by Mike Ryan
Deep Cover
The Extractor Series Book 4
Mike Ryan
Copyright © 2021 by Mike Ryan
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover Design by The Cover Collection
Edited By Anna Albo
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
About the Author
Also by Mike Ryan
1
Bridge and Nicole walked into the hotel lobby. Almost immediately, they saw Chris Abbott spring out of his chair and run toward them.
“Oh no, not again,” Bridge said.
Bridge spun around to leave, but Nicole grabbed his arm and spun him back around again.
“What’s with this turning around and trying to leave on people thing you got going on now?”
“It’s not a thing,” Bridge answered.
“Yes, it is. You did it last month too, on that model kidnapping case. You didn’t want to talk to her either. It’s like your thing now.”
“It’s not a thing.”
“Sure seems like a thing.”
“It’s not.”
“OK. But it seems like it is.”
Bridge looked down at Nicole’s hand, which was still firmly grasping his arm. “Can you let go of me now?”
“Not till we do this.”
“Don’t do this to me.”
“Just hear him out,” Nicole said.
“Oh, Mr. Bridge!” Abbott yelled, putting his arm high in the air to make sure he was seen and heard. Not that it was easy to overlook him. Abbott was in his late twenties, but he was tall and thin and had a high-pitched voice. His voice was unmistakable, carrying through whatever room he was in.
Bridge closed his eyes and sighed. “Please. If you let me go now, I still have enough time to sneak out of here.”
Nicole laughed. “Just listen to him.”
“Nic, I’ve listened to him three times! My answer’s not going to be any different this time than it was the last one.”
“Well, maybe he’ll have something different to say this time.”
“Awe, come on, you know darn well he’s not.”
“We’re in the business to help people. Not turn them away.”
Bridge turned to look her in the eyes. “We’re in the business to help people and take on cases that we can actually do something with. Not this.”
“Well, he’s already here. If you run away today, he’ll just come back tomorrow.”
“So I’ll make up a different excuse. If you let me go, I’ll give you sex as many times as you want later.”
Nicole stared at him as if she was seriously thinking about it. “Just listen to him.”
“You’re passing up sex?!”
She shrugged. “I’ll get it later anyway. You know you can’t resist me.”
Bridge sighed, knowing she was right. By the time Bridge took his eyes off his beautiful girlfriend, Abbott was almost standing in front of them.
Bridge huffed. “Awe, it’s too late now. See what you did.”
Nicole smiled. “Hi, Mr. Abbott, so nice to see you again.”
“Oh, very nice to see you again too.” Abbott shook her hand.
“It’s been a while. Almost three or four days, I think.”
“A week to be exact.”
“That long, huh?” Bridge said.
“Could we go up to your room and talk?” Abbott asked.
Bridge sighed and looked at his girlfriend. “Sure.” He put his hand out and flung it in the air in frustration. “Follow me.”
The three of them got on the elevator and went up to Bridge’s room. Bridge went into the kitchen and poured himself a drink.
“Won’t you sit down?” Nicole pleasantly said to their guest.
“Yes, thank you,” Abbott replied.
Bridge came back into the room, only half paying attention to Abbott as he sat down and checked his email on his phone.
Nicole looked at her boyfriend and shook her head. “Why don’t you go ahead and start?”
Abbott cleared his throat. “OK, well, I’m sure you remember, I’m still looking for my brother’s murderer.”
“Chris, my heart goes out to you, it really does.” Bridge put his phone down on his lap for a moment. “But I’m not a private investigator or a police officer. Just let them do their jobs.”
“It’s been a year since he was killed. They’re giving up. Or have given up. Isn’t that what happens after a while when a case isn’t solved? They give up and it becomes a cold case?”
“Even if it does, I don’t take those kinds of cases. I don’t investigate murders. That’s not my thing.”
“Please, Mr. Bridge, I don’t know who else to turn to.”
“Call the police and ask to speak to the lead investigator.”
“I’ve done that. They just keep telling me they have no leads.”
“Then maybe there aren’t any. I’m sorry to say this to you, but not every murderer gets caught. That’s just life.”
“I can’t give up. Not yet.”
“Listen, here’s what you should do. Go home, look up a bunch of private investigators, and hire one. I’m sure they’d be glad to help.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’ve already done that,” Abbott said.
“You what?”
“I already hired one.”
Bridge looked at his girlfriend with a confused look on his face. “Then what are you doing here?”
“Well, after our last meeting a week ago, you suggested the same thing.”
“It was good advice.”
“I took it and hired one the same day.”
“See? Good for you. What are you doing here then?”
“Well, he went missing yesterday.”
“Say what?”
“He started looking into my brother’s death, and he went missing yesterday.”
“How do you know he’s missing?” Nicole asked. “Maybe he just hasn’t checked in yet.”
Abbott shook his head. “No. He’s given me an update every morning since I hired him. Except yesterday. I didn’t get one. Now, initially I thought maybe he was just busy, so I just figured I’d wait. But I haven’t got one today either.”
“Might still be busy,” Bridge said.
“I don’t think so. See, yesterday, well, maybe I didn’t wait so patiently. Last night, I tried to call him. The phone rang six times, then went to voicemail.”
“So?”
“This morning I tried to call him and the phone didn’t ring. It just went straight to voicemail.”
“Somebody turned it off,” Nicole said.
Abbott nodded. “Yes.”
“Might’ve been your PI that did it,” Bridge said. “Like I said, he might be busy and into something and didn’t want to blow off what he was doing.”
“I don’t think that’s it. I thin
k it’s something more serious.”
“Listen, if this guy is missing, you should call the police so they can start looking for him. Maybe call the FBI too.”
“They won’t help. I know they won’t.”
Bridge sighed and flicked his lips together, feeling like he wasn’t getting through to him. “Listen, I’d like to help you. I really would. But we have another case coming up that’s gonna take us out of the country.”
“We do?” Nicole asked. The surprised tone of her voice should have given away that it was a lie.
“We do,” Bridge replied sternly.
“I know you’re not cheap, but I can afford to pay you extra,” Abbott said.
“It’s not about the money.”
“Even if you could just look into it for a couple of days before you leave. I would really appreciate it.”
“I just don’t think we have enough—”
“We can look into it for a couple days,” Nicole blurted out.
Bridge’s eyes widened, and his face became a mixture of shock and anger as he stared down his girlfriend.
Nicole wasn’t really concerned with his stare, though. She knew he’d get over it in a few minutes, and she wasn’t worried about him falling in line. He always did after his initial objections. “We can give it three days.”
A look of relief swept across Abbott’s face. “Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.”
“You’ll have to give us everything you know about your brother and the PI who was working on it. What he was doing, where he was going, people he knew, everything you can think of. It doesn’t matter how small or insignificant you think it is. Write it down. We’ll judge whether it matters or not.”
Abbott smiled and nodded. “No problem.”
Nicole went over to the kitchen counter and grabbed a legal pad and a pen, bringing them back to the living room and handing it to their guest. As Abbott began writing, Nicole sat down and leaned back, looking at Bridge, who was still staring her down. She tilted her head and plastered on a fake smile, trying to look as pretty and innocent as possible. Bridge squinted his eyes as he continued staring.
“Love you,” Nicole mouthed silently.
Bridge put his thumb in the air and motioned for her to meet him in the bedroom. He then got up. “I have to check something,” he said to Abbott.
Nicole waited a few seconds for him to disappear before she got up as well. “Would you excuse me for a second? You just keep on writing, OK? We’ll be back in a second.”
“Sure,” Abbott replied. He was too focused on writing and his situation to really know or care what they were doing anyway.
Bridge was waiting in the bedroom with his arms crossed as Nicole came in. She closed the door behind her.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Nicole shrugged, playing the innocent card. “Just trying to help someone who needs it.”
“Oh no, don’t do that.”
“Do what?” She batted her eyelashes at him.
“That! That. That right there. Don’t play that I’m-so-innocent thing you do sometimes to pull yourself out of trouble.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“You know you are. I specifically said we couldn’t help with this case, and what do you do? Offer to help. You know damn well I didn’t want to take on this case.”
“What’s the harm in looking at it for a few days? We don’t have anything else scheduled. At best, we find something and can help him get closure. At worst, we find nothing, and maybe he’ll finally accept that there’s nothing else that can be done, and he’ll move on. Then you won’t have to deal with him again.”
“That’s not the point. The point is, you specifically went against what I said. You undermined me.”
Nicole moved in closer to him with a sorrowful expression and threw her arms around him. She then playfully kissed his lips a few times. “I’m sorry.”
“I know what you’re doing. It’s not gonna work.”
She then started kissing his neck. “What am I doing?”
“You’re trying to use your womanly ways to get me to calm down and come to your side.”
She continued kissing him. “I would never do that.”
“Uh huh.”
They locked lips for the next few seconds, with Bridge finally beginning to lose the steam coming from his ears.
“If you really don’t want to take the case, then fine. I mean, if you don’t want to help someone who’s hurting, who’s in pain, who’s looking for answers, then fine. Just go out and tell him we’ve changed our mind.”
“Me?!”
Nicole continued kissing his lips. “Well, you’re the one who’s not interested.”
As Nicole moved to other parts of his body, Bridge started thinking about it, though it was hard to concentrate. He knew this was Nicole’s intention. She always did this to him to get what she wanted. He hated how he was an easy mark for her.
“You know, sometimes I really hate how our relationship has evolved.”
Nicole kissed him some more, stopping for a second. “You want to go back to the way it used to be?”
“No. No. But it was easier to say no to you before.”
Nicole grinned. “I’m sure it was.” She then kissed both sides of his face. She knew she basically had won him over. Bridge sighed. “I’m sorry. Should I stop?”
“Huh? No, not that. That you can keep doing.”
“Then what?” She kissed his lips again.
“Fine.”
“Fine, what?”
“Fine, we’ll take the case.”
Nicole stopped kissing him for a second, then planted another big one on his lips. “Awe, thank you, sweety. Thank you for doing this for me.”
“Did I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
“I didn’t think so.”
She put her hand on the side of his face and kissed him again. “You won’t regret it.”
Bridge watched her walk out of the room. “Somehow, I think I already do.”
2
Bridge and Nicole spent the next two days trying to find the private investigator that was working on Abbott’s case. They weren’t having much luck. They were trying to work backwards, going off the information that Abbott had told them, with the information that the investigator had told Abbott. The places the PI said he was going didn’t pan out with any useful leads.
Now, the last place they had to look was the PI’s house, which also served as his office. They were sitting outside the house for about an hour, making sure the coast was clear.
“Why are we doing this?” Nicole asked.
Bridge scoffed. “Because you let your bleeding heart get in the way and promised to look into it. That’s why.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean here. Now. Why are we just sitting outside this guy’s house? We know he’s single and doesn’t have any family. It’s not like we’re gonna run into someone.”
“What if someone knocked him off and is also in there?”
“So you do think he met with foul play!”
Bridge put his hands up. “Now, now, just slow your roll there, Spanky. I didn’t say that. I just said it could be. Didn’t say it was.”
“You gotta admit it’s suspicious that a PI takes a case investigating a murder, then a week later goes missing himself.”
“I don’t have to admit anything.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to go far for this one.”
“If I had to go far, I wouldn’t have gone.”
Nicole gave him a look, then shook her head. “I don’t understand why you’re so negative sometimes. It’s like… you wanna help people… but you don’t.”
Bridge put his finger in the air as if he was making a correction. “No. I want to help people that I can really help. What’s our motto? Helping people that others have given up on. Helping people that no one else can help. That’s what we do. Investigating murders isn’t it. That’s somethin
g the police do, and they’re very good at it, so why should we get in their way? If they haven’t found something, maybe it’s because there was nothing to be found.”
“Or they overlooked something. As good as they are, we all know it happens.”
“It doesn’t happen as much as people think. If there was something to be found, they’d have found it.”
“Well, maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“One more day and we move on,” Bridge said.
“We don’t even have anything else right now. Why are you in such a hurry to move on to something that isn’t there?”
“Because I don’t like to waste my time on things that have no payoff. There’s nothing wrong with having some rest and relaxation between jobs.” He then looked at his girlfriend, who hardly ever let a day go by without having a bedroom encounter, though it wasn’t always in the bedroom. “Well, relaxation anyway.”
The reference wasn’t lost on Nicole, who raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you saying you don’t get enough rest?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Are you saying that I enjoy sex too much?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Because if you are…”
“It’s not what I’m saying.”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of other men—”
“Nicole, it’s not what I’m saying. I love you. I love how you are. I love how you could want sex at the drop of a hat even if there were twenty guns pointed at you. I would never complain about it.” Bridge then thought for a moment. “Well, maybe I would if there were actually twenty guns pointed at us, but you get what I’m saying.”
Nicole grinned, then went back to reading some of the reports they had, none of which Bridge paid much attention to. “Did you read this on how Abbott’s brother died?”
“Killed in an alley or something, wasn’t he?”