as she was alive, she would chase him to the ends of the earth. She would hunt him until the very last breath she took. There was no way he wanted her to survive.

  These were the hours before an ultimate endgame between the two of them. She knew without a doubt that she would face him one last time. What she hated was that if they didn’t find him first, then he would be the one in control of the when and the where their final meet would take place.

  He wanted her dead, and she would gladly give up her life if in some way it would assure Emily a long and happy future back with David and Faye Minnow.

  In the meantime, unless somebody came up with some answers as to his present location, all she could do was wait for another phone call from him or remember some detail that might give up a valuable clue.

  She closed her eyes, trying to access the memories of her private times with Moretti, but instead her head filled with a vision of her dark-haired daughter and that single moment when she’d held the newborn in her arms.

  Emily, her heart cried. My little girl, I’m trying to find you.

  She snapped her eyes back open and swallowed hard against any more memories of her daughter’s birth and that single moment she’d had when she’d held Emily.

  She’d made the greatest sacrifice she’d ever make in order to give her daughter the best possible chance at a normal life filled with love. Now the thought of that sacrifice all being for nothing was almost too hard for her to imagine.

  Victoria came out of her office carrying a sheet of paper. “I called Ty and told him to check with the warden at the prison to see if Moretti had ever had any personal contact with any women while he was there. Ty just called me back and the warden faxed me this.” She held the sheet of paper out to Lara, who jumped to her feet.

  The paper was an employment record for a Jacqueline Rogers. As Lara scanned the information on the thirty-nine-year-old prison worker, Nick moved to stand just behind her and read over her shoulder.

  “As you can see she’s only worked for the prison for five years. She’s in food services and delivered meals to Moretti while he was inside,” Victoria said. “She also called in sick this morning, and Ty attempted to reach her by phone without any success. I thought you two would want to check it out.”

  “Let’s go.” Nick said, his voice filled with the urgency that flooded in sick waves through Lara’s entire body.

  Together they left the building and once again got into Nick’s official car. As Nick drove toward the west side address, Lara stared at the thumbnail photo of the woman.

  It was a crappy picture, grainy and slightly blurred, but she could discern short dark hair and a broad face with a strong jawline. Not an overly attractive woman, which might make her perfect manipulation material for Moretti.

  “What are you thinking?” Nick asked with a quick glance in her direction.

  “I’m thinking that a thirty-nine-year-old single woman who probably doesn’t have much job loyalty might be ripe for the pickings where Moretti is concerned.” Lara’s stomach once again twisted in knots of tension, and her heart raced at a frantic pace.

  She looked at the photo one last time and then folded the piece of paper and put it into the glove box.

  Was this what they needed? Was Jacqueline Rogers the missing link that would finally lead to the monster? Had she been in the park earlier today to carry Emily away while Moretti made his slick escape? Was Moretti right now in Jacqueline Rogers’s apartment, laughing about the morning chase?

  Don’t get your hopes up too high, an inner voice warned her. You can’t lose it again. She’d gotten her hopes up earlier in Central Park and had momentarily gone over the edge. Still, even with the inner warning she couldn’t help the burst of heady adrenaline that sizzled through her.

  “How do you want to play this?” Nick asked.

  “If possible I’d like to go in hard and fast,” she replied.

  “Yo
u do realize that we don’t have a search warrant,” Nick said dryly.

  “It’s a special circumstance.” she retorted.

  She shifted positions, imagining that she could feel the soft pink hair bow in her back pocket. Hang on, Emily. I’m coming for you. The words had become her mental battle cry.

  She looked out of the front window as Nick slowed to check the addresses. They were in her neck of the woods now, not too far away from her own apartment complex. “There,” she said and pointed just ahead to a liquor store. “According to the address, her apartment is on the second floor above the store.”

  The adrenaline bubbling inside Lara was now at peak proportion. If this lead was right, if Moretti was in the apartment with Jacqueline Rogers, then how ironic it was that he had holed up so close to where Lara lived.

  Of course, it probably wasn’t really ironic at all. His ultimate goal was to kill her. He would want to be close to her, close enough to walk several blocks and somehow get past her doorman. He’d want to sneak inside her apartment and confront her when she was all alone.

  Dammit, this just felt so right.

  Nick found a parking place in the next block, and together they exited the car. He looked grim, utterly dangerous with his body tensed. He popped the trunk and removed their standard Kevlar vests, along with a one-man battering ram that would take down a door and allow entry into the apartment in mere seconds.

  They walked silently the short distance and halted at the bottom of an iron stairwell at the side of the store. “If this is like most of the apartments in the area, there are probably two units on each floor,” Lara said as she looked up the metal staircase that led up to the top of the three-story building. “The door off the stairway should take us into a short hallway. Her apartment should be on our left.”

  Nick nodded. His dark gaze softened slightly, and he reached out and lightly touched her cheek. “I hope this is it, Lara. I hope this is the end, and it’s a happy ending for you.” He punctuated his statement with his gaze going dark and hard as he raised the battering ram into a ready position.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lara’s racing heartbeat sounded loudly in her ears as she pulled her gun and slowly followed Nick up the metal staircase. Thankfully they were the only people on the stairs.

  The very last thing they needed was somebody coming down or going up to see their weapons and scream loud enough to give anyone in apartment 201 any kind of a heads-up.

  Lara’s gun was slick in her hand as nerves seared through her with electric intensity. She couldn’t lose it like she had done earlier. She had to stay tightly in control of her emotions. They had to get this right.

  Are you really strong enough to see this through? That damned little voice of doubt whispered in her head. She mentally silenced the damned voice and straightened her shoulders in grim determination.

  She had to be strong enough. Failure was not an option. Emily’s welfare, perhaps her very life, hung in the balance. Lara had to find a well of strength the likes of which she’d never had before. And she could do it...for Emily.

  The staircase was both narrow and steep, and the only other exit anyone would have from the apartments would be a fire escape out of their windows on the other side of the building.

  Lara didn’t intend to give anyone enough time to get out of the fire escape. Hard and fast, that’s the way they would go in, and they would have the element of surprise on their side.

  Maybe Moretti was taking a nap and dreaming of all the ways he might kill her. Maybe he was smiling in his sleep as visions of slicing her throat or shooting her between her eyes danced in his sick head.

  She’d love to awaken him with the kiss of her gun cold against the center of his forehead. She could easily imagine the slow opening of his dark, sexy eyes, the surprised flutter of his sinfully long eyelashes, and she briefly wondered if this case had turned her into one of what the CMU team hunted...a calculating killer who took pleasure in somebody else’s death?

  Shoving the disturbing thought aside, she exchanged a quick glance with Nick as they hit the second floor landing. He reached out and turned the doorknob that would take them into the interior hallway. He went in first and she quickly followed. The layout was just as she suspected it would be; a long hallway with an apartment on either side.

  Once again she thanked God that there was nobody else in the hallway. They were alone and ready. Nerves jangled inside her for a brief moment and then settled down as a cold calm determination suffused her. Let this be the end, she prayed. Let Emily be inside this apartment just waiting for Lara to rescue her.

  They moved with silent stealth to a door that held faded gold painted numbers proclaiming it to be unit 201. The sound of a television could be heard through the wood of the apartment door.

  Somebody was home. Nick set the battering ram down on the floor next to the door and then reached out to grip the doorknob. His face registered surprise, and instead of picking up the battering ram once again, he pulled his gun.

  Was Moretti so sure of himself that he would sit in an apartment with the door unlocked? It was Lara’s last thought as Nick swung open the door, and she rushed inside.

  “FBI, everybody freeze,” she shouted. Her heart sank at the sight of the husky woman prone on the sofa. She instantly recognized the woman from the small photo even with her reddened nose and watering eyes.

  “What in the hell is going on?” Jacqueline Rogers said as she struggled to sit up.

  Lara kept her gun steadily trained on her while Nick swept past her and into an adjoining room. “Hands up where I can see them,” Lara exclaimed. “Is there anyone else here with you?”

  “Do I look like I’m in the mood to entertain company?” Jacqueline asked as she lifted both hands into the air and then barked a harsh cough.

  “Clear.” Nick’s voice drifted out of what Lara assumed was a bedroom and bath. Wrong again, Lara thought bitterly. It was apparent that Moretti wasn’t here, and an overwhelmingly sour disappointment crawled up the back of her throat. Nick returned to Lara’s side, his gun back in his holster.

  “Does somebody want to tell me what is going on?” Jacqueline asked.

  “You haven’t been answering your phone,” Nick said.

  “I didn’t know turning off my phone would get me on the list of the FBI’s most wanted,” Jacqueline replied crankily. “Can I put my hands down now?”

  Lara gave a curt nod and holstered her gun. Her gaze quickly swept the entire room, which consisted of the living room space and a small kitchenette area.

  The dish drainer by the sink held only one clean bowl and a glass. No extra dishes to indicate that anyone else had ever been here.

  She opened the refrigerator and peered inside at meager offerings. Again she found no little jars of baby food, no bowls of food that would be appropriate for a seven-month-old. Hell, there wasn’t even any regular milk. She slammed the door closed.

  Nick eased down in a chair opposite the sofa. “Did you know that Moretti escaped this morning?”

  Lara directed her focus back to Jacqueline, whose broad face registered what appeared to be genuine surprise. “How did that bastard manage that?” The surprise turned to disbelief as she stared first at Nick and then at Lara. “Is that why you’re here? Because you thought I had something to do with his escape?”

  “Moretti escaped, you called in sick and haven’t been answering your phone. You are one of the few people who had access to him when you served him his meals,” Lara said. “He can be very charming when he wants to be.”

  Jacqueline released a dry laugh, followed by a round of the hacking coughs. She grabbed a tissue from a box on the coffee table and wiped her reddened nose. “Oh, trust me, he tried his charm on me, but I’m immune. I don’t swing that way, if you get my drift. Besides, I know his reputation and I know what he’s in prison for. My job is to feed the prisoners, and that’s it. I like my job, and I don’t like scumbags who traffic in kids, among other things. I
’m one of the good guys, and I can’t be bought off by any prisoner offering me anything.”

  “Did you have any conversations with him where he might have mentioned a place he’d like to go or people he’d like to see again if he ever got out?” Nick asked.

  She frowned thoughtfully and slowly shook her head negatively. “Not that I remember. To be honest, once he realized he couldn’t get anywhere with me, we didn’t talk much at all. I just delivered his chow tray and that was it.”

  As the adrenaline that had carried her into the apartment slowly seeped away, Lara was left with a weariness and deep disappointment. Emily, I’m trying everything possible to get to you. Just hang on.

  She believed the woman, and Lara knew there would be no answers here. Jacqueline Rogers had just had the misfortune to call in sick on the day that a mastermind criminal had escaped from the prison where she was employed. They were back to square one.

  Thank God they hadn’t broken down the door to get into the apartment, and thank God Lara wasn’t breaking down as she had earlier in the park.

  “There’s nothing here,” she said to Nick.

  He rose from the chair, his gaze still on Jacqueline as he pulled a business card out of his back pocket. “If you think of anything that might be helpful in getting Moretti back behind bars, call this number.” He leaned forward and dropped the card on the coffee table.

  “You doing okay?” he asked a few minutes later as they got into the car to go back to headquarters.

  “I’m hanging tough,” she replied and cast him a rueful half-smile. “At least I didn’t go all postal on you like I did earlier today.”

  “I’ve got to admit for a single second there you made my heartbeat race faster than it had in a long time,” he admitted.

  “Xander was right this morning.”

  “Xander was an ass this morning,” he replied.

  “But he was right that I might have the answer to all of this buried someplace in my memory. It’s possible that Moretti said something to me at some point in our relationship that might lead to a specific location that nobody else knows about.”