“Lara?”
She jumped at the sound of Nick’s deep voice so close to her. She’d momentarily forgotten his presence in her bed. The first rays of sunshine seeped through the window, but she scarcely looked at him. Instead she focused her attention down to her cell phone where she quickly punched in a series of numbers.
“That was Victoria. Moretti escaped from prison at least four hours ago,” she said and frowned at the sound of the unanswered ringing at the other end of her call. When it went to voice mail she hung up and dialed the number again.
Her chest ached with the frantic pounding of her heart as the abject horror of what Victoria had relayed to her fully sank in. He’s out of prison, and he knows about the baby.
It was never supposed to happen. It was her very worst nightmare come true. Andrew Moretti was free, and who knew who he had on his payroll? How many henchmen did he already have in his power to do his bidding? What would his next move be? And why in the hell wasn’t US Marshal Peter Linden answering his phone?
Every fear Lara had ever experienced before in her entire life coalesced and pooled in the pit of her stomach as she tried the number with the same results for the fourth time. She fought the impulse to throw her phone against the wall in terrified frustration.
Cold. She’d never been so cold in her life as an icy fear clutched at her very soul. She gripped her cell phone tightly and stared down at the keypad.
Another set of numbers sitting in her Contacts. Dare she use them now? With Moretti’s escape, how could she not? She punched in the Call button, her heart once again pounding with a tremendous force.
Faye Minnow answered on the second ring. “This is FBI Agent Lara Grant,” Lara said, grateful her voice betrayed none of the turmoil that still wailed loudly inside of her.
She didn’t have to worry about Faye recognizing her as Emily’s mother. During the time she had spent with David and Faye Minnow while in the safe house, they’d only known her as Eve. She could only hope that enough time had passed since that time that Faye wouldn’t now recognize her voice.
“I’m calling to check on your daughter’s safety,” Lara said. She couldn’t say the name Emily because she knew that the baby and Faye and David’s identity had been changed several times since they’d lived in the cheerful yellow house in Maywood, New York.
“She’s safe. Peter Linden’s partner came to take her into Code Red protective custody about a half an hour ago. We’re waiting to follow.”
Lara sucked in a deep breath. “Where is Marshal Linden?”
“Setting up the safe house, but Marshal Adam Kincaid had orders from Marshal Linden to rush her to safety, saying it was a Level Ten. It all happened so fast.” Faye’s voice broke with obvious emotion. “I don’t understand why they didn’t let us go with her. David and I want...we need our daughter back where she belongs, with us. I thought they’d contact us by now.” Faye released a small sob.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Minnow. We’re working on making that happen as quickly as possible. I’ll contact you soon.” There were so many things Lara wanted to say but didn’t know how. Lara didn’t wait for a reply. She hung up and jumped up off the bed. “We’ve got to get to headquarters and get together with the team. Something definitely isn’t right.”
She started for the bedroom door focused only on her need to get to FBI headquarters as quickly as possible. Before she got out of the room Nick grabbed her by the arm to halt her progress.
She jerked away from him angrily. “Nick, we’ve got to go now,” she exclaimed. “We can talk more in the car.”
“Lara, you need to get dressed before we leave here to meet the rest of the team.” Nick spoke slowly and carefully.
Lara stared at him and suddenly realized that while she’d been on the phone, he had gotten up and dressed. She looked down at herself, for the first time recognizing that she was still naked.
Frantically she grabbed clothes from the closet and a dresser drawer and then raced for the bathroom. Her fingers trembled as she put on her underwear and then pulled on a pair of her familiar black pants and a black turtleneck. Socks and boots followed, and then she quickly ran a brush through her hair and brushed her teeth.
In all it took her about five minutes...five precious minutes lost in a world where all of the minutes were suddenly vitally important. She didn’t speak to Nick until they were in his car and headed to the 26 Federal Plaza, and only then did she tell him what Faye Minnow had said to her.
“Something is terribly wrong,” she said, still fighting the shrill alarms ringing loudly in her head. Even though the seven-month old little girl might have been given a new name, she would always be Emily in Lara’s mind. It was the name Lara had given her in the first moments after birth.
She looked at Nick. Less than eight hours ago they had been in bed together having hot and passionate sex. What she needed from him now was some sort of reassurance that everything was going to be all right. But she also knew he wasn’t one to throw around false platitudes.
“I agree, but we can’t jump to conclusions,” he replied somberly. “With a four-hour head start we’re going to have our work cut out for us in finding Moretti.”
His honesty was what she hated and what she liked about him. They were finally at a place where he pulled no punches with her. He wouldn’t allow her a moment of wishful thinking that somehow by the time they got to headquarters Moretti would be back behind bars and baby Emily would once again be with the parents who adopted her.
She stared out of the passenger window, each breath a painful ache in her tight chest. Four hours. Moretti had a four-hour head start to put some sort of plan into place, to find some place safe to hole up. He wouldn’t have left the prison without a definite plan and people waiting to assist him in whatever he needed to remain free on the outside.
She had so many questions now that some of the initial shock was beginning to wear off. How had Moretti managed to escape? Was his brother, Mason Moretti, still in the prison hospital? Dammit, how had Moretti gotten away?
There was no point in voicing the questions out loud. She knew Nick had no answers. She hoped that the team was already all gathered and at work and would have some answers for her by the time she and Nick arrived.
Thankfully throughout their short time working together, Nick had learned when to talk and when to keep his mouth shut with her. He didn’t say a word as he parked the car in the official parking garage. He remained mute as together they raced for the building and during the ride in the elevator up to the twenty-third floor. Please, let this all already be resolved, Lara thought desperately.
Lara and Nick flew down the hallway and into the conference room, and Lara was grateful to see that not only were her usual teammates gathered, but also junior agents James Walsh and Jennifer Gulden were present, as well.
A fleeting thought shot through Lara’s head as she recognized how different the members of the team looked now from that first day when she’d arrived to start working for the new Crisis Management Unit.
Mei Wang was dead, strangled and stamped with the MM tattoo on her cheek. Cass was in jail awaiting arraignment on a number of charges, and Christina Ruiz had been borrowed from another team to take Cass’s place as their computer expert. Ty looked as if he’d aged a decade with the death of his partner, as did Victoria after all she’d been through when her daughter had been kidnapped and with the weight of this entire case on her shoulders.
A new pain filled Lara. In one way or another Moretti had touched them all with his evil. The entire team had been forever changed due to his machinations. For the first time since Victoria’s awakening phone call a wave of anger rose up inside Lara, a deep, killing anger that equaled the terror that still gripped her gut like a tight vise.
“How did this happen?” Lara asked as she and Nick sat side by side at the table. “How in the hell did he get out of that prison?”
“The FBI and other law enforcement officials have swarmed the pla
ce and are in the process of conducting a full investigation,” Victoria said. “All I can tell you is that at this point there is one missing prison guard. Another guard, a Toby Racine, was found unconscious in Moretti’s cell. He’d been beaten and was wearing Moretti’s jumpsuit.”
“He obviously had help both inside and outside of the prison to pull off an escape,” Ty said. “What do we know about this Toby Racine?”
Christina sat up straighter in her chair and tucked a strand of her short dark hair behind her ear as she gazed at a printout of information. “He’s twenty-nine years old and has worked at the prison for the last three years. He lives alone.”
“And what about the missing guard?” Nick asked.
Victoria looked down at the notes in front of her. “Anthony McCord, at least twenty years working in the prison system. His wife’s body was found an hour ago in their home. We have units sitting on his residence.”
“He’ll probably eventually show up somewhere as a dead body, too,” Xander said. “Moretti won’t want any loose ends. Once he isn’t useful to Moretti anymore, he’ll kill them.”
“Maybe he’s headed for Canada—for either helping with the escape or for killing his wife. Or both. That would make the most sense,” Ty replied. “The border is only a few hours from here.”
“We have the border patrol on alert,” Victoria said.
Lara didn’t care about a missing guard, especially one who had apparently been turned by Moretti. The most important issue in her mind was little Emily’s safety. “I tried to contact Peter Linden, but my calls kept going to his cell phone. I finally called Faye Minnow,” Lara said and watched as Victoria’s eyes narrowed in response.
“Emily was moved just a little while ago by Linden’s partner Kincaid. It was a Level Ten, whatever that means,” Lara continued.
“I’m aware of the situation.” Victoria held Lara’s gaze.
Every muscle in Lara’s body tensed as she prepared for a blow. She saw it coming in the darkness that had taken possession of Victoria’s blue eyes.
“And?” Lara asked softly.
“And I got a phone call from the US Marshal offices a few minutes ago. There’s no US Marshal Adam Kincaid, and no such thing as a Level Ten. Peter Linden’s official car was found twenty miles away from the last location where the family had been located.” Victoria paused a moment and cleared her throat and then continued, “Peter’s body was inside of the car. He’d been tortured—probably for information—and then shot in the head.”
The shrill screaming began in Lara’s head once again.
CHAPTER TWO
Everyone in the room was silent for a thick, charged moment, and Lara took that brief time to forcefully shove away the wailing in her head.
She had to think. She didn’t have the time or the luxury to fall apart right now. Her child needed her, and she needed to find and kill the monster who had ruined so many lives and had haunted her for far too long.
“So, we have to assume that Moretti has the kid,” Xander finally said to break the silence.
“Emily. Her name is Emily,” Lara snapped. It didn’t matter that her name, her identity changed each time the Minnows were relocated. What mattered was that she wasn’t just some “kid” and that everyone at the table saw her as an individual with a real name and potentially in very real danger.
Xander looked at Lara. “Sorry.”
“Why would he take the time to arrange to get hold of Emily? What could he possibly want with her?” Ty asked. “I mean, he would have been smart to use the head start he had to somehow get out of the country.”
“He doesn’t exactly seem like the type who would want to be father of the year,” James added.
“Maybe he wants to use the baby as leverage of some kind,” Jennifer said. “Maybe he intends to ransom her for the means and the money to get out of the country.”
Lara listened to the others’ speculation, but she knew the truth. “He’s obviously got the means and any money he needs. He took her as revenge against me,” she stated flatly. “He knows she’s the only person on the face of the earth who means something to me. He knows she’s the only thing I love, and that’s why he took her.”
A piercing ache shot through Lara’s heart as she thought of her child now in the hands of the cold, hard bastard who had fathered her. Moretti...he was the very devil himself.
What was his plan for the sweet baby girl? Would he hurt her? Would he kill her to spite Lara? Would they eventually find Emily’s little body lifeless and cold with death?
She mentally shook her head. Don’t go there, a little voice whispered in her head. She couldn’t allow her thoughts to go to that dark place, or she’d go stark raving mad and would be of no use to anyone.
“What we all need to do right now is try to pinpoint what Moretti’s next move might be,” Victoria said. “We can assume he has Emily, and we need to figure out where he would go with her. What is his plan? I want all of you to go over your notes from the beginning of this case to now, and see if a clue can be gleaned as to where he might be.”
Lara got up out of her chair, unable to sit still for another minute. She paced back and forth next to the long conference table as she tried to think back to the time when she’d been close to Moretti, the time when she’d believed him to be Andrew Moore, a man who had infiltrated the organization for his own supposedly honorable reasons.
Lies. All lies. And she’d swallowed them hook, line and sinker, never knowing that the hot, sexy arms commander Andrew Moore was actually the monster himself.
Victoria’s cell phone rang, and Lara froze in her tracks and stared at her boss as she took the call. Everyone else in the room was once again silent. The call took only a minute, and when Victoria hung up, her gaze held Lara’s once again.
“A second vehicle was found abandoned close to where Marshal Linden’s car was located. It wasn’t an official US Marshal vehicle, but it was dressed up to look like one,” she said.
“So, Moretti and whoever picked up the...uh, Emily in what appeared to be an official vehicle and then transferred to another car,” Xander said, stating the obvious.
“And we have no idea what kind of car they’re now using,” Ty added.
The news wasn’t a surprise to Lara; it was just a dreadful confirmation that Moretti was once again back in control. She looked at all of her teammates. “He’ll contact me. Sooner or later I’ll hear from him, because he won’t be able to help himself. He’ll need to brag about how brilliant he is, he’ll want to crow about his successful escape. And more than anything he’ll want to tell me that he has Emily, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Christina stood and walked over to Lara. “Give me your cell, and I’ll link it with my computers so that if and when he calls I might get a chance to trace his location.”
Lara pulled her phone from her pocket and handed it to the tech guru. She didn’t wait to hear what the others might say. Instead, she left the conference room and went into the break room where she could be alone for a little while.
The scent of hot coffee wafted in the air as she walked over to a nearby window and stared unseeing outside. She needed to be alone and think.
Somehow, someway, she had to remember everything that Andrew Moore had ever told her about his past. She needed to try to separate the lies from any truth he might have said that could be helpful in finding him now.
When Moretti had been acting as Andrew, had there been any truth at all in what he’d told her? Her stomach bucked and kicked with nausea as she thought of just how close she’d gotten to Andrew. Close enough to consider blowing her own cover, close enough to have sex with him and get pregnant and have a baby that he now probably had in his clutches. God, she’d been so stupid.
And now Emily was at risk, and Lara needed a way to figure out where Moretti might have her. She wanted to bang her head against the window until all the answers she needed popped into her head.
“Lara, I’
ve linked your phone.” Christina’s voice came from the break room doorway. Lara didn’t turn around. “Uh, I’ll just leave it here on the table.”
Now all she needed was for Moretti to phone her, and hopefully Christina would be able to trace the call to lead them to wherever the bastard might be holed up.
Emily had now been in her father’s possession for well over sixty long minutes.
“Lara, we’ll get her back safely.” Nick’s deep voice turned her around from the window. He stood just inside the break room entry, as if unsure whether she would welcome his presence or not.
“You have no idea what he’s capable of,” she said. Her legs began to shake, and she walked carefully across the room and sank down in a chair.
Nick moved to the chair next to hers and also sat. “We’ll find him and we’ll get her back.” He reached his hand out toward hers, but then withdrew it when she made no move to meet him halfway.
She might have spent the night with him, but she didn’t need him to hold her hand right now. What she needed was for somebody to tell her where her daughter was located and how to get her back where she belonged. What she needed was to be strong enough, smart enough to deal with a man who once again seemed all omnipotent.
Nick’s eyes were dark and unfathomable as he gazed at her. “It must have been so tough on you...finding out that you were pregnant and having to go into lockdown.”
His words cast her back in time to the Virginia countryside and the modest rented house that had been both prison and sanctuary for her for a little over a year after she’d helped bring down the Moretti crime organization.
“It was,” she replied softly, immediately caught up in memories. She released a deep sigh and fell into them. “Initially I was horrified to realize I was pregnant, especially considering who the father was. I thought about getting an abortion, but I realized I couldn’t do it. The baby might have been half his, but she was also half of me.”
Deep emotion pressed tight against her chest. Initially she’d been so conflicted as to what to do, what was the right choice to make. Once she had finally made up her mind that she would carry the baby to full term, she’d been completely at peace with her decision.
Tough Justice Series Box Set, Parts 1-8 Page 63