Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set Page 19

  He kicked at the dirt as a deep sob ripped from him. “A dirty politician, that’s all he was. I thought he was so much more than that, I wanted him to be more.” He raised his hands to his face and began to weep.

  Stunned, Lara just stood there and allowed him to vent his grief. She knew he was not only grieving his brother’s death, but now was also brokenhearted because the big brother he’d admired so much had been tragically flawed.

  This was the breakdown Lara knew had been coming since James had walked into his brother’s death scene. This was the anguish he’d been keeping inside. It spilled out of him in deep, ripping sobs.

  It was healthy for him to finally release it. Lara had never really cried about her mother. Her grief was a tight knot in her chest that never went away, that wouldn’t go away until she solved the mystery of her murder.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said as he wiped his tears away with his hands. “I swore to myself I wasn’t going to break down. I can’t believe I did it now...in front of you.”

  “Don’t worry about it, James. You needed to let it out,” she said softly. “Go home, James.”

  “I need to get you the paperwork I gathered through the night that shows everything.”

  “Tomorrow is soon enough,” she replied. She paused for a moment and then asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

  Once again he drew in a deep breath. “Yeah, I’ll be all right.”

  “Walk with me back to the parking lot?”

  He nodded and together they left William’s burial site. “I don’t think he was being blackmailed about being gay,” James said. “I think it was all about the corruption.”

  “We’ll sort it out, James. What you need right now is to go home and get some sleep.”

  “Yeah, I do,” he agreed wearily.

  They reached his car. “Thanks, Lara,” he said as he pulled keys out of his pocket.

  “For what?”

  “For caring enough to find me.”

  “You’re a teammate. We all need to take care of each other.”

  “Okay, but I still appreciate it.” He flashed her a sad smile and then got into his car.

  Lara waited until he’d pulled out of the cemetery entrance before walking to her car on the other side of the parking lot. She got into the vehicle and pulled out behind James. She immediately called Xander and let him know that James was okay and then she dialed Nick.

  “Just wanted to let you know the latest,” she said to him and then told him about the corruption James had uncovered.

  “Jesus, how’s he holding up?”

  “He’s okay. I told him to go home and get some sleep. He told me he’d been up all night.”

  “Obviously the bomber found out about the corruption and was blackmailing William,” Nick said.

  “I agree, but in what way?” she asked. “How does this tie in to the bombing and the note he left?”

  “Hell if I know,” he replied, frustration evident in his voice.

  “No word on the missing laptop?”

  “None,” he replied.

  “In a city like New York there are a million places where somebody could get rid of a laptop,” she replied. “We may never find the damned thing. “Would you update Victoria for me? I’m heading home.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  It was almost seven o’clock by the time Lara reached her apartment. Dinner was a microwave pizza and dessert was a large shot of whiskey as she sat down at the desk in her home office.

  She printed out an old mug shot of Lamar Jeffries from the criminal records link and then pinned it on the bulletin board next to the pictures of her mother’s crime scene. She downed her shot of whiskey and then poured herself another.

  Rearing back in her chair she studied her crime board, a familiar frustration lodged in the back of her throat. She’d so hoped Lamar Jeffries would be able to shed some light on the case, but he’d only sparked more questions.

  Had her father been involved with crooked cops? She didn’t want to believe it. He’d loved being a highly decorated detective. He’d preached to her the difference between right and wrong and had given her what moral compass she possessed.

  Was it possible her father had taken the gun away from another cop? A crooked cop? Jeffries had said he’d never seen her father before and there was some comfort in that.

  Had there been a corruption investigation into the police department twenty years ago? She had no idea, but now she’d have to check the resources she had to see if she could find anything related to that. It was also possible there had been corruption in the department that had never been caught.

  Bent cops. As far as she was concerned there was nothing worse than a man who wore the badge and conducted criminal activity.

  She’d look to see if there was any record of a drug bust in a Queens warehouse twenty years ago, but she had a feeling if it had gone down as Jeffries had told her, there would be no record.

  The cops who had conducted the drug bust had stolen his money, had probably sold the drugs and split the spoils. And then later had set Jeffries up on a murder charge to put him in prison and keep him silent. His whole story had left a bad taste in her mouth.

  She’d also need to go back in time and look at her father’s old cases with a new eye. But, it seemed that the more threads she pulled the more tangled the mystery got.

  She finished her drink and poured herself a third one. Too many drinks...too many late nights and not enough damned answers. She leaned her head back as the sips of whiskey continued to warm her insides.

  Her head was in chaos with thoughts of corrupt cops and her mother’s murder, with James’s grief and a bomber still out there who could take out more people at any time.

  It was just before eleven when she finally called it a night. She downed the last of her fourth whiskey and left the office. She carefully closed the door firmly behind her.

  After a quick shower she finally got into bed and tried to empty her mind enough that sleep would arrive.

  She must have fallen asleep because the ring of her phone jerked her awake. She fumbled to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. A glance at her clock told her it was 12:05 a.m. Her stomach clenched. Nothing good came out of a middle-of-the night phone call.

  “Agent Grant,” she said into the phone.

  “Lara, it’s me. Get in here now for an emergency meeting.” Victoria’s voice held an urgency that vanquished any lingering clouds of sleep from her brain.

  “What’s happened?” Lara asked and then realized Victoria had already hung up.

  She scrambled out of bed and quickly dressed, then headed out of her apartment building and was in the back of a cab within minutes. She hadn’t had much of a chance to sleep off the booze she’d had before going to bed. She mentally shook herself in an effort to stay focused.

  What in the hell was going on? She’d never heard Victoria sound so rattled. What had happened to cause the need for an emergency meeting in the middle of the night?

  Another bomb? Oh, God, no. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought and she quickly got on her phone to check the latest news headlines. Her breath fluttered out of her in relief. Nothing—and if another bomb had exploded certainly it would have been all over every local site.

  Reaching Federal Plaza, her heart beat picked up as she threw some cash at the cab driver and hurried into headquarters. She entered the conference room to find everyone there except Ty. Even James was at the table.

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” Xander replied. “Victoria hasn’t been in.”

  Lara took a seat just as Ty flew into the room. “Sorry, I got here as fast as I could.”

  “We’re all just waiting for Victoria,” Nick said.
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  “I looked at the news and didn’t see anything about another bomb exploding,” Lara said.

  “Yeah, I did the same thing,” Jennifer replied.

  At that moment Victoria came into the room with Christina following just behind her. Victoria stood at the head of the table and gripped her cell phone in one hand.

  Lara had never seen her boss like this. Her blouse was wrinkled and her hair was a mess. But it was Victoria’s expression that worried Lara the most. Fear. It radiated out from Victoria’s gaze.

  “I... I...” Victoria stopped and swallowed several times. She threw her cell phone on the table and gave a curt nod to Christina.

  The monitor on the wall came on. Lara leaned in as she read what appeared to be a WhatsApp message. Her stomach dropped.

  Victoria Russo: Your choice: You have a deep, dark secret about serial rapist and murderer Oscar Mackworth. I’ll keep the secret for a price: a bomb that will kill hundreds. Or, let me expose your secret and hundreds of lives will be saved. Your choice. You have until noon tomorrow.

  Ticktock.

  * * * * *

  What has Victoria been hiding? The bomber has made it personal by hurting the CMU team—first James, now Victoria. Picking them off, one by one. Will they let the bomber win? Not a chance. Twelve hours isn’t a lot of time, but Lara is determined to stop this psycho before he can attack again. Bring it on...

  TOUGH JUSTICE:

  COUNTDOWN

  (Part 3 of 8)

  Tyler Anne Snell

  Under Attack

  The bomber’s latest threat has thrown the Crisis Management Unit into chaos! As Lara Grant struggles to hold her fractured team together, she discovers a possible connection between this case and her own past—something she can’t reveal to anyone, especially now. Because when the bomber’s next target chooses to keep his secret, terror turns to an intimate form of torture, and anyone’s past can be used against them...

  Part 3 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.

  For my husband, Tyler. Thank you for all of the coffee.

  Contents

  Episode Three

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Episode Three

  FBI Special Agent Lara Grant is so tired of playing cat and mouse! Now it’s very personal for Lara and the CMU. Their leader is under attack, and Lara has never been one to play nice when those close to her are threatened. The mouse has turned into the cat—and the claws are coming out...

  Chapter One

  They all looked at the phone like it was the bomb.

  One by one each member of the FBI’s Crisis Management Unit read the message on its screen and, one by one, they turned to their boss.

  Victoria Russo, sharp and cunning, fierce and compassionate, respected and resolute in everything she did, now resembled a shadow. And all it had taken was one text to do it.

  “We have to ask,” Xander finally said when it was apparent Victoria wasn’t going to offer up any explanation. At least not yet. That in itself should have spoken volumes about the threat. To make her go silent? Even if only a minute or two had passed while they read it? Lara’s stomach knotted. It was bad. Really bad. “What’s your ‘deep, dark secret’ about Oscar Mackworth?” Xander added, voice detached. No judgment. Just curiosity.

  “Serial rapist and murderer,” Jennifer tacked on. She hadn’t been a part of the CMU as long as Lara had but that didn’t mean she wasn’t affected by a threat against the boss. One look at James, the other junior agent, and Lara knew his mind was racing along the same unknown track as the rest of them. Maybe his was running a little faster, though. All the color had drained from his face after reading the message.

  But Lara didn’t have time to worry about him right now. She was more concerned with Victoria. And why her boss looked ready to buckle.

  Victoria crossed her arms over her chest, a power stance she used sometimes in briefings and meetings, but at the moment it resembled someone trying to keep the world out. She let her eyes sweep over each of them before she answered.

  “I’m not going to tell you,” she said simply. There was a hard edge to her voice that underlined her words. “Not now, at least.”

  “But—” Nick tried to interject. Lara wanted to as well but held her tongue.

  “Right now we have a job to do and—” she motioned to her cell phone now resting on the middle of the table “—we’ve just been given one hell of a connection to help us do that. Focus on this.”

  Lara, so stunned by the message, hadn’t looked past her emotional attachment to her boss to really focus on the case as a whole. That included the first three bombings: at the smoothie shop in Manhattan, the Williamsburg police station in Brooklyn and the hospital in Queens. Which, again, drew her attention back to James. Like a lightbulb flickering on, Lara saw another puzzle piece connect just as she made the same connection. But it was Nick who beat her to voicing it.

  “‘The bomb at the Williamsburg police station was my fault.’” It was a line from William Walsh’s suicide note and, now, it made sense. Terrible sense.

  “My brother was given a choice,” James said, voice undeniably raw. He kept his eyes on the table, as well as the fist he’d balled. He slammed that fist down hard. No one was surprised by it. “He was given a fucking choice and he chose to keep his secret instead of expose it. A decision that got a lot of people killed.” James cut a look filled with daggers to Victoria before throwing his chair back and standing. His chest heaved up and down, pulsing along with angry breaths.

  “James,” Lara tried, but the junior agent wasn’t having any of it. He left the room with nothing but pure anger in his wake. No one said anything for a moment.

  Victoria dropped her arms and let out a long breath. It reeked of frustration, exhaustion and utter helplessness. And it was starting to become contagious.

  “You all need to watch him,” Victoria ordered the team. “This job is hard but when you drag in family it’s, well... Let’s just say this case needs straight shooters—people with level heads and nerves—not loose cannons. That’s the last thing we, and this city, need right now.”

  Xander was already standing. While Ty had issues with getting used to his newest partner, Jennifer, Xander had become fond of James. Friends, even.

  “I’m on it.” He didn’t wait for permission and left the room to follow James. If anyone could talk the man down, it was Xander. Lara knew that from experience. She’d once been on the receiving end of a surprisingly heartfelt and insightful speech given by the man when she was near her lowest. He could get through to James.

  “I feel like we’re in a TV show,” Ty said after the door shut. “One where the plot is a simple ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’” He shook his head. He was the oldest of the CMU agents at thirty-six—aside from Victoria—but most days it didn’t show.

  Today it did.

  Lines of wear and tear, emotional and physical, dragged down his expression.

  “At least now we know what we’re dealing with,” Nick spoke up. He pushed the tip of his index finger down on the tabletop. He tapped it once for every point he made. “So far our targets seem to be powerful, influential people in key positions throughout the city. All with what our Whisperer deems as ‘dark’ or ‘dirty’ secrets.”

  “He gives his targets a choice. E
xposure or innocents’ death on their conscience,” Jennifer said, looking up from the notepad she’d produced.

  “It isn’t enough to flat-out kill his targets. He wants them to suffer for what they’ve done,” Lara finally said. She looked at the phone as she spoke. It surprised her at how much she felt exposed at the moment.

  Lara could count on her hand how many people she’d truly trusted in her life. With even fewer fingers on that same hand she could count how many people she trusted had betrayed her confidence. However, Victoria Russo had never made that particular list. She’d been Lara’s mentor, her boss and her friend for years. She’d known everything there was to know about Lara—her past, the details of the Moretti case, the child she’d given up for adoption, all of it—and had never used it against her. Never let her down. Victoria had been there for her through thick, thin and everything in between. She’d been one of very few rocks in Lara’s life that hadn’t been eroded or washed down the stream of time.

  And now, here Lara was, looking at the same woman she had spent years admiring and respecting, bend to the sick wills of a madman.

  It wasn’t right.

  And Lara wasn’t going to let it stand, either.

  “Including you, we have four victims so far who have been directly threatened by the bomber,” Jennifer added in. She didn’t flinch when she pointed to their boss. A nearly indiscernible change swept across Victoria’s expression. Her jaw tightened, her lips narrowed, and Lara bet her teeth were grinding together.