Tough Justice: Exposed (Part 1 of 8)

Carla Cassidy

TOUGH JUSTICE: Justice is worth every sacrifice.

Episode One: Exposed

Lara Grant is an FBI agent with a past she desperately wants to forget. Now she’s in New York, on new assignment, where very few people know her. Until a deadly adversary from her past puts her right in the line of fire... But when Lara’s back is against the wall, there’s only one way forward. With guns blazing!

Justice is worth every sacrifice.

A brand-new 8-part reading experience starting January 12, 2016!

FBI agent Lara Grant has finally put her life as an undercover operative behind her and started a new assignment in New York City. But her past and present collide and become ever more twisted as a spate of murders sends a message that is cruelly, chillingly personal...

Tough Justice: Exposed (Part 1 of 8) by New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy

Tough Justice: Watched (Part 2 of 8) by Tyler Anne Snell

Tough Justice: Burned (Part 3 of 8) by Carol Ericson

Tough Justice: Trapped (Part 4 of 8) by Gail Barrett

Tough Justice: Twisted (Part 5 of 8) by Gail Barrett

Tough Justice: Ambushed (Part 6 of 8) by Carol Ericson

Tough Justice: Betrayed (Part 7 of 8) by Tyler Anne Snell

Tough Justice: Hunted (Part 8 of 8) by New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy

CARLA CASSIDY is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author who has written more than one hundred and twenty novels for Mills & Boon 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.

To the Tough Justice team,

who worked overtime to make this happen!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About Tough Justice

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

The ledge outside of the tenth floor window of the hotel had a beautiful view of Central Park. It was also dangerously narrow and covered with pigeon crap.

A cold late September breeze sliced through FBI Special Agent Lara Grant as she stepped out of the window of room 1021 and onto the ledge.

She leaned with her back against the window frame and eyed the man who sat on the ledge about five feet to her right. She shouldn’t be here. She’d been in the middle of a meet and greet with her new unit when the call had come in. Talking down potential jumpers wasn’t in her new job description, but the man had asked for her specifically by name.

She had no idea who he was, had never seen him before in her life. It was nine-thirty in the morning, and the last place she wanted to be was on a breathtakingly small ledge trying to stop a stranger from committing a very public and messy suicide.

“Bad day?” she asked.

“Bad life,” he replied. He didn’t look at her but, rather, stared straight ahead. “Are you FBI Agent Lara Grant?”

“You asked for me and here I am. What’s your name?” she asked. Despite the coolness of the day, his forehead shone with perspiration. She tried to gauge how best to connect with him. What persona could she pull out of her professional hat to get him down to safety? Tough talk or sweet and honeyed? Too soon for her to tell.

“Sean.” He leaned over and looked down below where Lara knew the NYPD had gathered, along with a growing crowd of looky-loos and local reporters.

“Sean what?”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now.” His voice held a weary hopelessness that shot tension through Lara.

It had been her experience that there were two types of people who crawled out on a high ledge and threatened to jump. The first were the people who wanted drama and were usually easily talked down from a window or a bridge.

The second were the serious ones, people who were more than willing to take the plunge to end their lives. Her initial observation was that Sean was dead serious.

“What’s going on today, Sean?” She kept her voice conversational and nonthreatening.

“I just can’t take it anymore.”

“Take what?” Lara made no move toward him. Her job was to keep him talking until a team on the ground got her some personal information about him that she could hopefully use to get him off the ledge and to safety.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“You obviously thought I would. You asked for me specifically to come here and talk to you.” She could hear the crowd below now, some asshole yelling “jump.”

Sean wasn’t a small man. Despite his seat on the ledge, he appeared tall and muscular; but as he looked at her, there was the darkness of impending death in his eyes. “I was wrong. I thought you might be the one to understand everything, but nobody will.”

“Try me,” she replied softly. “Talk to me, Sean.” Sweet and honeyed instinctively felt right for now.

He shook his head, closed his eyes and leaned back against the building.

“Sean, at least tell me your last name. It doesn’t seem fair that you know mine, and I don’t know yours.”

“Dunst. I’m Sean Dunst, and I deserve to die.”

“Sean Dunst,” she repeated. “It’s nice to meet you.” Lara was wired and knew an officer on the ground could hear what she said. With his full name they could now hopefully get her some information that might be useful.

Another cold gust of wind whipped around the building. “It’s freezing out here, Sean. Why don’t you come inside where it’s nice and warm and we can talk?”

He shook his head and didn’t reply.

For the next three hours he refused to speak. Lara kept up a running conversation in an effort to make a connection. Her legs shook from the effort of balancing on the ledge. In her long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans she wasn’t dressed for the wind. She fought against shivers that threatened to throw off her balance and send her crashing to the ground below.

It would be just her luck to have survived everything she had in the past to meet her end here and now because of some screwed-up guy on a ledge.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m getting hungry, Sean. I skipped breakfast this morning, and I’ll bet you didn’t eat, either. Why don’t we order up some room service with a pot of hot coffee, and we can talk inside,” she said, and still he didn’t reply.

What was taking so damn long? Why hadn’t anyone whispered in her ear some information that would aid her in getting this guy back inside and down to safety? This needed to end.

“I’ve done things...terrible things,” he said, finally breaking his long, agonizing silence.

“Haven’t we all?”

“Not like this.” He began to cry. Not silent, seeping tears, but, rather deep, ugly cries. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed, snot bubbling out of his nose with the force of his hysteria.

“I’m sure things aren’t as bad as you think,” Lara replied. At least he was talking again.

“You can’t understand. Nobody can. I’ve done horrible things.” He swiped at his nose with the back of his long sleeve and looked at her. “I need to be forgiven.”

She was cold and tired and starting to get a little pissed off. “I can’t forgive you for something I don’t know about. Tell me what you’ve done, and maybe you can forgive yourself.”

Her earpiece crackled and filled with a deep male voice giving her details. A nine-year-old girl named Tina. Found deceased...murdered near Dunst’s home. Primary suspect...not enough evidence to convict.

The guy on the ledge was a suspected child killer. For just a moment Lara wanted to shove him off herself. “Tell me about Tina.”

He visibly stiffened. When he looked at her again it was with knowing eyes. He’d killed the kid, and he realized now that she knew it.

“You see why I have to jump?” he asked softly. “It’s the only way out for me.”

“You’re guilty?” She held his gaze, her voice reflecting none of the revulsion that bubbled up inside her.

“Yes.” The single word tore from his lips, and his features twisted with inner torment.

Lara continued to stare at him, her face schooled to reflect nothing. “And you believe you deserve to pay?”

“Yes.” The answer was a sibilant whisper.

“Then how dare you try to take the easy way out,” she replied harshly.

She’d changed her mind. He wasn’t going to jump. She knew it with a gut instinct that had served her well over the years. If he was a serious suicide he would have already flung himself off the ledge. He wouldn’t have sat here for the hours that he had.

“Man up, Dunst,” she said, dropping the pleasant conversational tone she’d previously used. Sweet and honeyed definitely wasn’t cutting it. “You know you don’t want to jump. Come inside, and deal with whatever you need to like a man.”

It took another long hour to finally talk him into giving himself up. She climbed back through the window, and thankfully he followed her into the upscale hotel room.

Once they were inside, she cuffed him with his wrists behind his back and then led him toward the stairs that would take them to the ground floor and into the custody of awaiting officers. Ten freaking stories, but she didn’t want to throw him into an elevator where other hotel patrons might be present despite the police effort to keep them out.

It was nearly two o’clock. Over four hours she’d wasted on this creep who had finally stopped crying and now wore a weary resignation on his face.

“Why did you ask for me?” she asked when they’d descended halfway to the ground level.

“It doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters now. My life is over.”

What did matter was that Lara was cold and tired and more than ready to put this child killer in jail. There was a special place in hell for men like him.

They reached the lobby where not a soul was present. The police would have moved everyone out in the event that things went bad.

She held Sean by the cuffs behind his back and paused to look outside of the lobby doors. It was a circus. Not only were there half a dozen NYPD cop cars, but also news vans and a throng of people held back from the entrance by some of the officers. Potential jumpers always drew a big crowd.

A rivulet of apprehension worked through her. The last thing she needed right now was for her picture to appear in any news stories.

She’d wanted...needed to stay low-profile. Dammit, this had the potential of ruining everything for her. Get a grip, she mentally commanded herself.

She straightened her shoulders and fought against a sense of dark foreboding. She had a job to do, and no matter what the consequences, she had to see it through. That’s what she did...she did her job.

Just get him into the back of one of the patrol cars and then your job here is done. You can get back to your new unit, and life will go on, she thought with determination.

“We’re coming out,” she said into her wire.

Getting a firm grip on Dunst’s handcuffs, she threw her other arm up to hide her face and then used her back to push out of the building doors.

Shouts resounded, along with the click and whir of cameras. Halfway to the nearest patrol car, the sickening sound of a bullet hitting flesh jerked her to an abrupt halt. Dunst stiffened and then fell out of her grasp and to the ground beside her. He lay face up with a bullet hole between his eyes.

Silence. The world stopped moving for a single moment as Lara stared down at the dead man and the blood seeping out and making a sickening puddle surrounding the back of his head.

She looked up in horror, and chaos erupted. Police rushed in, onlookers screamed, and cameras continued to click. Lara backed away from the dead man.

A sniper.

She automatically pulled her gun from her holster and crouched, steeled for another potential shot as she focused her attention on the nearby surrounding buildings. Uniformed police ran in dozens of directions—some toward the nearest building where the shot had possibly come from. Others raced to her side, and more NYPD officers scattered the onlookers toward cover.

Seconds ticked by, and when another shot didn’t follow the first, Lara’s first thought of public safety shifted to personal vulnerability, and a more primal instinct kicked in.

She threw her arm up once again in an attempt to shield her features and raced toward her company-issued car in the parking lot. Her heart nearly beat out of her chest.

Once inside she gripped the steering wheel tightly and stared at the scene in the distance. What in the hell had just happened?

She’d done her job. She’d talked him off the ledge. It should have been a piece of cake to get him into a patrol car and on his way to jail.

A cluster fuck. That’s what she saw before her, with cops wielding guns and running helter-skelter. People still screamed, and not only news people were taking photos, but also everyone with a cell phone captured the madness for posterity.

How many had captured her image? She had to get out of there. She slammed her fists against the steering wheel and then quickly started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. She only hoped that no ghosts from her past chased after her.

Chapter One

26 Federal Plaza was the home of the Social Security Administration, Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, among other government agencies. At over forty-one stories high, the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building was a monolith of steel, glass, limestone and granite.

Lara entered the building through a side door. The last thing she wanted to do was to make her way through the throng of tourists who always clogged the main entrance. She hit the small lobby, flashed her badge to the security agent and then raced across the terrazzo floor toward a bank of awaiting elevators.

Once inside one of the elevators she punched the button for the twenty-third floor where the FBI was housed, and her new team, the Crisis Management Unit, should be waiting for her. She’d barely had time to meet them all this morning when she’d been called to the scene at the hotel.

What in the hell had just happened? Who had fired that shot and why? And how much danger might she be in? Dammit, she’d thought she was safe. It had been almost two years. Who would have thought that an unknown man on a ledge and an audience frothing to see if he would jump could possibly undo everything she’d done in the past year in an effort to get her life back?

Maybe nobody had gotten a clear photo of her. She’d tried to shield her features as much as possible when she’d ushered Sean Dunst out from the hotel.

Still, she knew she was probably fooling herself. The second that bullet had slammed into him, she’d dropped her guard, and who knew what photos had been taken in that split second?

Hopefully she was overreacting. It had been a long time, with no indication that there was anyone left who might want to do her harm.

Maybe she shouldn’t have come back home to New York?

The elevator door whooshed open, and once again she flashed her creds to security before heading down a long hallway to the back of the building where her new team of talented agents had been assigned to work on the kinds of cases that nobody else wanted.

This was what she had been born to do, to work within the law as much as possible but to not be afraid to slightly blur the lines in order to achieve ultimate justice.

She passed the receptionist desk and nodded to Penelope Zimmerman who, rumor had it, was like a pit bull when it came to keeping out the unwanted and fielding phone calls from kooks.

Lara fought against the panic that threatened to crawl up the back of her throat. Maybe all of the news reports would only show Sean Dunst’s dead body. Who cared about the FBI agent who had gotten him off the ledge? Dunst’s unexpected murder was the real story, not her.

All she needed was a little good luck on her side, but then when had that ever happened? The minute she opened the door to the conference room she knew things were potentially bad.

All of the team was there, but Lara first looked at her boss, Supervisory Agent and Unit Chief Victoria Russo. As always not an ash-colored hair on her head was out of place, and she was impeccably dressed in a black suit and a crisp white blouse. It was only when Lara gazed at Victoria’s blue eyes that she knew things might be as bad as she’d expected.

She’d known Victoria for a long time. The tough woman had been Lara’s boss when they’d both worked for the DC department. Victoria knew more about Lara’s background than anyone else on earth. Her glare cut through Lara, as if seeking to look into her very soul.

Lara felt as if Victoria was whispering in her ear, telling her that Victoria knew Lara had just been through hell, but Lara was strong enough to handle it. She hoped she was...she had to be.

She sat at the long conference table across from her new partner, Nick Delano, and straightened her back. Victoria gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. “Welcome back, Lara,” she said, letting Lara know it was going to be business as usual after all.

Lara looked across the table, where her new partner was watching her intently and with open interest. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, Nick Delano’s bold attractiveness was only enhanced by the scar on his right temple.

She might find him physically appealing, but she wouldn’t go there. The last time she’d opened herself up to a man, it had been with deadly consequences.

Besides, she wasn’t even sure she liked her new partner yet. She’d scarcely had time to interact with him that morning before she’d been called to the hotel to meet Dunst on the ledge.

“What happened out there?” Mei Wang asked as she flipped a strand of her long dark hair over her shoulder.

“It must have been pretty tough out on that ledge for so long,” Ty Jackson, Mei’s partner, added. Ty was an African-American man with dark eyes that radiated a keen intelligence.

Cass McDonner looked up from the laptop in front of her. “I’m working to get as much background on Dunst as possible.” Cass was the team’s tech guru. Lara had worked with her in the DC department.

When Victoria had moved to the New York City department, Cass had asked to move with her. Cass was nothing short of a magician when it came to gathering information and with all things computer related. She would be a valuable member of this new team.

“We’re all waiting with bated breath for a blow-by-blow of what happened out there,” Xander Harrington, the final member of the team, said.

Lara spent the next few minutes filling in the details of the hours on the ledge. “All I had to do was get him into a patrol car, but we’d only taken a couple of steps out of the building when he was shot right between his eyes.”

“It had to be an experienced sniper to make a shot like that,” Nick observed.

“We have plenty of cases lined up to work on, but this is now top priority for our team because it involves one of our own,” Victoria said. “We have questions, and we need to get some answers. Why did Dunst specifically ask for Lara? Why was he killed and by whom?”

Cass looked up from her computer once again. Her funky purple-rimmed eyeglasses enhanced her hazel eyes and clashed with her red hair. “So far what I’ve managed to find out about Dunst is that he’s a small-time criminal with a drug problem. He’s a user and a low-level dealer. I can’t find a phone number for him, so he must use burners when he needs to make a call. We need to find out if he had one with him when he was shot. His rap sheet mostly consists of breaking and entering, minor drug charges, shoplifting and petty theft.”

“And murder,” Lara added. “What do we know about Tina, the young girl he confessed to killing?”

Cass clicked a few keys. “Nine-year-old Tina Cole. She disappeared on her way home from school two weeks ago. Eyewitnesses saw her walking away from the bus stop with a man who looked like Dunst, and his home is only two blocks away from the Cole family home.”

Cass paused to push her glasses up more firmly on her nose and then continued. “Tina’s body was found in an empty overgrown lot three doors down from Dunst’s place. He was immediately identified as the prime suspect, but not enough evidence surfaced for a search warrant or to pick him up and charge him. Unfortunately most of the eyewitnesses were just kids, and the investigation into her murder was still in the preliminary stages.”

“He’s in hell now,” Lara replied darkly. Justice served. “What about Tina’s parents?”

“John and Heather Cole. John works for the post office, and Heather is a registered nurse at a Brooklyn clinic. John was at work when Tina was kidnapped, and Heather was stuck in traffic on her way home. Cameras confirmed this. Neither were told that Dunst was a potential suspect in the case.”

“So it probably wasn’t a revenge killing by one of her parents,” Nick said.

“Was she their only child?” Mei asked.

Cass nodded and clicked more keys on the laptop. “This just popped up. Unfortunately, you’re very photogenic,” she said and turned her computer around so that Lara could look at the monitor.

She’d thought she had prepared herself, but as she saw the photo on the news feed, it was like a hard punch to her gut. Dunst’s body was on the ground, and, standing next to him, her mouth opened in surprise, was Lara. Her shoulder-length brown hair, her green eyes and complete facial features were there for everyone to see.

Cass turned her laptop back to face her as Lara’s mind raced with black thoughts of utter destruction. She’d been outed by a damned child killer on a ledge.

“We now have a new situation on our hands,” Victoria said briskly. She held Lara’s gaze for a long moment and then looked at each of the others. “I didn’t see a need to fill you in on each other’s background. You all know the basics, but now that’s changed where Lara is concerned. You need specifics.”

Everyone at the table looked at Lara with curious speculation, but she kept her eyes focused on Victoria and mentally prepared herself for her boss to drag her back into nightmare territory.

“You know about the Moretti crime syndicate, right?” Victoria asked.

“They were all taken down over a year ago,” Ty said. “Nasty organization based in Chicago, but with ties to New York and other cities.”

“That’s correct,” Victoria replied. “The boss, known only as Moretti, eluded the FBI for five years. The organization was involved not only in gun and drug sales, but also human trafficking, including children. A little over two years ago, Lara went deep undercover into the organization in Chicago, and after a year she managed to gain the trust of the high-level operatives. She learned the location of a meeting where the elusive Moretti would be present, and the FBI swooped in and made the arrests. For the past year Lara has been in a safe house while the trials occurred. Moretti and most of his crew are now in various federal prisons, with Moretti out on Long Island. But when the FBI made the raid they didn’t get everyone who was involved in the criminal activities.”

Once again Lara felt the weight of her team members’ stares. She’d hoped to come into this new position without dragging any of her past behind her. She’d wanted a clean new start, but that wasn’t going to happen now.

“We have to assume that, with Lara’s photo out there, it’s possible that somebody in the Moretti ring might see it and know that it was Lara who infiltrated them two years ago and brought them down. Now that it’s clear Lara is back in New York, it’s also possible that somebody is looking for revenge.” Victoria looked at Lara. “Maybe it’s time for you to disappear again for a little while, until we see how this all plays out.”

“No.” The single word fired out of Lara like a gunshot. “I’m not hiding any longer. I spent over a year in a safe house, and I’m not going into lockdown now or ever again.” No way. No how. She needed to get her life back on track.

“How high might the risk be to Lara?” Xander asked.

“As I said, with Lara’s help we managed to get Moretti and some of his men behind bars, but we don’t know who might have slipped our noose,” Victoria replied. “And we don’t know how far Moretti’s reach might be beyond his prison walls.”

“I’m not backing down,” Lara said firmly. She’d given up enough of her life because of the monster Moretti. She wasn’t about to sacrifice another piece of her soul to the disgusting man and his powerful ring. She brought him down, and that’s where he’d stay.

She clenched her hands into fists beneath the table. She needed this job. She needed this new position to work out. Her undercover work hadn’t gone as planned. The last thing she wanted was for this new gig not to work, and she’d potentially be relegated to desk duty for the rest of her career.

“I’ve got her back if any threats come her way,” Nick said, his dark eyes unfathomable as he held Lara’s gaze.

“We all have her back,” Mei said. The same sentiment rang out from everyone around the table.

Lara might have been grateful if these weren’t all new teammates, if she’d developed a trust with any of them. But she hadn’t had time to build any confidence in them, and ultimately knew that at this moment, she could only depend on herself.

Victoria looked at her again, a question lingering in her eyes.

“I’m here to stay,” Lara said with a grim firmness, even as her heartbeat accelerated. Although Moretti was in prison, even while she’d spent so much time in the safe house in the darkest, deepest recesses of her mind, she’d always known somehow that it wasn’t finished.

The horrendous nightmares that had plagued her over the past year or so would continue to haunt her, but they were reminders that she’d survived the deadly Moretti web once, and, if necessary, she was determined to again.

She consciously willed the self-doubts away. New job. New start. Moving forward.

“There’s been no indication that the syndicate is even operating anymore,” Cass said. “The FBI has been monitoring the situation since Moretti went to prison. Nothing has come up to even suggest that they’re back in business. That’s why it was approved for Lara to come back to New York and join this task force.”

“Then that’s good news, right?” Mei said. “Maybe with Moretti behind bars the whole operation fell apart.”

“That’s been the general belief of all of the agents who worked the case in Chicago,” Victoria said.

“Maybe Lara’s not in any danger from anyone,” Xander said. “Maybe by cutting off the head of the snake, the rest of the snake died.”

“And I hope it was a slow and painful death,” Lara muttered under her breath. That case had forever changed her. She thought she’d been prepared. All that training...instead the case had destroyed any innocence that she might have had left from her lonely, crappy childhood. It had made it difficult for her to trust anyone and had ripped out a chunk of her heart that she would never get back.

Victoria looked at Lara. “Right now I’d like you and Nick to continue to investigate Dunst and his murder. Talk to his friends or any family he might have. Find out what connection he had to you and why a low-level criminal would warrant a sniper shot between the eyes.”

She turned her focus to encompass the others at the table. “The rest of you will make sure the Moretti ring has been out of business since their boss went to prison. This will give Lara and Nick the freedom to investigate Dunst and close the case quickly. Cass, see if you can get hold of a list of any visitors Moretti has had in the past year and a record of any of his phone calls. If there is no movement, then Lara is safe here in New York working on this team. Also find out if a phone was on Dunst when he was killed.”

“On it,” Cass replied.

Before Victoria could say anything else, Lara’s cell phone rang. “Sorry,” she murmured as she pulled it from a clip on her belt. “It’s an officer from the scene at the hotel earlier,” she said when she saw the caller ID.

She punched it on speaker and set the phone on the tabletop. “Officer Cruz, this is FBI Special Agent Lara Grant.”

“Agent Grant, I just thought I’d call to let you know that we found something odd on Sean Dunst.”

“First, let me ask you a question. Did Dunst have a phone on him when he died?” Lara asked.

“Negative, no phone was found.”

“Then make sure your men do a thorough sweep of the hotel room to see if he left one there,” she said. “Now, what did you find on him?”

“A black ink pad and a wooden stamper.”

Lara frowned and looked around the table at the others. An ink pad? She stared back at the phone. “What did the stamp look like?”

“I just sent you a photo.”

Lara quickly checked. The past collided with the present, creating something close to madness inside Lara’s brain. “Thanks for the info,” she managed to say and then ended the call.

The photo showed a letter M superimposed over an upside down M. She turned to show everyone the image. Everyone except Victoria looked at her expectantly. “That’s the insignia of the Moretti crime organization.” Lara’s voice was flat, not reflecting the raging turmoil that twisted her gut. “Everyone who worked for Moretti or who was trafficked by him had that symbol either tattooed on their arm or someplace else on their body. Dunst was connected to Moretti.”

“Why would low-level Dunst have something like that in his pocket? Did he use it on the little girl?” Ty asked.

“Negative,” Cass replied. “According to the autopsy report Tina had nothing like that on her body when she was found.”

Lara barely heard the conversation of suppositions and possibilities as it swirled around the table. An icy chill had taken over her entire body.

She feared that the ghosts she’d dreamed of chasing her in her nightmares were now very real monsters, and they had finally found her.

Chapter Two

Getting to Brooklyn from Manhattan was a bitch at just after five o’clock in the afternoon, especially if you didn’t take public transportation. Lara rode shotgun in Nick’s company-issued black sedan, and for the first five minutes in the car neither of them spoke.

Lara was still trying to process the shock of the ink pad and stamper found on Dunst, and Nick’s sole concentration was on maneuvering in and around whizzing taxis, belching buses and the honking horns of tourists who had no idea how to drive in the snarl of vehicles at rush hour.

When they hit the Brooklyn Bridge, Nick cast her a sideways glance. “We spent almost an hour this morning talking before you were called away, and you never mentioned that you were instrumental in taking down members of the Moretti crime syndicate?”

There was a tone in his voice that made her believe he might have already pegged her as either being arrogant or secretive. While the first was definitely false, the latter was partly true. She did have secrets that only a handful of people would ever know, but that had nothing to do with her partner relationship with Nick or the job they now worked.

She stared out the passenger window. “It was a tough job, and after that I went into lockdown for a long a time. That was equally tough.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

He cut her another quick glance. “Ah, a woman of mystery.”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just a part of my past I’d rather forget. I deal in the here and now.” It was the only way she could function.

“If we’re going to work well as partners, then we need to trust each other. You can trust me, Lara.”

She turned in her seat to give him her full attention. “Those are just words, Nick. Trust is earned by action, and I don’t know you well enough yet to invest my complete trust in you.”

“I’m an open book. What you see is what you get,” he replied easily.

She eyed the scar on his temple, his sharply defined handsome features and the darkness of his eyes. “Yeah, right,” she said drily.

“Tell me about the team. Since I had to leave unexpectedly, I didn’t really get a chance to get to know them. What I do know is that we were all handpicked for this new unit, and I know both Victoria and Cass from working with them in DC. Tell me what you know about the others,” she said.

“Mei is smart and tough. She also speaks several languages. We were partners a few years back. She’s good. Ty has a ‘particular’ sense of humor, but underneath, he’s solid. He’s divorced and has no children. Xander comes from a wealthy background and has a five-year old daughter, but he’s never married and definitely isn’t afraid to speak his mind. They obviously all have specialties that brought them to Agent Russo’s attention. She handpicked us all for a reason.”

“And what’s your specialty?” Lara asked.

“That’s easy. Definitely my charisma,” he replied with a sexy grin.

She narrowed her eyes at him. She was not amused. “If you’re watching my back, you’d better bring something more than charm to the table,” she retorted.

His smile vanished. “Tell me what you know about Russo. You said you worked for her in DC. What’s her story? What kind of a boss is she?”

“She’s widowed and has a nineteen-year-old daughter. Anna is a sophomore at Columbia, and Victoria is very much a proud mother bear. She’s also very intelligent and can be one tough lady, but she’s fair. She has high standards and expects her agents to produce results.”

“Then we’d better figure all of this mess out. I wouldn’t want to let the boss lady down on our very first assignment.” He paused a moment and then continued, “I hope you aren’t rusty after the year off duty.”

Lara’s back stiffened. He might be hot to look at, but he was definitely treading in total jerk territory. “Don’t worry about me,” she said tersely and turned her attention out the passenger window. “On my worst day I’m still a better agent than most.”

At least that’s what she needed to believe. The Moretti case had shaken her confidence to the core and kept her from sleep on far too many nights.

Cass had pulled up Dunst’s current address, a brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The four-story residence had been his childhood home and had been left to him when his parents had died several years prior.

Much work had been done in Bedford-Stuyvesant to clean up the crime and decay in the neighborhoods, but there were still areas where the drug dealers and gangs ruled the streets, and people didn’t leave the relative safety of their homes after dark.

Unfortunately, it was on one of those streets that Dunst had lived. Dunst had died not only with an ink pad and a stamper in his pocket, but also a key ring. The key ring had been delivered to Lara and Nick by an NYPD officer just before they’d left to check out Dunst’s digs.

Dunst’s place was located in the middle of a street of row houses, all of them showing the signs of hopeless neglect and economic hard times.

“It’s hard to believe there are million-dollar homes and condos just a couple of blocks from here,” Nick said as they departed his car.

“According to Cass, he lived here alone and has no family. It would be easy to keep Tina in here and nobody would ever know she was here.” She had to focus on the job and not the fact that her partner apparently already entertained some doubts about her ability.

Lara pulled her gun from her shoulder holster as Nick got out the keys to open the door. Knowing that Dunst had been a drug dealer and criminal, there was no telling who or what they might find inside.

“I should be the one with the gun drawn,” Nick said.

“You have the keys. I have the gun,” Lara replied. If he thought she was going to play a secondary, submissive role to his alpha dog, then he was sadly mistaken. She wouldn’t play secondary to anyone under any circumstances.

Nick knocked on the door first. “Hello? Anyone home?”

Lara shifted her eyes from the door to the houses on each side. A blue curtain moved at one of the side windows on the house on the right.

No sound drifted through Dunst’s door. “FBI. We’re coming in,” Nick yelled. He unlocked the door, and Lara stepped in front of him, the barrel of her gun her lead as she entered a dirty, cluttered living room. Newspapers and magazines nearly hid a worn chocolate-brown sofa, and beer cans and fast food wrappers spilled across the top of the wooden coffee table. An orange crate held on top of it an ancient television that had probably never seen cable service.

“Clear,” she murmured.

Nick moved ahead of her, his gun now filling his hand as he headed for the doorway straight ahead. Lara followed behind him into a kitchen where the small table appeared to sag under the weight of pizza boxes and opened cans. Dirty dishes overflowed from the sink, and the old, cracked linoleum floor was sticky beneath her feet.

“Quite the neat-freak,” Nick said sarcastically.

They continued to clear the entire house. Dunst’s bedroom was easily identifiable. The double bed was unmade and sported gray sheets Lara suspected had at one time been white.

Drug paraphernalia littered the top of the dresser, and the faint scent of marijuana still lingered in the air. They checked drawers and closets, seeking some connection he might have had with Lara or with the Moretti ring at the time it had been operational.

“When I was undercover I met a lot of men who worked for Moretti, but I don’t remember ever seeing Dunst,” Lara said, unable to hide her frustration. “Why did he ask for me to go out on that ledge? Why me specifically?”

“We’ve only just started investigating. Maybe more digging will give us the answers.”

The next bedroom held a single bed and a small chest of drawers. The bedspread was pink, and a doll sat on the pillows, staring at them with big blue unseeing glass eyes. There was also a coloring book and a small box of crayons on a nightstand.

Despite her need to maintain an emotional distance, Lara’s heart cringed as she thought of little Tina locked up in this room for two long weeks before her death. Had she been terrified? How long and how hard had she cried for her mommy and daddy?

“Why did he have to kill her?” She spoke more to herself than to her new partner. “And why didn’t he stamp her?”

“Maybe he thought he could sell her to members of the Moretti syndicate, but found out that he had no takers, that nobody from the organization was working anymore. He couldn’t just let her go. She could have identified him, so he had to kill her,” Nick suggested.

“Maybe, but after Moretti and some of his crew were arrested, several violent gangs tried to take over Moretti’s territory both here and in Chicago. But they all wound up dead or arrested. So, who did Dunst think he could sell her to?”

“Maybe just a local pedophile willing to pay a good price?”

“Then why the Moretti symbol stamp?” Lara asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s check out the rest of the house, and then we can interview some of the neighbors,” Nick replied.

The upper two floors of the brownstone were completely empty except for cobwebs and mouse droppings. “He must have sold or pawned anything of value for his drug habit,” Nick said. They searched everyplace in the house to try to find something that might provide a clue as to Dunst’s reason for asking for Lara or any connection to the supposedly defunct Moretti syndicate. They found nothing.

Hopefully they would learn more by talking to some of the neighbors and people out on the streets. Since it was Friday night, the lowlifes would soon take over the area.

* * *

It was twilight when Nick knocked on the door to the right of Dunst’s place where Lara had earlier seen the curtain move. A middle-aged woman answered the door, and they identified themselves as FBI agents.

“I assume you’re here because of what happened to Sean,” she said as she led them into a spotlessly clean living room where two young boys were playing a video game.

“Gary and Greg, upstairs to the playroom,” she said as she gestured Nick and Lara to a beige-and-brown plaid sofa. After a bit of grumbling, the two kids turned off the video game and headed up the stairs.

“Your name, ma’am?” Nick asked and pulled a small notepad and pen from his shirt pocket.

“Rhoda Watson, and I just have to say that I know it isn’t nice, but I’m not sorry he’s dead,” she said with a raise of her pointed chin. Her cheeks flushed slightly with color. “I’m sorry, but he was a creep and a braggart, always talking about the good old days when he worked for some big crime boss.”

“Moretti?” Lara asked.

Rhoda frowned and nodded her head. “Yeah, I think that’s the one. I don’t know what he was into in his past, but he was nothing but a scuzzy dope dealer, and then there were all those rumors when little Tina Cole was found dead.”

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