Chapter 8
I kept my voice low. “Focus on the file from the op where he ‘died,’ and on Lena Shaw’s recent money trail.”
Three days later, Old Man Carter sent the packet.
On the narcotics job where Mark Doyle supposedly fell, three kilos of “party powder” went missing. The stash was recovered later, the scene left only a blood-smeared badge number, and the case was ruled killed in the line of duty-but they never found a body.
And Lena had been getting a monthly anonymous deposit routed through an underground remittance outfit near the border.
I stared at the pages and knew what to do. If I wanted Mark out in the open, Lena was the best bait.
I texted Lena from a throwaway number, matching a teammate’s frantic tone on purpose:
Unknown number: [The Cap’s awake. He wants to see you at the abandoned warehouse by the city limits.
He’s worried you’ll get dragged into this again, so come alone.]
I banked on her feelings for Reid-and on her fear of a scene. He’d just made it out of danger; if she stirred
the pot now, people would start questioning her last “mistake.”
Sure enough, thirty minutes later, a rideshare dropped Lena at the warehouse.
All in black, she scanned the lot, then eased the door open.
Only one dim bulb burned inside. I crouched behind a rack and listened to her call out, tight with nerves.
Cap? Where are you?”
I stayed quiet and thumbed play on a recorder I’d planted, my voice dropped into a kidnapper’s growl:
“Lena Shaw. If you want Captain Foster alive, bring five hundred grand. No cops, or you both die.”
I slid the recorder into a cardboard box, cut across the far side of the warehouse, and used a backup phone to ping the CI I’d lined up:
Avery:[Push it like we planned-Lena’s been grabbed, and the kidnapper wants the Cap to come alone as the exchange.]
The informant was one of ours embedded on the black market. Within minutes, the rumor- -“Captain’s wife kidnaps fallen officer’s widow to force the Cap to show”-was ricocheting through the squad’s grapevine and reached Mark Doyle. If he was alive and in touch, he wouldn’t sit on his hands.
Twenty minutes later, the metal door was kicked open hard and slammed inward.
A hooded man barreled in with a knife-Mark. He swept the shadows and hissed, “Lena! Where are you? I’m
Chapter 8
ԲՈ ՈՈ
here!”
Lena whipped around, stunned. “Mark? Why are you- I thought you said-”
He clamped her wrist. “Not now. Move. This place is hot.”
That’s when my detectives surged from both sides, batons up.
“Police! Don’t move!”
Mark was fast. He yanked Lena against his chest, blade at her throat, eyes gone mean.
“Back off! Take one more step and I’ll cut her!”
Lena trembled at the cold kiss of steel. She looked from Mark to us-and then the truth clicked in.
“This was you? Avery Lane! You’re the one who lured him out!”
I stepped out from behind the rack and walked toward her, one measured pace at a time, my stare glacial.
Chanter o
