Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  Moving quickly, she cleared the living room, her bedroom—which she hadn’t used for longer than she wanted to admit—the bathroom, which she hadn’t cleaned for at least the same amount of time and her spare room. There was no one in the apartment. She holstered her weapon and kicked the front door shut.

  She stood in the middle of the living room and tipped her head to one side. What was this all about? Why get her here with no cell phone? If he wanted to kill her, he’d had maybe four decent opportunities in the previous hour. Had she been too late getting there? Had he been here in her apartment, and left when she hadn’t arrived?

  Lara poured herself a finger of whiskey. As she took a sip the phone in her pocket beeped.

  Are you home yet?

  There was no way she was going to answer that. Shit. She didn’t look for a bomb that he might have placed there. Damn. Her heart stuttered in her chest. She was an idiot. Plus, she had no idea how to search for a bomb. She didn’t know if they hadn’t covered that in training, or she’d tuned it out in her many years of not having to deal with bombers. Damn Halpert.

  Luckily, her home was bare. Who had time for shopping? Or for making it homey either? She looked in all the cabinets and in the saucepans that still had their plastic coverings on. The oven, the freezer and the dishwasher. Nothing.

  Her bedroom was empty except for a bedside table and a bed. The closet took a little longer, but still nothing. Nothing in any of the other rooms either. No packages, no deliveries, nothing strange or out of place.

  She took the phone and punched out a reply. What do you want Halpert?

  Each second that passed made her heart pump faster. It was hot in there, wasn’t it? She blew hair out of her eyes but it stuck to her forehead. She was about to slip off her jacket when the phone buzzed again.

  I just want to spend some time with you...and your mother. I have a clue to your mother’s murder. A clue that will enable you to solve her murder once and for all. Want it?

  Her hands gripped the phone as if it were her gun. Sick bastard. Her gaze skipped to the spare room, and she remembered that he’d claimed to have seen here there. It was her own obsession that made her vulnerable to this monster. And to Moretti.

  I’m bored with all this, she texted back. She really was.

  No your not. His text came in instantly.

  She was so over this. Her fear dissipated. She wasn’t going to be scared of a guy who didn’t know the difference between you’re and your, for God’s sake.

  You should have stayed in school.

  I was to intelligent for school, he replied.

  You can’t even write proper English. You have the grammar level of a 12-year-old. What was she doing? This is why she needed Nick. He was the calming influence, the voice of reason. She was just angry all the time.

  Halpert didn’t write back for a few seconds. Crap. What had she done?

  It buzzed in her hand. I’m beginning to regret saving you. Why do you think I got you out of your office? Clue: KABOOOOM! J

  Sweet hell. Had he “saved” her in the same way he’d “saved” Jacob and the others? What had she done? She’d left her phone and couldn’t for the life of her remember any of the numbers that would warn people. She hit 911 on the burner, but the cell was dead. She looked at the screen. Incoming calls only. She was dead in the water. Fear spiked through her as she rushed to the spare room, where her PC was. She had a loop-in to the team conference room there. Would she be in time?

  Chapter Ten

  Nick was pacing up and down the conference room, looking at his phone. Every third step he pressed Lara’s speed dial number. This was the absolute end. If Mercer made him SAC, he was going to fire her ass. She would never listen, never take note of the discussions they’d had, never heeded their pleas to include them, to let them work as a team. She would never change. As good an investigator as she was, she was better off alone, so no one had to depend on her.

  He hit Redial again. Dammit.

  Christina popped her head into the conference room. “I may have something for you in a couple of minutes. Eloise is chasing a good lead. But in the meantime, should I be worried that Lara’s desk is vibrating?”

  Nick charged out of the room and stood, seething, in front of Lara’s workstation. Very deliberately, he hit Redial again. After a long second, her desk drawer started buzzing. He fisted his hand and stopped himself from punching something again. Instead he kicked the side of her filing cabinet.

  Christina backed away. “Um, I’ll come back when...yeah...” She disappeared and Nick barely noticed.

  He grabbed a letter opener from Lara’s desk and forced the drawer open. The phone lay on a folder full of paperwork she’d said she’d completed about a month ago. He took a calming breath and picked up the phone, leaving the drawer open.

  It provided no answers. Except that she’d left voluntarily, so that was something. There were no texts, no emails that could have prompted her to leave. She could be getting a damn manicure for all he knew.

  Except he knew she wouldn’t leave her phone for a manicure, nor actually ever spend the time to get one either, but that was beside the point. Something had made her leave, and something worse had made her leave her phone so she couldn’t be located.

  He went back into the conference room and put the phone on the table. “This is Lara’s,” he said to the team. Jennifer winced.

  Xander paled. “What does that mean? Where did you find it?”

  “Locked inside her desk.” He sat in the chair at the head of the table. As soon as he sat, he realized that he’d taken what was commonly “the boss’s” chair. And that left him at the opposite end of the table to the other three. What did that say about him?

  “Shit,” Xander said. “I can’t...seriously. How many times does she get to do this?” He put the pen that he’d taken from his mouth on the table. “I mean, she’s the best. We all know that. Her mind can make leaps that no one else’s can. But... I don’t think I’d feel 100 percent sure that she had my back in the field.” He looked meaningfully at Nick.

  Nick fought every urge to leap to her defense, because he knew in this case she was indefensible. At least that’s what his brain knew. His soul, and maybe even his heart, wanted to protect her from the criticism.

  But before he could think about that, Christina and Eloise burst in the room. “We’ve got something.”

  Oh, thank God.

  There was silence as Christina inserted a thumb drive into Xander’s computer. Eloise lounged against the wall with her arms crossed.

  A driver’s license popped up on the screen. The name on the license said Mitchell Halpert, but the photo was of a young Asian man.

  “What am I looking at?” Nick said, getting to his feet frowning.

  “This is Mitchell Halpert. He is a second generation American. He worked in his parents’ dry cleaning store in New Jersey. They reported him as being missing five years ago. The police looked pretty aggressively into it for a few months or so, but then assumed he’d run away. Thing is, this whole investigation disappeared from their online records a few months later. So it never popped up on anyone’s reminder list, or even cold case files.”

  Nick knew that in the past decade, when everything was digitized, reminders were automatically set up for investigating police officers to remind them to look into cold cases, or make calls on cases with no leads. Its removal from the system would ensure that didn’t happen. “Surely someone who looked into it would remember it?” he said, a trickle of excitement making him dance his fingers against his leg.

  Christina shrugged. “I think an overworked police officer—if they even remembered the case—would assume that if he hadn’t got a reminder, that the vic had turned up.”

  “Yeah. No one’s going to chase a case that may be solved when they ha
ve twenty active cases on their desk,” Xander agreed.

  “Okay...so?”

  Christina. “He’s missing. And around the same time period, our Mitchell Halpert arrived on the scene.” She paused for effect.

  “Do you think he might be Halpert’s first victim...no wait a minute. That means the Mitchell Halpert is not his real name.”

  “Correct,” Christina said. “We were going to keep plugging away until we found his real identity, but—”

  Ty stood up. “It’ll be faster to go have a serious sit-down with his mommy,” he said between gritted teeth. “I can’t handle these people who protect ‘their babies’ even when they know that their freaking ‘babies’ have killed hundreds of people.” He looked down at Jennifer. “Come on. Let’s go pull some fingernails. We’ve got twelve hours before Halpert screws us all.”

  They both left.

  Xander, James and Christina looked at him for direction.

  “Even though Ty and Jennifer are going to find his real name, I’m not sure what good that will do. He only seemed to become unhinged when he assumed his fake identity.” He looked at Eloise. “Nice job, by the way.”

  She shrugged. “Team effort,” she said with no intonation.

  Christina smiled. “It wasn’t. It was all on her. Her skills are beyond anything I’ve seen before. Added to which, while she was doing this, she also managed to get Ben Johnson’s identity back. It’s like Halpert never touched it. They’re releasing him from jail as we speak. I’m telling you, Nick, snap her up before someone nefarious does.”

  “Nah. I’m not going to the dark side. There’s enough of that in my family. My dad’s a lawyer.” She said it as if she’d said he was a mass murderer.

  Nick cracked a smile. “So is mine.”

  “Duh,” she replied.

  Why did he get the feeling that everything she said to him had a double meaning that he was completely in the dark about? Must be a generational thing.

  Christina copied the driver’s license to the virtual murder board, and whipped out her USB drive. “As soon as we get his real name, we’ll be able to unfold his past, find out what triggered him, maybe anticipate his next move, or his final play. He’s good, but he’s no match for Eloise, I swear.”

  “From your lips...” Nick said.

  “I guess that leaves you to figure out where Lara went,” Xander said.

  Nick nodded and sighed. “I have a bad feeling it’s nowhere good.”

  * * *

  A bomb? At the FBI building? Any thought of being watched or tricked flew out of her mind as Lara dashed for her PC. She holstered her weapon and leaned over to turn the PC on, and realized it was already on. A cursor blinked in the corner as if it were in the process of a reboot.

  Lara hesitated. She always turned off her PC when she finished using it. That and her ridiculously long and intelligible password kept her safe from Wi-Fi and data thieves. She pulled her hands back from the keyboard. He was in her PC—she knew it.

  She had one chance to get a message through to the team before he stopped her. She powered it down, and reopened it in safety mode. She didn’t even know if that would work, but it might give her a few seconds to send a message.

  She pulled the chair out and sat down heavily. Something in the chair cracked, but she didn’t care if she’d broken it, she just needed it to hold firm for a minute, maybe less.

  She opened the log-in box to the FBI server, and the screen flickered.

  No, no, no. Don’t let him discover what she was trying to do.

  She frantically logged on and hit Enter, her heart beating audibly in her ears.

  The little blue circle started spinning. Her eyes flashed to the burner phone. There was no text. Her hands steadied.

  Her eyes flashed to the screen. It was still spinning. Why was it taking so long?

  She concentrated fully on the phone. Should she text back? Make him think she didn’t believe him? Insult him again to make him reveal his plans? The phone screen became her whole focus.

  When no message came, she put her hands on the arm of the chair to push herself up.

  Instantly her PC flashed. It was an image. Not the FBI log-in page. She peered at the screen fearing another horror show video showing that he’d captured someone else.

  Suddenly Halpert came into frame. A chill went through her. What was he doing? Where was the victim?

  He smiled and waved into the camera. “Hello, Special Agent Lara Grant who knows everything about grammar. How are you today? I like having you all to myself.”

  As her brain processed his words, she realized that they were live. She froze. Her eyes looked at her web camera and sure enough, it was blinking red.

  “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, ‘OMG this is live! Lookie here—my red webcam is blinking.’ You are, aren’t you?” He threw his head back and laughed. “It’s only blinking because I want you to see that we are talking live. Usually I leave the light off, so I can watch you sleep on the sofabed back there.” He shook his head. “Nasty nightmares you have. You should really see someone about that.”

  Shock rendered her immobile. She was paralyzed at the thought that he’d really been watching her sleep. For how long? She fought every instinct to hide from him, to put herself where he couldn’t see her.

  “Don’t,” he said quickly.

  “Don’t what?” she forced herself to say.

  “Don’t move. I can tell that you were thinking about it. Your face is very expressive when you think. I’ve watched you examine your photo board over there. Moving photos around, attaching strings to link people.”

  She had to put on a show for him. “Is that how you get your kicks? Watching? You too scared to leave your...” She peered into the screen and pulled a disgusted face. “Hovel?”

  His face fell for a second, but then became animated again. “There’s no need to be rude.”

  “You just told me you were going to bomb the FBI building. I can be as rude as I want.” She hoped she could. But given what Dr. Oliviero had said about his God complex, she felt she had to keep him off balance.

  “I was just ragging you. There isn’t a bomb in the FBI building. It’s surprisingly difficult to get past security at your office. It’s in your apartment.” He smiled. “Didn’t you hear that click when you sat down? That was the bomb arming itself. You’re not going anywhere. You have a decision to make.”

  * * * * *

  Halpert has Lara exactly where he wants her—or so he thinks. Lara will need everything she’s learned, and hopefully a little help from her team—if they still trust her—to get out of this mess. Because she’s

  determined not to go out with a bang...

  TOUGH JUSTICE:

  COUNTDOWN

  (Part 7 of 8)

  Tyler Anne Snell

  Race against the clock

  The Crisis Management Unit know Lara Grant is missing—but they have no idea just how much danger their agent is in! The lone wolf has gone rogue before, after all, and they have a suspect to catch. So while the investigation moves on, and Lara’s private torment by her captor continues, she has to wonder—was she his ultimate target all along? No matter what, Lara knows one thing for sure: there’s another bomb out there, somewhere. And time is running out...

  Part 7 of 8: an explosive new installment in the thrilling FBI serial from New York Times bestselling author Carla Cassidy and Tyler Anne Snell, Emmy Curtis and Janie Crouch.

  For Dad and Liz. Thank you for all of the food.

  Contents

  Episode Seven

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six
>
  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Episode Seven

  Agent Lara Grant has herself in an explosive situation, literally—and her team has no idea where she is. Halpert used Lara’s obsession with her mother’s murder against her. But to what end? Is Lara his final target or only one more blast in his ultimate quest?

  Chapter One

  Lara didn’t move.

  It wasn’t by choice. Or, really if she was being technical about it, it was.

  She could move if she really wanted to. Apply pressure from her feet to the floor, use her leg muscles to push her body weight upward, maybe use the chair’s arm rests to help quicken the process, and then bam she’d be standing.

  For a second. If she even made it that long.

  While she could stand, or move around, the bomb strapped beneath her chair that responded to pressure probably wouldn’t have had a polite response for her if she did. Never mind the man behind the bomb staring out at her from the screen of her laptop.

  Mitchell Halpert. The Whisperer. The Crisis Management Unit’s current nemesis. A sociopathic genius with a penchant for blowing people up all in the name of his twisted version of justice.

  I like having you all to myself.

  His words had cut into her before she’d even known about the bomb she was sitting on. That he did have her.

  When Lara had come home, knowing Halpert had wanted her to do just that, she hadn’t played this scenario through in her head. The one where the sociopathic young man would be behind a computer screen rather than in person, waiting for her to take a seat in front of her laptop, that she knew for a fact hadn’t been on when she’d left.

  Lara was a seasoned FBI agent, even co-head of the task force with Nick, which meant she should have known better.