by Misty Evans
He put an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the truck. Brice had it running and revved the motor as he watched them approach. The engine choked and sputtered. “You are a renegade. You always have been. You’ve just been living in denial.”
She hit him in the gut with her elbow. Exactly what he was hoping for. He’d forced the old Caroline to rise to the surface again.
Her voice lost some of its tightness. She chuckled under her breath. “You are so full of shit.”
“Go with it, Caroline. The dark side can be a lot of fun.”
He helped her into the cab, smacking her on the ass for good measure. The truck smelled like marijuana and fast food fries.
Caroline shoved an assortment of coffee cups, 8-track tapes, and dirty tissues to the floor. “This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
That was saying a lot when you were an FBI agent who’d recently gone dumpster diving. “Told you the dark side was fun.”
She made the I’m about to shoot you face and scooted over the bench seat. The upholstery was stained and torn in places. “I’m afraid I’ll contract a disease in here.”
Mitch climbed in beside her and before he even shut the door, Brice shifted the truck and they took off.
“Where are we going, Brice? And don’t say a gun shop. We know that.”
He hung a right onto the main road and hit the gas. “I just got an email from a firearms dealer in town. He saw my blog post. He’s only about ten minutes out.”
“And we’re going there why?”
Brice stopped at a red light and dug into his pocket for his phone. He tapped the screen and handed Caroline the phone. “Read this.”
Mitch leaned close, enjoying the excuse to put his head next hers and breathe her strawberry scent, although it was getting a little ripe after all the sweating they’d been doing.
On the screen was an email. It appeared to be from the gun shop’s owner.
I have information about that dead FBI agent. We need to talk. In person. How soon can you get here?
It wasn’t long before Mitch saw a huge red and black sign, the name of the gun shop spelled out
in gaudy gold letters. MH Firearm and Supply. His pulse sped up.
Brice took a left and there they were, in front of the dilapidated old building. He eased the pickup into the small lot, shut off the engine. “We’re here.”
Heat rose in shimmers off the blacktop. Mitch grabbed the door handle. The door squeaked as he shoved it open, a paper coffee cup falling out onto the ground.
The three of them trailed inside, a bell over the door ringing and an alarm beeping as they entered. Security system. Not unusual considering the long narrow space contained three glass display cases that formed a U-shape in the middle of the store. Each case was stuffed with handguns of every caliber imaginable. Behind the cases, the walls were lined from one side to the other with rifles ranging from shotguns to semi-automatics.
Mitch let out a low whistle.
“No kidding,” Caroline said.
Brice tapped one of the cases with his fingernails. “Lotta money.”
He breathed in and the stale, gun-oil laced air burned his throat. “Yep.”
In the back corner of the store, a guy in his thirties sat at a desk talking on the phone. He held up a finger. Sure, they’d wait. Considering this might be the guy who emailed them.
A short, balding man in blue denim emerged from the back, wiping his hands on a towel. “Can I help you?”
Brice stopped at the counter. “I’m looking for Marty. Name’s Brice Brennan.”
The guy scanned Brice, then Mitch and Caroline. “I’m Marty.”
Brice held out his phone, the email still visible.
Marty glanced behind Mitch to look out the window at the empty parking lot. “Anyone see you come in?”
“No one,” Mitch said. “Now tell us why we’re here.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Caroline stepped forward, digging for her ID. “We’re feder—”
Mitch stopped her. “We’re friends of the agent who was gunned down. The one Brice wrote about. All we’re trying to do is find out what happened.”
Marty fiddled with the towel, glancing at the guy still on the phone. He motioned them to come behind the counter. “Back here. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”
Caroline and Brice both looked at Mitch. He nodded and signaled for everyone to follow Marty. They circumvented the glass counter and shelves of ammunition, entering a back room.
A tabletop was covered with parts of a gun Marty must have stripped and was cleaning. He tossed the towel on the table and led them to an office. Once inside, he sat at a beat-up metal desk and waited for Mitch to shut the door.
“I know about that gun you’re claiming killed Agent Nusco.” Marty flipped a paper clip end over end and glanced up at Brice. “The one you posted on your blog. I sold it.”
Mitch kept his body still, not a twitch, not a shift, not even a damned deep breath—but holy hell—his system went into overload. “We need information on the guy who bought it.”
Marty nodded. “Young guy. A local. He comes in on a regular basis and buys a lot of weapons with cash. If I ask about any of them, he puts me off. A few months ago, I followed him after he bought a rifle and saw him give it to a guy parked down the street in an expensive Humvee-like vehicle. I called ATF to let them know. I mean, if he’s running guns, I don’t want my license pulled because of it. All my sales are legal. What happens when the gun leaves the shop, I can’t control.”
“What did ATF do?” Brice asked.
“Pfft. Nothing. Told me they had him under control and to go about my business. I kept my mouth shut, but I followed him again a few weeks later and he did the same thing.”
He tapped his head with an oil-stained finger. “I got to thinking about it, talked to a few of my friends in the area who run gun shops. We’d all had the same couple of guys that didn’t seem the type purchasing guns. Me and my friend, Shonny Bridge—he runs a shop about forty miles from here—we got nervous. He knows a guy who knows a guy who works for ATF. Shonny talks to him, tells him we’re seeing these guys hand off their purchases to someone in a Humvee. Could be perfectly legal, but Shonny and I’ve run into trouble before with gangs. Legitimate buyers being forced to buy for gangbangers, druggies, you name it ʼcuz the criminals got some blackmail hanging over them, or they need the money. Shonny and me, we don’t want to see those weapons end up down in Mexico being used for some drug shootout between cartels or with the police.”
Brice shifted to lean against a file cabinet. “What did ATF tell Shonny?”
“Said they’d keep an eye on these buyers. Again, told us not to worry about it.” Marty ran a hand over his face. “Thing was, it kept happening. I called the ATF to make a formal complaint. Got the runaround again. Next thing I know, some asshole shows up here one night after closing, telling me to open up. I don’t let him in, tell him to come back the next day. I thought he was part of the cartel and I got nervous. Pulled out Patty, my H&K I keep under the front counter. I pointed Patty at him and told him to haul ass before I shot him. Then he pulled a badge. He was from the goddamned ATF.”
Mitch kept his eyes on Marty. Still no sign of deception. Holy shit. “You let him in?”
“After I saw that badge, hell yeah.”
“What did he say?”
Marty picked up a paper clip and flicked it between his fingers. “He said, ‘You want to keep your license, keep your mouth shut. The ATF is running an operation and you need to cooperate with us and continue selling to those men you’ve been asking about.’”
Brice fisted a hand and smacked it on the file cabinet. “Damn.”
Damn was right.
Marty nodded. “I told him to go to hell.”
Mitch grinned. Marty reminded him of the truck they’d ridden there in. A little rusty around the edges, but still running. “Bet he didn’t like that.”
/> “Sure as hell didn’t.” He fiddled with the paper clip again. “Told me I’d lose my license if I refused to keep my mouth shut. The next day, Shonny said he had a visit from the same asshole.”
“Did you get a name or number from his badge?” Caroline stood in between Mitch and Brice, looking uncomfortable but even more determined. “Did you confirm with ATF that he was an actual agent?”
“He was legit. I checked him out good and proper. Name’s Will Atkinson. He’s the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the local ATF office and brother to George Atkinson, the U.S. Attorney here in New Mexico.”
Caroline pulled a small notebook and pen from her briefcase and wrote down the name.
Marty watched. “I wrote letters starting the next day. This is America, and I’m a tax-payin’ citizen. No one’s going to threaten me.” He tapped his index finger on the desk. “I wrote to my local district attorney, the state congressmen and to the goddamn governor. Told ʼem a thing or two about small business and the kind of voting clout me, my friends, and my customers have in this state. I laid everything out and suggested they look into the situation. All I got was the standard political bullshit letters back. Thank you for contacting us. Your letter is important. Please vote for me. Blah, blah, blah. Not one of them mentioned ATF, the U.S. Attorney, or the possibility of gun running.”
Mitch liked this guy. “Any more threats?”
“Nope, but those two guys who were constantly buying the guns stopped coming in. They stopped visiting Shonny too. Not long after, I was having a beer with some shop owners south of here at a gun show. Same deal. They were sure a few of their repeat customers were selling guns to a drug cartel. I told ʼem my story, and told them to contact the feds or the governor or somebody. They didn’t want to make waves.”
He put his head in his hands and rubbed his bald head. “Then that kid got killed not far from here. It was all over the papers about him being FBI. I’ve been wondering ever since if he was killed with one of my guns. I’ve been following that blog of yours. Now I find out it’s true.” His eyes were haunted when he looked up at Mitch and Brice. “I did everything I could to make sure them bastards weren’t giving my guns to the gangs, but what else could I do?”
Caroline leaned forward and laid a hand on the man’s forearm. “Do you have copies of the letters you sent?”
“Every last one of them.”
“Could I see them?”
Caroline, Miss Type A, was crossing her T’s and dotting her I’s. She wanted to confirm Marty was telling them the truth and not just trying to cover his ass. For once, Mitch appreciated her anal retentiveness. No matter how believable Marty was, you couldn’t be too careful.
Marty opened a desk drawer and removed a file folder stuffed with letters. “Got ʼem all right here.”
Caroline shuffled through the contents, making a note here and there on her notepad. Names, dates, who replied and who didn’t.
“What are you going to do about this mess?” Marty asked.
Brice released a deep sigh. “We’re going to bring those guilty of killing Agent Nusco to justice and expose everyone involved in this cover-up.”
“Good.” Marty nodded his head. “But there’s one more thing,” he said, his eyes bouncing between Mitch and Brice.
Mitch had that feeling again…the one that told him they’d stumbled onto something big. “What?”
“He’s back. That first buyer I followed to the Humvee? Came in yesterday and bought another gun.”
Before Mitch could jump out of his skin, Caroline gripped his wrist, hoping to hell he would keep his mouth shut and let her handle Marty. If she knew him at all, which she most certainly did, he was about to ask Marty for the address of that straw buyer. An idea Caroline could get behind, but also one that would break any number of privacy laws and get Marty in trouble.
What they needed here was careful, thought-out, and concise strategizing. Something Mitch, in all his blazing glory that turned Caroline on in every possible way, simply didn’t know how to do. He was more the race in, kick some ass, and get the info kind of guy. Sometimes that came in handy. Not now though.
She’d have to do it for them.
“Marty,” Caroline said, “I want us to be very careful about this conversation so we don’t break any privacy laws. That being said, I’d like to find a way for us to get the address you have for the gentleman who purchased the weapon yesterday. Is there a way we can do that?”
From the corner of her eye, she spotted Mitch shaking his head. The eye roll would be next so she didn’t bother to face him. She’d seen that eye roll hundreds—thousands—of times and had learned infinite patience because of it.
Marty leaned closer, craning his neck as if that extra few inches would allow him to hear better. “You want his address?”
“Yes. But gun sales are not public record in New Mexico.”
“Fuck the privacy laws.”
Fuck the privacy laws? This from a gun shop owner? Leave it to her to find Mitch’s long lost brother.
“Hot damn,” Mitch said.
Marty glanced at him, then went back to Caroline. “I’ll give you whatever you need. Let them take away my license. For six months I’ve rattled every goddamned cage I can and now an FBI agent is dead from a gun I sold. Living with that’ll give me a heart attack. I need to make this right.”
Part of her wanted to argue, to stress to this man that they had options. Like a warrant. But warrants took time and if this was truly a cover-up involving a U.S Attorney and New Mexico ATF, a warrant would be impossible to obtain. Those involved would make sure of it and she could finally light the fuse attached to her career and blow it to pieces.
Hell with it. Caroline finally looked at Mitch. Damn you, Mitch Monroe.
“We have to do this,” he said.
They didn’t have to. They could take ten minutes and talk privately. Try to find another option that wouldn’t risk Marty’s license.
“Forget the options, Caroline. You know there aren’t any good ones. Not in our timeframe.”
A clock on the desk chimed the top of the hour. They’d left the hotel over an hour ago. Plenty of time for Donaldson to confirm she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
Go time. She turned back to Marty. “Get us the address and we’ll do what we can to keep you out of it. Sound fair?”
“Fuck fair.”
“I love this guy,” Mitch said.
Marty shifted in his seat and put on bifocals to look at his computer. He tapped a few keys, glancing between the keyboard and the screen while Caroline’s nerves suffered a seizure. Each pulse point throbbed and she ran her hands along the underside of her wrists, gently squeezing.
It’s the right thing. She sure hoped so. It had to be. Getting this address might be the first step in finding the answers they needed. Professional suicide? She’d already committed that anyway. Personal triumph? Righting a wrong? Definitely. Either way, they’d have answers.
The printer beside the computer hummed. Marty snatched the paper it spit out and spun back to them. “Here you go.”
Caroline and Mitch both reached for it, but he smacked her hand away. “I’ve got it. If the shit hits the fan, we say I had it first and I gave it to you.”
Please. No one would believe that. Not after their history. She snorted. “You think that’d fly?”
“If your prints aren’t on this sheet of paper, it can only help keep you in the clear.”
Point there. She dropped her hand. “Thank you, Marty. We’ll check this out and let you know.”
She dug into her purse, grabbed one of her cards, and wrote down her cell number. Wait. Mitch destroyed her phone. Terrific. No phone. She’d have to pick up a burn phone. She passed the card and pen to Brice. “Write your cell number down so Marty can reach us if our straw buyer comes back.”
As Brice wrote the number down, Mitch bounced on the balls of his feet, his endless energy crackling and reaching out to her, surrounding
her. This was such a mistake. Intellectually, she knew it. Emotionally, she denied it. Because when Mitch got on a roll, when he saw his target and homed in on it, she wanted to meet the woman who could resist the pull of him.
Magic. That’s what he was like when working a case. Excitement and lust and power all rolled into one package. And, despite agreeing with his mission, but not necessarily his approach, Caroline gave in to the magic.
He shoved the paper into his front pocket and shook Marty’s hand. Then he clapped his hands together. “Let’s roll, kids.”
Chapter Eleven
The house that matched the address was a two-story shack that looked as if it started out as a one-story shack. “Do a drive-by,” Mitch told Brice.
“We need a plan,” Caroline said.
She sat nestled between Mitch and Brice on the bench seat, and in her typical ‘Caroline way’ kept inching closer to Mitch to avoid body contact with Brice. All so Ms. Uptight didn’t let her Type-A-self invade the space of a guy she barely knew. Mitch couldn’t say he minded all the closeness, but his thoughts kept wandering. And God knew his body went right along with them.
“The plan is,” Mitch said, “to knock on the door and see who answers. If anyone answers. No cars in the driveway.”
At the corner, Brice braked at the stop sign and checked the cross traffic. He hooked a left and Mitch stared out the side window, already thinking ahead to knocking on the front door of that beat-up two-story.
Still avoiding a squirming Caroline, Mitch caught sight of a neon “Bar” sign damn near begging for his attention. He could use a shot of bourbon right now. One that would fry his throat and make him forget about his dead friends. Sunlight flashed off of something and Mitch shifted his gaze to the green street sign with reflective white letters. Buena.
The shock ripped into him. Adrenalin, an enormous hit of it, plowed into his limbs. He jerked sideways, bumping Caroline.
“Hey!”
But he couldn’t take his eyes off that street sign. “Son of a bitch. Stop this truck.”