by Donica Covey
The man already had Justice in his grip once. Why were they still using her? Wouldn’t it have been easier for them to just kill Justice then? Did he plan on killing her? Of course he did. Isn’t that the way it worked in those television cop shows?
Who had paid this man to follow through with this vile plan?
With Justice being in the Drug Enforcement Agency, it could be any number of people. But the dealers he got were small-time players, weren’t they? Yes, Justice’s goal—the unit’s goal—was to take out the big fish. Had they cracked a major import line?
They were going to use her to kill Justice. Think of something quick. Come on. “Boyfriend? Ha, he’s nothing more that an…acquaintance, shall we say? He calls when he wants a date.”
“Really? That wasn’t the cozy scene at the restaurant.”
Callye’s thumb traced the gold band of the engagement ring. With her thumbnail, she worked to remove it, hoping that with it gone the man would believe her. “What you saw was a man thanking his…friend for all her enthusiastic dates.”
The ring was almost off. The loss would be devastating, but she’d rather lose the ring than Justice. It hung just on the edge of her finger. The tips tingled from the lack of circulation, but she had to hold on just a little longer. When he started speaking, she let it drop to the floor under cover of his voice.
“You don’t expect me to believe he would waste money on jewelry for a whore, do you? He doesn’t make enough money to be tossing it away.”
She tried to shrug. “Believe what you want, but I’m telling you it won’t do you any good to use me. He’ll laugh in your face.”
When the man moved in closer, the fear almost strangled her. He had to stand at least six feet tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. His black eyes glittered and his jaw set tight. “You’re beginning to piss me off. I don’t like liars.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t like being tied up like a Christmas turkey.”
His hand flew back and she steeled herself for the blow. It didn’t happen, and she exhaled a relieved breath. The line between brave and stupid was thin and she’d have to keep that in mind. She opened her eyes and looked up into his face.
He reached out to her and for another instant, she thought he would strike her. But his fingers traced her cheek, following her jaw line.
“If you’re telling the truth, hell, even if you’re not, I’m going to be more than happy to try out your merchandise.”
Her flesh crawled with revulsion at his touch. Her stomach churned bile that burned the back of her throat. “You couldn’t afford me.” Did she sound as weak, as frightened, as she felt?
“I’m not worried about that. I always get what I want.” The threatening promise hung in the air as he walked away. “I’ll be back in a few hours. After twisting in the wind for a while, Bernard’ll be more than willing to come crawling to me. To beg me for your life.”
He disappeared and she allowed her fear to resurface. None of this was making sense to her. Why would they take him, only to let him go and then take him again?
Realization stared her in the eyes.
Kill a man and it’s over. Take something, someone, he loves and the torment lingers. Never knowing what happened to someone you loved, that would be hell on earth. Justice would crawl through hell for her. That was going to cost him. Please keep him safe.
Her hands had long ago gone numb, and it was difficult to move them. But she kept trying. Her body ached and the helplessness washed across her. She wasn’t getting out of this.
Her strength slipped with each minute that passed. Her lids were so heavy she couldn’t keep them open any longer.
* * *
Dalton walked outside into the warm night air. Across the road, a train whistled as it approached. No way would anyone find them out here. Not until he was ready.
He could picture Bernard twisting in the wind right now. Pain was ripping through him, that much was certain. I wonder how long I can keep him dangling? The question played in his mind.
Bernard wasn’t much on patience. He’d be growing angrier and edgy. When Bernard got pissed, his brain didn’t function.
Dalton had known Justice for years, watching as the other man moved up higher and higher in the food chain while Dalton barely hung on. Now he was the one doing the advancing. It was an amazing rush.
The money was so much better than he’d have earned if he stayed with the department. His friend Justice was going to shit when he found out the man he went to the academy with, the one he stepped all over in his climb up the law enforcement ladder, was the one taking him down.
He wanted the woman. He wanted her to see his face, and he wanted to watch the tears he knew would come.
They all begged, all cried, most of them screamed, but in the end, they all failed to satisfy him. This one would be different. She was his now. He loved knowing that he was taking her away from Bernard. Once more, he would prove that Bernard wasn’t the great man he thought himself to be.
Damn, he needed her now. He hated waiting as much as Bernard did. But he also knew better than to do something rash. The only thing in this world that scared him was Rivera. Until the man said “jump”, Dalton was going to stand and wait.
As he headed back inside, his cell phone rang. “What?”
“Easy, Bismarck. How’s it going?”
“It would be a lot better if you’d get off the damn phone.”
“I met with Rivera’s man.”
Anticipation flooded Dalton. “And?”
“And you’ve got the green light. Enjoy yourself.”
Dalton didn’t say another word but shut off the phone. He grinned from ear to ear as he went back inside. His mouth watered and he grew hard.
He stepped inside the building and flipped on the lights. Her eyes grew wide with fear as she watched him get closer. He reached out and ripped the material from her chest.
“Please, please don’t,” she cried.
He pulled out his knife and sliced the ropes—from her short take of breath, he knew he’d also cut into her skin. He yanked her to her feet and pulled her close to his body. He ran his tongue up the side of her cheek. “So sweet.”
“Please. Please stop.”
The sound of her pleading, the feel of her tears, the fear in her eyes, it was all so intoxicating. He threw her to the floor and pinned her beneath him. “You’re mine now,” he whispered in her ear before he shoved up her skirt.
* * *
Justice returned to the warehouse. Maybe there was something they missed. There had to be. He wandered around the lot, watching the CSU team packing up.
Justice walked over to Renee. “You can’t be leaving now.”
She nodded and placed a sympathetic hand on his arm. “There’s nothing here, Justice. We’ve searched every nook, every cranny, and there’s nothing left.”
“Then look again.”
“Justice, there’s nothing.”
“How can you call yourself an investigator? You just give up and walk away?”
The team around them had moved in closer and he could see they were going to stick together to defend one of their own. “I’ll find her myself.”
Renee looked like she was going to say something but stopped herself.
He shook his head and walked around her. There had to be something there.
His world was collapsing around him. His biggest fear was coming true. He was going to lose Cas. “Damn.”
His shout filled the air. He’d finally found the one woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. There was always a risk to your family in this job, but he’d been so sure that Cas would be safe with him. He was wrong.
He’d seen it happen before. When he was a cop he’d watched his partner, Bill Knight, suffer the loss of his love. Bill had busted a gangbanger and the crew drove in for retribution. Bill’s wife had brought their baby in for him to say goodnight when bullets sprayed the house, shattering all the windows.
Several bullets hit Marion before Bill could shove her down and cover her and the baby with his body. One of the bullets was a “through and through”—it passed straight through Marion’s body and struck the baby. Bill caught a bullet in the spine.
Marion died instantly and the baby went a few hours later. Bill was paralyzed from the waist down. It drove him crazy knowing Marion and the baby died because he couldn’t save them. Not a month after they died, he ate his revolver.
This was a reality. PD, DEA, FBI and other pieces to the alphabet soup wore targets and pasted them on the backs of their families.
Justice had sworn he’d never, never do that. Now here he was, in love and it had cost her so much. Too much.
His heart was so heavy it should’ve stopped beating by now. How the hell was he going to make it? “Shit.” Guilt and fear devoured him. God only knew what was happening to her right now. Just how much could she take?
Chapter Four
Would her captor… No way was Justice going there. The thought made him want to puke. If the bastard hurt Cas in any way, there would be nowhere on this planet safe for hiding in.
Justice’s cell phone rang and his stomach clenched. “Bernard.”
“Jus? Where you at?” Chase’s voice held concern.
“Driving.”
Silence met his answer. Then Chase took a breath. “Why don’t you go home? There’s nothing you can do. You need some rest if you want to be any good to her.”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened spasmodically then loosened. “I can’t.”
Somehow, he’d ended up at a local park. The place where he saw Cas for the first time.
The car door creaked as it opened. He slid out and walked onto the lush grass, then sat on a bench under a large willow tree, remembering.
She was laughing, her hair flying around a face flushed with excitement. A couple of kids, a little blonde girl and a small boy with dark hair, danced around her.
He forced his gaze away. Married, probably. Even if she wasn’t, kids were too much of a risk.
Then he heard one shout for “Aunt Callye” and his interest perked again. A little yapping dog headed straight for him and hopped into his lap. Before long, he was covered in slobber and trying desperately to shove the mutt down. The kids ran towards him then slammed to a stop just a couple of feet away. They looked at him warily then glanced back at the blonde woman.
She slowed her steps, and her spine stiffened. “Can we have Scraggs, please?”
He looked at the ugly mutt of a fur ball and thrust him out to her. “Gladly.”
She took the little dog from his hands and scratched its ears. “Bad boy. Naughty Scraggs.” She passed the dog to the little girl, a child with the same large, expressive blue eyes as Cas. After a quick cuddle, she put the dog down.
“Let’s go. Billy, hold on to his leash tighter.”
“All right.” The boy dragged the little dog behind them.
He watched the troupe march away, but the little girl kept looking back at him. For some reason he just couldn’t stop watching them playing with that ugly little dog. Scraggs? The odd name fit.
He was just going back to his car when the little girl stopped him. “Hello.”
“Don’t you know you aren’t supposed to talk to strangers?”
“If Scraggs likes you then you must be good.”
“But Scraggs could be wrong.”
She shook her head vigorously. “Scraggs is never wrong. He hated my daddy. Daddy was mean.”
Justice sat on the bench to be eye level with the little girl. Her daddy had been mean? “Well then I guess maybe Scraggs must be good at reading people.”
“I like you.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I bet my aunt would like you, too. She’s pretty. But she’s all alone. I think you would keep her from being so lonely.”
Suddenly the woman came rushing up, shouting for the little girl. “Megan! How dare you leave my sight?” Her anger was obvious when she reached for the girl.
For a split second, Justice had visions of her hitting the child. But she grabbed the little girl into a huge bear hug. “Don’t you ever do that again, you understand me?” The woman turned to face him. “I’m sorry if she bothered you.”
She walked away, and he could hear her admonishing the little one about the dangers of talking to strangers.
He crushed the urge to call the woman back to him. She didn’t know him from Adam.
For the next several weeks they seemed to have a knack for finding each other. The grocery store, the library, a diner, and even the little coffee shop down the street from his office. After they connected, Justice knew he’d found the perfect woman. He hadn’t let her out of his sight again.
Until last night.
He looked up at the sky and closed his eyes. The heat of the sun didn’t do a thing to warm the chill surrounding his heart. Get off your ass and do something, Bernard, the voice in his brain screamed at him.
Once more, his phone rang. If Chase didn’t stop bothering him… The caller ID showed no number. “Bernard.”
“One ring. You really are worried, aren’t you? She and I’ve been having the best time getting to know each other. She isn’t as good as I expected, but I can’t complain.”
The man’s words chilled Justice to the core. “If you’ve hurt her—”
“Good,” the man interrupted. “I’m so glad to know you really care.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“Where?”
“Out of control, unable to be the big hero. Is your gut twisting? Are you dying inside because you failed?”
“Just tell me where?” Justice demanded again.
“I’ll be in contact.”
“Now,” he shouted into the phone, but the connection was dead. Damn the man. Why didn’t he just come to the point?
Because it was like pouring salt into a knife wound and reinserting the blade.
He rushed back to his car. A trace on the call might give the information he needed to get Cas back. If only things worked like they did on television shows, he’d know instantly. Unfortunately, in the real world it took a bit of time. Sometimes too long.
Justice arrived back at the field office and ran up the white steps to the glass building. The guard looked up and nodded at him as he raced up the side stairs. He shoved through the door, his steps pounding on the tile floor. “He called. I need to know where the call came from and I need to know yesterday.”
Chase nodded and grabbed his phone with one hand while catching the cell Justice tossed to him with the other.
Bobby walked up to them. “News?”
“Not yet.”
Bobby exchanged a worried look with Chase, and then walked to his desk.
Justice shook his head. The taunts. The way the threats against Cas were so casual. That bastard had said he was enjoying her. The urge to kill filled his veins. “This son of a bitch. When I get my hands on him, I am going to make him beg me to kill him.”
The agents in hearing range paused to turn and stare at him.
Chase placed a hand on his shoulder. “Be careful what you say, man. If something happened…”
Justice didn’t say anything. Once he got his hands on the man, he intended to keep his word. He couldn’t stop his restless pacing. “Wait.”
Chase and Bobby looked up from their computer screens. “What?” Chase asked.
“I’m such an idiot. Why the hell didn’t I see it before? God. That’s it. He’s the one. He took her to distract us from his trail. Son of a bitch.” He shoved the desk with his foot, and it slammed into the stone wall.
“Not following, Jus.” Chase moved closer.
“Who? Who has her?” Bobby asked.
“It has to be Rivera. The bastard knows we’ve been digging into every centimeter of his life, right? He knows we’ve got his ticket and we’re planning on punching it. What better way to throw me off line than
to take Cas?”
Chase exchanged confused glances with Bobby. “Justice, you can’t jump to conclusions. We have no direct proof. We’ve got to have all our ducks in a row before we go barging into his house and tear the place apart. It honestly doesn’t make sense, anyway. How can you make the leap from Callye’s abduction to Rivera?”
Justice glared at his partner. “I know it’s him. I know it. He’s trying hard to cover his tracks, right? He wants us off his back because he thinks we’re harassing him. He’s using Cas to break up the investigation into his business. That has to be it.”
Mickey came into the room, papers clutched in his hands. “I’ve got everything I can get my hands on. It took a bit of persuasion, but we rushed it through. The list for all the calls you’ve gotten in the last twenty-four hours.”
Justice took the papers and paced across the floor and back again while he scanned the pages. The numbers listed, time of calls, duration of calls, all swam before his eyes.
The three stooges stood around, staring over his shoulder.
“Dammit, get away from me. Jeez, I feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.”
“Why don’t you head to the crib for a few?” Mickey stopped beside him. “You look wiped.”
“Yeah. Well, think about it. If some lunatic had his hands on Terese, what would you do?”
“Be going out of my mind trying to figure out how to get her back.”
“Right.”
“But you need to at least go lie down for a bit.”
His body was aching and he stretched. How could he even think about resting when she must be going through hell?
He paced down the hall and the crib called to him. Just to stretch out and close his eyes for a minute. Maybe his head would clear. He placed his hand on the knob, but then turned and walked away.
When would the son of a bitch call him back? He’d never been as unsure, as out of control as he was right now. This wasn’t getting him anywhere. Someone had watched them at dinner. He mentally re-formed and scanned the dining room at Sandzis, trying to picture everyone he’d seen. Rivera hadn’t been anywhere in the room. He knew that without a doubt. That didn’t mean one of his goonies wasn’t there playing look out for him.