by J. E. Taylor
Jennifer lowered her eyes to her hand and a ray of sunshine broke through the haze hitting the diamond ring he had placed on her finger. A prism of light surrounded them in the lonely graveyard. She glanced into his eyes. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and her throat constricted from the wave of emotions crashing over her.
Overwhelmed, Jennifer couldn’t utter a sound. She closed her eyes to gain control, sucking her bottom lip and taking a deep inhale through her nose.
“Jenny?” he asked, his voice laced with doubt.
“Yes,” she whispered, and opened her eyes.
Steve let a slow smile form on his lips. He kissed her gently and stood, pushing her wheelchair into the chapel. “How about right now?” he whispered in her ear, pushing her up the aisle.
His parents stood at the front of the chapel along with Murphy, and a priest. And for the briefest instant, Jennifer thought she saw Tracy, standing by the altar in a hideous pumpkin bridesmaid dress with a Cheshire-cat grin on her face. With a blink of her eyes, the apparition was gone.
Jennifer laughed softly. “Right now is as good a time as any.” She looked up at him with the first real smile she’d felt since the night the three of them binged on tequila and dancing.
The End
Vengeance
(Book 2)
“VENGEANCE follows FBI agent Steve Williams deep undercover inside a cocaine ring. With each chapter the tension mounts as Taylor turns the screws using multiple and excellent techniques to grip the reader. It’s a great crime thriller – an excellent read, it moves at a frenetic pace with multiple character threads woven through it to culminate in an explosive ending. I recommend it as a gripping read you won’t be able to put down.” Poppet – author of Darkroom and Seithe
Part One
Charlie and the Cocaine Factory
Chapter 1
Steve Williams stood at the printer, scanning financial records. The light bled from beneath the cover, creating the only beacon in the otherwise dark office.
“Come on, come on.” He shifted from foot to foot, his eyes darting between the copier and the door, intently listening for any sound beyond the swish of the machine. When the paper spit out, he propped open the lid and flipped the ledger to the last page. As he hit the copy button, the cell phone in his pocket vibrated.
“Shit.” He flipped the phone open. “Hey, Jen.”
“Where are you?” Her groggy voice asked.
“The office. Why?”
“You need to come home.”
“I have to finish this.” He yanked the copies from the tray and turned off the machine.
“I had another vision.”
Steve took a deep breath, calming his nerves. He really didn’t have time to discuss her vision; he needed to get out of the building before someone saw him. “Another dream?” he asked anyway.
Silence.
He stuffed the papers into his attaché case. “When?”
“I don’t know. A couple of hours?”
He slid the ledger back into the file cabinet and looked around the office one last time before crossing to the door. “I’m on my way now.” He closed the phone, opting for the stairs instead of the elevator.
Rapidly, he descended the stairway. The dim lights popped and flickered, sending shadows into the far corners of each landing. His eyes darted from shadow to shadow and he cast a quick glance over his shoulder when he reached the entrance leading to the parking garage. He yanked the door open, turning his head toward the garage and nearly plowed over the man blocking the exit.
Charlie Wisnowski stepped back, putting his hands up to stop him. “Whoa! What are you doing here?”
Steve halted, meeting the hard grey eyes of his boss. “I, uh, got into an argument with my girlfriend, and needed some breathing room.” He swallowed and shifted the briefcase strap on his shoulder. “I figured I’d cool my jets here and take a look at those service contracts.”
Charlie crossed his arms and pursed his lips. His eyes landed on the briefcase. “Contracts?”
“Yeah. The ones you gave me this afternoon.”
“Right.” He didn’t budge from his spot, blocking his escape route.
Skirting around Charlie, he took a backwards step in the direction of his car, every muscle in his body tense and ready for flight if Charlie reached for the briefcase.
“How do the contracts look?”
“A couple of things need tightening up.” Sweat trickled down the small of his back, tickling his skin and he squashed the urge to itch.
“Like what?”
“There’s a gap in the service agreement. We need a better rate than triple time for off hour service,” Steve began, thankful he had reviewed the documents before leaving earlier. “Especially since they consider regular hours between nine in the morning and three in the afternoon.”
“You’re shitting me?” Charlie’s arms fell to his sides.
He smiled and shook his head. “No offense, Charlie, but I’d be loving life with hours like that.”
Charlie scoffed and turned toward the building entrance. “Go home and screw your girlfriend,” he said over his shoulder.
The door swung closed behind him, leaving Steve staring at the heavy steel. Glancing at the cameras mounted in the corners, he strolled to the car. When he was clear of the garage, he took a deep breath and tilted his head back against the headrest, letting the relief melt into his taut muscles. “Ho-ly shit.”
Navigating the late night streets from Manhattan to Brooklyn, Steve pulled into the parking garage across from his apartment complex. He grabbed the bag and crossed the street, glancing at the brownstone building. All their lights were on, which meant he’d have to deal with the vision tonight.
He tossed the briefcase under the table by the door, crossing the loft to where Jennifer stood drying her hands. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“You should wake me up before you sneak out in the middle of the night.”
The touch of anger in her tone took Steve by surprise. He raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“I’m your wife, damn it.” She stepped around him.
He reached out, pulling her close and meeting her angry glare. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
Jennifer laughed. “And you think waking up to an empty bed isn’t going to freak me out? Especially when I’ve had one of my visions?”
Tilting his head, he looked at the floor before raising his eyes to hers. “I’m sorry, babe.” He offered the crooked smile that always disarmed her. This time was no different.
Holding his gaze, she shook her head and let a sigh escape before leaning in to kiss him.
Her lips were soft and inviting, with a faint flavor of cinnamon. Running his hands down her back to the hem of her baby-doll night gown, Steve momentarily forgot about the close call with Charlie and led Jennifer to the bed in the far corner, his hands leaving her body only to flip off the lights.
Chapter 2
“What were you really doing here?” Charlie flicked the lights on, looking for anything out of place. He turned in a circle, surveying the desks and file cabinets throughout the work area.
Nothing was out of order, but a gnawing suspicion crawled under his skin and he glanced in the direction of his lawyer’s office. Navigating the neat bullpen of desks, he crossed to the large window office opposite his and stepped inside. Spread over the desk was the annotated pages of the contract. Charlie picked up the top sheet, scanning the highlighted marks sprinkled over the document.
“Huh. Maybe the kid was telling the truth.” He dropped the paper back on the desk, leaving Steve’s office and heading into his own. Steve had done some damn fine contract negotiations for him over the last six months and set up some slick financing schemes to launder the money Charlie pumped through the organization. However, not once in all their conversations had Steve mentioned a girlfriend. That irked Charlie.
He shuffled through his file cabinet, pulling Steve’s employee file and fl
ipped it open, perusing the contents, studying Steve’s history and tapping his pen on the desk as he read. An only child, no living relatives to speak of, the last of whom were his parents and they passed away when he was in high school, leaving him with next to nothing, according to the file. He’d worked his ass off, taking two, sometimes three jobs at a time to keep afloat while going to Georgetown, and then finished his law degree at Yale.
Charlie chose Steve because he graduated at the top of his class but more importantly, he was in debt up to his eyeballs. Now Charlie wondered what drove him to excel in the face of adversity, of such poverty.
What was his lawyer really made of?
Charlie hit the speed dial on his cell phone. “I need you to keep an eye on someone for a while,” he said. “Steve Winchester, one of my staff lawyers.” Charlie read off the address and flipped the file closed. “Report anything unusual to me.”
He pocketed his cell phone and unlocked the top drawer of his desk. Stashed under a fake panel, a bag of his street product mocked him. His blow was dubbed the best in the city by his clientele. Dumping a small amount on the mirror, he meticulously cut the coke into three even lines. Charlie snorted the rows rapidly, and sat back, sniffling. It took a few minutes for the rush to hit and then he locked the drawer and headed out in search of some action.
Chapter 3
Jennifer settled in his arms, a small, satisfied smile on her lips.
“Tell me what you saw,” Steve whispered in her ear, spooning her in the soft bed.
“A hunting knife covered in blood. It reminded me of the knife in the movie Rambo.” She cuddled closer into him. “It was a blonde this time and the bastard played with her before he killed her.”
“Anything else?”
“There’s something on his right wrist, but I couldn’t make it out,” she yawned. “I think it’s a tattoo.”
Silence filled the room. When her breathing evened out, he slid out of bed and booted up his computer. This was the third dream Jennifer had in the last few months involving a dead woman and a hunting knife.
Typing a special secure URL and his clearance code into the computer, the FBI logo appeared, giving way to the internal email system. Steve scanned his inbox before typing a new message to his boss.
Jenny had another one. Let me know if you find anything.
He looked between the message and Jennifer sleeping a few feet away, wondering if he was doing the right thing. He’d put her in the line of fire before and that miscalculation almost got them killed. But this is different. He inhaled and pressed send before shutting the computer down.
Yawning, he crossed to the window and looked out at the street.
Someone was watching.
He stepped back into the darkness.
The car in contrast, sat under the street light. Steve sat on the edge of the bed, his mind racing over the steps he took to cover his tracks tonight.
He must have missed something.
“Shit,” he muttered and climbed under the covers next to Jennifer. “Shit!”
* * * *
The alarm went off, startling Steve. He slammed the snooze button, stretched, and turned his attention toward the window. The car was still there.
He rolled toward Jennifer. “Jenny?”
“Mhm?” She turned away from the light filtering in the window.
“You need to leave.”
It took a few minutes for his words to sink into her sleep-infested brain. She slowly turned her head toward him. “What did you just say?”
“I want you to go home to New Hampshire. It isn’t safe here.” He leaned over and flipped on the light.
“Steve.” She sat up.
He put his hand up. “Please Jen. I ran into Charlie on the way out of the office and he apparently ordered someone to follow me.” He hooked his thumb toward the window. “That car has been there all night.”
“So?” She tried to look beyond Steve and he shook his head, stopping her.
“He doesn’t even know I’m married.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
Lowering his eyes to his hands, light bounced off the gold of his wedding band, which graced his right ring finger instead of his left. He twirled the band slowly and raised his eyes to hers, taking her in. Her dark rumpled hair framed her face and her alert green eyes waited for his answer. Steve tilted his head, sighing. “If he finds out what I’m doing, he’ll kill me, but before he does, he’ll cut you into little pieces to make his point.”
She shivered. “How can you stand being in the same office with that man?”
“It’s my job and I want to take this son of a bitch down.”
“I don’t like your job.”
“I know, but you knew what you were getting into when you married me.” He reached out, wiping a stray hair out of her face. “We both know I can bullshit my way out of most anything, but if I’m worried about you, I might fuck up.”
Jennifer bit her lip. “I don’t want to go to New Hampshire.”
He glanced down at her left hand. The diamond studded wedding band and solitaire engagement ring donned her left ring finger. “It’s dangerous Jen.”
“All the more reason for me to stay.”
Closing his eyes, he hung his head, shaking it back and forth. “No,” he said, meeting her gaze. “I don’t have a good feeling about this and the last time I didn’t listen to my gut where you’re concerned, it almost got us killed.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Jesus Christ!” Steve threw back the covers and hopped out of bed, storming across the little efficiency where he ripped open the closet and grabbed a suit before disappearing into the bathroom. The doorframe rattled with the force of his slam.
She swung the door open and stood with her arms folded. “Steve, it’s my choice.”
The toothpaste foamed under his angry brush strokes and he spit, rinsing off the toothbrush before dropping it in the cup next to the sink. “No, it isn’t.” He swiped the back of his hand across his lips and turned in her direction. He had seen the photos of the poor souls Charlie caught. The lucky ones got a single shot between the eyes, the rest, well; let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.
Jennifer pressed her lips together, her chest rising with the great expansion of air in her lungs. “I just got the lead on Broadway.”
“Off-Broadway,” he said and reached in the shower, turning on the water to let it warm up.
“It’s still the lead and I don’t want to go home just yet. Not until we know for sure, okay?”
Steve closed his eyes and wiped his face with his hand. She had worked hard, going from audition to audition, getting rejection after rejection and then her luck changed and she was offered the lead in Vanities. “Fine. Then you need to take the rings off.” He stripped his boxers and shot her a glare.
Jennifer’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”
“Because he doesn’t know I’m married. He thinks I got into a fight with my girlfriend and landed at the office to get away from her.”
She pressed her lips together in irritation. “You couldn’t think of anything better than that?”
“I’m surprised I got that out. He scared the crap out of me.” He sucked in his breath and opened the shower door. “Five minutes earlier and I’d be dead right now.” He slipped under the water without further comment. He closed his eyes and let the stream cascade over his tired skin.
He just wanted to keep her safe. He didn’t want a repeat of what happened in Brooksfield. He had gotten lucky, but not lucky enough to stop his fraternity brothers from raping Jennifer before attempting to offer her up as a sacrifice. Getting her clear before they finished the ritual hadn’t been easy and just when he thought they were safe, something in the woods attacked, knocking his gun out of his grasp.
His chest and back still bore the claw marks from the struggle and the only reason he was alive today was Jennifer. She found his gun and killed the beast before she lost conscio
usness. To this day, he wondered which miracle was bigger: that her shot was accurate, or that he had the strength to carry her over a mile to safety without bleeding to death.
He never wanted to be that close to losing her, again.
Dressing, he took his time formulating his thoughts and when he entered the bedroom, he crossed to the bed where she had settled under the sheets. He took a seat on the edge. “This is the first time either the bureau or the DEA has been able to get someone this deep inside Charlie’s operation.”
“But why does it have to be you?”
“Because I’m one of the best.”
“You are a cocky son of a bitch.” She sat up.
Steve shrugged and he scanned his wife, smiling. “Yeah, but that’s one of the reasons you love me.” He glanced out the window and his smile faded. He returned his gaze to Jennifer. “You have to promise me something.”
“What?”
“If I tell you to run, this time you run and keep running.”
Chapter 4
Steve sat at his desk with the contract spread out in front of him and the electronic version on his computer, crafting the modifications needed in the service agreement. His mind kept circling around every step he took the prior night, trying to pinpoint a mistake. He came up empty every time.
Charlie cleared his throat.
Steve glanced toward the door. “Oh, sorry, I’m in the middle of updating the contract,” he said, pointing toward the computer screen casually, but his heart now throbbed in his chest. Charlie stared at him, his teeth nibbling on his bottom lip in contemplation.
“Was she there?” he asked and shifted, leaning against the doorjamb.
It took Steve a moment to digest what Charlie asked, and Steve tilted his head to the side, sending a questioning glance in his direction.
“The girlfriend.”