Obviously Moretti, after hearing about the baby from Mason’s text, had managed to get a fake US Marshal ID, found Peter Linden and tortured him until he gave up the address of the safe house where the Minnow family had been living. Another death because of her.
What other information did he have access to? How vast was his power? How had he managed to build the kind of support system, gain the kind of information he had while he’d been behind bars?
It was as if he’d never been taken out of the game. Her year of being undercover and the subsequent bust that had been so carefully implemented to capture him had all been for nothing. It was as if he’d just been on a little vacation in prison—hell, he’d even had painting privileges while inside—and now he was back doing the kind of work he did best...manipulating and destroying.
Dammit! Think, Lara...think! Where could he have gone after he left the Minnows’ house? Did somebody on their payroll have a home in the country? A hunting cabin in the woods? Somehow, someway they had to find him.
She jumped at the ring of her cell phone. She sucked in a deep breath as she read the caller ID. Unknown. Moretti. She grabbed the phone and sprang up from her desk.
It rang a second time as she hurried to stand in the doorway of the tech room. Every nerve in her body screamed in dreadful anticipation. She was vaguely aware of Victoria and Nick coming to stand just behind her.
Christina nodded, and with a finger that trembled, Lara answered with the speaker button on. “This is Special Agent Lara Grant.” Thank God there was no telling tremble in her voice, nothing to indicate that her nerves were totally shot to hell.
“Lara.” Her name oozed across the line in his deep, familiar voice. The mere sound of his voice twisted her guts into a tight, messy knot. “I’ve missed you. Have you missed me?”
Nausea rose up inside her, and she didn’t reply. “I have our daughter, Lara,” he continued. “She’s so beautiful. She looks so much like you, but she has my eyes.”
“I knew you would call,” Lara finally replied. “How do I know you really have her? You haven’t always been perfectly truthful with me in the past.”
“Listen...can you hear her?”
The girlish baby chant utterly crushed Lara’s heart as it was positive proof that he really did have Emily in his possession. Lara closed her eyes for a moment as the back of her throat squeezed shut, and she could scarcely draw a breath.
“She’s such a bright little girl, but of course I wouldn’t have expected her not to be smart since she’s mine,” Moretti said, his voice filled with gleeful bravado.
Lara opened her eyes and watched Christina hitting keys on the computer in an attempt to capture Moretti’s current location.
“What do you want?” She finally spoke again, knowing she had to remain calm even though she wanted to scream at him. She wanted to curse his very soul to hell. But she couldn’t afford to anger him, not while he had her child in his possession. “What do you want in exchange for the baby?”
He laughed, and the sound of his unabashed delight shot a new wave of nausea through her. “She’s hardly a baby anymore. She’s practically a toddler, and I don’t want to exchange her for anything. There’s nothing you can offer me to give her up. I want to keep her, but don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt Valentina. That’s the new name I’ve given her. Isn’t it beautiful? I’m going to keep Valentina with me forever. I’m going to raise her to take over my legacy. But, I want you to see her. In fact the very last thing I want you to see is our sweet Valentina in my arms right before I kill you.”
“I’ve got him,” Christina said at the same time the phone went dead, indicating he’d ended the call. “He’s in Central Park, somewhere close to the Alice in Wonderland statue.”
Victoria got on her cell phone while Nick grabbed Lara by the arm. “I’ll drive,” he said and they ran for the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Victoria will make sure every entrance and exit from the park is covered,” Nick said when they were in the car and racing through the traffic toward the park.
He cast a quick glance at Lara, who sat in the passenger seat as still as a statue. He knew the calm exterior was only a façade, that inside she was seething with unimaginable fear and rage.
If something bad happened to Emily, he knew with a partner’s—with a lover’s—instinct that Lara could easily crash and burn.
He’d seen her utter vulnerability where her daughter was concerned earlier in the break room when she’d bared her soul to him, when she’d allowed him to hold her, and the thought of her daughter living a happy life was the only good thing Lara had to hang on to in her world that had been dark and cold since the murder of her mother so long ago. If that was taken away from her forever...he didn’t even want to think about how she would handle it.
He flew through the mid-morning traffic, siren blaring and lights flashing. Surely if Moretti was in the park, agents had already moved in to assure that he couldn’t leave the area.
Was his need to crow to Lara his final downfall? It was for his twin, Mason. Why make the call from Central Park, a place so close to law enforcement agencies of all kinds? Why not make the call from a hundred miles away from here?
Because the Alice in Wonderland statue was where Victoria’s daughter had been found after her kidnapping. She’d been found there along with a baby rattle to torture Lara. Moretti definitely had a perverse and wicked sense of sick humor.
He had to realize how quickly a call could be traced, how precisely the almost exact location of a cell phone could be identified.
Nick pulled to the curb at East Seventy-Fourth Street, and Lara was out of the car before he’d come to a complete stop. He shut off the engine and leaped out of the car to hurry after her.
She had her gun in her hand and raced toward the eleven-foot bronze statue in the distance. Nick pulled his gun as well, the final words of Moretti’s phone call ringing in his ears.
Was it possible that this was some sort of a trap? Would Moretti or one of his henchmen be at the statue or hiding in the surrounding area in order to kill Lara? A sniper bullet to her head? A sudden and deadly attack from out of nowhere? The Ghost was in custody, but was there another sniper?
Not on my watch, he thought grimly. Never in my lifetime, he mentally added. He wasn’t going to lose another partner...he wasn’t going to lose Lara to scum like Moretti.
As he chased after her he was aware of other law enforcement officials everywhere. His heart leaped in his throat as he recognized they were searching, indicating that Moretti wasn’t at the statue at all.
“FBI,” he yelled to alert the other people in the area. “Stand down. We’re FBI.” The last thing he wanted was for him and Lara to be involved in a tragic friendly fire incident.
He knew the moment that Lara got a full view of the famous tourist attraction. She stopped in her tracks and stood still, almost vibrating with an emotion he couldn’t even begin to name.
As he caught his first view of the entire statue, it was obvious Moretti wasn’t there, but on the giant mushroom where Alice sat was a cell phone and something small and pink. A NYPD police officer stood nearby, as if guarding the evidence for their arrival.
“Moretti!” The name tore from Lara’s throat as she wildly spun around in a circle, pointing her gun in each direction. Her eyes were huge, her gaze frantic and darting from left to right in rapid succession.
“Moretti, you bastard,” she cried. “Come out and face me like a man. I want my daughter back.” Her voice was like gravel, tortured and raw.
Nick put his gun back in his holster and took several steps toward her. She leveled her gun at his chest, and he sucked in his breath, unsure if she recognized him or was so deep in her own head that she might actually shoot him.
“Hey.” The police officer took a step toward her but halted as Nick quickly waved him back.
“Lara,” he said softly. He slowly raised his hands up in the air. “Lara, put your g
un away. Moretti isn’t here.” Nick’s heartbeat thundered in his chest.
She stared at him, her eyes dark pools of anguish. Her cheeks were flushed with the chill of the October air and the emotional turmoil of the moment. Did she recognize him as one of the good guys? Or in her mind’s eye was he the enemy she wanted dead?
“He’s gone, Lara. Maybe one of the other officers in the area will get him. Please, put your gun away,” Nick said as calmly as possible. He held his breath as he watched her carefully. Hopefully his Kevlar vest could stop a bullet if she did decide to shoot.
“Where is he? He’s supposed to be here.” She blinked her eyes several times in rapid succession, and then, to Nick’s relief, she shuddered and slowly lowered her weapon. As she slipped it back into her holster, her shoulders sagged forward, and he thought she might slump down to the ground.
He should have known better. She instantly straightened up and then turned and walked in slow, measured steps to the statue. Relief fluttered through him, and he hurried to fall into step with her.
He didn’t speak as she reached the bronze mushroom where Alice sat along with the Mad Hatter and the white rabbit. She picked up the pink item that he now saw was a little hair bow.
“Emily was wearing a pink bow just like this in one of the pictures that was sent to my apartment.” She fisted her hand around the bow so tightly that her fingers turned white.
“I should have known this was all too easy,” she continued, her voice dull and lifeless. “He might have made the call from here, but none of us are going to catch him now. He wins again.”
She tucked the ribbon into her back pocket and then picked up the cell phone and looked at Nick, her eyes still dark and swimming with emotion. “Please, just get me out of here.”
Nick stepped forward and threw his arm around her shoulder. Agents and local cops were now visible everywhere, pounding the pavements and searching the trails for the elusive culprit who had been here only minutes before.
He led Lara to the car. “Where to?” he asked, sensing that she wasn’t ready to return directly to headquarters.
“Just drive,” she replied with a weariness he’d never heard in her voice before.
He called Victoria and let her know that he and Lara were leaving Central Park and would return to work in the next hour or so. He didn’t have to tell her that they would be in touch if Lara heard from Moretti again, nor did she have to tell him that she’d let them know if anything broke loose. It was a given.
Lara remained silent as he took off and headed toward the East Village and a coffee shop near his apartment building that served the best breakfast in town at all hours of the day or night.
He knew she wouldn’t be hungry, but he also realized that this standoff with Moretti could take hours or even days. He needed fuel, and hopefully he could persuade her to eat something before they returned to headquarters.
How long before she broke completely? He knew more than anyone else just how strong she was, but everyone had a breaking point, and he feared that Lara was precariously close to hers, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He wouldn’t admit to anyone that he needed a short break to allow the adrenaline to ease away that had surged through him when Lara had held him at gunpoint in the park. She’d definitely made his heart race faster than it had in years.
He parked in front of the deli and turned to look at her. “I know you’re going to tell me that you aren’t hungry, but I am, and I really think you should eat something.”
“Who are you? My mother?” Her voice held just enough of a sharp edge to it that he knew she was coming around. He’d take the abrasive, defensive Lara Grant any day to the fragile woman teetering on the edge that he’d just seen in the park.
“No, I’m your bossy partner, and we don’t know when this is all going to end. You need to be at your very best, and that means eating something.” He got out of the car and headed for the coffee shop’s front door.
She remained sitting in the passenger seat. He went inside and grabbed an empty booth toward the back. “Hey, Jimmy,” he said and waved to the owner who stood behind a counter topped with Danishes and donuts. Jimmy waved back at him with a big, friendly smile.
“Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite customer,” Janis Watters said as she approached the booth.
“And if it isn’t my favorite waitress,” he replied with a forced cheerfulness.
Janis Watters was sixty-eight years old and had worked for Jimmy for as long as Nick had been frequenting the coffee shop. “Haven’t seen much of you lately,” she said as she leaned a skinny hip against the table. “The usual?” she asked.
Nick nodded. “And a menu. Somebody should be joining me any minute now.” At least he hoped that Lara would come inside and join him, but he couldn’t be certain that she would. Fifteen minutes ago nobody would have been able to convince him that she would have held him at gunpoint.
Tension knotted in the pit of his stomach. Where was all of this going to lead? Would Lara finally break and be another casualty in the war against Moretti?
Janis had just delivered to him a cup of coffee and a menu when Lara came through the door. She stalked with long strides to the booth and threw herself into the seat across from him.
“I highly recommend the number three breakfast,” he said and pointed to the menu in front of her.
“Whatever,” she replied without picking up the menu.
“Hey, Janis,” he called. “Make the order two of the usual.”
“Got it,” she yelled back.
“We should be doing something,” Lara said, her voice taut with simmering nerves.
“We are,” he countered. “Lara, take a minute and breathe. There are agents combing through the entire park, and everyone is working as hard as possible to find Moretti. What, exactly, do you think we should be doing right now?”
Lara heaved a sigh. “Hell if I know,” she finally admitted.
Janis brought a cup of coffee to Lara, and when she left the table Lara wrapped her fingers around the cup and leaned forward. “Nobody is going to find him. Who knows how long he’ll do crap like this to make sure that I completely lose my mind?”
Nick thought again of that moment in the park when he hadn’t been sure if she might shoot him or not, when her eyes had radiated a touch of madness. She was definitely stumbling along a fine line, and he wasn’t sure how to bring her back from the edge.
He knew how to kiss her until she gasped with pleasure. He knew how to stroke her body until she was mindless and out of control with desire, but he didn’t know how to help her now. His impotence in this particular case was slowly killing him.
“I almost lost it completely in the park,” she said softly. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the pink hair ribbon and stared down at it. “I’m sorry about what happened. Are you going to tell Victoria?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” he replied easily. “But, you can’t let him win, Lara. He’s playing mind games with you, and if you lose it, then he wins no matter what else happens.”
She looked up at him, and in her eyes he now saw the cold, hard resolve that he recognized and welcomed. “You’re right.” She repocketed the hair bow. “Let’s eat as quickly as possible and then get back to headquarters. We need to figure out a way to get Emily safe and then send Moretti to hell where he belongs.”
Nick nodded, satisfied that his partner was back in control...at least for now.
CHAPTER FIVE
The very last thing Lara wanted to do was sit in a coffee shop for breakfast while Emily was still out there someplace. But she was appalled by just how close she’d come to losing it in the park. Nick was right. She needed to sit and breathe for just a few minutes. Her actions had definitely frightened not only Nick, but herself, as well.
She couldn’t possibly eat all of the food that came with a number three breakfast, but she did manage to choke down two pieces of bacon and her scrambled eggs and then w
atched as Nick consumed not only his breakfast but the pancakes that had come with hers, as well.
He didn’t appear to eat with any kind of enjoyment, but rather like a warrior fueling up for future battle. That’s why she had eaten what she had...to make sure she remained physically strong for whatever was ahead. She owed it to Emily to stay tough.
Nick had seen her as raw and emotionally vulnerable as she’d ever been in the break room, and now he had seen her with a blind insanity that had her wielding her gun like a crazed criminal on crack.
If Victoria had seen the way she’d acted in the park she would have pulled Lara off the front lines and locked her into a padded room with Dr. Oliviero until it was all over.
Lara trusted Nick not to tell the boss how close she had come to shooting up the entire park, including her own partner, in her mindless fury.
Nick was right. She couldn’t allow Moretti to dig into her underbelly to the point where she lost all sense of self. She had to be strong enough to withstand whatever he dished up. She couldn’t allow him to get that deep into her psyche again.
“Thanks for making me eat,” she said when they were in his car and headed back to 26 Federal Plaza.
“You can lead a horse to water...”
“Okay, thanks for leading me to the water. It was my decision to go ahead and eat.” She leaned forward and picked up the cell phone that she’d tossed to the floor when she’d gotten out of the car to go inside of the diner.
“You probably should have worn gloves when you grabbed that,” he said.
“Why? I’m positive the only prints that will be on it will belong to Moretti. It’s not like we need to print it to find out who used it.”
“Maybe Christina will be able to pull something else out of it,” he said with an optimism that Lara didn’t share.
“I guarantee you that there was only one call made on this phone and that was the one to me. Otherwise he wouldn’t have left it behind. He’s probably got a dozen burner cells at his disposal.” He could run her all over town by making calls and then disappearing before anyone could catch him. Dammit! Damn him to hell and back.
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