Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  She rolled her neck to snap some of the stress out.

  If only it was that easy.

  Nick filled everyone in on the new developments. About the now very real concern that Beckett Clarke had also been taken by the Whisperer. And how this was a bigger worry, because the Whisperer hadn’t told them about Beckett. He hadn’t threatened them with another explosion. It was as if he didn’t want them to know he’d got the man who rejected him for the job at BrainWave. Which also meant that in all honesty, it was fifty-fifty odds that he was even still alive.

  “This is getting out of control,” Ty said from his seat next to Jennifer. “We’ve got too much going on with one perp.”

  “I agree. But we have something he doesn’t. A team.” Nick stood up, taking control of the room with ease.

  “He’s only one person, and even though it seems like he has the upper hand, there is only one of him. There are seven of us. We have Ty and Jennifer.” He paused as everyone’s gaze rested on them. “James and Lara, Xander and Christina, and me. We will get this guy, but only if we work together. We need to support each other, and use our individual skills. Does anyone disagree?”

  There was silence. Then Ty cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I’ve been an ass since—” he swallowed “—Mei died. I’m going to be a better team member, and a better partner.” He nodded as if he’d already convinced himself of his words.

  Jennifer nodded, too, but to Lara’s eyes she still looked peaked.

  “If we’re confessing,” Xander said, “I’m the most worried about Lara.”

  Shocked, she pulled herself from the wall and flashed a look at Nick. “What the hell do you mean?” she asked, trying hard to sound even handed and not hurt, or pissed.

  “You put yourself in the crosshairs with that press conference you gave. I mean, he took Victoria down with virtually no effort. I think we all need to keep a low pro for a while. It’s clear that he can find out whatever he wants about each and every one of us. And then use it to ruin us. We need to be careful.” He looked meaningfully at Lara. “You need to be careful.”

  Lara relaxed back against the wall. “To be honest, all my worst secrets are already out there. I mean, it would be inconvenient if he found out about my daughter—” she paused as the word resonated in her heart “—but WitSec would just move her. There’s nothing that would utterly destroy my life anymore. And I don’t have any family to hurt, either.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Jennifer said, her voice very slightly shaking. She coughed and laughed as if to cover her concern. No, it wasn’t concern, it was fright. Before Lara could talk, she continued. “Everyone in the world has secrets they don’t want people to know. They don’t have to be earth-shattering secrets, just things that could cause a divorce, or being ostracized from your family, or losing your job. Just little things that can escalate. We all have to be careful.” She looked at Xander. “And we need to get this guy before he can wreck any more lives, or kill anyone else.”

  Nick used Jennifer’s segue to refocus everyone. “This is how we’re going to play it. It’s getting late. Those of you who are up for it, stay here and work. Those who need a nap, go take one, and be back as soon as you can. We’re going to need to work through the night on this. The Whisperer’s clock doesn’t stop because we’re sleepy.”

  No one moved. Lara’s lips twisted. No one wanted to be the first to say they needed a break.

  Nick rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll go take my break now, so I can relieve someone at 2:00 a.m. tonight,” Lara said. “I need to shower if nothing else.”

  Still no one moved. “So am I,” Nick said, standing and gathering some files.

  Christina chipped in. “Okay, Xander if you stay here now and work on the geophysical database, I’ll take a break now, too. I work better at night anyway.”

  James also grabbed his briefcase from the table. “I’m out, too.”

  “Okay, guys. We will meet back here at two for a handover. Those staying now will get to go home then, and then be back here at 4:00 a.m., unless something else happens.”

  The team disbanded. Once in her apartment, Lara poured herself a glass of water and took a breath as she stood in her living room. The door to her bedroom was open, and her bed looked cool and inviting. She took a sip, and her gaze swept over the closed door of her spare room. She stared at it for a couple of seconds, before she turned around, facing the kitchen. She needed sleep, not the nightmare of her murder board.

  And yet it called to her. Taking a deep breath, she placed her glass carefully on the kitchen counter, deliberately turned and strode to the door. She yanked it open and switched on the light.

  A weird combination of calm and tension washed over her. The board was so familiar to her; it was almost like coming home each day to a faithful dog. A dog that needed walking, but one whose habits were as familiar as her own.

  She sat on her well-worn chair and looked up at the board. Photos of people so familiar they could have been her family. Her eyes flickered to the photo of her father. Some were, of course.

  Lara took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her phone bleeped, and she just about jumped out of her seat. So much for the calm of the familiar board. She reached for her phone on her hip, but hesitated. Could it be the Whisperer?

  She blew air through her lips. Of course it wasn’t. Why would he be interested in her? She grabbed the phone and read the text. It was from Jennifer.

  Are you awake?

  Yes. What do you need?

  She peered at her phone waiting for a response, but instead there was a knock at her apartment door. She closed the door to the spare room, and went to look through the spy hole. Jennifer.

  She opened the door wide, silently. Maybe she was here to tell Lara what had been bothering her all day.

  “Have you heard any news about Dunbar?” Lara asked, gesturing to a chair.

  Jennifer shrugged. “No. Nothing new anyway.”

  Silence.

  Jennifer perched carefully on the very edge of an armchair. And said nothing.

  Lara knew better than to say anything. Filling in the silence only prolonged the amount of time she would spend not knowing what Jennifer had come for.

  “I’m sorry. This was a mistake—” She made as if to get up, but Lara stood in front of her.

  “Tell me, Jennifer,” she said simply.

  “I have a secret.” She picked up the cushion behind her and started plucking at its fringe. Lara wouldn’t have minded but that was one of her mother’s cushions. She placed a hand over Jennifer’s to stop her. “Yes, of course you do. So do I...we all do.”

  “I know. But mine’s bad,” she said.

  Awww, but this young woman was so sweet. How could she have done anything bad enough to warrant this amount of angst? “I’m sure it’s nothing I haven’t done. Just—”

  Her voice got stronger, as if there was something inside her trying to get out. “It’s bad, Lara. And if the secret comes out, my life will be over.”

  She’d never seen this dramatic side of Jennifer before. “Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how bad is it—one being Xander, and ten being me.” Lara smiled to try to eek out some lightness from her.

  “It’s about a fifteen and a half,” Jennifer said, unwavering.

  Lara was taken aback. “Can you tell me what this is about?”

  “No.”

  “But look, the FBI must know. They do a really extensive background check on—” Lara started.

  “Not for this they don’t,” Jennifer said.

  “Then if the FBI, with all its might and reach, didn’t find this...thing you’re worried about, then the chances of the Whisperer finding it must be pretty remote. Also, he’s targeting high-profile people—people who are on TV and high up in government.” Lara tried to
see in her eyes whether or not she was having any effect on the panic buried beneath.

  “He hacked the whole BrainWave system. Of course he can figure out what I did if he wanted to. I... I didn’t know then what I know now. I was careless.”

  “Jesus, Jennifer. You’re scaring me. What happened?” She was fast becoming worried that whatever her secret was, no matter how small it probably was, it had compromised Jennifer. The idea behind the FBI background checks wasn’t just to probe into a recruit’s past, but it was also to see if there was anything there that could compromise an agent. Could Jennifer be blackmailed into helping the Whisperer with this information?

  Tension pinged through Lara, her thoughts going to Cass who was compromised by Moretti.

  Did Lara need to turn Jennifer in?

  Jennifer seemed to read her mind. “I’m not going to do anything stupid. If he contacts me and threatens me, I’m coming to the team for help. I won’t be compromised further by this...this maniac.”

  “Then why are you here? If you already know what you’re going to do?” Lara asked.

  Jennifer looked at her, eyes wide open for a second, then it was as if a barrier rose. She stood. “I’m really sorry. I thought... I thought we were friends—”

  Lara’s stomach dropped.

  “I thought you could make me feel better. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come. This was a terrible invasion of your privacy. I mean, you’ve never invited me here, and we should all be getting sleep—”

  “Oh, fuck, Jennifer, I’m sorry! I didn’t realize. I thought you were coming to me as Special Agent in Charge—joint in charge.” Oh, God. Jennifer probably would have been better going to Nick. He would have been more understanding, more open to talking. He wouldn’t have automatically wondered if he needed to turn her in as a compromised agent.

  Jennifer was already heading out. “It’s okay. I’m sorry,” she said as she shut the door quickly behind her.

  Lara sat back in her chair and held her mother’s cushion over her face. What was wrong with her? She wanted to be friends, but it had been so long since she’d had one, she didn’t recognize any signs of friendship. I have no friends.

  The thought echoed around her head as if she’d said the words out loud. She liked her work colleagues, but none of them felt close to her. Not even Nick, with whom she’d actually been the closest.

  She wondered who she’d call if she was in trouble. Her doorman was friendly. No, that didn’t count because she paid him to help her. She would call Nick, but only because he was a fellow agent and could probably muscle her out of trouble. But if he was a stockbroker, she wouldn’t call him. She had nobody. Three hundred and sixty-four days out of the year, she was fine with that. Today it sat hard and heavy on her chest.

  Lara went back to the spare room and tried to concentrate on her murder board, but her eyes kept returning to the only physical evidence that was found on her mother. Of course she didn’t have the actual evidence, but she had a photo of it, next to a micro-ruler. It was a sliver of wood, although the word sliver seemed to give it more bulk than it had. The piece of wood was so small, there was a one-way ticket on it. Meaning that it was so small it could only be tested once. And with nothing concrete to run it against, she was left, as usual, twisting in the wind.

  She sat on the sofa bed she’d shoved in the spare room to give the appearance that it was, in fact, a guest room, but she’d had no guests since she moved in. If she were honest, the sofa didn’t make it any less than a murder room. At the center of the board was a photo of her father. She’d long wondered why she’d put his picture at the heart of the investigation instead of her mother. It had been months before she’d realized what she’d done, but she hadn’t moved it, or swapped it out. She was sure her father had known more about her mother’s death than he’d ever claimed.

  Her eyes grew heavy and she contemplated getting up and going to bed.

  * * *

  Lara took a breath. Something was stabbing her in the hand. She yanked it away from the pressure. It was a tiny sliver of wood, the tiny sliver of wood. Her hand started bleeding. Huge pulses of thick crimson blood. How could something so small do so much damage? She slapped her other hand over the wound to try to stop the bleeding. It continued to gush.

  She ran out to the kitchen and staggered as she rounded the counter.

  “Get up, Mommy!”

  Her mother lay sprawled on the floor, her own pool of blood expanding around her head as Lara watched. Fear pulsed through her as she spun around. Her father was behind her.

  “Hi, honey. How was school?” He stepped over her mother’s body as if it wasn’t there.

  Lara couldn’t say anything. What was going on? She braced herself on the counter, realizing it was a dream. If she concentrated, she would wake up. But her eyes wouldn’t leave her own hand pumping blood out onto the counter. It dripped down to the floor, joining her mother’s blood.

  A man burst through the door. He was masked, wielding a baseball bat. “Dad!” Lara tried to shout. But her voice only emerged as a whisper. She tried to run as the monster advanced on her, bat raised as if to strike. Her stomach dissolved. She couldn’t move. She was paralyzed.

  For a second, she knew she was going to die. The masked man hefted the bat even farther. She saw bright blue eyes shining behind his balaclava.

  “You know why,” the monster snarled.

  Her head snapped up. As she did, the door swung on its hinges again. Nick blasted into the room, gun raised. Warmth and light haloed him as he advanced.

  “This is not the way,” Nick said.

  The monster swung around to face him, and Nick didn’t shoot him, but threw a dart. The monster disappeared as if he had been punctured. Then Nick threw a dart at her mother’s body, and she also disappeared, blood and everything.

  Lara’s breathing became steadier. Her father came out of his bedroom. Instead of throwing a dart at him, Nick shot him, double-tapped him in the forehead.

  “Dad!” Lara cried. She turned her head toward Nick. “Why? What did you—”

  Nick smiled and threw a dart at her.

  She felt it as it pierced her body. She jerked in shock, and awoke.

  She’d been crying. Her muscles hurt as if she’d run a marathon while suffering from the flu. Her breath came in heaves that she couldn’t calm. What...what was going on in her head? Why had Nick made the killer disappear, but shot her father in cold blood? What was her brain doing to her? She looked at the clock. She’d only been asleep ten minutes. How could so much happen?

  There was a noise outside in the apartment.

  A knocking sound.

  Fear spiked through her body, goose bumps erupting all over her. She reached for her gun, but it wasn’t there.

  Dammit, she’d put it on her entry table as she always did. She was helpless. She was going to be killed by her own gun. The knocking continued. Taunting her, like a gun against a window. Tap, tap, tap.

  Panting with fear she cracked open the door. The whole apartment was dark, but she couldn’t sense anyone moving. The tapping stopped and her breath began to even out.

  Lara jumped when there was another tap and a wail, directly in front of her. She could see something...

  She sprinted for her gun, tripping over her go bag that she always left by the door for a quick departure. Sprawling on the floor, she whimpered as she tried to reach the table where her gun was.

  Another wail sent shivers up her spine.

  She jumped up, grabbed her gun and after fumbling the holster, she pointed it wildly, swinging to find something to aim at in her apartment. Squishing her back to the wall, so no one could surprise her, she squinted and flipped on the lights.

  She was alone. Her heart pumped adrenaline and fear around her body even as her eyes and brain could see there was
no one there.

  Tap, tap.

  Her breath hitched again as she pivoted and focused on the origin of the noise. The window.

  She bolted to the wall next to the window, and pressed herself against it, trying to see into the dark.

  Tap, tap.

  And then she saw something move. She yanked the window up with one hand, and looked out onto the fire escape. She swore she saw a flash of something, but she couldn’t see what. Whoever or whatever it was, it had run away.

  She closed the window and locked it, breathing hard. Then she checked the others, and found herself standing by her door. She dug her nails into her palm, expecting to feel the residual pain from where the sliver had punctured her skin.

  Wait, that was a dream, right?

  Her brain struggled to make sense of dream or no dream. How could she tell? At her feet was her go bag. Without thinking, she followed her instinct.

  She holstered her weapon and grabbed her go bag. She locked her apartment and ran into the elevator, hailed a cab and sped across twenty or so blocks in a few minutes. She knew what she needed. She knew who she needed.

  There was only one place she would feel safe.

  Chapter Five

  Nick opened the door wearing hastily pulled on jeans and nothing else.

  Lara needed to feel his arms around her. He must have seen something in her eyes, because as soon as he registered that it was her, he pulled her into his arms. The door shut behind them, her bag dropped to the floor, and he held her as if they’d been torn-apart lovers. It had been a year since she’d seen him in anything less than a suit. His skin was warm against her.

  Her breath was still erratic, but not out of fear. She felt the fear wash away, and something else take its place. She needed to kiss him, to lose herself in him. It was as if their bodies, down to the cellular level, were reaching for each other.