Undercover Twin

She shook her head but didn’t say anything.

Rafe reached into his pocket and pulled out a clear evidence bag with a piece of paper inside. “Lily Bannon has been abducted.”

* * *

THE CONFERENCE ROOM quickly filled with a mix of DEA agents and police officers. Captain Buresh—Rafe’s boss—barked out orders, along with Waverly and Rickloff.

Nick stared at the note through the plastic bag.

I’ve got what you want. You’ve got what I want. Let’s trade.

The most obvious interpretation was that Gonzalez had abducted Lily and wanted to trade her for his kilos of cocaine.

So much for Rickloff’s theory that Gonzalez was in love with Lily.

The second line of the note gave the location for the trade—Skeleton’s Misery, a bar in Key West, along with tomorrow’s date and the time of 9:00 p.m.

He glanced at his watch. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. That didn’t give them much time to come up with a plan to save Lily. As soon as he’d seen the note, he’d run out to his truck to grab his map of the Keys. But when he’d returned, the conference room was in chaos. He’d tried several times to get everyone to be quiet, but no one was paying him any attention.

Rafe was leaning against the far wall, shaking his head, obviously as disgusted as Nick was.

Screw it. Lily didn’t have time for this. And neither did Heather. She was sitting as still as a statue in her chair at the far end of the table, so ghostly pale she looked as if she might collapse at any moment.

Enough was enough. Nick raked his hand across the conference room table, sending folders, pads of paper and pens flying. The room went silent and everyone stared at him in shock.

“Now that I have your attention,” Nick said, “I want everyone out except essential personnel.” He plopped his rolled-up map onto the table. When nobody moved, he glanced at his brother. “Rafe, want to help me explain to everyone who the nonessential people are?”

Rafe grinned. Between him and Nick, they went around the room directing people out the door.

Nick finally closed the door and turned around to a much more orderly, and quiet, conference room. The only remaining people were the same ones Nick had been talking to earlier, plus Heather, Rafe and Captain Buresh.

“You’ve got a bit of an ego to order all those people out, don’t you, son?” Rickloff said.

“Lily Bannon’s life is on the line. And we don’t have a lot of time to figure out how we’re going to save her.”

He unrolled the map. Rafe grabbed some of the pads of paper off the floor and helped Nick weigh down the corners so the map would lie flat. Everyone except Heather gathered around the end of the table, leaning over the map while Nick drew a circle.

“That’s Skeleton’s Misery,” he said, pointing to the circle on the western edge of Key West. “It’s a new bar that opened up this year. That’s where Gonzalez wants to make the trade.”

“Tell me about the location,” Rickloff said.

Nick pointed to the street running out front. “It’s one of the more isolated bars, at the end of the tourist strip. The street is narrow, more for walkers than cars. The nearest cross streets are a mile south, here―” he pointed to another spot on the map and marked an X “―and two miles north.” He marked another X. “The only other access is from the ocean. There’s a dock right behind it, again, fairly new. The bar caters more to locals than to tourists, so it won’t be as crowded as some of the others, and there shouldn’t be a lot of boats at the dock.”

“What do you mean it caters to locals?” Waverly asked.

Nick glanced at Heather. Some of the color had returned to her face, and she was watching him intently.

“Heather, would you like some water or a bite to eat?” Nick asked. “Rafe could take you outside, get you something.”

Rafe was already heading to Heather’s side when she raised her hand to stop him.

“I’m not going anywhere. I want to hear this. I want to know how you’re going to help Lily.” Her voice broke on the last word and she clasped her hands tightly on the table in front of her.

Nick belatedly wished he hadn’t allowed Heather to stay in the conference room when he’d ushered everyone else out, but he didn’t have time to argue with her.

“When I say the bar caters to locals,” he continued, answering Waverly’s question, “I mean it’s raw. It’s little more than a shanty with loud music. No fancy menus, no live bands, and the people who run the place are ex-cons.”

Heather seemed to withdraw into herself and sank farther back in her chair. She was probably imagining her sister in that bar.

“I imagine the courts will insist on keeping the kilos we got from the bar as evidence until the case against Lily and Heather is settled. So we’ll need to check some kilos out of the evidence locker to use for the trade,” Nick said to his boss. “Do we have that much on hand?”

Waverly shook his head. “I doubt it. Other than that bar raid, we haven’t made a cocaine bust in quite some time. Any cocaine we’ve confiscated would have already been destroyed.”

“We’ve got that much,” Rickloff said. “Not a problem. I can have an agent bring the drugs down to the Keys and meet up with you.”

“Good. We can place a couple of guys up the street here, and down here.” Nick pointed to the map. “Gonzalez chose a good spot. There aren’t a lot of hiding places. Maybe we could bring a few guys in from the water, have them hide out in a boat at the dock behind the bar.”

“All right,” Rickloff said.

“We’ll have to pick an undercover agent who can pass for Heather in dim light.” Nick glanced at Heather. “Five-two, small build, long, curly brown hair, blue eyes. Do you have any agents like that in your Miami office?”

Rickloff shook his head. “I don’t have any women in my office.”

Why did that not surprise him? Nick shook his head. He was less and less impressed with Rickloff the more he learned about him.

“I know the Keys office has some women, several of whom might be good candidates,” Nick said.

Rickloff shook his head again. “I’m not ready to involve that office just yet.”

Nick’s suspicion that Rickloff might be trying to hide his operation from the Key West office had just been confirmed. But since neither his nor Rafe’s boss were saying anything, he decided to let it go. For now.

“All right. There are five women in our unit here in Saint Augustine,” Nick said. “But they’re all taller than Heather.” He glanced at Rafe. “Do you have any policewomen who could pass for Heather?”

Rafe shook his head. “I don’t know anyone that small in stature here.”

“There has to be someone we could use,” Nick said. “We’ve got a state trooper headquarters down State Road 16. And the Saint Johns County Sheriff’s Office isn’t far from here. Or we could even ask for help from Jacksonville. Rafe, could you contact the other offices, see if they have someone available who fits the physical profile? The eye color may not matter. They could wear colored contacts.”

Rafe nodded and pulled out his phone, but Rickloff shook his head.

“This is too important to risk using a look-alike when we’ve got an exact match for Heather Bannon sitting right in this room.”

Nick swore under his breath. “You want to use Heather as bait.”

“What I want, Special Agent Morgan,” Rickloff snapped, “is to ensure that nothing goes wrong with this operation. We have a unique opportunity here. No matter what I’ve tried over the years, when it comes to Gonzalez, nothing sticks. I would have rather gone with my original plan to use Lily so I could get Gonzalez on drug charges. But they caught Capone for tax evasion. If I have to settle with getting Gonzalez for kidnapping, so be it. As long as I can put him away, that’s what matters.”

Nick stared at him in disbelief. “What matters is that we catch the bad guys without risking the lives of civilians. And please tell me you didn’t just categorize a woman’s abduction as a ‘unique opportunity.’”

Rickloff’s face flushed. “Poor choice of words.”