“So he wants her.”
“He wants the power and the control,” Murphy said. “You make damn sure he knows that she’s yours and hands off. Be good to you, and he’ll get rewarded through you.”
“Great information,” Luke said, “but nothing I’m going to put to use tonight.”
“Two more dead teens last night in Jersey,” he said. “We have to shut them down.” He hesitated. “That missing agent we told you about.”
“Yes?”
“She had two sisters, a brother, and a fiancé. Her name is Lauren Michael. She likes cheese pizza and can eat more than any of us guys, but she’s a tiny little thing. She reads romance novels, but is still tougher than sin, and handles a gun better than most men. Oh, and her father was killed by a drugged-up dude on the street for the twenty bucks he had in his pocket. Bring her home, Luke.” The line went dead.
Luke held the phone to his forehead. Damn it. Damn it to hell. Think man. Think your way out of this. He cut a sideways look at Julie, an ache in his heart just looking at her. She trusted him to keep her safe and he couldn’t fail.
“Mister?”
Luke looked up to find a kid not more the twelve standing beside him. The kid shoved an envelope at him. Luke accepted it. “Who’s it from.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know him but he gave me a hundred bucks.” He took off for the door.
Luke ripped open the card.
If you want to work with me, you need to know the price of crossing me. I can get to you, or your playmate, or your brothers, or anyone I damn well please, any time, any place. Be at the Staten Island Ferry waiting for pick-up at eight sharp and bring Ms. Harrison.
Luke inhaled deeply, the sound of Julie’s voice as she and her client stood up and shook hands catching his attention. He slid the note into his briefcase and shut his computer.
She walked over to him and sat down, hanging her briefcase on the chair. “Did you hear the news? About the two dead teenagers?”
With grim acceptance of where this was leading, he gave a nod. “I heard.”
“I have to go with you,” she said. “I have to.”
Luke knew he’d been backed into a corner, that he had a choice to make and make quickly. He could kidnap her and hide her away someplace safe. She’d hate him, but she wouldn’t be dead. Or he could do something that might also make her hate him, but would keep her alive, as well.
“I got a call today,” he said. “I’m to be at the Staten Island Ferry at eight tonight, alone. Seems Arel didn’t agree with the judge’s guest list.”
She studied him long and hard, seeing way too much. “You’re trying to protect me, aren’t you?”
Her cell phone rang in her hand and she sighed. “It’s Gina. It might be about my meeting that I pray is cancelled.” She answered the call and listened a moment.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll swing by there. I’m close anyway. Tell the partners I might be a few minutes late to the meeting.” She hung up. “Gina’s purse was stolen. She has a key to my apartment from cat-sitting and thought I should have my locks changed. I’m only two blocks from here. I want to swing by and check on things and tell the doorman.”
***
Luke’s bad feeling got worse when they arrived at Julie’s building to find the power was off, and the doorman had his hands full calming tenants and trying to get answers.
He and Julie walked the stairs and when they got to her floor, he took her key and unlocked the door. He held her back and shoved the door open. Everything she owned had been destroyed. The walls were spray-painted, her couches shredded.
“Oh God,” Julie gasped, holding onto the wall. “Who would do this?”
“Call the police,” Luke said, pulling his gun from his pants and heading inside. “I’ll look around.”
Luke found her bedroom in the same shape as the rest of the place but what really struck him as odd was her clothes had been all cut up.
He headed back to the hallway to find Julie just hanging up with the police. “They’re on their way.”
“Everything you own is shredded,” he said. “Even your clothes.”
She took a deep breath and leaned on the wall. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I’d say what happened in there was out of hatred, and that Gina is a good suspect, but that seems too obvious.”
“What are you saying?”
“Someone might want that journal,” he said. “And if they know Gina hates you, then she’s a perfect cover.”
“I didn’t even know she hated me,” she argued.
“Which means it has to be someone intimate with Gina. And someone smart enough to cut the power so the cameras wouldn’t be working.”
“The judge, maybe?” Julie asked.
“Maybe.”
“But haven’t you been watching him?”
“We have him under surveillance,” he said. “But we could have missed something before we were fully operational. Calls could be made from disposable phones or lines we don’t have access to. There are three people we know of that would want the journal. The judge, this Dragonfly person, and Arel, if he knows it exists.”
“You think he does?”
“You never underestimate a man like Arel.” Which was why Luke wasn’t taking Julie with him to the party.
“There’s no way out of this, is there?” she asked. “We’re in too deep with too many bad people.”
“Hey now,” he said, wrapping her in his arms. “That’s not true. They want the journal, not you.”
“They tried to kill us by the pizza place, Luke. They think I – we – know what’s in it, and we do.”
“We’ll take down the judge and we’ll get Dragonfly,” he promised.
“You don’t even know who Dragonfly is.”
“No,” he said. “But Arel does and I’ll hand him the journal if that’s what it takes to make sure Dragonfly doesn’t come at us in our sleep.”
“And Arel? He runs a cartel, Luke.”
Luke replayed the note in his head. It had clearly come directly from Arel, not the judge. I can get to you, or your playmate, or your brothers, or anyone I damn well please, any time, any place.
***
Late Friday, Julie sat at Luke’s kitchen table, working on some files while he was downstairs in his office planning out the night’s visit to the cartel’s party. She’d skipped her meeting, or rather missed it, as the police asked a million questions to which Luke had her give generic replies. Any mention of a journal, the judge, or the cartel had been avoided. She was rattled but the scary disaster that was her apartment paled in comparison to her worries over the danger Luke would be in tonight. Her staying behind didn’t make her feel better. In fact, it made her feel like everything was spinning out of control.
She settled her elbows on the table and pressed her fingers to her temples. There was a reality here she had to face. Yes, Luke could deal with the judge and Dragonfly by simply handing them to Arel. But they were in deep with a cartel, and getting out, and taking down Arel, meant Luke had to do something an entire task force had been trying to do and failed.
She Googled cartels, and started reading stories about undercover agents, about the murders and the ruined lives, and was halfway through one that gave her some hope, when her computer died. She jiggled her cord and still nothing, and that was when she realized it had an exposed wire.
Pushing to her feet, she knew she needed a new cord, but for now, she’d borrow Luke’s. She was pretty sure she’d seen his computer case in the hallway. Julie headed that way and found it on the entry table. She unzipped it and found the cord, and pulled out a note card with it. It fluttered to the ground and she squatted down to grab it, and then went utterly still as she read the text.