Tough Justice Series Box Set, Parts 1-8

by Carla Cassidy

  “I don’t know anything about that,” the current bartender told Nick. It was the fifth bar they’d visited on Bowery and clearly, another bust.

  “You’re sure,” Nick pressed, but Lara had already pulled open the door to leave.

  “I’m sure,” Lara heard him say as she stepped back on to the street. Inhaling the smell of exhaust, she buttoned her suede jacket, trying not to succumb to despair. But damn it, she was tired of this. Would they ever get a break in this blasted case?

  “I’m starving,” she announced when Nick came out. “And if I don’t sit down soon, my legs are going to fall off.”

  Nick’s eyes creased into a smile, and her belly made a little flip. Even though she’d tried to resist him, her partner was an amazingly good-looking man.

  “I thought you were tough,” he teased.

  “I am tough. But I didn’t get much sleep last night. And I skipped breakfast.”

  “We’re almost done. I just want to interview one more person, and then we’ll take a break. This is the only time of day we have a chance at finding him.”

  He was right, of course. No matter how exhausted she felt, they couldn’t afford to stop. An empty stomach was a small price to pay to bring that killer down. “Who is it?”

  “A homeless guy I know. He usually hangs out around here. But let me handle him,” he cautioned as they crossed the street, the metallic tat of a jackhammer rising above the traffic noise. “He’s pretty skittish. Just hang back and let me talk.”

  “All right.” A cool breeze ruffled her hair, bringing with it an unpleasant smell she didn’t care to identify. Bowery had changed a lot over the years. Gentrification had recently set in, with trendy restaurants and luxury apartments replacing the rescue missions and homeless shelters that once crowded the famed skid row. But pockets of poverty remained, including the section near First Street where they now walked.

  Nick slowed as they approached an empty lot bordered by a chain-link fence. Lara scanned the graffiti-tagged buildings on either side, the patches of dirt and knee-high weeds. A man stood halfway across the lot, loading cans and bottles into a shopping cart.

  Nick ducked through a hole in the fence. She did the same and started to follow him across the lot. But then a low-riding car passed slowly by. She turned to watch the car—an old Buick outfitted with flashy hubcaps and tinted windows—and a shiver of apprehension skated down her spine. It probably had nothing to do with the sniper. It was probably just a drug dealer in search of a sale. But she tensed, her hand hovering over her sidearm, until the car turned the corner and disappeared.

  “Hey, Bob,” she heard Nick call out, and she hurried to catch up.

  The homeless man turned around. He had long, unkempt hair, soiled clothes and a matted beard. He was skeletal and tall, his cheekbones prominent in his gaunt face. His skin was so weathered by the elements she couldn’t begin to guess his age.

  “Nick,” the vagrant answered, casting her a suspicious look. She stayed back as instructed, letting Nick take the lead. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “How’ve you been?” Nick asked.

  “Okay.”

  “Glad to hear it. Listen, I need some information.”

  “About Jason?”

  Nick’s body tensed, the motion barely detectable, but enough that Lara took note. “Why?” he asked. “Have you seen him?”

  “Yeah, a couple days ago.”

  Nick didn’t answer—and she wondered if he didn’t want her to hear. Too bad. If he was determined to ferret out her secrets, she could listen in on his.

  “How did he look?” Nick finally asked.

  “Not good. The shelter turned him away.”

  “So, he’s using again.” Disappointment tinged his deep voice.

  Lara studied his profile, unable to miss his concern. Whoever Jason was, Nick clearly cared about him.

  “Do me a favor?” Nick pulled out his wallet, removed two prepaid grocery cards, and handed them to Bob. “Give him one of these the next time you see him. The other one’s for you.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  “Are you getting enough to eat?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You got a place to sleep?”

  Bob nodded again, and Lara couldn’t help but be intrigued. She’d never witnessed this part of Nick. She’d seen his fun, charming side. She’d seen the angry edge he harbored that hinted at a troubled past. And she’d seen him as a potential lover—insistent, a little dominant, and sexy as hell.

  But this compassion for a homeless man...it was a side she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. It made it too hard to resist him, too hard to keep from getting emotionally involved.

  “Listen,” he told Bob, who’d started picking up bottles again. “I’m looking for someone. A sniper. He might be former military. We think he’s working as a hired gun. Have you heard of anyone who sounds like that?”

  Bob hesitated, then dropped a bottle into his cart. “No.”

  “Are you sure? It’s important.”

  Bob didn’t answer. He added another empty bottle to his pile.

  “He’s killing a lot of people,” Nick continued. “And we need to make him stop. You know I wouldn’t ask if I had a choice, but I really need your help. I don’t want anyone else to die.”

  Bob paused again, looking worried now. “Well, there is a guy... You can’t let anyone know I told you about him, though.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I mean it man. If word gets out—”

  “It won’t,” Nick promised. “I swear.”

  “All right, but I don’t know much, just that the guy’s a vet. He served in Afghanistan and got messed up. Everyone calls him The Ghost.”

  Lara rolled her eyes. “The Ghost? Really? Couldn’t he find a more original name than that?”

  “It fits him,” Bob said, shaking his head. “He never gets caught. No one ever knows he’s there. And he scares the crap out of everyone.”

  “So, how can I contact him?” Nick asked.

  “You can’t. No one knows who he is.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Nobody’s ever seen him. No one wants to. I’m telling you, he’s bad news.”

  “Any idea where he came from or where he lives?”

  “No, nothing. That’s all I know. That there’s a hired killer they call The Ghost.”

  Lara sighed. It was hardly enough to go on, but at least they finally had a clue—however vague.

  “All right,” Nick said, sounding equally as resigned. He pulled out his wallet and took out several bills. “Thanks for the help.”

  Lara turned to go. Just then the deep drum of an engine reached her ears, and the Buick crawled back into view. The back window rolled slowly down, and an intense feeling of danger prickled Lara’s nerves. “Nick,” she warned.

  He turned toward the car. Then he grabbed the homeless man’s arm. “Come on. We need to get out of here.”

  “What?”

  “That car. It could be him.”

  The man’s face paled. “Oh, hell. I knew I shouldn’t have talked to you.”

  “Let’s go.” Nick took off across the lot with Bob in tow. Lara started to follow, then spared another glance at the car. No tags. She hesitated a beat, tempted to confront whoever was menacing them. But she couldn’t risk the informant’s life.

  Swearing, she fell in behind the men. They raced across the adjacent street, then darted between some row houses to a narrow alley, and ran two more blocks to where Nick had left his car. Breathing heavily, Lara climbed into the passenger side, and they peeled off, Bob muttering in the backseat.

  “Call it in, will you?” Nick said, careening around the corner.

  “I’m on it.” She pulled out her phone and relayed the information to the local dispatcher, who promised to check the Buick out. Then she phoned Cass at headquarters and asked her to arrange a safe house for the homeless man.

  “A safe house?” he cried
when she hung up. “I’m not going there.”

  “You have to.”

  “The hell I do! I can’t stand being cooped up.”

  She swiveled in her seat to meet his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry. But everyone we’ve talked to about the sniper has gotten killed.”

  “Killed? Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t want any trouble from him. I don’t want anything to do with this.”

  Lara winced, knowing he had a point. They’d dragged him into this mess, and now his life was at risk because of them. But they had to talk to people. How else could they solve this case? It was the only way to stop Moretti before even more people forfeited their lives.

  “It won’t be for long,” Nick promised. “Just a couple of days.”

  “Oh, man...”

  “They’ll call back about the Buick,” she told Nick, still feeling guilty about Bob. But whether he wanted to go to a safe house or not, he had no choice. This time they were going to keep their informant safe.

  * * *

  Nick pulled into the underground parking garage at 26 Federal Plaza and parked his car. Moving quickly, they escorted Bob into the building, then waited in the lobby for the agents who would take him into custody. A few minutes later, two men stepped off the elevator, and Nick went over to fill them in.

  “I’m really sorry,” Lara told Bob again. “But this shouldn’t take long. We just need you to lay low for a little while.”

  “Yeah, right. Easy for you to say. You don’t have a killer after you.”

  He was wrong. She had Moretti after her—the most vicious killer alive. And he wouldn’t stop until she died.

  The two federal agents started toward them. Lara turned to greet them, just as the informant whirled around.

  “Hey!” Nick yelled.

  Lara spun back—too late. Bob sprinted across the lobby faster than she believed possible and pushed through the revolving door. Lara went in pursuit, but she collided with a visitor, nearly causing her to fall.

  She reached the door at the same time Nick did. They burst on to the sidewalk on Broadway just as a shot rang out.

  Pedestrians scattered and screamed. Panicked, Lara drew her gun and whipped around, spotting the informant just as he hit the ground.

  She already knew before she reached him that he’d be dead.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  If the road to hell was paved with good intentions, Nick figured he’d just laid an impressive stretch of asphalt toward that final reward.

  He stood outside his cubicle on the twenty-third floor at 26 Federal Plaza, scowling down at the crime scene cordoned off on the street below. FBI analysts were poring over the area. A manhunt was underway for the sniper, and a helicopter circled overhead, even though a couple of hours had passed since his informant’s death. Even television vans still crowded the street, with every reporter in the area vying to get details on the story that had the entire city on edge.

  And made less sense every day.

  “I’m sorry about Bob,” Lara said from behind him.

  Nick tore his gaze from the street and turned to face her. Her green eyes were filled with concern. Lines of fatigue bracketed her mouth—lines that he’d created, thanks to the debacle he’d just caused.

  “I told him we’d protect him. Some protective custody it turned out to be.”

  And it had all been for nothing. The Buick had been a bust. The NYPD had tracked it down, and it belonged to a pimp who’d been out doing his rounds, with no connection to Moretti that they could find. If Nick hadn’t assumed the worst, if he’d left Bob alone like he had wanted, he’d be alive.

  “Listen, Nick.” Lara stepped even closer, and he caught the faint scent of her shampoo. “I know how you feel. The year I infiltrated Moretti’s group and was trafficking guns...” Her eyes turned pensive, a crease marring her smooth brow. “I was arming criminals, putting weapons in the hands of the bad guys. I knew people could die because of me. But if I didn’t arm them and play my part, even more innocent people could die. I realized I had to do it for the greater good.”

  She was right. They made tough choices in their line of work. Nothing was ever clearly black or white. “Even so, I shouldn’t have involved him. And I definitely shouldn’t have brought him in. I knew how much he hated to be confined. I should have predicted that he’d try to bolt.”

  Lara placed her hand on his arm, her soft touch soothing him more than any words. He liked that she didn’t offer platitudes, that she didn’t try to minimize the pain he felt.

  “It’s a fucked-up world,” she agreed.

  “Yeah.” And sometimes he wondered if he was making a difference, if the years he’d spent battling the bad guys had made any dent at all. For every one they arrested, a hundred new criminals appeared.

  But this was worse. His actions resulted in an innocent man’s death. He’d destroyed his remaining link to Jason, making it harder to keep tabs on him. And he’d further demoralized their team.

  Lara gave his arm a squeeze, then dropped her hand. They both turned to the window and watched the agents working below. “Listen,” she said again after several moments had passed. “I’ve been wondering about that clue, there’s no place like home. Do you think this is what Moretti meant, that he’d have someone near our building killed?”

  “Who knows?” That was what bothered him most, the way nothing in this case made sense. This latest attack was brazen, senseless, part of some elaborate game Moretti seemed to have concocted with rules no one understood except him.

  And, frankly, it pissed him off. No one yanked his chain and got away with it—at least not for long.

  “We need to catch this guy,” he muttered. He turned to face her, but she kept her gaze on the street.

  “I think we need to change our strategy.”

  “Change it, how?”

  She exhaled and met his eyes. “We can’t keep questioning people. Every time we do that, someone dies. I think we need to draw the sniper out. Make him come to us.”

  “And how are we going to do that?”

  Her gaze stayed on his. “I’ll have to act as bait.”

  “Forget it.”

  “But—”

  “There’s no damned way. You’re not risking your life to bring him in.”

  “I won’t be risking my life. He’s had plenty of chances to kill me before, and he hasn’t done it yet.”

  “Exactly. He hasn’t done it yet. You don’t how long that’s going to last.”

  “You have a better solution?” Frustration rang in her voice. “Nick, this is insane. We can’t keep getting people killed.”

  “So we should get you killed instead? How the hell is that going to help?”

  “I told you. I don’t think he’ll kill me.”

  “Yeah? Well, I didn’t think he’d kill my informant, either. The fact is, we don’t know what this guy’s going to do.”

  “But—”

  “It’s too risky, Lara.” Idiotic would be a better word. “Besides, even if we thought it was safe, the boss would never sanction it.”

  She crossed her arms. Her gaze stayed hard on his.

  Understanding dawned. “No, absolutely not. We’re not going behind her back.”

  Lara shot a glance around the hallway, then lowered her voice. “Why shouldn’t we? Think about it, Nick. How does this Ghost guy know where we are? He isn’t omniscient. He can’t be following us everywhere. So how is he keeping tabs on us?”

  “What are you saying? That we’ve got a mole? You think somebody on the team is working with this guy?”

  “No, of course not. I totally trust our team. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think everybody on it was great. But he’s managing to track us somehow.”

  Nick crossed his arms, unable to argue that.

  “The jumper, Sean Dunst, was easy,” Lara continued. “It was on the news. The Ghost had plenty of time to get into place and plan the shot. But the others... Jesus, Nick. It’s like he knows where we’re going bef
ore we do. So, how is he doing that?”

  “I don’t know.” It was baffling, all right, and something they had to figure out fast. “But it’s not anyone on our team. And we’re not going rogue.” Because if there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was people who ignored the rules. Justice was equal under the law. Those with money or authority weren’t entitled to their own set of rules.

  Because once people with power started fudging boundaries, he’d seen firsthand the damage it could do. His father was the perfect example—bribing judges, destroying evidence, intimidating witnesses to win a case. Any criminal who could pay his exorbitant fees went free—and justice and truth be damned.

  “And making you a target isn’t the solution, either,” he added.

  “You have a better one?”

  He braced his arm on the window and released a breath. “No, not yet.” But he was determined to find one fast.

  “Hey, Lara, Nick,” Xander called from down the hall.

  Nick swiveled around. Xander was standing in the doorway to Cass’s office, flagging them down. “Come here for a second. We found something interesting.”

  Nick caught Lara’s eye. “Sure.” Curious, he accompanied her down the hall and into the office. They found Cass sitting at her computer, her eyes brimming with excitement, her face the most animated he’d seen in days.

  “What did you find?” Lara asked.

  Xander positioned himself behind Cass’s chair. “We’re running a check on military snipers like Victoria wanted—Marine Corps, Army, Navy SEALs. We’re still compiling those lists.” He motioned toward a laptop on the desk. “But we also decided to do a search for cases involving similar-style shootings over the past five years.”

  “Were there any?” Nick asked.

  Cass nodded. “About two years ago there was another case here in New York. It involved a guy who hired a hit man to murder his wife. The guy was pretty sketchy. He ran an import business that was suspected to be a front for illegal drugs. His wife was shot with a handgun, so that part doesn’t fit. But there was a witness, someone who overheard the husband talking in a bar, arranging the hit. The witness was killed before the trial. He took a head shot from a distance, and the shooter was never found.”