Tough Justice Series Box Set: Parts 1-8

This would definitely be the last trip she made to the small town of Maywood, she promised herself as she swiped yet another unwanted tear away.

* * *

At seven o’clock on Monday morning everyone was gathered around the conference table. Lara felt ragged and weary. She hadn’t gotten home from upstate until after ten, and then she hadn’t been able to sleep.

Residual emotions had raged through her until she’d finally resorted to sitting at her computer. The final autopsy report on Lara Bowman had been emailed to all of the team members by Victoria, and Lara had taken several hours reading the findings and looking at the diagrams, but finding nothing new to what they already knew from the preliminary report.

She’d spent time staring at her darkened ceiling and trying to figure out what had happened to any phone Dunst might have had. The person in the SUV had to have contacted Dunst, in order for him to come out of his room and down to the street. Unless smoke signals had been used, there had to be a burner phone somewhere, but where?

It had been in the early morning hours when she’d finally fallen asleep. Even after two cups of coffee she was cranky and frustrated at the lack of progress in moving forward. What she’d thought had been a hot case had now turned far too lukewarm.

“We spent yesterday afternoon talking to the men Lara told us about, the mid-level operatives in the Moretti organization,” Mei said. “They were surly jerks, but none of them appeared to know anything about Moretti being active again.”

“Of course, we have to keep in mind that we were interviewing convicted felons,” Ty added. “We have no idea if they were being honest with us or not.”

“Did you offer them anything in an attempt to turn them?” Xander asked. “Otherwise what reason would they have to tell the truth?”

“I got the feeling that we could have offered them a luxury hotel room complete with free room service for the rest of their lives, and they still weren’t going to talk.” Mei frowned. “I definitely think they’re all still terrified of Moretti and what might happen to them if they cross him in any way.”

“A shiv in the back by somebody Moretti still has under control or a hanging from a bedsheet in their cell orchestrated by a corrupt prison guard would do the trick,” Lara said. “The men who worked for Moretti both revered and were terrified of him. They believed his power was omnipotent. I’m really not surprised that none of them will talk.”

“But you got him,” Nick said, his gaze surprisingly warm as he looked at her. “Everyone thought Moretti was omnipotent, but you brought him down.”

“It was a team effort. We got him behind bars, but that doesn’t mean we stopped him from operating in some form or another,” she replied.

“Maybe you should go and talk to the man himself,” Xander said to Lara. “You worked with him for a year.”

“I worked with a lot of people, but I didn’t really know Moretti. Nobody knew him. He was the mystery man behind the scenes. Besides, if his goal is to get me to the prison to see him, I still think we should make him wait.”

Lara didn’t feel ready to face the monster in the cage. She knew how manipulative he could be, and he had every reason in the world to despise her above all others.

“We haven’t even confirmed for sure that this is Moretti’s work.” Cass spoke up. “It could still be a copycat thing, a local drug gang trying to pin their crimes on Moretti to keep us from investigating them. I’ve been checking into that angle, but I don’t have all the information yet. Figuring out who the power players are in this town when it comes to gang members and their activities isn’t a small task.”

“But what would Lara Bowman have to do with a gang? There’s nothing in her background to tie her to that particular lifestyle,” Ty said.

“We just don’t have enough facts,” Nick said, his deep voiced laced with frustration.

“A call came in overnight on the TIPS line about Lara Bowman’s murder,” Victoria said.

Lara sat up straighter in her chair, a welcomed shot of adrenaline rushing through her. “What kind of a tip?” Action. God, she needed some action that could move things forward and keep her out of her own head.

“A man named Sam Wilmington was near the reservoir when Lara Bowman was murdered. He said he may or may not have some information that might be helpful. NYPD is going to check it out and let us know if anything relevant comes out of the interview,” Victoria explained.

Lara leaned forward, every sense she had as a trained FBI agent on alert. “I need to take this,” she said. If it was possible that this might be a break in the case, then she wanted it firsthand.

“We...we need to take this,” Nick said with a hint of irritation in his voice.

Lara flushed warmly at the not-so-subtle reminder that she had a partner. “Nick and I should be the ones doing the follow-up. I want this, Victoria.” Lara held her boss’s gaze intently.

Victoria hesitated a moment and then nodded. “All right, I’ll let NYPD know that we’re doing the interview.” Victoria tore off a sheet of paper from a notepad and handed it to Lara. “Here’s the address.”

“We’re on it,” Lara said, already leaving her chair as Nick did the same.

“The rest of you keep digging into the backgrounds of the victims. Check out the local gang members and see if you can find a link between them and the three murders,” Victoria said.

Lara didn’t hear what she said after that for she had already left the conference room with Nick at her heels. They both pulled on their coats before leaving the building.

Overnight a blustery front had moved back in from the north, making for an overcast, windy and cold day. “Where are we headed?” Nick asked once they were in his car.

“Lower Harlem,” she replied. “He lives off 120th Street.”

Nick nodded. “I wonder why it took him so long to call in?”

“It’s only been about forty-eight hours since her body was found. But, we’ll find out why he didn’t call in immediately when we talk to him. We need something, Nick. I feel like I’m still up on that ledge with Dunst, only I’m the one thinking about jumping because I’m so damned frustrated,” she said.

Nick cast her a quick glance and then focused back on the road. “There will be no ledge jumping as long as I’m your partner.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal, but I’m definitely feeling a bit homicidal. As despicable as Dunst was as a human being, I want his killer caught. Even more importantly, I want the person who stabbed Lara Bowman to death in my gun sights, but not before I get some answers from him.”

“You know, we haven’t really considered that it might be a woman who stabbed Lara. It’s always been thought that women are more apt to stab than men.”

“It was a male perp,” Lara replied confidently. “We know from the autopsy report the knife nicked a rib to get to her heart. That takes a lot of strength.”

“Or a shitload of rage.”

“If Moretti was behind the murder and it was ordered strictly because her name was the same as mine, then there would have been no rage involved. It would have been a cold, emotionless kill for a price,” she replied. And that’s what made it all the more evil.

They fell silent until they were in Sam Wilmington’s neighborhood. Over recent years lower Harlem had become increasingly gentrified. Sam Wilmington’s apartment building was twelve stories high, and according to his address he resided in a loft on the top floor.

He greeted them at the door and introductions were made. He was a middle-aged man going bald, with eyes that appeared both troubled and exhausted.

He was an artist, specializing in metal designs, and most of the floor space was dedicated to his work. “I have living space on the other side of the loft,” he explained.

As they followed him across the room it was like walking through a junkyard with welding tools and metal sculptures of abstract items Lara couldn’t begin to recognize.

Was Sam successful as an artist? At one time the rent for one of these loft spaces had been cheap, but those days were long gone. She made a mental note to ask Cass to run a full background on the man, especially a financial workup.

God, she was definitely grasping at straws if she really believed that Moretti or some rival gang would hire a middle-aged starving artist to stamp and kill anyone. Besides, if he hadn’t called the TIPS line, nobody would have even known that he was in the park on the morning of Lara Bowman’s murder.

The living area he’d spoken of was small and sparse, consisting of a kitchenette with a table for two, a love seat and a television. There was a doorway that she assumed led to a bathroom.

He motioned them toward the love seat and then pulled up one of the table chairs to sit in front of them. He raked a hand through what was left of his sandy brown hair and released a deep sigh. “I don’t know if what I have to tell you will be of any help to you at all.”

“Why don’t you tell us what you know, and we’ll be the judge of whether it’s helpful,” Lara said.

“That morning when Lara Bowman was murdered, I was there. I mean, I didn’t see her murder, and I wasn’t on the trail, but I was close to the reservoir, and I apparently saw her just before she was killed.”

“What were you doing there?” Lara asked.