Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  Better than to do what, though?

  To sit in the chair?

  Because, the fact of the matter was, she’d thought she had the upper hand in meeting with Halpert and would have come no matter what.

  Enough to make her come to her apartment at Halpert’s insistence.

  Enough to make her sit in the damned chair.

  If Lara hadn’t been staring at the bomber, she would have blown out an air in frustration at herself.

  She was an idiot. A damn idiot. Of course the bomber might put a bomb in her apartment.

  You’re not going anywhere. You have a decision to make.

  Halpert’s last words hung in the air around her, still reverberating when she made it out of her own self-scrutiny.

  “You sure do love giving choices out to people, don’t you?” Lara finally said. The benefit to being stuck on a chair in her apartment? Halpert couldn’t hear how hard her heart was starting to hammer against her rib cage. “You should have your own game show.”

  Adrenaline had already spiked. Now it was building toward a crescendo. One of which she hoped didn’t break by her being blown up. Because the sad, stupid, all-her-fault truth of it was that no one knew were she was. No one at the CMU even knew she’d gone. Like some common criminal she’d slunk out of the office, hoping no one would see her. Which should have thrown up internal red flags for her, clueing her in on the fact that she probably should take a beat to really think about her plan.

  Or lack thereof.

  Whether she’d thought she’d had the upper hand on him or not, again, she should have at least told someone she was heading to her apartment. But now wasn’t the time to berate herself for a mistake she’d already made. There was no going back. All she could do was sit and talk.

  She needed to distract.

  The corner of Halpert’s lips slid up. He wasn’t bothered by her trying to lighten the situation. Her sarcasm wasn’t hitting any nerves. He was, surprisingly, a cool cucumber.

  “I like peeling back the layer of human nature and looking at what’s underneath,” he said. Lara didn’t miss the sarcasm in his words. It, also surprisingly, poked at her nerves. Still she played along.

  “How poetic of you,” she said. “Maybe instead of blowing up people you should try and wow them with some prose. You know, try to blow their minds only.”

  Lara was fishing for a reaction but, again, she didn’t get the one she wanted. Or, if she did, the camera quality of her webcam couldn’t show her any of the subtle nuances of change in his expression. If there was a chance to rattle him, she needed to take it. She just needed figure out how to do that. How to distract him.

  If there was a chance her team hadn’t evacuated the schools yet then there was a chance Halpert’s bomb could be detonated. Especially if he found out the team was close.

  Lara had to keep him occupied for the sake of the children and staff in the school.

  And for her team, too.

  Then again, who was to say Halpert wouldn’t blow her to kingdom come in the time between then and now?

  “This is what I like about you, Lara,” Halpert said. “Here you are trying to be cute with your words despite the fact that there’s nothing but a glorified sliver of wood between you and death. Still, look at you. You think you’re clever. That you’re winning.” He shook his head and actually laughed. “When you’re not winning at all. Nowhere close to it. Pretending to have an upper hand—a cool head—when you so clearly don’t is almost admirable. Arrogant, but admirable.”

  “Treating everything you’ve done like it’s a game is arrogant,” she spit out, bothered by his even tone. “Something a child would do.”

  “But is it? Last time I checked children had much less important things they were worrying about,” he said, still on an even keel and bypassing her jab at his age. Lara’s heart was jogging along the conversation. She was uncomfortable and angry and, she hated to even think it, afraid. Because, while she’d dealt with men and women with serious issues during her tenure, she was having a harder time reading Halpert. She’d pegged him as impulsive and self-absorbed and socially awkward.

  The man across from her now? Easy-talking, composed.

  Then again, he was safely tucked behind his computer. And, unless he was a real glutton from self-punishment, he probably didn’t have a bomb strapped beneath his chair. Though it would be helpful if he could just take himself out of the case that way. It would probably save a lot of lives if he was the one who went kablooey instead.

  “Agent Grant, I know I can’t change your opinion of me, but I would like to point out that the deaths that have happened so far weren’t because of me,” he continued. “They—”

  “They were because someone chose to not tell their secret to the public,” she interrupted.

  “Bingo,” he said. Though he lost some length to his grin. He was talking about something that meant a lot to him. Which made the hair on the back of Lara’s neck rise just a fraction. It was hard to get used to evil talking about evil in such a nonchalant way. It should never be that easy. “They’d rather keep hiding than face themselves—what they’ve done—and so I had to show them that there are consequences. I am the reaction to their action. Their dark little secrets. If they hadn’t decided to keep those secrets buried, then no bombs would have gone off. No one would have been killed at all. It was really out of my hands.”

  “Don’t spin me that bullshit,” Lara snarled. “You were the one that detonated the bombs. I don’t care what their secrets were. Whether they didn’t pay taxes, were screwing around with someone who wasn’t their spouse, or, hell, even if they knew where Jimmy Hoffa is buried, you killed all of those people. Not them. Not their secrets. You. So stop being so self-righteous and own up to it.”

  “I’m just a bullet, Agent Grant, and they are the guns,” he replied, simply. “And bullets don’t hurt anyone without the gun, do they?”

  “I’m not going to sit here and talk about this with you,” she bit back. “You’re a sociopath. Reasoning with you, I’m going to assume, is impossible.” Her heart was hammering again. She felt the familiar storm of adrenaline and nerves twisting and turning every inch of her body. Her face was even flushed. Something she was glad he couldn’t notice from his new lair. Wherever it was.

  The bottom line was, Lara was flustered. And Halpert had done that. His grin widened again. Lara tried to still her nerves.

  “Just because you can’t change me doesn’t mean you can’t have an effect on what I do,” he said.

  “If I asked you to stop this madness, to tell me where the bomb is so we can dispose of it, would you?” Lara needed him to believe she was ignorant of this mystery. Not that she believed for one second he would have told her simply because she’d asked.

  Her hopes didn’t even have time to rise before Halpert was shaking his head.

  “I don’t think so, Agent Grant. You can only affect this situation by making a choice. Same as your team.”

  Lara now knew Halpert wasn’t talking about exposing about her previous relationship with the infamous kingpin Moretti when she’d been undercover. Nor having his child and putting her in WitSec to keep her safe. Lara had been ready to let the secret of Moretti loose. She’d already seen how that information could hurt her and the ones around her.

  No, he had turned his focus elsewhere, to a secret over a decade old.

  Yet, still so very close to her heart.

  I have a clue to your mother’s murder. A clue that will enable you to solve her murder once and for all. Want it?

  That was another reason he’d gotten her to her apartment, alone. In fact, she had to wonder if it would have been enough to make her leave her team had she thought they didn’t have the upper hand. Another “what if” she’d ask herself later.

  If there was a later for
her.

  “You said you have evidence about my mother’s murder,” Lara said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then show me,” she said, heartbeat picking up. If that was at all possible. If the bomb didn’t kill her, her nerves might. “Prove to me you’re as good as you seem to think you are.”

  Halpert’s grin dissolved into an expression that she couldn’t read. Somewhere between anger, pride and deep annoyance. She half expected a reply soaked in arrogance that was seemingly Mitchell Halpert’s nature. And she got it, too, yet, like his expression, there was something else there she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “I’m not that good, Agent Grant,” he answered, tone flat. He leaned closer to the screen. Behind him Lara could just make out a discolored beige or white wall. Not enough to go on if and when she got back to her team. “I’m better.”

  And then it clicked for her. The something else swimming between his tone and expression. She’d seen it before. She’d felt it before. Not as strongly, but she’d tasted it once or twice in her career.

  Pure and unwavering confidence.

  For a moment the bomb beneath her chair didn’t seem like the most dangerous thing in her apartment.

  The screen shifted. For one terrifying moment it went dark. She tensed, waiting for the bomb to detonate, but then Halpert’s face swam back into view. He was smaller, his screen minimized in the bottom left corner.

  “It’s funny what we hold on to, isn’t it?” he asked as text appeared in the middle of the screen. Lara resisted the urge to lean in so her weight didn’t shift. She still didn’t know how sensitive the bomb was.

  “Meaning?” she asked, eyes following the text as it started to scroll. Before he responded she realized what she was looking at.

  Evidence requests for the unsolved murder of Anna Grant.

  “So?” she said, trying for the same nonchalance he’d been wielding. “Proving I was looking into my mother’s murder is one thing. Proving you have a clue that will help me solve the case is another.”

  There might have been distance between them but Lara was able to hear the man tsk at her.

  “You’re not the most patient woman, are you, Agent Grant?”

  “Not when there’s a bomb beneath me,” she retorted. “It tends to put me on edge.”

  He raised his hands in mock defense.

  “Fine, I’ll show you. We can keep bantering afterward.” Even though he was small and tucked into the corner of the computer, Lara could see the change in Halpert. His hands moved out of the web camera’s field of view and the sounds of hitting keys came through the laptop’s speakers. He was determined, singularly focused.

  What if he really did have information that could give a lead in her mother’s case? What if Mitchell Halpert gave her the key to finally unlock the mysteries of what had happened?

  Lara felt her nerves twist even further. This time it wasn’t from the danger of the situation.

  “The results should be back. Why don’t you see for yourself?” Halpert was absolutely beaming.

  A notification popped up in the top corner of her screen. It was for her work email. Lara hesitated.

  “This is what you’ve wanted, Agent Grant. Aren’t you going to look? Or should I not have gone through all the trouble to get it?”

  “And what trouble was that?” she asked with a snort she knew he didn’t miss. “Did you force someone to pick between helping you get the evidence or else you’d blow up another crowded piece of New York?”

  It was Halpert’s turn to laugh.

  “Victoria helped me.”

  Lara was glad Halpert wasn’t in the same room as she. He would have seen her tense even more than she already was.

  “You’re lying.”

  Halpert nodded. Lara let out a small breath of relief.

  “She didn’t do it of her own accord, or of her own knowledge,” he redefined. For a moment Lara thought Halpert would stop explaining.

  But then she recognized the change in his expression.

  Pride.

  “I used our former Special Agent in Charge’s ID to arrange for the pieces of the trace evidence from your mother’s case to be tested by the crime lab,” he began. “Then I created and applied an algorithm to reduce search parameters on the FBI’s criminal database. The algorithm identified a smaller number of crimes that your evidence sample could be tested against. And those should be waiting in your email’s inbox. If you even care to look.”

  Lara didn’t hesitate this time. She opened her email and waited, speechless, as it booted up. Halpert, too, kept quiet. Though she was aware he hadn’t looked away from her.

  He was staring.

  Waiting for her reaction.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  Lara double-clicked the newest email. What came up surprised her.

  Halpert wasn’t lying. The evidence linked to, not one or two, but ten seemingly random law enforcement cases. Unsolved murders and attacks and beatings throughout the 90s and early 2000s. Lara’s heart was beating a mile a minute, unforgiving, as she tried to find a link between each case in just the quick overview from each.

  What was the connection? What linked the cases to her mother’s death?

  She needed more time to dig. Preferably when not strapped to a bomb. Lara moved her mouse over to the print icon. Thank God she’d spent the extra money to get the printer that turned on automatically when Print was selected. She could do it without making too many movements to alarm Halpert. Then the papers would go up on her bulletin board and she’d be one step closer to find out the truth...

  “And now you’re done,” Halpert said as her mouse was hovering over the print icon. One second too late she clicked. And the email and the documents therein vanished.

  “What happened?” Lara asked, trying to hide her panic.

  “They’re gone, Lara,” Halpert said, almost like a coo. “I’ve deleted the results. All of them.”

  Lara’s blood ran cold.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Halpert was grinning.

  “Yes.”

  Lara wanted to scream.

  “I suppose that newfound anguish that you’re feeling right now is because you know as well as I do that by testing the evidence it was destroyed,” Halpert said. Unlike Lara, he seemed delighted at the news. “Which means what, Agent?”

  Lara wasn’t rising to his bait. Instead she was trying to recall every detail she’d just seen. She needed to remember everything. But that was impossible.

  And Halpert knew that.

  “You’re trying to memorize what you saw,” he pointed out. “But, you know what? Even you aren’t that good, Lara Grant.”

  Lara felt her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare. She wanted more than anything to jump up, grab her chair and smash the laptop to bits with it. All while yelling at the top of her lungs. She even felt her muscles start to vibrate in anticipation.

  Halpert’s grin tightened. He held up a finger and wagged it.

  “Remember, one wrong shift in your weight and you won’t care that I’m the only one who now knows what’s on that list.”

  “Go to hell,” Lara bit out.

  Halpert actually laughed.

  “I’m sure I will,” he said. “But not just yet.”

  Chapter Two

  Ty looked at the houses like each was a person.

  And that person was growing a second head.

  “It’s definitely not downtown Manhattan, huh?” Jennifer said from the driver’s seat. Ty turned his head in time to see a smirk grow. He was surprised she’d picked up on his thoughts. Was he that transparent?

  No, Jennifer Gulden was just good at her job of reading people. Or, maybe, she’d picked up more about him i
n the last year than he’d like to admit.

  Like now when he’d been thinking about his apartment near the FBI bureau. He’d been comparing the two out of habit. Something he’d always done when cases brought him out to the lands of suburbia. The roar of the city life versus the lull of the burbs. But he knew he hadn’t been the only one comparing and contrasting in their silence.

  “It’s no Brooklyn Heights either,” he pointed out. Which is exactly where she lived.

  Jennifer snorted. “Yeah, I doubt people here have the luxury of being able to see their bed from the kitchen. That’s only the magic of a studio apartment.”

  Ty returned her smirk and looked back out at the houses on either side of them.

  “You should run that by Westchester County as their new slogan. ‘Life in suburbia! Where you can’t see the fridge from your bedroom.’ Trademark pending. Would probably sell a lot of homes here.”

  Jennifer shrugged. “Obviously some people find that appealing.” She motioned with the hand not on the steering wheel to the neighborhood they were driving through. Picturesque homes that could have been on the cover of any family-related magazine with their front porches, lawns and assorted outdoor clutter. One house they passed even had an assortment of gnomes littering their small garden. It creeped him out more than it amused him.

  “I am definitely not one of them,” he admitted. “In fact, sometimes I forget places like this exist. Birds chirping, kids playing, housewives secretly getting wasted on cocktails and the like.”

  “That’s probably because of all of the smog from the city clogging up your brain,” she said with some laughter. She took another turn and started to slow the car down. “But you have to admit, the lack of crime here is probably refreshing,” she added on, sobering. “Some of the residents here probably even leave their doors unlocked.”

  “Normally, I would agree,” Ty said. They rolled to a stop in front of a house swathed in blue siding. It looked as happy as the rest of the street. Yet, its blue did nothing but put him further on edge.

  “But now?”

  Ty checked his gun and began to survey the immediate area around them. “Now we’re here to question the mother of a serial bomber with a God complex,” he answered. “In a house with a secret room that doubles as a bomber’s paradise.”