Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  “Okay, Liberty Island’s being cleared. No sign of Dunbar, Kai or Paul yet. We’ve got to find out where their family members are being held,” Nick said. “Those bombs could still go off.”

  “Actually, we know.” She gestured down to Halpert’s computer with her head.

  Davis looked over at Nick. “We had to sweep it for explosives first, but it’s clean.”

  “He was using his tracking software, Nick. The one he developed when he was sixteen that started this whole mess.”

  Nick rushed over and looked at the screen. He was able to click on certain phone numbers and find whoever he was looking for. Because Halpert already had his victim’s info entered into his software they were easiest to find.

  It really was a brilliant program. Nick entered his own cell phone into it and up popped his location at the park. This software really worked, and it pinpointed the locations of the people Halpert had kidnapped. Nick called and immediately had locals dispatched to those addresses.

  “This software is scary fast and accurate,” he told Lara.

  “I’m not surprised to hear that at all. Halpert was nothing if not brilliant. He was convinced it would’ve changed the world. Made him a household name.”

  Nick shook his head. “It would’ve also made anyone with a cellphone a target. Victoria was so right to make sure this never saw the light of day.”

  “BrainWave was trying to bring it back. Take all the credit for it. That news is what triggered Halpert and started his rampage against everyone involved with BrainWave or blocking the sale of his software the first time.”

  Nick stuffed his hands in his pockets. “It never would’ve gone through, even with BrainWave. It would’ve been shut down, just like five years ago.”

  “Honestly, I don’t think that mattered to Halpert. I think he’d always been waiting for his chance for retribution. To take vengeance on those who he saw as breaking his precious code.”

  “And the Statue of Liberty? How did that line up with his entire plan?”

  Lara shrugged. “Fame. He told me that if they wouldn’t remember him for what he’d created, then he would make sure they remembered him for what he destroyed.”

  Lara sat, holding on to a dead man for the next two hours as Lady Liberty was swept for explosives. Sure enough, they found something highly suspicious. Like a bomb, they said, but missing components. The bomb disposal unit had been called in for a closer look.

  Paul Prentice, Kai Aoki and Trevor Dunbar were all found and immediately taken to local stations. All were terrified for their kidnapped family members, but those victims were soon located by the police and bomb teams called in again.

  Davis kept Lara and Nick apprised of the details as they were fed to him by other teams.

  “Psycho here—” Davis pointed at Halpert’s body “—had built a detonator in three parts. As a whole it would’ve never gotten through the Statue of Liberty’s security team, but as three different parts, it probably would have.”

  Nick whistled through his teeth. “So Halpert could’ve pulled it off.”

  Davis nodded. “It looks like it. All he needed was all three of them to place their devices with the other elements he’d put together. It wasn’t elegant, as far as bombs go, but it was damn clever.”

  “That pretty much describes Halpert to a T,” Lara said.

  “It would’ve definitely brought the statue down. And killed everyone there. All he needed was a few more minutes and he could’ve done it.”

  Halpert had been right. He would’ve been remembered forever.

  Lara looked over at Nick. “I guess it’s a good thing that sniper took Halpert out then. I didn’t know he was that close.”

  And wouldn’t Daddy dearest love to hear that so he could rub it in Nick’s face? Of course, that would mean admitting guilt, something he knew Francis Delano would never do.

  So Nick smiled as best he could. “Yeah. We definitely got lucky there.”

  Davis got another report. “Okay, we’ve cleared all the areas your psycho bomber was targeting. The mom and kids are secure, bombs all safely in containers in case there’s something we missed. And there’s no way the Statue of Liberty is falling today.”

  “So I can take my finger off this?” Lara asked.

  “Yep, you’re all clear.”

  Lara gingerly released her grip on Halpert’s hand and the detonator, almost like she was afraid the world would explode around her as she did. Nick didn’t blame her.

  Once she realized it was truly safe, nothing bad had happened when she’d released the trigger, she bounded away from Halpert’s dead body.

  Straight toward Nick.

  Love her or loved her, he still caught her, pulling her close. Holding her as she shuddered.

  He realized sitting there, literally on top of Halpert, had taken a toll on her. Hell, that was to be expected. But Lara was so damn good at hiding what was really going on in that head of hers, no one had noticed.

  “You should’ve said you were having a hard time.”

  She pulled back from him, recovering quickly as she always did. “What could’ve been done?” She shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to suck it up and get the job done. No one can live through the hard things for you.”

  And that just pretty much summed it up, didn’t it? Lara was always going to see sharing her burden as a weakness. It didn’t matter how much Nick preached about the team and strength in numbers.

  Lara Grant was always going to play by her own rules. Live in her own isolated world. A world that in its very heart, didn’t have room for anyone else. Even Nick.

  Probably especially Nick.

  He wrapped an arm around her anyway. “Let’s get back to the office and debrief. It’s time to put this case to rest.”

  * * *

  To say the team was exhausted would be a complete understatement. They’d all been put through their own emotional ringers.

  But their secrets were safe. The bad guy had been stopped. Nothing else was going to explode. Everything was going to be fine.

  Except for Lara and Nick. Something had changed in him, Lara realized. They were never going to be the same again.

  And, as difficult as it was for her to believe, she mourned that loss. Even knowing they could never be together on a permanent basis—Nick was so the marriage and picket fence—type and Lara so was not—the knowledge that it was truly over hit her hard.

  Lara did the only thing she knew how to do when things hit her hard: barrel through it.

  “You punched me.” She’d glared at Nick in the car when they’d been on their way back to CMU. “Not just punched me, sucker-punched me in the hotel when I was about to answer the phone.”

  She still had the sore jaw.

  Nick raised an eyebrow and glanced sideways at her. “I did.”

  “You should’ve tried to talk to me about what you wanted me to do.”

  Nick burst out laughing. “Lara, talking to you about taking reasonable measures is like talking to a brick wall. The only thing you understand is action.”

  “Is that so wrong? Sometimes action is what is needed rather than taking every single thing to the committee to get voted on—”

  Nick held out a hand. “Hey, I’m not saying action isn’t needed a lot of times. I’m just saying that’s your MO. And you weren’t going to listen to me if I tried to explain it. With words.”

  Her eyes narrowed. He was right but that didn’t mean she had to like admitting it. “I guess so.”

  “You’ve just got to be careful. I know it’s your default setting. And it doesn’t take long for other people to figure that out about you as well. Halpert did. And he used it against you.”

  Lara looked out the window and thought about that.

  “I’m with
drawing my name from consideration for the head of CMU.”

  Nick sighed. “Lara, I’m not trying to psych you out. It’s been a long day. Hell, a long week.”

  “No, I mean, yes, you’re right it has been an exhausting week. But that doesn’t change who I am and the fact that you’ll be a much better leader of the team than I will.”

  “Lara, you have a lot of strengths.”

  She noticed he didn’t try to argue that he would be better at leading the team. “I know. But my strengths are in investigating. Following my instincts. Leaping first, checking the height of the ledge later.”

  “There’s a time for that in every investigation.”

  “But rarely a time for it when leading a team.”

  Nick shrugged. “It’s just, if you misjudge the ledge, a lot more people are falling with you if you’re leading a team.”

  “Exactly.” Lara waited a beat. “I probably deserved that pop on the jaw.”

  Nick smiled. “Oh, you so most definitely did. Maybe not right for what you were doing at that second. But for something.”

  There was a laundry list of times he could mention. Ones he could probably bring up instantly and rub in her face. Times she’d screwed up, hell half a dozen in just the last forty-eight hours. But he didn’t because that was Nick’s way.

  “And we both know I could never deal with Mercer,” Lara said after a few minutes. “I’d kill that son of a bitch in my first week.”

  “Yeah, well, I might, too.”

  “Let me know if you need help hiding the body.”

  “Hell, Lara, if I had known that a single punch could get you to withdraw from consideration for the job...”

  “Watch it, Delano. Just because you got away with one punch doesn’t mean I couldn’t take you in a fair fight.”

  He smiled. The heat of attraction sparking between them before they both looked away and shut it down. The rest of the trip back into Manhattan had been made in almost companionable silence, neither of them wanting to delve into this new change of status between them too much.

  They’d only been at the office for half an hour when Lara got a call from the NYPD.

  “Special Agent Lara Grant.”

  “Agent Grant, this is Detective Daniel Kadans with the NYPD.”

  “How can I help you, Detective Kadans?”

  “I need to confirm that you own a house in Rockaway, Queens.” Detective Kadans rattled off Lara’s childhood home’s address.

  “Yes, that’s technically mine, although I don’t live there. It was my father’s house until he passed away recently and I haven’t sold it yet.”

  Yet. Lara wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to bring herself to sell the house where her mother had been murdered. At least not until the crime was solved.

  “Why, has there been some sort of problem?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but your house was destroyed today. Complete annihilation caused by some sort of explosion.”

  Lara sank down into the chair by the desk where she’d been standing, her legs unable to hold her weight under this staggering news. “Oh, my God. Was anyone hurt? Killed?”

  “No, there were no fatalities or injuries. We’re uncertain of the cause of the explosion at this time. We’re looking into the possibility of some sort of gas leak that ignited. We’ve evacuated the entire block in case it’s not just your house that had the leak.”

  “What time did the explosion occur?”

  She could hear Detective Kadans ruffle through some papers. “A little over two hours ago.”

  Right about when Lara had finally released that trigger. They’d thought they’d gotten all the bombs—and they had gotten all the bombs Halpert had mentioned—but evidently there had been one more.

  Halpert’s final move in the game he’d been playing.

  First he’d deleted all the information from the trace evidence of her mother’s murder. She hadn’t had time to thoroughly check the FBI files yet, but she knew they wouldn’t be there. Halpert had wanted to hold all the power. All that Lara had left of that trace evidence was whatever she’d be able to remember of the ten cases that had flashed on the screen for those few minutes.

  And now he’d stolen the place where her mother had died, the place where she and her father had come to so many emotional blows over the years. Lara struggled to come to grips with it.

  That house had been such an albatross, but also a sort of odd safety net. A part of her past she hadn’t been able to let go of. Had no desire to let go of.

  And now it had been ripped away from her in the most careless fashion.

  Lara was silent for so long the detective finally had to ask, “Are you okay, Agent Grant? I know this is a lot to process and I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “This definitely wasn’t a gas leak, Detective Kadans, so it’s probably safe to let everyone back into their houses.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’ve been on a case dealing with a bomber. The last detonator in his possession was released about two hours ago. We thought we had cleared all the explosives the detonator was connected with, but evidently not.”

  “I see.”

  “You’ll want to call Lieutenant Chandler Davis with the Bomb Disposal Division.”

  “Yes, I know of him.”

  “He’s familiar with the case. Maybe the bomb unit can check through the houses on the rest of the block. But honestly, I don’t think this perp would’ve targeted any of them just randomly. He’s been very purposeful in the locations he’s chosen for his bombs.”

  And his game was over. Halpert might not have died and become a household name like he’d planned, but he’d made sure to have his revenge against Lara.

  No, there were no more bombs. Lara’s house had been the last. Devastation sat heavy on her.

  She may have stopped Halpert’s plans, but he’d made sure to stop hers, too.

  Chapter Eight

  The rest of the team was consoling Lara about the loss of her father’s house in the bullpen of the CMU offices. After listening in on the conversation with Halpert about her mother, they all knew how much the loss affected her. Not that there were any further clues the house would give up about her mom’s murder. Still the loss was hard.

  But Nick’s business was in here with the only member of the team not out talking to Lara.

  Christina.

  And she knew he was looking for her. She was in his office, standing over by the window studying the city below. It was one of the few times Nick hadn’t seen her at a computer. Talking to her while she wasn’t tapping away at a computer seemed almost odd. Even in normal conversations Christina generally tended to also be multitasking with some sort of keyboard.

  “Hi, Christina.”

  She spun from the window, wringing her hands in front of her. “Nick.”

  “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to see you.”

  Christina looked out into the office where everyone huddled together. “I’m sorry about what happened to Lara. Will she be okay?”

  Nick glanced over his shoulder before turning back to her. “Lara will bounce back. She always does.”

  “Good. That’s good.” Christina still wasn’t looking him right in the eye.

  “Where’s Eloise?”

  Christina’s eyes darted around the room. “She left.”

  “Before or after she called my father to report everything that was happening with Halpert?”

  Now he had Christina’s focus directly on him. “Nick—”

  “Are you working for Francis Delano, too? Feeding him info?”

  “No, no I swear. I’ve never had anything to do with him.”

  “And Eloise? Did you know from the beginning he�
�d hired her?”

  She shook her head rapidly and pushed away from the window. “No. I’d heard of Eloise. Knew what she could do. Even met her a couple of times. I wanted to bring in someone who could help. Someone who could stop Halpert.” She looked down at her hands. “He was beating me at my own game. In my own house.”

  “Where did you get the idea to hire her?” Nick rubbed at the back of his neck. He thought he could trust Christina but he wasn’t completely sure.

  “We needed someone with a very particular skill set. The list of people who could do what she does isn’t that long. When I saw her name as a possibility, that she was willing to work for the pretty pitiful amount we could pay her, I snatched her up. I didn’t even look any further.”

  Nick gestured toward the chairs surrounding the small table in the corner. He believed Christina was telling the truth. He didn’t want her to feel threatened and stop talking.

  “So Francis Delano never contacted you and asked you to hire Eloise.”

  “No, I swear, Nick.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I had no idea she was reporting to him when I first brought her here.”

  Nick raised an eyebrow. “But you began to suspect it at some point.”

  She nodded. “Yes. Eloise is young. At first I thought she might just be bragging to a friend or something. So I gave her the privacy talk. How the things we do here couldn’t be discussed with anyone.”

  “When did you realize it was something beyond that?”

  “Honestly, I suspected since her second day with us, but wasn’t sure until today.” Her brows drew together. “As soon as Halpert was spotted at that park she excused herself to make a call. This time I followed her.”

  “And she was calling my father.”

  “Yes. And to be honest, I was relieved. I thought maybe she was in cahoots with Halpert. That she’d totally snowed me and she was helping him from inside. But she said she was contacting someone who wanted to help.”

  “Someone who was paying her normal fee.”

  Christina nodded even more exuberantly, obviously pleased that Nick understood and wasn’t angry. “Yes. I know she said she was working here for what we could pay because she wanted to help. But that never really fit with what I know about her. Finding out she had some sort of financial guardian angel paying the rest of what she would normally make made a lot of sense.”