She cupped her hands over her face. Don’t hyperventilate. Don’t pass out.
Don’t scream.
The footsteps moved closer. Stopped at the next row.
She curled into a ball, trying to be the smallest possible target. The desk pressed her side. Frank crouched in front of her.
Stay? Run?
Terror froze her legs.
Crunch.
The sound of glass shattering underfoot came from the left, followed by the patter of running footsteps.
Boom. The guy to the right opened fire.
Then came the rat-ta-tat-tat of automatic fire.
Whap. Another man shot back.
Bullets pinged off the metal shelves all around them. Booms and bangs filled the warehouse along with gunpowder smoke and stink. Boxes toppled, adding crashes to the chaos. The noise drowned out footsteps.
Holly flicked her head back and forth, desperately searching for any of the attackers.
“The idiots are shooting at each other.” She spoke into Frank’s ear.
“And we’re stuck in the middle. Knew I should’ve brought a weapon.” He looked around, as if searching for something to use for defense. He reached into the shelves, hefted a few packages and selected a slender two-foot box.
She pulled her knife from her pocket.
Frank shook his head. “Never bring a knife to a gun fight.”
“Like that box is much better?”
“I know how to use it. Come on. Stay low. Head for the rear exit.”
They inched down the row, clinging to the shadows and the stacks of car parts.
More bullets flew past. She ducked and stifled a shriek. Answering fire seemed to come from all around them.
Voices bellowed through the riot. “Police!”
“Hold it right there!”
Lights erupted.
“Thank God,” she muttered, even as she squinted, shielding her dark-adapted eyes.
The warehouse looked like a battlefield, with low-hanging clouds of smoke, toppled boxes, and spilled merchandise.
How were the cops supposed to know she and Frank were good guys?
Another bullet ricocheted off a shelf and a fiery pain slashed her calf.
Beside her, Frank groaned and collapsed.
“Frank!” Ignoring the pain in her leg, she knelt beside him. Please don’t be dead. “Where? What?”
“My leg.” He clutched his thigh. Blood seeped between his fingers.
She pulled his hand away from the wound. “Lie down.”
As soon as he was prone, she shifted his hips, checking for an exit wound. He made a strangled sound that might’ve been a scream if he’d opened his mouth. Her hand came back wet and sticky, and he again clutched his leg.
She peeled off her jacket and wrestled her knife from the pocket. The blade sliced through the material, severing the sleeve.
“Move your hands,” she hissed.
Pressing the wadded jacket against his thigh, she wrapped the sleeve around his leg and crossed the ends. “I’m not going to tourniquet it. It’s bleeding, but it doesn’t look like it got the artery.” She sent another mental thanks to Ashiro for making the team take that first-aid course. At the time, they’d found it tedious and mildly embarrassing. This week, the class had proven itself a life-saver.
The jacket sleeve wasn’t long enough to hold the bandage firmly. “Don’t move.”
“Not going anywhere.” His voice sounded tight, but at least he was trying to make a joke.
The gunfire had dwindled to random pops. She hobbled to the desk, rooted through the drawers and found the roll of duct tape she remembered seeing there. She ripped off pieces and plastered them snuggly around the jacket and Frank’s thigh. Blood had already soaked through the center of the makeshift bandage.
Frank’s wound tended, she poured every bit of the fear and adrenaline that had built up over the past hour into her voice. “Help! Over here. We need help!”
Footsteps pounded in the aisle and two guys wearing DEA windbreakers rounded the corner. “Hands up. On the ground.”
She dropped the roll of tape and raised her hands.
“Now! Face down!”
More huge men in black tactical gear emblazoned with DEA and POLICE pointed weapons them. The business ends looked like enormous black holes. With her hands still sorta raised, she eased down beside Frank.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
The first agent pushed Holly over, then planted a boot in the middle of her back.
“Oww.”
“Shut up.” He handcuffed her hands behind her back and dragged her to her feet.
“He’s hurt.” She ducked her head at Frank since she couldn’t point.
A second agent was already inspecting Frank’s wound.
“We got caught in the crossfire,” she said. “We’ve been working with Special Agents Penick and Lawson, but we had no idea they planned to raid the warehouse tonight.”
“You have ID?” An agent kept his gun trained on her—like she was planning to run?—while the one who’d handcuffed her frisked her. He felt her up more thoroughly than JC had on Friday night.
Moments later, he held up her knife and confiscated it.
“My ID’s in my jacket pocket. I used the jacket for a bandage.” She bobbed her head again, this time trying to indicate the jacket rather than Frank.
Another agent—none of them had bothered to identify themselves—had his radio out. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she hoped it included requesting an ambulance and a call to the Super Agent to verify her story.
Otherwise, it was going to be hell getting bailed out of jail.
***
The parking lot surged with the same chaos as the scene inside the warehouse. Apparently Penick and/or Lawson had admitted knowing Frank and her, so at least the handcuffs were gone. She considered that the bright spot in her day.
A uniformed officer led her onto the loading dock and into the glare of the local television reporters’ spotlights. EMTs had strapped Frank to a gurney and were wheeling it toward the open door of an ambulance. Once the gurney was stowed, the camera people swung their equipment away from him and trained their attention on her.
“Fresh meat,” she muttered and wrapped her arms across her chest. Without a jacket, she was freezing.
“Done this before, huh?” The cop tightened his grip.
“As a victim.” She tugged. “Lighten up, will you?”
One of the medics peeled away and trotted up the stairs toward them. “Let me get a look at that leg.”
The leg that felt like it was on fire, a seven on the scale of pain?
The officer reluctantly released her arm. The EMT led her to the concrete stairs. “Sit here for a minute.”
The medic expertly slit her bloody jeans and examined the wound. He poked and prodded a bit.
“Ow!” She gritted her teeth and fought a wave of painful dizziness. Make that a nine out of ten.
“Can’t tell if there are still fragments in there.”
When she could speak without shrieking, she said, “Yeah, I’d say there are.”
“You’ll definitely need to have it cleaned and stitched.” He gave her a hand and she limped toward the ambulance, grateful he offered an arm for assistance rather than control.
“Hey,” the uniformed officer complained. “We need a statement from her.”
If he had his way, she’d have been stuck at the warehouse for hours until the officers got around to questioning her. And after he finished with his questions—and all the other law enforcement types asked the same questions—she still wouldn’t be able to leave. Her rental car was stuck behind several cop cars, blocked by the delivery truck.
She took in the econobox and did a double take. The rental car sported several neat bullet holes.
The rental company was not going to be happy.
The EMT urged her forward. He called over his shoulder, “Catch her at the ER.”
&nb
sp; She paused at the ambulance door while he reorganized the interior, creating space for her to join Frank.
The hair on the back of her neck stood up, the tingling awareness someone was watching her. She scanned the parking lot. A familiar figure snagged her attention. JC stood at the far end of the loading dock. He was staring at her, but didn’t move a muscle.
It took all her willpower not to react. What was he waiting for? A wave? For her to run—or limp—across the platform and throw herself into his arms?
Nothing in his posture said anything except, “I am one pissed off cop.”
Cop. Not boyfriend.
She took one step, wondering if he wanted her to make the first move.
“Where are you going?” The EMT grabbed her arm.
She staggered and stumbled against the ambulance door.
When she looked again, JC was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Love You Goodbye (One Direction)
Later that week
“Wish you’d come to me, instead of putting yourself at risk.” George scrubbed a hand over his head. “But you sure busted Mikhail’s knockoff scam wide open.”
Holly shifted in her seat at his conference table, wishing she could wrap up the meeting and leave.
“The drug dealers, too. You and Rick catching and figuring out that weight difference was terrific.”
She stared at the sagebrush-dotted landscape beyond the window as George rambled on. She hadn’t set out to be a hero or an idiot. She’d simply hoped to gather evidence without getting caught. Injury—even just a ricochet graze—had never crossed her mind.
At the emergency room, Frank had been hustled into surgery while she waited with the rest of the walking wounded until a nurse cleaned the gash on her leg and a doctor plucked out a few shards and stitched it closed. Various law enforcement types had arrived and asked their endless questions.
JC had never showed.
She hadn’t called him.
Her mother came and drove her home.
Holly’s calf burned now and she flexed her foot, trying to ease the developing cramp.
George paused for breath.
“I was afraid Mikhail would do exactly what he was planning,” she said. “Repackage the counterfeit parts and move them before you could get into the second warehouse.”
She left out her vague concern that George might’ve been part of the scheme—or schemes. At some point, she’d wondered about his participation in either or both—the drugs and the copied knockoffs.
She continued, “It was just bad luck the other crooks—the drug dealers—came to the main warehouse that night to pull the parts with Fentanyl in them.”
Bad luck for Frank and her.
She shrugged and again rotated her ankle. No sense in telling George, but Frank had been right. The DEA’s search of the second warehouse outside Pasco was meant to rattle the drug smugglers into making a mistake. The agents had the main warehouse staked out, planning to either capture the men with the drugs or follow the shipment to its new location. The watching DEA agents had assumed she and Frank were part of the drug gang since they’d arrived at the warehouse at nearly the same time as the actual bad guys. Penick and Lawson hadn’t been there to correct that mistake until later.
The gunfire started by a trigger-happy criminal had changed everyone’s plans.
Frank—she stifled a laugh with a cough. It wasn’t all bad luck for him. Frank was joining the DEA as soon as he passed the Fitness For Duty test. After updating and reorganizing the casino’s security, he was bored. The recent murder investigation—ironically enough, a case where he’d ended up assisting JC—and this drug investigation had made Frank realize how much he missed law enforcement. Besides, the DEA’s looser policies and mobility appealed to him. They didn’t seem particularly upset about his previous stalking—he’d never been arrested, so he didn’t have a disqualifying record.
And he could probably keep the cowboy hat.
George rose and paced his office. “What a mess. I spoke with the detective in charge of the knockoff parts investigation. It turns out we weren’t the first rubes Mikhail fleeced.”
She shifted in her chair, careful with her injured leg. “With all the bad parts the other drivers were worried about, I figured there might be a single outfit behind all of them.”
Mikhail Petrov’s fraud with the substandard car parts had spawned the drug trafficking when the cartel spotted an easy way to get drugs across the border. The manager at the assembly plant claimed the cartel forced him to cooperate. Maybe they did with the drugs. The counterfeit truck parts? That remained to be seen.
The cartel had confiscated enough Cascade parts at the factory in Mexico to accommodate their cache of Fentanyl pills, filled them, then placed the parts back in the legitimate shipment. Once the drugs were in Washington, Adrian Muzar, the cartel’s point man, had seized the opportunity to pocket more cash by refilling the drug-smuggling parts with oil and reselling them.
Mazur had sold one of the refilled parts to Danny Shaw, which explained how Shaw ended up with a defective part before the actual knockoffs were available. Once Mazur realized Shaw could expose his participation in the drug running, the “bargain” purchase had ultimately cost Shaw his life.
George stopped beside his desk and glanced down, looking at his family photos.
At least he still had a family who loved him.
His company would survive. If he spun it correctly, he and Tate could look like heroes for exposing Mikhail and his fraud, as well as assisting with the Fentanyl bust.
George returned to the conference table, but stood, hands braced against the top of the chair. “The way Mikhail worked was to offer seed money to small manufacturers like me who make the real parts. People who needed help with wider distribution.”
Her neck hurt, peering up at him. “Have a seat, George.”
He pulled out the chair and dropped into it. “They—we—shared the technical information on the product because Mikhail was an investor. He took the specifications and drawings to a low-cost country and made a cheap version. The company we dealt with in Mexico—well, at least some of the people there—were in on it too.”
George seemed to expect her to say something, but what was there to say that wasn’t already on the table? “Bummer.”
He continued to stare at her.
“None of us suspected Mikhail.” Well, maybe her instincts about him were right on point, but she hadn’t said anything or been able to prove anything until the whole mess blew up. Not that she needed to point that out now. “We didn’t suspect the Mexican company, because Mikhail recommended them.”
“Right.” George’s kinked up shoulders relaxed a notch. “As the legit distributor, Mikhail sold the good parts to high-performance sports enthusiasts at various events and in specialty stores.”
George clearly needed to vent about being used, although she already knew most of this.
“Like Boulder Bounders.” She gingerly stretched her leg.
He nodded. “The crummy parts went to a separate, secondary market. On a normal passenger car, the parts weren’t likely to be put through the same stressors, so the cheaper materials weren’t obvious. Apparently, there’s a huge profit in it.” He grimaced. “And to think Tate and I helped him by including those family cars in our advertising plans. How is Tate, by the way?”
She smiled. “He’s home. Well, he’s at my mother’s, where my uncle’s staying. The doctor suggested waiting a few days before he goes back to California. And I’m not sure if the cops are through questioning him.”
“They don’t still think he was part of this, do they?” George’s eyebrows shot skyward. “That vendor record you found was the only thing implicating him, wasn’t it?”
“I think we finally fed them enough evidence on Mazur that they’ve backed off Tate. Turns out Mazur was pretty highly placed in the cartel. He set up the warehouse vendor account, planning to launder his drug money throug
h it. He threw Tate’s name in there, hoping to give himself cover, but the PO Box and the bank account led back to Mazur.”
With all the facts now available, search warrants had been simple for law enforcement to obtain.
Adrian Mazur had been captured at the main warehouse after the shootout with the DEA. His accomplices had rolled over from their hospital beds. They gave him up for the drug smuggling as well as the attacks on both Danny Shaw and Tate, who’d been asking too many questions.
As for Makhail Petrov, she’d been surprised when he wasn’t arrested along with the cartel drug smugglers.
With George’s permission and assistance, she’d given the cops the LLC and vendor records from the joint Cascade Precision and Quality Distributing accounting records, along with examples of the genuine part, the knockoff and the drug-smuggling part. Most of the past few days had been one huge debrief by assorted law enforcement officers. She figured the DEA could fill in the rest of the details on their part of it.
Or not.
“I’ll be happy to re-focus on business.” George rubbed his forehead. “We obviously have to find a new distributor. I’d like you to vet them before we sign the agreement.”
She was shaking her head when the door opened and the Man of the Moment strolled in.
“What are you doing here?” George demanded. He rose to his full height. “I thought you’d be under arrest.”
“For what?” Mikhail’s gaze landed on her and, for a moment, pure loathing filled his eyes.
“Knockoff parts?” George rose and took a step toward him.
“Nothing illegal about selling aftermarket parts,” Mikhail said smugly.
Maybe not. But fraud, theft and patent violation were definitely illegal.
Holly surreptitiously pulled out her phone and hit 911. She waited without responding while the dispatcher ran through her usual what-is-your-emergency opening. She’d learned that silence generally got their attention. Slipping the phone onto the table, she tapped the speaker button.
In It For the Money Page 28