Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set Read online

  Anna Grant had been a wonderful, loving mother. Lara had memories of soft hands and musical laughter and the haunting scent of gardenias. They’d lived in a small, but nice home in Queens where Lara’s father, Bartholomew, had been a NYPD detective.

  Home for Lara had been a turbulent place. She never knew what might set off her father’s anger. Many nights she’d either gone to bed with them fighting or she’d awakened in the middle of the night to the screaming and cussing between her father and mother. It didn’t help that her father had a bitter, hateful ex-wife and a daughter he rarely saw.

  Lara had been so afraid that on some nights, even long after the fighting had stopped, she couldn’t go back to sleep.

  School had been a haven of peace for her. She’d been a good student, but the difficulties at home had overshadowed everything.

  And then life had exploded on the day that Lara had come home from school and found her mother beaten to death and lying on the kitchen floor.

  At ten years old Lara hadn’t understood all the nuances of the investigation that had followed. All she knew was that she missed her mother desperately and when she’d needed her father the most, he hadn’t been there for her.

  In the beginning he’d tried. There had been mornings when he’d awakened her with a smile. He’d fixed her breakfast and then sent her off to school with an awkward pat on her back.

  She knew from reading everything in the reports that there were enough rumors after the murder to destroy his career, but not enough evidence to place him at the scene at the time of the murder. It had eventually gone down as an unsolved home invasion.

  A load of crap, she thought and took another sip of the iced water. Nothing had been stolen from the house, so how could it have really been a home invasion? It had been cold-blooded murder.

  After Lara’s father quit the force his drinking and his rage had escalated. Although he never struck Lara, she’d often hear him late into the nights pummeling the garage door. Bloody knuckles and dents in the door were constant reminders that her father had his own terrible demons.

  After the first couple of months he stopped getting up to see her off to school anymore and she’d often find him passed out on the sofa, the whole house smelling like stale sweat and alcohol.

  Since his death she’d pulled every file on the cases he’d been working on around the time of her mother’s death. She’d dissected both her mother’s and father’s lives in an effort to understand what had happened on that fateful day.

  He’d been involved in several high-profile cases and she’d meticulously gone over those particular files, searching for something, anything that might point a finger to the guilty party.

  She didn’t believe her father had killed her mother, but the only way she would find peace was to find her mother’s murderer.

  Peace. She didn’t know what real peace was, although she certainly knew she could find a false sense of it in the mindlessness of sex with Nick. A drink or two always helped take the edge off the turmoil that too often played inside her head.

  She supposed she could find complete numbness in the oblivion of too many drinks, but memories of her father’s drunkenness and her own need to maintain control didn’t make that a real option.

  Her hand hovered over her cell phone. If she called Nick right now would he come? Would he rush over and take her to bed? Help her forget the chaos in her mind? She honestly didn’t know the answer and she wasn’t willing to find out.

  She stared at the bulletin board and thought about all the avenues she’d investigated. One real piece of evidence she’d found was a gun she’d discovered in a plastic bag in her mother’s old hope chest. It had no prints on it and the serial number had been filed off. She’d given it to a fellow FBI agent who specialized in forensic firearm examinations.

  Josh Inman had owed her a favor and he’d agreed to see what he could do to get her some answers about the gun. He was doing it on the down-low and since it was a cold case she knew it wouldn’t be a high priority.

  When she’d met with him he’d told her that it might be possible to retrieve the serial number by magnetic particle inspection or chemical restoration. If those tests failed, then he would do ballistics tests and run them through the National Integrated Ballistic Identification Network.

  Striations on bullets and casings were as specific to a gun as fingerprints were to a person. If the gun had been used in a crime, then it would be in the network.

  All she wanted was to know who the gun had belonged to and trace how it had wound up in her mother’s hope chest. Had it been used in the commission of a crime? Why had it been hidden away in the hope chest?

  It would be nice if she had somebody she could talk to about all this, somebody to bounce theories and possibilities off, but nobody in her life understood her driving need. Nobody supported her quest for justice.

  She closed her eyes and thought of the one piece of trace evidence that haunted her. It was in lockup. It was a piece of wood so small that to run it against the criminal database would destroy it. Would she ever be ready to run the risk of destroying the one thing that could possibly identify the murderer?

  She didn’t know. All she did know was the night hours were slipping away and she needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be another long day as they continued to hunt for the bomber.

  Wearily she left the room of her obsession and headed for bed.

  The faceless man in her dreams had a bat...the possible weapon that had beaten her mother to death. Lara ran after him on a darkened street, her heart pounding with her exertion.

  Closer and closer she got to him and just before she could take him down he turned and instead of the bat he had a bomb in his hands. “Boom,” he said.

  A white blast blew her to her knees. Debris rained down on her as fire shot up in the air. Her eardrums burst and she screamed.

  She jerked upright, her heart racing and a ringing in her ears. It took a long moment for her to orient herself and realize the ringing in her ears wasn’t from a bomb blast, but rather from her cell phone.

  “Shit,” she said as she glanced at her clock. It was twenty minutes after seven. She grabbed her cell phone and saw that it was James.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “On my way, I overslept.” She got out of bed and grabbed her clothes, then raced into the bathroom. “What have I missed?”

  “Nothing earth-shattering yet, but I think something is brewing. Victoria postponed the morning briefing and she’s been holed up in her office with a Homeland agent.”

  “Thanks, James. I’ll be in as soon as possible.”

  Dammit, she thought as she hung up and started water in the shower. She had never been late for a morning briefing, never, ever in her life. She’d simply had too many late nights and had forgotten to set her alarm last night.

  She was out of the door within twenty minutes. Hair wet, makeup only a dream and pissed off at herself and the world.

  She walked in to find everyone working at their desks and Xander on the phone. “What’s going on?” she asked James.

  “I’m not sure. We’re all waiting for Victoria.”

  She sank down in her chair and couldn’t help but hear Xander’s end of his conversation.

  “Please, I’ll pay you twice as much as I normally do. Hell, I’ll pay you three times. I don’t need a sitter tomorrow night, I need one tonight. Look, we’re in the middle of a huge case here. Fine, thanks for nothing.” He ended the conversation and whirled around in his chair.

  “Don’t glare at me,” Lara said.

  He dragged a hand over his short blond hair. “I’m glaring at life in general,” he replied.

  “Welcome to the club,” she replied dryly. “Babysitting issues?”

  He scowled with displeasure. “Maddy’s mother is o
ut of town and my usual babysitter for Maddy is sick. I only have a few backups and none of them are available. I can’t just leave her with anyone.”

  A flashback gripped Lara by the neck. She was in a car on the beach and she had her baby girl in her lap. Minutes earlier Lara had shot Moretti and he had been taken away by the authorities. All that was left to the operation was for Lara to tell her daughter goodbye for the last time.

  The press of little Emily’s body as she leaned forward into Lara’s chest was a tactile memory burned into Lara’s very soul. For just a few minutes that night she’d wanted to run. She’d wanted to take Emily and disappear with her. She’d desperately wanted to see Emily’s first birthday...her second and all the others that followed.

  But she’d known that Emily would always be at risk if she remained with Lara. She would be a pawn that Moretti and anyone else with a grudge against her could use. As much as she hungered to have Emily in her life, Lara would always be a target and there was no way she’d risk harm to her daughter.

  “Lara?”

  Xander’s voice cut through the painful memories.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Look, Xander, if you need to get off early to take care of your daughter, then do it. We’ll all cover for you here.”

  “I just need off by three this afternoon so I can get her from school. I’ll talk to Victoria as soon as she’s free.”

  Lara turned around to face her computer. She was surprised that it had been James who had called her when she’d been late that morning. Normally it would have been her partner who covered her ass, but Nick was still being distant and cool with her. He hadn’t even acknowledged her arrival.

  Victoria appeared, a tall man next to her. “Everyone to the conference room,” she said.

  It took only minutes for everyone to be seated at the table. “This is Agent Brian Warwick with Homeland Security,” she said. “I’ll just give him the floor.”

  He stood and straightened his tie, his dark brown eyes somber. “We got the tip on the house in Brooklyn and we’ve had them under surveillance. We have seen suspicious activity and an hour ago we obtained a search warrant based on the fact that somebody on the terrorist watch list visited the house last night. We want to invite you to join us in the takedown that’s going to occur at 01:00 tonight. Meanwhile we have other agents picking up the man on the watch list for questioning.”

  Finally, some action, Lara thought. Maybe Nick’s tip would actually solve this case. She leaned forward and listened carefully as Warwick outlined the plan.

  It was almost two hours later when the meeting broke up. What Warwick had proposed was basically the CMU team doing all the work and Homeland providing assistance and taking any credit that might be due.

  If these were the people responsible for the bombings, then Lara didn’t care about anything except getting them off the street.

  A hum of energy remained in the workroom for the rest of the day. Lara contacted Howard Dennison’s professors, his friends and other students to check his alibis for the time of the bombing.

  Within an hour the alibis remained solid. Lara had spoken to the two professors who headed the classes Dennison said he’d attended during the time of the two bombings.

  Both professors indicated Dennison was a stellar student who never missed a class. In one of the classes on one of the days in question there had been a guest speaker and the session had been taped. The professor was happy to send her a copy of the video that was both date—and time-stamped and showed Dennison in class and asking questions when the police precinct bomb went off. Within minutes after that Dennison was just a fleeting memory as Lara moved on to focus on witnesses.

  Xander went to speak with Victoria about his babysitting issue and returned with a smile of relief. “Victoria gave me the name of a friend of her daughter who babysits and she’s going to take care of Maddy tonight. She said I can head out of here around three and be with Maddy until around eleven when I’ve arranged for the new sitter to be there and I’ll head back here for the action.”

  “At least you’ll be able to tuck Maddy into bed,” Jennifer said.

  “There is that,” Xander said with a soft smile.

  As the afternoon turned into evening, the energy in the air ratcheted up. By eleven o’clock they were all fueled up on caffeine and a rush of anticipation.

  They suited up in their tactical gear and piled into a bulletproof van containing special communications systems and any weapon or tactical gear they might need.

  Nick got behind the wheel and Lara rode shotgun while the other four agents sat on the bench seats in the back. They were all pumped and more than ready.

  The night was black, filled not only with thick clouds but also a dense layer of fog. It was perfect weather for a stealth takedown.

  “Let’s get these bastards,” Xander exclaimed when Nick pulled out of the garage and headed for a church parking lot near the house in question. There they would meet up with the Homeland team and finalize their plans.

  “Down beast,” James said to Xander with a touch of humor.

  “Let’s just hope we get these people in custody and the bombings stop.” Lara reached up to adjust her helmet strap, her heart pumping a million beats a minute.

  Ty began going over the plays as Warwick had outlined them. “The house is a three-story brownstone with a garden apartment,” he said, using a flashlight to read off his notes. “It belongs to a Jeff and Miranda Connelly, who don’t live on the premises but rent it out to fellow students. Homeland agents will be chasing down the owners of the property. When we get on scene, Jennifer and I go into the garden apartment where the only occupant should be a female student.”

  Lara knew her teammates would already have all this memorized, but Ty always went over the details when they were about to undertake an assignment like this.

  “Xander and James go to the fire escape on the west side of the house and enter on the third floor. Lara and Nick go up the same fire escape to the second floor for entry. There should be three other occupants in the house, but we aren’t sure where they will be located. Homeland agents will go through the front door and will be on the east side of the house for any window-jumpers.”

  “Feel better Mr. Obsessive Compulsive?” Xander asked Ty.

  Nick laughed. “You should be glad for his compulsive need to go over everything. It might be what stands between you and a major screw-up.”

  More teasing banter flew back and forth among them as they flew through the night. It was a slight release of some of the tension they all felt.

  Hopefully at this time of the night the occupants would be sleeping and would have no idea of what was about to occur. And hopefully the doors and windows wouldn’t be rigged with explosives. They really had no idea what they were walking into. But, one thing was certain—nobody wanted to die tonight.

  Lara’s nerves sizzled hot as Nick turned into the church parking lot where another dark van was barely visible in the fog. They parked facing the van and Nick turned off the headlights.

  The last thing they wanted was to draw any attention to themselves from concerned neighbors, although the local cops would have been given a heads up about the raid.

  The van door opened and a tall man got out, appearing like a ghostly wraith as he approached the driver side of their vehicle.

  Nick rolled down his window. “Agent Warwick,” he greeted.

  “Agent Delano,” he replied. “We’re a go. We still believe there are two men and a woman in the upstairs on the second floor and a single female in the garden apartment.”

  “So we stick with the plans outlined earlier?” Nick asked. “What does your current surveillance tell you?”

  “The house is dark and we can assume that everyone is asleep inside. There have been no visitors to the house today and the occupants went
about their normal activities and attended classes.”

  “What do you know about the occupants?”

  “Isabelle Jory has rented the garden apartment for the past six months. She’s twenty-two years old and is an English lit major. Daniel Myers and Seth Jenkins are both twenty-three years old and business majors. They have been renting rooms for the past nine months. Finally we have Megan Tanner who is twenty-one, an education major and just rented a room three months ago.”

  “Criminal records?” Nick asked.

  “None.”

  “Have your men picked up the owners of the house yet?”

  “Not yet. We attempted to speak to them at their eastside apartment, but nobody was home. We have agents sitting on the place,” Warwick replied.

  “And what about the person of interest on the terrorist watch list?”

  “Don’t have him in custody yet, either.”

  “So, what have you guys been doing? Twiddling your thumbs?” Nick said jokingly.

  “Fuck you, Delano,” he replied equally good-naturedly.

  It was the usual pissing match between agencies, but it ended quickly as Warwick went over the details of the raid once again.

  Communications systems were tested among all the agents and Warwick introduced his team of four men. Then there was nothing left but to get into place down the street from the house and wait until they were given a signal to move in.

  Once again a spike of energy shot through Lara as they parked along the curb a half a block away from the house in question. All the houses were dark in the quiet neighborhood.

  The fog was definitely their friend tonight.

  The minutes ticked off and silence reigned in the van. Lara knew her teammates would be doing the same thing she was doing—going over the plan in her head and sending up a prayer that nobody got hurt.

  At twelve forty-five Warwick gave the command for them to get into position. They left the van and moved like silent shadows toward the house.