Kara Lennox - In This Together

“Thank you, Celeste. If any more calls come through from him, put them—”

“Directly through to the conference room. Yes, sir.”

God, he loved Celeste. He suspected he was the only person in the world she addressed as “sir.”

From the lobby, he went directly to the main conference room. He could hear the buzz of conversation behind the door before he opened it; his team was on the case.

Conversation stopped as he entered.

“Daniel.” The speaker was Ford Hyatt, his most experienced investigator. “Any new developments?”

“Not on my end. Bring me up to speed.” He pulled out a chair at the head of the long mahogany table. Usually he ran Project Justice meetings from home, via video conferencing. But for this matter, it was important to be there in person—if only to make sure his people knew this was no ordinary operation.

“We have copies of the security video from the front gate,” said Mitch Delacroix, who was in charge of anything involving computers, video or audio.

“You caught the abduction on video?”

“Unfortunately no. Elena walked down the driveway and went outside the gate to talk to him.”

Why had she done that? Elena was quite proficient at discouraging nuisance visitors. Then, she had seemed unusually troubled by the man’s plight—not her usual ruthlessly efficient manner.

“What about his vehicle?”

“Also not caught on video.”

Daniel made a mental note to add some extra surveillance cameras outside the gate to include more of the street in front of his house.

“We do have a vehicle description,” Hyatt said. “Riggs owns a black 2001 Ford F-150 pickup.”

“What else do we know about him?”

“Travis Brandon Riggs. Thirty-three years old. He and his brother, Eric, were raised by a single mother, now deceased. Father unknown. He did a short stint in foster care when he was ten. Dropped out of high school when he was sixteen. Since then he’s worked in construction on and off. Three years in the army. Honorable discharge. Married to a Judith Evans, divorced a year later. Did a stint at the Harris County Jail for assault. Haven’t found out the particulars yet, but I’m working on it.”

So, he did have violent tendencies. That was bad news.

“No trouble since he got out—that was almost ten years ago. Currently he owns a small construction company doing home repairs, remodeling and renovation.”

“Home address?”

“It’s a one-bedroom apartment in Westridge, nothing special.” Mitch brought up a picture of a blocky, 1970s-era building on the video screen. It was small but tidy—neatly trimmed lawn, freshly painted, freshly raked. “We’ve already got it under surveillance,” Mitch continued. “He hasn’t been there.”

And he probably wouldn’t be dumb enough to show his face there, either. He’d made no attempt to hide his identity, and he had to know there was a good chance the authorities or Project Justice people would come looking for him.

“Mitch. What’s the word from Reynolds?” David Reynolds was Daniel’s contact at Riggs’s cell phone provider. For a hefty fee, he would check the GPS data and report back.

Daniel had already sent another investigator to check out the first location, the place from which Riggs had made his first call, but it hadn’t looked promising and had probably been only a temporary stopping point. Daniel was counting on Elena’s call yielding more fruitful information.

“Reynolds is still working on it.”

“Griffin,” Daniel said, addressing another of his best, a former investigative reporter who had become one of his most skilled operatives, especially when it came to working undercover. “As soon as you have a location nailed down, I want you and Jillian to go there. Take the fake utility truck—uniforms should be inside it. Once you confirm it’s the right place, we’ll figure out our next move.

“Raleigh,” he asked another senior investigator, who was also his top-dog lawyer, “are you ready to brief me on the Eric Riggs case? You know what I’m looking for—a piece of jewelry missing from the victim, a detail never released to the public.” He needed something to appease Travis Riggs, to lull him into believing Daniel was knuckling under the pressure.

“It was a necklace,” Raleigh said. “A gold locket.”

Obviously Travis hadn’t done his homework, or he’d know that Daniel did not knuckle under to anyone. He would do whatever it took to keep Elena safe, of course. But she said she didn’t think she was in any danger. Daniel was banking on that being true. He just had to keep stringing Travis along until he made a mistake. And he would. When he did, his ass was Daniel’s.

Mitch murmured something into his headset and then turned to Daniel. “We have the location nailed down to three houses in a subdivision in Timbergrove.”

“Let’s roll.”

* * *

FORD HYATT, DRESSED in full SWAT-like gear, showed Daniel a satellite map on his phone. “It’s these three houses, at the end of the cul-de-sac.”

Daniel spoke into a radio. “Anyone have eyes on those houses?” Jillian and Griffin were already inside the complex in their fake utility truck.

“Affirmative,” came Jillian’s response. “We can rule two of them out. I’ve seen people going in and out, no kidnapper types. The third one appears unoccupied.”

“That’s our target, then. Hyatt, Kinkaid and I are right behind you.”

Daniel and his two operatives were in a taxi with tinted windows. Daniel, behind the wheel, was dressed as your average cabdriver. Hyatt and Kinkaid were in back. Taxis seemed to have no trouble getting in and out of gated communities. Mitch simply faked a call from a resident to the guardhouse requesting a cab. Five minutes later, Daniel and his party were inside. The guard barely looked at them as they passed through. They would be on camera, if a question ever came up, but with shades and a hat, Daniel wasn’t recognizable, and the taxi’s license plates wouldn’t trace back to anything.

Moments later, he pulled up behind the utility truck and spoke into the radio again. “Griffin and Jillian, make entry at the rear.” He didn’t bother using code names; their communications were encrypted. “Hyatt and Kinkaid will come through the front. On my signal.”

He watched as the utility truck slid into the driveway of the house in question, which did not appear lived in. That was good news. Less chance that they were breaking into the home of an innocent family.

Daniel gave Griffin and Jillian a few seconds to get situated and then signaled Hyatt and Kinkaid. They exited the taxi and ran noiselessly to the home’s front porch. Daniel hoped to hell the neighbors didn’t see; this was the sort of highly illegal maneuver that he and his people could get arrested for. He’d considered letting the police make the extraction, but no cops could mobilize as fast as Project Justice could. And this was Elena they were talking about.

Daniel remained in the taxi. He didn’t have the same training as the others, and if he tried to play macho cop he could put himself and others in danger. But as soon as they had the kidnapper subdued, he would be there.

“On my signal,” he said. “One, two, three, go.”

Without hesitation, Hyatt broke the glass in the front door, reached in and opened the door, yelling out a warning to anyone who might be inside to get on the floor. They looked like cops and sounded like cops, but they never identified themselves as such. Posing as a cop brought additional criminal charges.

Daniel counted off the seconds as he listened to the shouting and banging door on the open channel of his radio. No sounds of gunfire, thank God. More good news.

“Clear... Clear... Clear...” That single word came through over and over again. Twenty seconds in, Daniel heard, “All clear.” That meant he could go in. But he had a bad feeling as he sprinted across the front lawn and into the house.