Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  Victoria’s body sang with relief. It didn’t last long.

  “Now, make the arrangements I said, and put on your best outfit,” he said. “You’re about to host one of the most watched press conferences the FBI has had in a decade.”

  * * *

  “Anything?” Jennifer asked, rounding the corner into the bullpen with her phone in her hand.

  Lara shook her head. “Nothing, as far as we know,” she said.

  It was ten minutes past twelve. In that time every major news network had run the bare-bones story about Victoria. Calls were funneling in to all areas of the office but, as per Mercer’s orders, no one was to talk to the media. He was currently trying to save the face of the FBI. Despite the fact that no one had all of the story, the general public seemed to have split into two groups of outrage.

  The first was that the FBI—the government—thought they were above everyone and could do as they saw fit, an idea that top brass was trying to dissuade through Mercer. The second group questioned Victoria directly instead of the FBI as a whole. If she had falsified evidence, who’s to say she hadn’t done it more than once? Who’s to say she hadn’t done worse?

  Lara took a moment to scan one of their dummy Facebook account’s newsfeed to see how a sampling of the general public was treating the information. She was amazed at how fast everyone had heard the news and how fast they were to offer up judgment on Victoria.

  It made Lara feel sick again.

  At least the bomber seemed to have kept his word. The only thing that had been destroyed was Victoria’s name and career.

  When Lara excused herself to the bathroom to get away from the constant chatter of newscasters rattling on about a situation they knew nothing about, she was surprised at the lump that had formed in her throat again. Even more so when her reflection blurred in front of her.

  She turned the water on and splashed her face.

  Crying didn’t make anyone any less of a woman, or man, or whatever, but she didn’t want to do it now. There was too much going on. She needed to stay sharp.

  The shock of the cold killed any tears from spilling. Which was a good thing considering Jennifer walked in a second later. Lara turned the water off and toweled off her face.

  She didn’t like what she saw.

  “What happened?” she asked the junior agent. Jennifer’s face was pinched in a scowl.

  “Mercer just told us that he’s holding a press conference outside to try to save face,” she said.

  “I figured he would.” Lara wasn’t sure how that was upsetting news.

  Jennifer’s scowl deepened. “He’s making Victoria give it and, I snuck a look at the script he made for her while he was on the phone...” Lara could already feel her own anger rising to the surface. Even before Jennifer continued. “She has to describe herself as a woman who got caught up in her own emotions and acted irrationally. And then Mercer ends the press conference by berating her for what she’s done. Like some errant child caught stealing a cookie. She can’t even defend herself. She isn’t allowed to. He’s reducing a successful career woman’s decision to keep a psycho in prison to that of some incompetent agent who let her womanly emotions get the best of her. And after he strips her publicly of all of her credibility she’s spent years building by keeping the worst of humanity off of the streets? He’s going to make her ask him for forgiveness.”

  Lara felt her hand fist. Her anger was heating up to rage. In that moment she made a decision that would change everything.

  She thanked Jennifer for telling her and left the bathroom in search of one person. When she found him, she pulled him aside and lowered her voice. “I’m about to do something that might get me fired.”

  Chapter Seven

  Nick pulled Lara into a supply closet, of all things. Once he shut the door behind them, he gave her that classic Delano stare. One that said they weren’t leaving until he got a good explanation.

  He didn’t even have to verbally ask for it. Lara just started talking.

  “Mercer is about to make Victoria tear herself down out there on live television,” she started. “And guess who made that happen?” Before Nick could answer she continued, heated. “The bomber. This man who acts like he’s the judge and the jury. He’s using the media as a tool to get some kind of sick satisfaction out of his target’s suffering. They decide to sacrifice their lives for innocent ones and then he throws them to the media who in turn shred them. Nick, in a way, he’s controlling the media. He’s pitting these people against the general public to face their judgment when he should be the one they’re judging.”

  Lara knew she was riled up. Probably more than she should have been to resemble anything close to professional or normal. However, nothing about what was happening was normal. How was she supposed to act professional when her job was just rocked by the same man they were trying to hunt down?

  She fixed Nick with an expression she hoped looked more controlled than she felt.

  “Even if that’s true, what do you want to do about it?” he asked after a moment. “We’re already doing everything we can to find him.”

  Lara shook her head so aggressively that her hair slapped her cheeks at the movement.

  “No, we aren’t.”

  Nick’s eyes widened a fraction. “You want us to use the press conference to our advantage,” he guessed.

  She nodded. It earned a look of uncertainty from the man. “If we tell the press about a madman targeting corruption in figures holding positions of power then the whole city could start questioning its leaders. With everything that’s already happened with the bombings, that would create an entirely new level of panic and put them in more danger.”

  “True, but staying silent isn’t keeping them safe, either,” she pressed. “Everyone is already panicking and will continue to panic without us saying a word. But if we tell the press what’s really going on, then the public may be able to help us. They can come forward if they have any information. Because Victoria was right earlier. This guy may be smart but he’s arrogant and he’ll make a mistake. Or, what if he already has? What if someone knows something that could help us end all of this but they can’t because they don’t know what’s going on? Why can’t we let them know who we’re looking for? Our job is to help people but that doesn’t mean they can’t help us, too, sometimes. We need answers, Nick. Sooner rather than later. This might be the way to get them. So, are you in?”

  Nick seemed to think about it for a moment. Lara could feel her heart hammering in her chest as she considered her plan.

  Nick let out a sigh. “Mercer is going to blow more than a gasket,” he pointed out.

  “I couldn’t care less about what Mercer thinks,” she blurted out. It earned a smirk from Nick. “What I mean is that we can deal with Mercer later,” she amended. “So, are you in or not?”

  Nick’s smirk grew. “I wouldn’t be much of a partner if I let you do it by yourself, now would I?”

  Lara returned the smirk. “No, you wouldn’t.”

  * * *

  Victoria was wearing her best dark blue pantsuit. Lara knew it was what the woman wore when she thought she needed to look the most presentable. She’d seen that outfit several times throughout the years but only on important occasions. It was like a weapon in itself. One which Victoria was wielding behind the podium when Lara and Nick fought their way through the sea of reporters outside of the building.

  “Dammit, I was hoping we’d beat her.”

  Victoria read off the script that had been written by Mercer with absolute sincerity. She was selling an admittance to doing wrong, letting her emotions get the better of her, and Lara couldn’t stand it. Why was she just rolling over and taking this?

  In the back of Lara’s mind she knew Victoria was trying to stay on the good side of whoever had saved her
from being arrested—something the team had speculated on for a second before realizing their boss had been around longer than any of them and it could be anyone. Victoria wasn’t alone in the world. She had her daughter, Anna.

  But hearing Victoria end her speech with a flowery version of “please forgive me” to the general public she’d just saved by falling on her own sword?

  It pushed any second thoughts on storming the podium clear out of Lara’s head. Nick must have been riding the same wave of thought. When she made it to Victoria’s side, he was at her shoulder.

  Victoria’s eyes widened in surprise at their appearance but she tucked that expression right into a pleasant smile.

  “What are you doing here?” Victoria asked through her teeth. She cut her glance to the various cameramen and women manning live feeds, each with their own reporter looking on, hungry for a story. Boy, were they about to get one.

  Lara stepped around Victoria before the woman figured out what she was about to do and barred her from the microphone. Assuming she’d try to stop Lara. If she and Nick broke the news and not Victoria then their former boss should be safe from any backlash.

  It was that mindset that made Lara look out at the sea of news media. When she began to speak, her voice was even. Clear.

  “Hi, I’m Special Agent Lara Grant and I wanted to say a few words to help clear the air. And to also ask for your help.” Lara paused so everyone’s attention was exactly where she wanted it to be. She scanned the crowd for Mercer during the few seconds and found him near the back of the sea of media. He looked like he was ready to kick her ass. She was going to have to be quick about whatever it was she was about to say. Lara cleared her throat and continued.

  “Let me acknowledge that legally, it was wrong for Victoria Russo to falsify evidence against Oscar Mackworth. However, Oscar Mackworth is beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt guilty in the violent rapes and murders of five women and needs to stay right where he is so more young women don’t meet the same fate. But persecuting a woman who has done nothing but try to ensure the safety of the general public as well as finding justice for those who deserve it is a waste of your time and a waste of your talent. Because right now, we have more important issues at stake.” Lara paused again, but not to let her last thought sink in. Her heart was slamming against her rib cage but her words were calm. Still, another look at Mercer, and she needed the few seconds to ramp herself up for the next part of her speech. She glanced at Nick. He gave her a small nod.

  “Victoria Russo potentially saved hundreds of lives today by exposing her past because an unidentified serial bomber gave her the choice to either expose her secret or to give into his demands to detonate a bomb somewhere in the city.”

  There it was. The bottom line.

  A surge of questions and comments coursed through the crowd as reporters yelled out at Lara. She wasn’t about to lose track of what she needed to say now that the truth was out in the open.

  “We have profiled the bomber as a male in his early twenties, who lives in the tri-state area, and might have been a former employee at the technology company BrainWave. This man is very likely an intellectual loner with social skills deficits. Like Oscar Mackworth, he is someone who will not stop until he is stopped. So, please, if you or anyone you know has any information—or has even been a target of someone meeting this description or MO—contact me, Lara Grant, or the FBI’s Crisis Management Unit team as soon as possible. Thank you.”

  The crowd broke into several voices, all yelling different questions at once, but Lara was done.

  She paused in front of Victoria before she left the podium. While the cameras might not have picked up on the small smile, Lara saw it clear as day. Still Victoria scolded her. Though there wasn’t any heat behind it.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered. Lara made sure to turn away from the limelight.

  “But I did,” she said. “And there’s nothing you can do but accept it.”

  The corner of Victoria’s mouth quivered as she held back a smile. She nodded and Lara followed Nick back into the building. They managed to get into the elevator alone.

  “Could have used a little more finesse,” Nick said with a shrug and a smirk. “But I guess it did the job.”

  Lara returned the playful humor, knowing it was her nerves’ way of coming down from the high of completely pissing off their superior.

  “Hey, next time we have a madman on our hands, I’ll let you take the podium,” she said. “See if you can razzle and dazzle the crowd on the fly without a script or teleprompter.”

  Nick made a show of straightening his shirt.

  “Agent Grant, I assure you I can ‘razzle and dazzle’ with the best of them.” Nick’s voice dropped low. The space in the elevator felt smaller. A part of Lara liked it, the rest of her didn’t. Luckily, Nick’s demeanor shifted. Though not to a much better place. “Did you see Mercer in the back of the crowd?”

  Lara blew out a breath and nodded.

  “He’s going to rake us, you know?” Nick added.

  Again, Lara nodded. “We have a dangerous job,” she pointed out. “Sometimes it’s not just the bad guys we have to worry about.”

  The elevator slowed and the doors slid open.

  “What are you today? Some damn fortune cookie?” he muttered. It made Lara smile.

  Once again that smile didn’t last long.

  “Grant, Delano, follow me!”

  Galen Mercer somehow had managed to beat them to the CMU, and was waiting for them in the bullpen. It wasn’t hard at all to read the anger he was exuding.

  Lara and Nick followed him wordlessly. She was careful not to let a wayward glance slide to Xander or James, the closest of the team to her. Mercer’s wrath already had a target. She didn’t want to give him any more.

  “Remember that shit storm I was talking about earlier? The one that turned into a magnificent clusterfuck? Do you remember that?” Mercer yelled no sooner than the door was shut behind them. They were in the conference room. Lara guessed putting them in view but not in range to hear was a way to put them on display without making him seem like a hothead. A power move. Or maybe Mercer just hustled into the first place he could before his anger spilled over. He took his rhetorical question with him as he paced to the other side of the table. Again, it could have been a power move... Or a way to protect them from himself. Mercer looked like a man on the edge.

  “Why you two gathered your individual brain cells and rubbed them together to produce that media clusterfucking shit storm out there, I have no clue! Is that what happens here when you’ve been let off your leashes? Your boss is gone for less than twenty-four fucking hours and you decide, ‘Hey, let’s make everything worse with our fantastically shitty ideas!’” Mercer threw his fist against the table. This time he was looking for an answer. “You just took this situation completely out of our hands. Why?”

  “We made a judgment call,” Lara defended.

  Mercer’s lips pulled up into an exaggerated, mocking smile. “Oh, a judgment call?” he repeated. “You two made a judgment call? That makes everything okay.”

  Lara felt her face grow hot. Embarrassment? Anger? She didn’t have time to process it. Instead she stood her ground.

  “We’ve been behind this guy every step of the way. We needed to get out in front of him and, unless you personally have a secret that needs exposing, then you just fired the last close link we had to him. We are running out of time and we—I—thought we could use the public to help us.” Lara took note of Nick in her periphery, at her side. He’d been quiet but that didn’t mean he wasn’t with her in this. She knew that but Mercer didn’t. That meant she might be able to salvage at least one of them. “It was my call,” she added. “And I take full responsib—”

  Lara stopped midsentence as Mercer held up his hand.

 
“Stop. Just stop.” With obvious considerable composure Mercer took a deep breath. “If we didn’t need you two on this case both of your asses would be out alongside your buddy Russo. So get back to work.” He paused on his way out and added, “But pull another stunt like that and you’ll never see inside of this building again.”

  Lara watched, stunned, as the man and his anger stormed out of the room.

  “Well, we didn’t get—” Lara started, but this time Nick was the one who cut her off.

  “What the hell?” he yelled. He was furious, that much she could tell. Just not why.

  “What do you mean, ‘what the hell?’” she shot back, matching his enthusiasm. She didn’t like being yelled at, especially when she didn’t know the reason for it.

  “You said it was your call? It was both of ours!”

  Lara glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone was within earshot. No one was in the hallway outside but still she lowered her voice.

  “I thought Mercer was out for blood,” she shot back. “There’s no reason why he needed to go for yours, too.”

  Nick’s hands fisted and his nostrils flared.

  “Dammit, Lara, you’re not a lone wolf. You have a partner, one who I promise you is more than capable of making and standing up for his own decisions. Something you should stop forgetting just because it’s convenient.”

  Before Lara could defend her actions again—lone wolf mentality be damned, she was trying to help her partner—Nick left the conference room with the same bustle and go Mercer had.

  Lara thought about following him but, instead, let out a long, tired breath.

  It didn’t matter whether they were sharing the heat of the chase, the boss’ anger or the moment, she just couldn’t win for losing with Nick.

  Chapter Eight

  Time had become their enemy.

  Every CMU agent that walked through the bullpen gave the clock fixed on the wall dirtier and dirtier looks as the day dragged on. By the time the sun went down, Lara daydreamed about breaking it and throwing it in the trash when everything was said and done. Maybe even setting it on fire, too. When seven o’clock rolled around, Lara was downright determined to do just that.