Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set Read online

  All 8 parts of this explosive FBI serial available in this box set!

  FBI Special Agent Lara Grant thought that she’d put her past behind her—finally—with her last case. But now a serial bomber is targeting Manhattan’s elite power players, offering them a choice between saving hundreds of lives or seeing their darkest secrets exposed. Lara is working with the Crisis Management Unit to stop the bomber, but how will she react when she’s the one who has to choose between truth...or death?

  As the clock ticks down, Lara braces for another confrontation with evil. And no matter what, she’ll make sure her enemy’s first mistake is also his last...

  This box set comprises:

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 1 of 8)

  by New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 2 of 8)

  by New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 3 of 8)

  by Tyler Anne Snell

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 4 of 8)

  by Emmy Curtis

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 5 of 8)

  by Janie Crouch

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 6 of 8)

  by Emmy Curtis

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 7 of 8)

  by Tyler Anne Snell

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 8 of 8)

  by Janie Crouch

  TOUGH JUSTICE: COUNTDOWN

  COMPLETE COLLECTION

  Parts 1 to 8

  Carla Cassidy

  Tyler Anne Snell

  Emmy Curtis

  Janie Crouch

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Carla Cassidy is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author who has written more than one hundred and twenty novels for Harlequin Books. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from RT Book Reviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she also won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from RT Book Reviews. Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. Look for her other recent titles on www.Harlequin.com.

  Tyler Anne Snell writes and reads a little bit of everything but has a soft spot for thrillers, mysteries and sexual tension. When she isn’t writing or reading, she’s rewatching her favorite TV series or playing video games. She believes that there’s nothing better than a great cup of coffee, Kurt Russell and getting lost in a good book. Tyler lives in Alabama with her same-named husband and their mini lions. Visit her: www.tylerannesnell.com.

  Emmy Curtis is a British author who has lived in Germany, France, the USA, and for the time being, back in the UK with her military husband. She loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Kendall Jackson Vintner’s Reserve, Angelina’s café in Paris, the serial comma, and Galaxy chocolate. And absolutely anything Aaron Sorkin has written. And naps.

  Look her up at: www.emmycurtis.com

  Award-winning romantic suspense author Janie Crouch loves to read romance and has been doing so since middle school. She cut her teeth on Harlequin romances when she lived in Wales, UK, as a preteen, then moved on to a passion for romantic suspense as an adult.

  Janie recently relocated with her husband and four children to Germany (due to her husband’s job as support for the US Military), after living in Virginia for nearly 20 years. When she’s not listening to the voices in her head (and even when she is), she enjoys traveling, long-distance running, movie-watching, knitting and adventure (obstacle) racing. An adventurous life, but love is the true adventure.

  More at: www.janiecrouch.com

  Check out www.Harlequin.com for other titles by these authors.

  Table of Contents

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 1 of 8)

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 2 of 8)

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 3 of 8)

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 4 of 8)

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 5 of 8)

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 6 of 8)

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 7 of 8)

  Tough Justice: Countdown (Part 8 of 8)

  TOUGH JUSTICE:

  COUNTDOWN

  (Part 1 of 8)

  Carla Cassidy

  Tick. Tock. BOOM.

  FBI Special Agent Lara Grant had thought that she’d put her past behind her—finally—with her last case. But now a serial bomber is targeting Manhattan’s elite power players, offering them a choice between saving hundreds of lives or seeing their darkest secrets exposed. Lara is working with the Crisis Management Unit to stop the bomber, but how will she react when she’s the one who has to choose between truth...or death?

  Part 1 of 8: an explosive new installment in the thrilling FBI serial from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.

  Contents

  Episode One

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Episode One

  A year after FBI Agent Lara Grant put her past—in the form of a very personal manhunt—behind her, the Crisis Management Unit is called in to take lead on a shocking new assignment. A serial bomber is targeting some of the most powerful people in the city, threatening to expose their deepest secrets.

  And soon Lara will face a deadly foe—with an army of skeletons just waiting to fall out of her own closet...

  Prologue

  Dammit, he’d been so careful. And now this.

  A trickle of sweat worked down the side of his face and he closed his eyes as fear tightened his lungs and squeezed his throat. He’d been in a simmering panic since he’d received the email.

  He opened his eyes and reread the damned thing.

  12:01a.m.

  From [email protected]:

  I know what you did with all that money. I’ll keep your secret but it will cost the lives of innocent people. Or confess to the press and nobody gets hurt. The choice is yours. You have until noon tomorrow.

  The lives of innocent people? What did that mean? His gut tightened as nausea overcame him.

  Things like this weren’t supposed to happen to him. He’d done everything right in his life. He’d had high hopes. He had big ambitions. The New York Times was running a cover story on him next week that he hoped would launch him to a new level of success. Everything was in place and now this.

  Somebody knew his secret.

  He twisted his gold wedding band around and around his finger as he stared at the grandfather clock across the room. He had to make a decision fast. Time was running out.

  Coming clean would destroy everything he’d worked for. Hell, it wouldn’t only destroy him, it would also destroy his wife.

  How much could this anonymous person know? Did the emailer know about all the gifts, the secret hotel visits and the faux business expenses?

  Just last weekend they had spent two days together at a luxury hotel upstate, ultimately paid for by taxpayer dollars..

  Four minutes...he had four minutes left to make a decision. He should have contacted his brother when he’d received the email. But what could he have done to help? What could anyone do?

  Three minutes. A rivul
et of sweat rolled down the center of his back while his fingers poised over his computer keyboard. It was too late to call for a press conference. But it wasn’t too late for him to type something up on social media...confess to the affair and to the misuse of public funds.

  If he didn’t do that innocent people would die. Jesus, what kind of a choice was this? What kind of a monster asked someone to make such a decision?

  The back of his throat closed up again. He didn’t want to be responsible for anyone dying. He blew out several short breaths in an effort to calm himself.

  Two minutes to go. Surely it was a hoax. It had to be some sort of an outrageous bluff. How could he take this seriously? More sweat dampened him as the acrid scent of his fear wafted in the air. His fingers trembled with indecision.

  One minute... Oh, God, what should he do? Was this real? Would something bad really happen?

  Thirty seconds. His phone dinged with a text message. Quickly he grabbed it up and stared at the text.

  Ticktock.

  A sharp pain shot through his chest. This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be...could it? The grandfather clock ticked off the seconds.

  Five.

  Four. His fingers hovered over his keyboard.

  Three.

  Two. Oh, God. He hesitated. It was too late to type something now.

  One.

  As the clock began to chime, a ding indicated another text message.

  With dread he looked at it.

  Boom.

  Chapter One

  Nick Delano pulled the car over to the curb. “Jesus,” Jennifer Gulden murmured from the backseat. Her partner, Ty Jackson, echoed the sentiment.

  “Let’s go,” Lara Grant said when the car came to a full stop. The FBI agents flew out of the car and into a nightmare scene. Smoke roiled from buildings and people screamed as emergency vehicles blared their sirens and spun their glaring, multicolored lights.

  The acrid odor of fire, the coppery tang of blood and the unmistakable scent of death filled Lara’s nose as a frenzy of activity surrounded the agents.

  Utility workers yelled to each other and hurried to shut off live electric wires and cap gas leaks. A broken water main spewed a geyser into the air.

  Twenty minutes before a bomb had ripped through the heart of an NYPD precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The area was in utter chaos as uniformed officers fought to establish a perimeter. But how did you contain madness?

  “Looks like what we had on 34th Street,” Nick yelled, to be heard above the din.

  Were the two related? The 34th Street bombing three weeks ago had killed thirty-seven people and wounded dozens more. “Let’s see what we can find out,” Lara yelled back. Jennifer and Ty took off while Nick remained close to Lara’s side.

  Her lungs tightened against the smell of diesel and smoke. She took three steps forward and spied a police officer’s badge on the ground. She stared at the gold shield, drew in a deep breath and retreated to the unemotional place inside her that had gotten her through so much in the past.

  Aware that she was potentially messing with an active crimes scene she bent down and picked up the badge and placed it in her pocket. There was no way she wanted it to stay on the ground where it could be stepped on or run over. She didn’t even want to think about how it had wound up separated from its owner. And she definitely didn’t want to think about the body parts that lay strewn across the area.

  Nearby a police officer appeared to be arguing with a member of Homeland Security while an FBI agent watched. The pissing match between the agencies had already begun. It might have been funny if the stakes weren’t so damned high. Homeland Security would be investigating it as a potential terror attack, while NYPD and the FBI would be investigating it as a local crime. The more agencies involved, the more potential for a complete clusterfuck.

  If the two bombings were related then somebody was using the city of New York as a personal game board, bringing death and destruction without warning. Her stomach clenched at the thought.

  So far their investigation into the 34th Street bombing had stalled. Nobody had claimed responsibility and so they had no idea what the motive might be or who was behind it.

  “I wonder if it’s another peroxide bomb,” Nick said. The 34th Street bomb had been a peroxide one. Was this the work of a terrorist cell? Radical extremists often used that kind of bomb.

  When Christina Ruiz, the team’s new tech agent, had researched hydrogen peroxide bombs, Lara had been horrified by how easy they were to make with fairly common household products.

  “Over here!” A man’s frantic voice rose above the noise. He writhed on the ground and held his leg where a foot-long steel rod had embedded itself. “For God’s sake, please!”

  Lara ran in his direction. “Paramedics,” she cried. “Over here?” She raised two fingers to her lips and gave a shrill whistle, grateful to see a pair of men with a stretcher hurrying toward the man on the ground.

  “We need help here,” another man cried out as he picked concrete blocks off a pile beneath which a woman’s arm could be seen. Thankfully several firefighters rushed over to help.

  The din was nearly deafening. Cell phones rang in the air, some with happy music and others with frantic clamoring that went on and on.

  A huge crowd of spectators had gathered just behind the crime scene tape and their shouts and cries only added to the noise level.

  “Out of the way,” somebody shouted from behind Lara’s back. She moved aside to allow two more paramedics with a stretcher to fly past her.

  She quickly snapped on gloves as she walked toward what was left of the structure. Her father had been NYPD. She felt his ghost riding her shoulders as she spied a familiar female precinct lieutenant staring at the rubble.

  Lara walked over to her and touched her on the shoulder. Lieutenant Keisha Jackson spun around and automatically reached for her gun, her eyes wild and frantic.

  “Keisha, it’s okay,” Lara said with her hands up.

  The woman released a shuddery sigh. “Lara, I’m sorry. I’m on edge.”

  “I understand,” Lara replied. Over the past year Keisha had helped Lara obtain files from cases Lara’s father had worked on when he’d been with the NYPD, and in the process the two women had become friends.

  Keisha looked back at the wreckage. “I should have been there with all the others, but I was out on a case.” She turned and looked at Lara with dark, hollow eyes. She raised a trembling hand and swept it through her short dark hair. “I... I can’t believe this happened. I can’t...” Her voice trailed off with horror.

  Without warning she reached out and grabbed on to Lara’s forearm, her short fingernails biting into Lara’s skin. “You’ve got to find whoever is responsible for this. You got that creep Moretti behind bars again. You can get the son of a bitch who did this.”

  “Keisha,” Lara began.

  “I don’t trust Homeland to get to the bottom of this, but you and your team can.” She dropped her hand back to her side as tears filled her dark brown eyes.

  “You know we’re going to do everything in our power to get the person or persons responsible,” Lara replied. A hot burn of anger pressed against her chest.

  She was taking this one personally for all the good officers who had shown up for work that morning not knowing that it would be their last. She was taking it personally for all the other people who had been innocently going about their day, enjoying the perfect late-September weather when violent death had taken them unexpectedly.

  Her cell phone rang and she quickly pulled it out of her pocket and pressed it tightly against her ear. It was the Crisis Management Unit boss, Victoria Russo. “I just received word that an injured eye witness has reported that he was in the police station just minutes before the bomb went off. A stranger
whispered in his ear that Bruno Mars was performing a free concert just up the street so he ran out of the station just before it exploded.”

  Lara’s stomach clenched. “Just like what happened at the 34th Street bombing. That was a free Ed Sheeran concert.”

  “See if you can find any witnesses who might have seen or heard anything. Lara—we have to find this guy,” said Victoria, her voice tense.

  “I know,” she replied, ending the call and looking for Nick.

  Was the bomber picking specific people to save? “Why would the bomber want to save some people and not others?” she asked, even knowing her partner didn’t have the answer. “Any chance there were others?”

  “I’ll see if I can find out who is in charge of this mess and what kind of information they’ll share,” Nick said. “You should see if you can find more officers who might have been inside at the time of the blast and survived.”

  An edge of irritation rose up inside her. Who was he to tell her how to conduct her investigation? He was her partner, not her boss. Lara took a deep breath. She visualized her anger as red smoke and blew it away as she exhaled before answering him.

  “I think I can figure out what to do,” she replied.

  His jaw tightened as he gave her a quick nod and then walked away. Her attention was caught by raised voices coming from one of the police barriers. A uniformed cop and a man in a blue shirt who appeared to be in his early thirties were arguing. The cop was inside the crime scene tape and the man was outside, waving a cell phone in one hand.

  The man spun around with his back to the scene and raised his phone, apparently taking a selfie of himself with a view of the destruction behind him. Several people in the crowd booed and jeered him.

  What kind of an asshole took a selfie at the place of so many innocent deaths? She quickened her pace toward them as a rush of adrenaline spiked through her. In many cases it wasn’t uncommon for the guilty party to return to the scene of the crime.