Tough Justice: Betrayed (Part 7 of 8)
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Tyler Anne Snell
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Harlequin🏙️ Contemporary
HarlequinChapter One
Why?
Lara stared at the spot on the ceiling with a good dose of detachment and yet intense interest.
Why had Cass been going into her father’s house?
The question hadn’t gone away since it had first cropped up. Like a tumor you knew no doctor would be able to cure. She couldn’t shake it, forget it or move past it. She also didn’t want to. The investigative side of her life, honed by her training and career, was being prodded by the stanch need to seek out the truth.
Which brought her back to the same blaring question.
Why?
“You look how I feel.” Lara tilted her gaze from the ceiling down to Xander. Behind him a scowling Ty was talking to Nick. Xander had circles ringing below each eye. She wondered if she was faring any better.
“And how’s that?”
“Frustrated.” His voice dipped low, menacing. “Angry.”
“That happens when you have more questions than answers.”
“And when you’re partnered with Mr. Chatterbox.” He cut his eyes back to Ty and Nick.
“That bad?” Lara asked, lowering her voice to match.
“Let’s just say we weren’t all smiles and cheer,” he deadpanned. “I mean, I feel for the guy, losing a partner...” He paused. A dark look shadowed his face before he seemingly rethought his words. When he spoke again, she could hear the difference in tone. He’d gone a different route than when he’d started talking. “I’ll just be happy when this is all over.” Lara nodded. She definitely agreed with that. “This probably won’t help our general confusion, but, then again, it might give us a good, solid lead to follow for once.” He produced a CD from his jacket pocket and grabbed a chair from Nick’s cubicle. “Do you mind?” He motioned to her computer.
“If it gives us a lead, no I do not.” Lara took the CD just as Nick and Ty made their way over. She loaded it into the computer. “What am I looking for?”
“It’s footage from our video surveillance from yesterday,” Ty explained. “We collected this after we chased and lost him. We looked through every business in the neighborhood searching for video of Mason Moretti the hours prior to us spotting him.”
“That’s a lot of footage, let me tell you,” Xander added. Ty noticeably paused his story with a look of annoyance. The two men working as temporary partners obviously had not enjoyed their time together. Lara imagined Xander had grown used to not having a permanent work companion, as Ty had gotten used to Mei’s company. Lara refrained from following that thought any further. She may not have known her for years like the others, but she felt the loss nonetheless. Mei had been a part of their team. That, in a way, made her family, too.
“As I was saying,” Ty said, rallying, “we finally spotted our very own twin cowboy.”
He moved around Lara and sped up the footage to a strip of sidewalk outside of a bookstore. They watched in silence after he hit Play, waiting until Mason Moretti and a woman walked into the corner of the frame.
“That’s definitely him,” Nick commented.
Mason had ditched the cowboy hat and was smiling at the woman beside him. Her head turned away, but they held hands. He said something that made her laugh before lunging forward and kissing her. What might have been a timid kiss, shying away from PDA on the somewhat busy sidewalk, turned into a scene of two lovers doing everything but taking their clothes off and having sex right there next to the street. Something Lara was sure would make it on to the cameraphones of several New York onlookers.
“That escalated quickly,” Nick said. “I think it’s safe to assume this woman is definitely familiar with Mr. Moretti.”
They watched as the couple continued to move against one another, only parting to breathe twice, before the two cooled down completely. Mason turned and began to walk away, pulling the woman along with him. His momentum spun her around, showing a clear view of her face.
Lara’s blood ran cold.
Katya Auerman.
The men continued to talk, taking guesses at the woman’s identity. Xander even moved Lara aside to pause the frame of the couple and print a copy out. Lara’s eyes stuck to the woman’s face. Sure as she was tired, she knew it was Katya. The former Moretti trafficking victim. The woman who Lara had seen talking to Cass in Battery Park. Cass and Katya had seemed more than familiar that day. Chummy even, embracing each other before parting ways.
Now Katya and Mason were paired up? What the hell was going on?
Her mind hopscotched to the Cape Cod she’d grown up in. Then Lola’s voice.
“No, you passed her—the last photo. That’s her.”
Cass.
“Excuse me for a moment,” Lara said, interrupting whatever conversation the guys had fallen into. She muttered something about the bathroom and quickly moved down the hall. Once she was inside she checked the two stalls to be sure they were empty. Not knowing why exactly, but after everything she’d been through so far—being followed, being watched—she felt better knowing her thoughts were even more secure. She rubbed her hand down her face before sidling up to the sink. Now, completely alone, she let her mind pick apart the main thoughts that had begun to rush in. Small, unsettling memories involving Cass prodded her, begging to be reviewed.
So, averting her gaze from the reflection in the mirror, Lara decided to meet them head-on.
Cass had almost unlimited access as well as technological know-how to easily gain information about each and every one of them. That didn’t preclude their individual pasts. Lara’s father, her mother, Meghan... Not to mention the professional side of her life.
How did Bartholomew’s house figure into it all? What had she been looking for?
“How could you have even kissed him?”
The anger, pure and unfiltered, had been there. Even if for a moment. And, wasn’t that all it took? One moment of raw anger could change the world. Why couldn’t it also make Cass do something out of character? Was she trying to knock Lara off balance as some sort of revenge?
Katya. What was her role in all of this?
Katya had been involved well before yesterday. If she and the FBI agent were indeed working together, then that meant Cass must have found out the full truth about Lara and Moretti.
Cass said she only overheard about the kiss. Was she lying? Lara moved her eyes back up to the mirror. She looked younger than she felt.
But so what if Cass knew about Lara and Moretti? Why would she go to all the trouble to slowly destroy Lara’s peace of mind? Lara’s stomach dropped. Could she have had a hand in Mei’s death?
“No way,” Lara said to the empty bathroom. Cass wouldn’t kill an innocent woman just to make a point. Not Mei. Plus, Cass didn’t stab herself with the knife, didn’t attach that note to her own leg. Forensics had already proven it was done by another. “Maybe I’m wrong.” Maybe Lola was, too. Maybe she hadn’t seen Cass but someone who looked similar. Maybe Lara was jumping to conclusions because there was nowhere else to jump.
Or maybe...
Moretti had used his brother to get to Cass. They used the young woman’s rage and anguish over her sister’s fate and used it to their advantage. Taken her ever-simmering bitterness and used it to manipulate her. Created a well-connected, well-resourced pawn. A puppet to be played with and strung along.
Lara’s reflection showed a hardened woman, an expression of silent anger staring back. It softened for a moment, but the moment didn’t last long at all. She glanced at the reflection of the bathroom door leading back out to their everyday offices.
Despite her motives—her tragic, heart-wrenching past with her sister—Cass was out there. The Bureau was her playground. One she knew how to play with. One that made her privy to everything in their investigation.
Lara let out a shaky exhale. She turned the water on high and splashed her face. It cooled the heat of frustration.
How had the case of a jumper snowballed so phenomenally out of control?
A knock sounded on the door. Lara turned the water off and grabbed a handful of paper towels.
“Yeah?” she called. The door wasn’t locked.
“It’s Nick,” her partner answered.
In that moment Lara made a decision she normally would have shied away from. She dried her face off and exited the bathroom. Nick’s brow was knitted together, concerned.
“Sorry, but you looked a little spooked,” he explained, voice low. “I wanted to make sure you were good.”
Lara nodded but didn’t meet his eyes. She was looking over his shoulder down the hall. They were alone. Lara switched her gaze towards Cass’s office.
But were they really?
“Are you okay?” he prodded.
Lara snapped back to attention. “Me? Oh, yeah, just hungry,” she hedged. “Hey, want to go grab something to eat?”
“Um, sure.” His brow rose. Nick was too good. He knew she wasn’t telling him something. “Let me grab my jacket and see if Ty and Xander want to come with. They don’t seem to be getting along too well.” Nick turned and began to walk back to the cubicles, but Lara grabbed his arm, stopping him. He looked down at her hand and its too-tight grip. She met his questioning stare as he inclined his head back up.
“I was thinking it could be just a me-and-you thing,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe grab something and go back to your place?”
If he hadn’t already looked as if he was questioning her actions, she was sure this request would have been a glaring red flag for him. Though her voice hadn’t suggested anything beyond eating, she thought she saw the notion of them repeating their earlier romp cross his expression. But, as he waited to respond, she watched as his eyes took her in. She prided herself on the walls she’d built to protect her innermost thoughts and the drama that came with them, but at that moment Lara believed Nick saw exactly what she needed him to see.
Lara needed to trust someone.
And she was choosing him to be that person.
