Cat's Paw (Veritas Book 1) (11 page)

“Your sister is an adult. And please don’t even think about challenging him. Neil is . . . lethal. He promised to keep her safe, and he’ll die doing it.”

“Yeah, Krav Maga and all that shit. He said something about losing his own sister.”

“I’m surprised he mentioned that. It’s usually a tabooed subject.”

“Did it go down bad?”

“Very bad.”

No wonder the Iceman was so intense.

Morgan’s phone chimed and she looked down at the text message. “We’re on. I’ll text you if he’s okay with you being at the meeting. If anything gets weird, take off. You’ve got the code to get back into the safe house. I’ll meet you there.”

Like hell.
No way was he bailing on her if this meeting went south. They’d take away his man card if he pulled a weenie stunt like that.

“How can I get in touch with you?” he asked.

“I saved my number in your phone. It’s under ‘Valkyrie.’”

Of course you did
. Alex watched as she made her way across the street, her jeans hugging her butt. He chugged his beer, trying to cool his libido. And failing.

“Another one?” the server asked.

“No, thanks,” he said. The girl was attractive, but Morgan had something else going on, something hard to define. Whatever it was, he was beginning to see her as the ultimate challenge.

Though he’d been told to stay put, Alex set off to keep an eye on his partner. To his amusement, he managed to tail Morgan without her seeing him. Then she merged into a tour group and disappeared from sight. He held his position in front of a souvenir shop, acting as if he really cared to own a stuffed alligator with sparkly gold eyes.

“Come on, where are you?” he muttered, his anxiety rising. His phone pinged and the text indicated he was to head north and meet her in the third alley on the right.

With a sigh, Alex walked down the street, counting alleys as he went. When he reached number three, he slowed, then stopped, pausing to look around. As best as he could tell, no one was following, but in the Big Easy it was often hard to tell.

He swung into the alley and joined up with Morgan about halfway down the gloomy passageway, which was far too dark for his liking. To his right were the inevitable garbage cans. He hated the things, and not just because of their smell. Druggies ditched their stashes in these, and it used to be Alex’s job to root around inside to find the dope. He’d pawed through his share of rotten food and baby diapers when he was a junior agent. A rite of passage, the older guys had claimed.

A quick glance upward showed there were no galleries above them, just a few windows. At the end of the alley was a chain-link fence, probably installed during Kennedy’s stint in the White House. The alley beyond the fence was equally dark and uninviting.

If Alex was designing a trap, this place would be it. As he approached, he noted that Morgan stood with her feet apart, weight carefully balanced, her hand inside her purse as if she expected something to go wrong.

I’m not the only one who’s twitchy.

“So where is he?” Alex asked.

“He’ll be here in a minute.”

“I’m not liking this place.”

“I’m right there with you,” she replied.

Alex tensed when a man stepped off the street and walked toward them. As Morgan had claimed, he was one of a kind, from his carroty hair to his long nose. TipTop appeared equally ill at ease, his eyes darting around.

“This is the new guy,” she said, gesturing toward Alex. “This is TipTop.”

“Heard of you,” the man replied, eyeing him. “Heard you were dealing and the feds sent you upstate for it.”

“Everybody has a theory on that,” Alex replied.

The dude nodded like he wasn’t surprised. “Richie told me about you.”

One of Alex’s snitches. “He still alive?”

TipTop shook his head. “Got gunned down a year ago. Funny thing—it wasn’t one of the dealers who did him in. It was his old lady.”

“He didn’t put the toilet seat down or something?”

The snitch laughed. “Something like that.”

“So what have you got for me?” Morgan asked, impatience edging her tone.

“Three possible places, all in the Warehouse District. I’ve got the addresses for you.” He stepped closer to them now, holding out a small piece of paper. “Your best bet is—”

There was a sharp pop, and TipTop took a stunned step forward, his eyes wide with incomprehension. Bright blood bubbled out of his open mouth.

“Get down!” Morgan commanded.

As the snitch crumpled to the ground, she and Alex dove behind the trash cans, startling a rat in the process. Bullets impacted the cans, chipping bricks on the building. A piece hit Alex’s forearm and it stung, as screams echoed from the street.

“Can you see the shooter?” she asked, her gun in hand.

“He’s at the entrance to the alley. There’re civilians behind him. You don’t have a clean shot.”

The shooter kept firing at them, growing closer to their hiding place.

“What about TipTop?” Morgan asked, out of position to see her informant.

Alex inched out from behind the can to get a look, then jerked back after ascertaining that the snitch’s eyes were vacant, staring at nothing.

“History. One shot, through the back of the skull.” It had to have been a hollow-point bullet, or they would have been wearing TipTop’s blood and brains.

“Dammit!” she said.

In the distance, sirens kicked in. Alex took another cautious look.

“The shooter’s legging it.”

“You sure? He could be waiting for you to stick your stupid head up so he can blow it off,” Morgan grumbled. There was more to her tone than anger. He heard fear. But for sheer luck, either one of them could be dead instead of the snitch.

“No, he’s gone. He just blew through a group of tourists like a rocket.”

Stepping forward, Morgan tugged the piece of paper from TipTop’s fingers and tucked it into her jeans pocket. As she straightened, she knew what had to happen. Money easily changed hands in this city. With just the right number of zeroes, an officer could claim he saw a gun, even if hers was in her purse. Shots might be fired, and then there would be three corpses in this alley, rather than just one. A quick whitewash of the official reports, and Veritas would have no way to dispute the “facts.”

The sirens were closer now. Morgan took one last look at the dead snitch. “Sorry, TipTop.” She waved at Alex. “Let’s book it. You can’t be here when the cops arrive.”

“Amen,” he said.

They sprinted down the alley, away from the street. She groaned when she saw the condition of the fence—the metal barrier appeared to be a thriving home to tetanus and a hundred other lethal diseases. Once he realized what she was about to do, Alex caught her right arm.

“Hold on,” he said. After pulling off his T-shirt, he rested it over the sharp, rusty metal spikes, then helped her over. When he landed on the other side, he pulled down the shirt, now featuring a few jagged holes.

As he shook it out and pulled it back on, Morgan couldn’t help but notice his chiseled abs, each one blessedly defined. She turned away from him, muttering under her breath about how she really needed to be a nun right now. Alex Parkin was a means to an end, nothing more. As long as she kept reminding herself of that fact, she’d be okay.

Noting her scrutiny, he grinned knowingly. Morgan opened her mouth to give him hell, then realized that would be playing right into his hands. Instead, she whirled and took off at a brisk pace.
Why are you doing this? Why can’t you leave me alone?

There was a resigned sigh as Alex caught up with her. A shortcut down another street took them far enough away from the crime scene that her worry dropped a notch or two. They paused in a dark doorway as two cop cars passed by at the end of the street, lights flashing, letting the world know they meant business.

Morgan’s gut roiled at how close it had been, and she closed her eyes to steady herself. Which was a mistake, as the image of TipTop’s astonished expression popped into her head. He was dead because of her.

“You okay?” Alex asked, touching her arm.

The gesture caught her off guard. “This sucks,” she said, not answering his question.

Pushing the Veritas operations number, she was relieved when Sanjay answered on the second ring. As the focus point for all those out on various stateside missions, he was the lifeline when things went wrong. Like now.

“Hello to my favorite lady,” he said, his rich East Indian accent pouring down the line like spicy masala.

“We’ve got trouble. My snitch was just gunned down in front of us, and the cops are coming out of the woodwork.”

Sanjay switched to work mode in an instant. “You still at the scene?”

“No. We took off. God knows what they’d do to Parkin if they found him there.”

Her eyes met Alex’s at this point, and he nodded in agreement.

“I’ll let Crispin know what’s up. Your leaving may complicate matters if anyone saw you.”

Morgan winced. She prided herself on ensuring that her ops went smoothly and with little fuss. Clearly this one wasn’t going to be like the norm.
No big surprise there, not if it has anything to do with that damned Russian.

“I’ll monitor the police frequencies,” Sanjay continued. “If anyone comes up with a description of you two, I’ll let you know so you can take precautions.”

“Thanks. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Someone knew where we were headed, who I was meeting. They had to have time to set up that hit.”

“Was your snitch trustworthy?” Sanjay asked.

Alex must have overheard the question, because one of his eyebrows rose.

Had TipTop been tasked with luring her and Alex to that alley so someone could take them out, and somehow the assassin had missed? Or had her informant been betrayed, and this was nothing more than a way to get Parkin back in jail?

“I thought he was reliable,” she replied.
Until tonight.

“Anything else you need?” Sanjay asked.

“No. We have to . . . regroup,” she replied. “I’ll be in touch.”

The moment after Morgan shoved her phone into her purse, her hands tightened into fists.

“I’m sorry for your friend,” he said.

It was the right thing to say, and tears sprang to her eyes. “He wasn’t a friend. He was just . . . ”

“A one-of-a-kind guy,” Alex finished.

She nodded numbly, struck by how TipTop’s death had been so senseless.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Alex said, moving closer.

“But he’s just as dead.”

“Yes, but we aren’t, and that matters.” He touched her cheek with a calloused finger. “We’ll find out who did this and make them pay.”

Blinking against tears, she frowned at him. “You mean that?”

He nodded. “Yes. There are two situations where I always bring my A game to the table; one is when I’m taking down bad guys.”

“And the other?”

The smile that came her way was pure seduction, which gave her the answer.

Morgan sucked in a breath. The night suddenly felt ten degrees hotter, and something deep inside her responded, a spark, a need that had been in hibernation since her husband died. The kind of primal urge that said having sex with this man would be worth the gamble, if for nothing more than a lifetime of memories.

She shook herself, pushing away the erotic images of what it would be like to be tangled up with Alex, moving together as one. Morgan chilled her voice on purpose, and not just for his benefit. “These bastards have been ahead of us all along. How do they know what we’re doing?”

“I have no idea,” Alex said, stepping back. For a second, she wished he hadn’t.

“It’s like someone is telling the Russian exactly what we’re up to.” Her eyes were on him now.

“It’s not me. You know that could have been my brains on the pavement instead of your snitch’s.”

That thought made her gut clench.

Morgan wiped the tears out of her eyes, upset that she’d broken down in front of him. It wasn’t like her, and it made her feel too vulnerable. She was starting to care too much about this man. She’d made that mistake once before.

Never again.

Chapter Twelve

After they’d secured a New Orleans map from a convenience store, they retreated to an all-night diner. Morgan ordered a burger and fries, as did Alex. It was another indication that this woman had earned her stripes at the FBI. Newbies couldn’t eat after finding a body or watching a CI being gunned down in front of them. Seasoned veterans knew to eat when the chance came along, as there might not be another for a long time.

The piece of paper TipTop had given her was bloodstained now, torn from a larger sheet of paper. It listed three addresses in a barely legible scrawl. After Morgan marked the locations on the map, she phoned in the details so someone at Veritas could run a check on the property records.

“Probably going to be a waste of time. Buryshkin always had his buildings owned by shell corporations,” Alex said. “I doubt if that’s changed.”

“At least it’s a place to start.”

There were faint blue-black circles under Morgan’s eyes, and she was rubbing her temples like she had a headache. It was clear TipTop’s death had hit her hard. Alex had lost a few confidential informants in his day, and he still remembered the names and faces of every one of them.

“We’ll have to check the buildings ourselves,” he said, dragging a French fry through a mound of ketchup.

“You’re not thinking of adding breaking and entering to your criminal résumé, are you?”

“Not unless we have to. We’ll eyeball the places. Maybe that’ll give us an idea of which one TipTop thought was the best candidate.”

Her phone lit up, and she spent a couple minutes talking to someone named Linda. When the call ended, he guessed the results by her sour expression.

“No joy,” Morgan said. “Buryshkin’s good at running under the radar.”

“Part of the reason he’s not doing life in Angola,” Alex remarked. “Maybe we can change that.”

Once they were done eating, Morgan’s quick trip to the restaurant’s restroom resolved one potential problem: TipTop’s blood-splattered list was flushed. One less piece of damning evidence if the cops did pick them up for questioning.

Rather than use her car, they had a cab drop them two blocks away from the first address because Alex wanted to get a “feel” for the neighborhood. As they walked toward their destination on the darkened streets, Morgan seemed to perk up.

“What are we looking for?” she asked. “A big sign that says ‘Drugs here! Come on down’?”

He snorted. “If only. What I’m looking for are guards at a place where you wouldn’t expect them. Maybe security cameras, or too much in-and-out traffic for the location.”

“How can you tell? If it’s a legit business, they’d have customers.”

“At this time of night?” he replied.

“This is New Orleans. You can buy anything at any time of the day, if you know where to go.”

She had a point.

“Let me give you an example. A couple months before I did the perp walk, we raided a flower shop in Baton Rouge. Mom-and-pop kind of place, looked completely legit, but when we studied the foot traffic this place had in an hour, it didn’t match the numbers of a similar shop in the same part of the city. Their state and federal tax returns claimed their sales were roughly identical to the other shop, but with twice the number of customers. Either they were giving the flowers away, or their main business was off the books. Which it was.”

“How much did you seize?”

“Fifty thousand in coke, thirty thousand in pills. The owners are doing hard time.”

“Score one for the good guys.”

Alex shook his head. “Their oldest son moved to Atlanta and set up shop. We warned our people over there, so hopefully they took him down. These bastards are just like roaches. You squash one and the others scatter.”

That seemed to deflate Morgan’s good mood.

“See anything around here that catches your eye?” she asked.

“Yup.” Just to annoy her, he took hold of her left hand. For a second, he thought she was going to pull it away, but she left it in place.

“Just blending in,” he reassured her, though that was only partly true. The longer he was near this woman, the more he wanted to touch her, wanted to know the feel of the skin on her face, her arms, and her full breasts. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and bathe in the intoxicating scent that was pure Morgan. Immerse himself in her and never come up for air.

What the hell?
That was bordering on obsession, something Alex had always avoided. He forced his libido in check, which proved difficult given all the blood eager to flow south of his belt buckle. He dragged himself back to the business at hand. The first building on TipTop’s list was boarded up, clearly abandoned, and had been that way for some time. At this discovery, Morgan’s temper grew shorter.

“Damn. Can’t we catch a break for a change?” she grumbled.

“Relax, will you? We’re just strolling around, enjoying the night air, two lovers taking a breather in between some rounds of seriously hot sex.”

“Parkin . . . ” she growled.

“Why do you shy away from talking about it? Had a bad experience?”

She pulled her hand away from his and put distance between them, ruining the whole strolling-lovers image.

“Come on, Morgan. Talk to me.” Because for some reason, it mattered.

“What do you think about that place next to the abandoned one? It looks dodgy.”

He sighed, knowing that she wasn’t going to open up. And he suspected that was because there was a lot of pain in her past, something that had made her distrust people, males in particular. Ahead of them, a car slowly turned the corner a block down. Under the streetlamps, he noted the row of top lights.

“Damn. It’s the cops,” he murmured. “Play it cool. Work with me here.”

Alex cradled her face in his hands, then moved closer. The kiss was just for show, but the instant his lips touched hers, all his good intentions fell away. He finally had her in his arms, and he wasn’t going to waste this chance. He feared it might be the only one he’d ever get.

Alex began the kiss like a proper Boy Scout—no tongue—but the longer it went, the more he put into it. She tasted of the strawberry milkshake she’d had earlier, and of Morgan. He felt her tension, but then she began to respond, her hands encircling his waist, pulling him tight against her body. He felt her breasts rise and fall with each breath, and his groin reacted with enthusiasm. A low moan came from her.

The car slowed. “Get a room!” one of the cops hollered, followed by laughter.

Alex still didn’t break the kiss. Hell, even a police baton on the back of the head wouldn’t have made him give up the sensuous heaven he’d found with Morgan Blake.

It was only when the police were around the next corner that Alex reluctantly stepped back, giving her space. She was either going to thank him or deck him, and he wasn’t sure which. From her dazed expression and heavy breathing, it appeared she was having trouble deciding.

The kiss had caught her off guard. Initially she’d planned on protesting when he’d pulled her into his arms, but when she saw the cop car, she realized what he was doing. The playing along ended when she put her hand on his toned butt and pulled him against her, felt that solid column of manhood.

After that, his kiss had grown daring, and she found herself wanting more, as if it were an option to wrap her knees around him and let him have her right there on a city street.

Now her head buzzed and her cheeks flamed as embarrassment set in.

What the hell was I thinking?

As if he’d heard her, Alex murmured, “It was good for both of us. Just accept that, okay?”

She shook her head, trying to clear it. “That was your one big kiss, dude. Hope you enjoyed it.”

A bad-boy smile came right back at her. “I sure as hell did. How about you?”

“How about we do our damned jobs?” she snapped.

His smile didn’t fade, but grew wider, even more of a temptation now. He knew what he was doing to her.

No more kissing. That way lies madness.

Or the steamiest sex she’d ever have in her life.

*~*~*

“Third building’s a charm,” Alex said, as they reached the final address on the list.

“You’re an optimist.”

“No, this one is more what I was looking for.”

“Why? It doesn’t seem to have all that foot traffic you were talking about.”

“Yes, but look how it’s laid out,” he said.

Ahead of them was an old concrete-block structure, situated behind a chain-link fence. Two overhead doors graced this side of the structure. They looked rusted shut, but there was also a side door, much newer, with an impressive lock.

As they knelt next to the fence, Alex pointed to the far right. “Doghouse. They probably had a guard dog at one time.”

“But not now, or the thing would have been trying to rip our throats out.”

“True. Which isn’t good news. If there are no guards and no dog, there is no dope.”

He’s probably right
.

“Let’s scout it out anyway,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a map to every one of Buryshkin’s other dope warehouses.”

“You are delusional.”

Alex waggled an eyebrow. “You say that now. Just wait. The old Parkin Luck should kick in any moment now.”

“You mean the kind of luck that sent you to prison?”

Her companion’s smile vanished.

The instant the words came out of her mouth, she knew she’d been a bitch. “God. I’m sorry, Alex. That was just mean. I don’t know why I said it.”

“Because it’s the truth?” he asked, rising.

“No, it’s not. You did time because people set you up.”

“I was set up because I was too gung ho. If I’d been more laid back, taken bribes under the table, I would have been fine. I overachieved myself right into a prison cell.”

She rose as well, looking deep into his eyes. “That wouldn’t be you. You only do one hundred fifty percent or nothing. There’s no half-assing in your world.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read your prison psych report, remember?”

His brow furrowed. “What else did it say?”

“That you’ve got a firm grasp of right versus wrong, you don’t trust easily, and that you have a temper that sometimes gets the better of you.”

“So what’s your verdict?” he asked.

Morgan cocked her head. “Bottom line? If I had to have someone watching my back, it’d be you. Because even if you hated me, you wouldn’t let me die. You’re too much of a white knight.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should, Parkin. It’s probably the only one you’re going to get.”

As if by mutual consent, conversation ceased as they circumnavigated the perimeter of the building. Other than a noisy neighborhood dog a few streets away, there was no one around. They found another new door on the other side of the building, also with an impressive lock.

“I can probably get us inside. All it takes is a credit card.”

“A skill you picked up in the pen?”

Alex frowned at her. “Among other things,” he said, not really wanting Morgan to know what else he’d learned in Angola.

The fact that she’d had access to his psych reports unnerved him. What else had the shrink said about him? Had Morgan just chosen to reveal the sanitized version, or did she know that, for a time, he’d fantasized about what it would be like to kill his ex-partner and his ex-wife? That he had come up with at least a dozen ways to make those deaths as excruciating as his dark fantasies could imagine?

Not the time. Not the place.

Alex studied the fence, which wasn’t electrified and was much less of a health hazard than the last one they’d scaled. Morgan followed right after him, and he resisted the desire to help her climb over. She wasn’t just any woman, and he had a feeling being chivalrous wouldn’t get him too far with her—in fact, it might even do the opposite.

Now, as they moved closer to the side door, he put on his game face, his heart picking up speed. God, he’d missed the adrenaline rush, the feeling that he was doing something that might make things better in this world.

Hell, she’s right. I am a white knight.

Somehow, he didn’t think that was a good thing. Wasn’t it the knight who always got eaten by the dragon?

As he bent to examine the lock, Morgan snapped on a pair of plastic gloves that she’d pulled from her purse, then handed him a pair. He tugged them on. On a whim, he tested the doorknob. The door swung open.

“Oh boy,” he muttered. “Can you spell t-r-a-p?”

Morgan pulled a small Maglite out of her purse and clicked it on, letting its brilliant beam dance around.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a winning lottery ticket in there, would you?” he jested.

“Sorry. It’s in my other purse,” she said.

She stepped inside, then halted. “Oh, God. We got something dead. I sure hope it’s a rat.”

When he stepped inside, her fragrant sandalwood perfume was rapidly overwhelmed by the stench of mold, rot, and decomposition.

“Not likely. Too strong.”

“Of course,” she said. “Because our night hasn’t been special enough.”

“Keep an eye out for tripwires. They might be tied to a silent alarm system.”

“Just what a girl wants to hear.”

He grunted in reply. The flashlight’s beam revealed the faint tremor of her hand now.

“Not rats,” she said, shaking her head.

The bodies were near the back wall: two men, one in a black suit and the other in faded jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

“Here,” Morgan said. The Maglite illuminated something in her hand, a eucalyptus lozenge. It was an old trick to confuse the nose so the stomach wouldn’t feel the need to purge itself at the stench.

“Thanks.” He popped the lozenge into his mouth and let the pungent scent do its job as Morgan did the same.

There were no tripwires present as they made their way across the interior of the building. It was a big open space with a concrete floor and a series of metal pillars down the center. Alex squatted next to the bodies, ignoring the flies clustered on the faces and the sickly-sweet smell of decay.

“I don’t see any blood,” Morgan said, joining him now.

He leaned closer, then touched one of the corpse’s arms.