Deadly Pursuit (SCVC Taskforce) (11 page)

He jumped back, hands going up in the air. “What the hell?”

Cooper pushed Linda in front of him toward the apartment. His gun replaced the shovel in his hand as he moved next to Celina. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Emilio.” But the man in front of her was taller than Cooper. Even in the coveralls, she could tell he was heavier too. She leaned in and looked at his eyes.

His eyes weren’t Emilio’s. Celina slid her gun off to the side. “Sorry,” she said, waving him on.

He took off at a jog, looking back over his shoulder at her as he ran away.

There was not even a hint of sunlight to reflect on metal today. No sign of anyone in the windows across the street. Celina turned in circles. “He’s here, watching you.”

Cooper followed her motions, tracked what she tracked. “Emilio’s in prison.”

She didn’t take her eyes off her surroundings. “No. He’s here. He just called me.” She chanced a glance at Cooper. “He knew you were out shoveling snow.”

Cooper’s eyes narrowed for a heartbeat, and then his hand was on her elbow, propelling her toward the apartment building’s entrance. “Get inside,” he demanded. “Now.”

Chapter Nine

Celina was shaking so hard that, even after he’d bundled her in layer upon layer of her clothes, Cooper wished they were alone so he could peel those clothes back off, throw her naked into the shower and warm her up.

But they weren’t alone. Far from it.

And he was never,
ever
, going to see her naked again.

“So you spent the night here with Special Agent Davenport?” Chief Forester looked up from the notebook he was writing things down in. “That right, Agent Harris?”

Who would know?
Celina’s words echoed again in Cooper’s head and he thought of his father’s favorite saying that no good deed went unpunished. He was sure every agent in the land knew at this moment that he’d slept with The New Face of the FBI. Who would know? Huh.

Mitch, one of Cooper’s men on the Jagger bust, shot him a
way to go, boss
grin. Thomas looked up from his laptop and gave him the geek-squad version of the same.

Dominic Quarters stared Cooper down.

No biggie, there.

The world of federal law enforcement was territorial, but close-knit all the same. A threat to one of their members tightened the threads. Five minutes after Cooper called in the report to the locals, Dyer, pulling his usual all-nighter in his San Diego condo by the beach, had called Cooper’s cell phone. He’d beaten Cooper’s unit chief and Director Dupé in getting the scoop. Thomas, Mitch, and the third man of Cooper’s squad, Nelson Sanchez, had showed up ten minutes later. The news was spreading like a fire out of control even though no one could believe it.

Emilio Paloma-Londano had escaped prison.

And he was coming after the agent who put him there.

He was going to have to go through Cooper first. If, that was, Cooper could survive the grilling Forester was handing out.

“He’s already answered that question,” Celina said through gritted teeth. Cooper couldn’t tell if she was gritting them out of impatience with Forester or to stop them from chattering. “Move off the dime. That has nothing to do with Londano.”

Every light in the apartment was on, even though the sun was pouring through the picture window facing the street. The apartment was one large room and Cooper now took a moment to really look at it. A smattering of furniture, the big bed in one corner with the covers still messed up, sitting like the pink elephant in the room.

What they’d done in that bed, Jesus. Even in the midst of the fan-hitting shit flying around the room, he could barely look at that bed without getting a woody.

A desk with a computer and the usual peripheries sat nearby. The bathroom was off to the left. Another table was scattered with cameras and piles of photos. More photos on the floor. Celina’s hobby was paying off.

Back to him, she stood at the picture window looking out over the street. Feet planted, arms crossed over her chest made larger from the extra layers of clothes. Her backside very plainly sported her gun today. Not the agency-issued Glock, but a sleek Beretta.

Her partner, the other female agent in Forester’s group, Ronni, was standing next to her. At the breakfast bar sat Forester, much too happy to turn the screw he had Cooper pinned with between swigs of his coffee. “Davenport, Punto, get away from the goddamned window. I’m not going to waste manpower if you’re going to make yourselves sitting targets.”

Celina’s voice came out clear, no hint of fear, just continued irritation. “He’s not going to shoot me, Chief. He likes things more personal.”

Cooper exchanged a look with Thomas. Forester shook his head, threw up his hands, and swiveled on the barstool. Out in the hall, Nelson was accompanying several uniforms who were knocking on doors and asking if anyone had seen anything. Cooper knew it was a lost cause. He and Linda had been right outside the apartment’s front entrance digging her van out of the snow, and had seen nothing. The owner of the cigarette came through a back door, but still no one had seen anything. The rest of the building’s tenants had been sleeping or, if awake, watching the early morning news reports to find out about the weather conditions. The security camera over the back door had been ripped off its holder.

Forester set his coffee on the bar. Quarters continued to shoot bullets from his eyes. “You know what I hate about the DEA, Harris?”

Cooper knew what was coming, but forced a polite response. “No, sir.”

Celina and Ronni turned from the window in unison. The frown between Celina’s eyebrows grew deeper, but Cooper sent her a small shake of his head, signaling her to stay quiet.

“You believe your own hype.” Quarters slapped one hand on the bar, challenge radiating from him. “You guys run around acting like
Miami Vice
and all the time it’s guys like mine, FBI operatives, who keep this nation safe.”

Cooper met the man’s challenge with his own. “Yeah, Robert Hanssen. There’s a role model.”

Celina uncrossed her arms. “Stop it,” she said, hands going to her hips.

Quarters ignored her, started to ream Cooper again, but before he could say anything, Ronni walked into the kitchen area and grabbed a pot of coffee off the Krups coffee maker. “Let’s heat that coffee up, Chief Forester.” Her cheerful tone was a little too forced. She winked at Cooper as she topped off his cup too. “It’s Cuban, from Celina’s grandmother. Great stuff. Blows your head right off.”

Cooper was ten hours short on sleep and a quart low on caffeine, and was about to go another round with Forester and Quarters. “Thanks, Ronni.”

“I do the Dew,” Thomas said from the other end of the bar. “Got any of that?”

Ronni pointed at the refrigerator. “Check the fridge, sweetie. Might get lucky in there. Celina’s a Dew fan herself.” Thomas gave Cooper a sideways look, but Cooper ignored him. He had enough on his hands right now without trying to figure out Ronni Punto.

Forester decided to give up on Cooper and faced Celina. “You sure it was him?”

She nodded and Forester made her recite her conversation with Londano again. Thomas sidled up next to Cooper with his soda and listened carefully.

Cooper could see Thomas and Forester thought it was a slim to nothing chance that Emilio had been outside the apartment door smoking a cigarette. “But you didn’t see him or anyone else?” Quarters drilled Celina again.

No longer shaking, but still gritting her teeth, Celina glared at him. “No. I didn’t see him. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.”

Thomas screwed off the lid of the Dew and put into words what Cooper had been thinking from the start. “Londano probably just paid someone to freak you.”

Celina’s body stiffened. “It was him.”

Forester eyed Cooper. “Security cameras?”

“The one we need was disabled.”

“Linda barely makes enough on rent to keep this apartment building in decent shape,” Celina said. “Jacob’s medical bills are bankrupting her. She can’t afford to fix everything.”

Cooper’s cell phone rang. It was Victor Dupé, a Bureau man who’d headed up the Southern California Violent Crimes division. A man Cooper had worked with for years. A man he respected. “Emilio is at breakfast with the rest of the inmates in Block B.” As always, Dupé’s tone was steady, no-nonsense. “The warden checked on him and confirmed it. Londano’s last logged phone call was six days ago when he called his lawyer.”

“Thanks, sir,” Cooper said. He moved the phone from his mouth and repeated the information to Celina.

She shook her head in disbelief. “He called me. He was here.”

Dupé spoke, calling Cooper’s attention back to him. “When is your return flight?”

“Flights are delayed because of the snow and ice.” He snapped his fingers at Mitch who was pretending to read news off the internet. “What are they saying about departing flights?”

“Two-hour delay,” Mitch said without moving a muscle, “so figure at least four.”

Resuming his conversation with Dupé, Cooper paced, all the while conscious of Celina’s accusatory eyes following him. He wasn’t sure what she was accusing him of. Did she really believe their world would stop? That he wouldn’t go back to California today?

As Cooper disconnected the call, Forester waved a beefy hand through the air to dismiss Celina as he headed for the door. “No way was it this Londano, but since I don’t know who it was or why the hell he’d harass you, I’ll leave a man here for the day, in case your caller tries anything else.” He stopped in the doorway and gestured at Ronni. “Keep her too.”

“I’m not sitting in this apartment all day,” Celina said, her tone of voice signaling her battle stance was ready.

“Then I’ll escort you to headquarters,” Quarters said, staring her down. “Your choice.”

“We’ll stay here.” Ronni smiled at the two men. “I’ll check in with you throughout the day.”

Forester grunted, turned, and gave Cooper another glare. “Delay or no delay, don’t miss your plane ride home, Harris.”

Up yours
, Cooper thought, but he raised the cup of strong brew in his hand as if in acknowledgment. Quarters gave him one more glare before he, too, walked out.

When the door closed, Celina’s eyes searched his in appeal. “Emilio
was
outside that door, Cooper. He knew I was pacing the floor and checking the locks.”

A natural assumption, Cooper thought, for anyone harassing her. Thomas had commandeered his laptop from Mitch. Cooper leaned over his shoulder. “Anything buzzing in the underground?”

Thomas clicked off the news site he was scanning. “I checked message boards and chat rooms. Nada on Emilio or any prison breaks.”

Celina lowered her voice. “He was here. I could
feel
him.”

Cooper had seen the way she looked when she came outside screaming his name. He believed that
she
believed Emilio had threatened both his life and hers, but her feelings didn’t mesh with logic. “Then who’s sitting in North Platte having breakfast right now with Londano’s prisoner number on his back?”

They stared at each other for a moment, and Cooper saw something change in Celina’s expression that made the hairs on the back of his neck tighten. She crossed her arms and rubbed them with her hands as if she were cold again. The name came out of her lips like a curse, “Enrique.”

The tick of the clock on the wall seemed too loud for a second as everyone, including Thomas and Mitch, looked at him. He rubbed the skin on the back of his neck and said the only thing he could think of. “Shit.”

“But he’s dead,” Thomas said.

But what if he’s not?

Enrique is dead
, Celina told herself and then realized she’d spoken it out loud. Either that or Cooper was able to read her mind. He nodded. “They ID’d his body after the fire,” he said, setting down his cup of coffee.

Mitch was forming a circle with her and Cooper and Ronni. “You confirm the ID, Coop? Mexican officials are easily bribed.”

Cooper shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck again. “Shit,” he repeated. “I couldn’t do a visual ID. There was nothing left of him but some bones and ash.”

He paced away from Celina, came back, and started to say something, but stopped, paced back to the picture window. The wheels were turning in his head and Celina was glad to see the disbelief gone from his eyes. He knew, just like her, that while improbable, it was not impossible. The Londano’s had pulled off tougher schemes.

Celina wished she and Cooper were still in bed, enjoying another round of lovemaking. Or maybe in the shower together. They hadn’t even had a chance to talk about last night, much less repeat it.

Instead, she was handing him a nightmare on the Cooper scale of epic proportions. His reputation of honorable actions was now tainted, at least in his own mind, since he’d insisted on calling in Forester and alerting the rest of the FBI world, as well as his own agency, that Emilio had escaped prison and threatened them both. Then he’d had to explain why he was shoveling Celina’s landlord out of the snow at 5:30 in the morning. He hadn’t lied, hadn’t even skirted the truth with Forester and Quarters. His internal turmoil had to be the size of the Battle of Troy to admit he’d slept with her.