Tough Justice: Hunted

There was no point in voicing the questions out loud. She knew Nick had no answers. She hoped that the team was already all gathered and at work and would have some answers for her by the time she and Nick arrived.

Thankfully throughout their short time working together, Nick had learned when to talk and when to keep his mouth shut with her. He didn’t say a word as he parked the car in the official parking garage. He remained mute as together they raced for the building and during the ride in the elevator up to the twenty-third floor. Please, let this all already be resolved, Lara thought desperately.

Lara and Nick flew down the hallway and into the conference room, and Lara was grateful to see that not only were her usual teammates gathered, but also junior agents James Walsh and Jennifer Gulden were present, as well.

A fleeting thought shot through Lara’s head as she recognized how different the members of the team looked now from that first day when she’d arrived to start working for the new Crisis Management Unit.

Mei Wang was dead, strangled and stamped with the MM tattoo on her cheek. Cass was in jail awaiting arraignment on a number of charges, and Christina Ruiz had been borrowed from another team to take Cass’s place as their computer expert. Ty looked as if he’d aged a decade with the death of his partner, as did Victoria after all she’d been through when her daughter had been kidnapped and with the weight of this entire case on her shoulders.

A new pain filled Lara. In one way or another Moretti had touched them all with his evil. The entire team had been forever changed due to his machinations. For the first time since Victoria’s awakening phone call a wave of anger rose up inside Lara, a deep, killing anger that equaled the terror that still gripped her gut like a tight vise.

“How did this happen?” Lara asked as she and Nick sat side by side at the table. “How in the hell did he get out of that prison?”

“The FBI and other law enforcement officials have swarmed the place and are in the process of conducting a full investigation,” Victoria said. “All I can tell you is that at this point there is one missing prison guard. Another guard, a Toby Racine, was found unconscious in Moretti’s cell. He’d been beaten and was wearing Moretti’s jumpsuit.”

“He obviously had help both inside and outside of the prison to pull off an escape,” Ty said. “What do we know about this Toby Racine?”

Christina sat up straighter in her chair and tucked a strand of her short dark hair behind her ear as she gazed at a printout of information. “He’s twenty-nine years old and has worked at the prison for the last three years. He lives alone.”

“And what about the missing guard?” Nick asked.

Victoria looked down at the notes in front of her. “Anthony McCord, at least twenty years working in the prison system. His wife’s body was found an hour ago in their home. We have units sitting on his residence.”

“He’ll probably eventually show up somewhere as a dead body, too,” Xander said. “Moretti won’t want any loose ends. Once he isn’t useful to Moretti anymore, he’ll kill them.”

“Maybe he’s headed for Canada—for either helping with the escape or for killing his wife. Or both. That would make the most sense,” Ty replied. “The border is only a few hours from here.”

“We have the border patrol on alert,” Victoria said.

Lara didn’t care about a missing guard, especially one who had apparently been turned by Moretti. The most important issue in her mind was little Emily’s safety. “I tried to contact Peter Linden, but my calls kept going to his cell phone. I finally called Faye Minnow,” Lara said and watched as Victoria’s eyes narrowed in response.

“Emily was moved just a little while ago by Linden’s partner Kincaid. It was a Level Ten, whatever that means,” Lara continued.

“I’m aware of the situation.” Victoria held Lara’s gaze.

Every muscle in Lara’s body tensed as she prepared for a blow. She saw it coming in the darkness that had taken possession of Victoria’s blue eyes.

“And?” Lara asked softly.

“And I got a phone call from the US Marshal offices a few minutes ago. There’s no US Marshal Adam Kincaid, and no such thing as a Level Ten. Peter Linden’s official car was found twenty miles away from the last location where the family had been located.” Victoria paused a moment and cleared her throat and then continued, “Peter’s body was inside of the car. He’d been tortured—probably for information—and then shot in the head.”

The shrill screaming began in Lara’s head once again.

Chapter Two (#u20497dd2-cc6d-5d21-9271-5e727afc8c11)

Everyone in the room was silent for a thick, charged moment, and Lara took that brief time to forcefully shove away the wailing in her head.

She had to think. She didn’t have the time or the luxury to fall apart right now. Her child needed her, and she needed to find and kill the monster who had ruined so many lives and had haunted her for far too long.

“So, we have to assume that Moretti has the kid,” Xander finally said to break the silence.

“Emily. Her name is Emily,” Lara snapped. It didn’t matter that her name, her identity changed each time the Minnows were relocated. What mattered was that she wasn’t just some “kid” and that everyone at the table saw her as an individual with a real name and potentially in very real danger.

Xander looked at Lara. “Sorry.”

“Why would he take the time to arrange to get hold of Emily? What could he possibly want with her?” Ty asked. “I mean, he would have been smart to use the head start he had to somehow get out of the country.”

“He doesn’t exactly seem like the type who would want to be father of the year,” James added.

“Maybe he wants to use the baby as leverage of some kind,” Jennifer said. “Maybe he intends to ransom her for the means and the money to get out of the country.”

Lara listened to the others’ speculation, but she knew the truth. “He’s obviously got the means and any money he needs. He took her as revenge against me,” she stated flatly. “He knows she’s the only person on the face of the earth who means something to me. He knows she’s the only thing I love, and that’s why he took her.”

A piercing ache shot through Lara’s heart as she thought of her child now in the hands of the cold, hard bastard who had fathered her. Moretti...he was the very devil himself.

What was his plan for the sweet baby girl? Would he hurt her? Would he kill her to spite Lara? Would they eventually find Emily’s little body lifeless and cold with death?

She mentally shook her head. Don’t go there, a little voice whispered in her head. She couldn’t allow her thoughts to go to that dark place, or she’d go stark raving mad and would be of no use to anyone.

“What we all need to do right now is try to pinpoint what Moretti’s next move might be,” Victoria said. “We can assume he has Emily, and we need to figure out where he would go with her. What is his plan? I want all of you to go over your notes from the beginning of this case to now, and see if a clue can be gleaned as to where he might be.”

Lara got up out of her chair, unable to sit still for another minute. She paced back and forth next to the long conference table as she tried to think back to the time when she’d been close to Moretti, the time when she’d believed him to be Andrew Moore, a man who had infiltrated the organization for his own supposedly honorable reasons.

Lies. All lies. And she’d swallowed them hook, line and sinker, never knowing that the hot, sexy arms commander Andrew Moore was actually the monster himself.

Victoria’s cell phone rang, and Lara froze in her tracks and stared at her boss as she took the call. Everyone else in the room was once again silent. The call took only a minute, and when Victoria hung up, her gaze held Lara’s once again.

“A second vehicle was found abandoned close to where Marshal Linden’s car was located. It wasn’t an official US Marshal vehicle, but it was dressed up to look like one,” she said.

“So, Moretti and whoever picked up the...uh, Emily in what appeared to be an official vehicle and then transferred to another car,” Xander said, stating the obvious.

“And we have no idea what kind of car they’re now using,” Ty added.

The news wasn’t a surprise to Lara; it was just a dreadful confirmation that Moretti was once again back in control. She looked at all of her teammates. “He’ll contact me. Sooner or later I’ll hear from him, because he won’t be able to help himself. He’ll need to brag about how brilliant he is, he’ll want to crow about his successful escape. And more than anything he’ll want to tell me that he has Emily, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Christina stood and walked over to Lara. “Give me your cell, and I’ll link it with my computers so that if and when he calls I might get a chance to trace his location.”

Lara pulled her phone from her pocket and handed it to the tech guru. She didn’t wait to hear what the others might say. Instead, she left the conference room and went into the break room where she could be alone for a little while.

The scent of hot coffee wafted in the air as she walked over to a nearby window and stared unseeing outside. She needed to be alone and think.

Somehow, someway, she had to remember everything that Andrew Moore had ever told her about his past. She needed to try to separate the lies from any truth he might have said that could be helpful in finding him now.

When Moretti had been acting as Andrew, had there been any truth at all in what he’d told her? Her stomach bucked and kicked with nausea as she thought of just how close she’d gotten to Andrew. Close enough to consider blowing her own cover, close enough to have sex with him and get pregnant and have a baby that he now probably had in his clutches. God, she’d been so stupid.

And now Emily was at risk, and Lara needed a way to figure out where Moretti might have her. She wanted to bang her head against the window until all the answers she needed popped into her head.

“Lara, I’ve linked your phone.” Christina’s voice came from the break room doorway. Lara didn’t turn around. “Uh, I’ll just leave it here on the table.”