In Too Deep (Strike Force: An Iniquus Romantic Suspense Mystery Thriller Book 1) Read online

  Steve held his breath as a montage of video clips, sent in by excited bystanders, played behind the news anchor’s head. All of them included a dark-haired woman in a black skirt and pewter blouse.

  “God, Lacey, what have I done?” Steve whispered. He pressed his hands together in front of his mouth like a man deep in prayer.

  The image switched to Lacey, wrestling for her freedom in front of the restaurant. Steve couldn’t believe she was capable of stomping on a man’s face. He couldn’t fathom how she’d gotten away from a seasoned FBI agent.

  Steve had had a heads-up that all hell had broken loose at the bar, and Lacey had run away. But the tightly worded text that popped up from his partner hadn’t prepared him for the scenes jostling their way across the television. As he watched Lacey bulldoze her way back into the bar, Steve sent a nervous glance to the bedroom door. If Danika came out now, she’d see WDIU News blow his partner’s cover.

  The news anchor announced, “Tonight, the FBI are being tight-lipped about their agent who failed to apprehend the mystery woman in the doorway when she escaped his grasp. And though the video tapes show men in dark suits, displaying authoritative-looking badges, and yelling their affiliation, the Secret Service denies having a presence at the scene.”

  Steve wished the videos had captured those men’s faces. They absolutely weren’t the Secret Service, and he wanted to know exactly who Pavle had sent after Lacey. He wanted to throttle them. Each and every one.

  The anchor continued with, “The city police ask anyone who might recognize the woman to contact them immediately.”

  As the news panel pushed into over-drive speculating about who was telling the truth and who was covering their rear, Danika moved into the living room. She rubbed a towel over her newly-dyed strawberry-blonde hair. Steve swung away from her and stalked toward the front window in an attempt to hide the perspiration and anxiety on his face.

  “Guess what I did.” Danika bubbled with glee.

  Steve forced his voice to be flat and unemotional. “What’s that?”

  “I flushed those brown contact lenses down the toilet. We’re talking months of stinging agony. I hope everyone appreciates how much pain I was in.”

  Steve grunted his response. He felt Danika focus her dark blue eyes on his back as he parted the venetian blinds. He peeked through the slats with binoculars trained on the entryway to Lacey’s apartment across the street, hoping Danika would stay on the other side of the room. Steve wasn’t acting his usual calm and cool under fire. His body gave away his stress levels. He needed deodorant, badly. He needed his hands to stop rattling the damned blinds. Where the hell was Lacey?

  “No sign?” Danika asked. “Where do you think she squirreled herself away?”

  Steve cleared his throat. “Here are some better questions: How does she know to stay away?” At least his voice sounded unattached, he congratulated himself. “And why hasn’t she called me? This isn’t how she’d normally act.” He glanced back at Danika. “Could Leo have said something to her? Something that would make her run?”

  “Whatever he said before Pavle’s guy killed him, Lacey was running right out the back door and into the trap.” Danika slid up behind Steve, pressing her body against his back and curving her arms around his stomach. “Our guys should have been in place, not sitting in the car, hiding from the rain. It’s their own fault Lacey was able to run out of that alley.” Danika balanced her forehead between Steve’s shoulder blades, rocking it back and forth. “Leo was so nice. I told him not to cut ties with Pavle.”

  “That’s why he’s dead? Serves him right, then. Nobody should be that stupid.”

  Danika’s body stiffened against him.

  “But you liked Leo—maybe I should I be offering condolences?” Steve scoffed. “Handing you a tissue?” Steve had been playing the game for a long time. He’d lived deep undercover for years. And in those years, he had learned a very clear lesson - emotions were crap on the job. Dangerous. They screwed everything up. He had to find a way to pull this fiasco out of the toilet. Now. Get himself together. Now. Lacey’s life depended on him.

  “I think I’m okay, thanks.” Danika paused. “It’s all turned out though.”

  Adrenaline shot through Steve’s system. “How do you mean?”

  “Lacey’s been photographed with the knife in her hand. Her prints are on it – the only prints the police will find on it, unless someone else at the bar was stupid enough to pick it up. When the cops eventually find Lacey’s body, no one will look beyond her for a culprit to Leo’s murder, and we’ll be off on our next project. Crisis averted.”

  Steve ignored the gentle kiss that Danika lay on top of his collar and turned the binoculars to take in the length of the street. “But Pavle doesn’t have her yet. He can’t kill her if he can’t find her.”

  “Hey.” Danika’s voice turned defensive. “Pavle said that with all those cell phones filming, they couldn’t act. Come on, stop worrying. She’ll surface soon, and Pavle will dispose of her.”

  Steve’s body recoiled. He tried to cover his reflex by spinning around and snapping, “What if they don’t find her?” Steve wanted Danika to interpret his odd behavior as worry about their con. He thought he might just be pulling it off.

  Danika tipped her head back so they were eye to eye. “When they get to her, she’ll be eliminated; it’ll be fine. They can’t let her body be found until after next Saturday anyway. Can they? And when the guys do dump her body,” she continued, “no one will be able to connect the dots on any of this — not the murder or the cons. It’s brilliant.”

  Steve’s lips twitched as he held back the words that would make everything implode. Get your head on straight. Stay in the game. He could hear his college football coach’s voice yelling at him.

  When Steve failed to answer, Danika’s mouth tightened into a rigid line, and she ducked her chin as if she were preparing to take a direct punch. “Tell me the truth. Did you develop a thing for that girl?”

  Watching Danika’s moment of vulnerability, Steve felt himself switch gears. His anxiety settled into his intestines, packed in tightly, uncomfortably, but no longer preventing clear thought. He blew a puff of derision through his nostrils. “Lacey is a job, not an emotion.” His voice was impassive. “Screwing her is like changing a light bulb—a chore that needs doing so bigger things can happen.”

  Danika shifted to study Steve’s face. He knew she was looking for any sign that he might be lying, that he had developed a soft spot, that she had reason to be worried about his loyalties. Steve ignored her. He fixed his gaze over her shoulder on the TV where Lacey’s DMV picture filled the screen.

  “Breaking news, the young woman being sought for questioning by city police investigators has been identified as Lacey Elizabeth Stuart, acquisitions coordinator and acting manager for the Bartholomew Winslow Gallery in Washington, DC. If anyone has any information about this case, or the whereabouts of Ms. Stuart, please contact the authorities immediately.”

  He moved back to his look-out post. Watching Lacey’s building entrance through the lenses, Steve muttered a prayer under his breath that she’d find her way to some good guys before the bad guys got her in their sights.

  Chapter Three

  Lacey

  Thursday Night

  Lacey knelt in front of the TV in her co-worker’s otherwise darkened bungalow. She clasped her hands tightly as if beseeching the blonde newscaster to say, “The police want to make sure that Miss Stuart is safe and to tell her what happened tonight.” God, she wished she knew what had happened tonight – some kind of explanation.

  Instead of offering her support, the news crew left her dangling out there, exposed to the public, looking like she was culpable of some great wrong. But she hadn’t done anything wrong. Steve stood her up. Then a man got stabbed. But surely she had nothing to do with either. The man, Leo Bardman, had called her Danika. . .Mistook her for someone else.

  Tears filled Lacey’s eyes as
she listened to the talking-heads, speculating about her responsibility for stabbing Bardman, then running from both the FBI and the Secret Service. Shame wrapped around her shoulders and wicked the heat from her body. Whatever happened next, her reputation was destroyed. But that seemed the least of her problems.

  With sudden awareness, Lacey scrambled on her hands and knees toward the windows. Keeping her head down below the sill, she drew the drapery shut. Lacey didn’t want the blue light of the TV to attract the attention of any of Martha’s neighbors. Lacey imagined that Martha had told her neighbors that she’d be gone for a long weekend and asked them to please keep an eye on her place. Martha had gone to visit her mother who was in the hospital, and Lacey had offered to step in and feed Martha’s cat, Twinkle Toes. Any kindness Lacey had extended by way of cat-care was now being repaid in that Lacey felt like she had a safe place to gather her thoughts.

  Lacey thanked her lucky stars that Martha had decided to leave town on Thursday after work rather than Friday afternoon. That gave Lacey this private place to hide. Her other piece of luck was that Martha’s door used a key pad instead of actual keys. Lacey had dropped everything from her hands as she ran from the bar. She had arrived in Martha’s living room freezing cold with only the clothes on her back, and bloody feet. And the flash drive, Lacey reminded herself. She reached up to her blouse to feel the bulge beneath her breast. What could possibly be on that flash drive? It was obviously something big – something that was life or death.

  With her jaw set, Lacey reached toward the coffee table where Martha’s work computer had been left recharging. She lifted the lid, and typed in the management password. As she waited for the computer to come to life, Lacey pulled the flash drive from her bra, stuck it into the port, and squeezed her eyes shut. Decision time. By looking at this, whatever this was, she’d have a new level of responsibility and knowledge. She was afraid to know what was there, and she was afraid not to know. Would it put her in even greater danger than she was in now? Why was she in danger?

  “They know who you are. Trust no one. Run.”

  Lacey’s fingers shook too hard to press the right keys. “Run.” She would do just that if only she had the right direction to head.

  Her mind jumped back to the bar, and she could smell the man’s breath as he leaned down – a yeasty combination of beer and sausage. The scariest part of what the dead man said to her was “Danika.” That was the second time someone had mistaken her for this Danika person, whoever she was.

  Kneeling before the screen like an acolyte before a prayer candle, the first file that Lacey opened was a series of photographs of oil paintings, beautiful works by some of the best artists in the United States. There was “Magnificent Dawn” by Chambray, a piece that she had dearly hoped to acquire for her uncle’s new exhibit at the end of this month. Next week, actually. But that had fallen through. Understandably. With rumors whipping through the industry that her Uncle Bartholomew was on the run because of art theft, who would chance being in a show at the Bartholomew Winslow Gallery?

  Photos of art and the tight grip of the FBI around her ankle, that was an interesting juxtaposition. If the FBI was after her because of art, then this probably had something to do with her Uncle Bartholomew’s wrongdoings. Maybe even something he framed her for. Again. Even though Leo Bardman had called her Danika, she thought it was too much of a coincidence that she was associated with the paintings on this flash drive, albeit it was a distant kind of association.

  Lacey sat back on her heels, utterly confused. Why would that guy with the FBI be watching her at a bar, or grabbing at her, for that matter? She’d been compliant and forthcoming when they investigated her uncle. If the FBI was trying to find her Uncle Bartholomew, Lacey had already given them all of his addresses and phone numbers. Her name had been completely cleared of any offenses. Deep had made sure of that.

  Deep Del Toro’s handsome face formed in Lacey’s mind. A special operative with Iniquus, Deep had shown up at her gallery when his security company was trying to recover their stolen corporate art collection. Lacey’s thoughts snagged on their first meeting. He and his colleague Jane were there, undercover. Jane and Deep had walked through the door, where Lacey was waiting for the interview they had scheduled with her, and as soon as she saw Deep, Lacey’s insides dropped like she was on a carnival ride.

  There was something magnetic and wonderful about Deep. And it went way beyond his laughing brown eyes and his warrior’s body. Something about him made Lacey feel like, as long as she was touching him, she was home. A belonging. He had shaken her world with that meeting. Lacey wished Deep was there with her. He would know exactly what to do. Lacey bit at her lips. Should she call him?

  “Trust no one.” That phrase cycled through her head. That was just an impossible directive. She’d have to trust someone. Maybe Steve?

  Having experienced that draw and sense of connection with Deep, Lacey saw her relationship with Steve in a different light. Up until she had met Deep, Lacey thought that, even though she and Steve had only been going out for a short time, Steve was probably the one. He had acted like that was their destiny, talked about it all the time, and Lacey had gone along for the ride.

  After she had met Deep, Lacey’s feelings for Steve seemed farcical and staged. She had been trying to break things off for months, but the timing always seemed to be wrong. Roadblocks kept popping up. These past few months, dating Steve was like a child playacting at recess. “You be the daddy, and I’ll be the mommy . . .” until the bell rang, and the game was over.

  Lacey picked up a pen and let it rat-a-tat-tat on the coffee table as she tried to process her situation. Her brain wasn’t functioning properly, and she knew it. Images of the night melted and sagged like objects on a Salvador Dali canvas. She grasped at anything that had the semblance of solidity. She needed facts. Facts like the name Leo Bardman. The news people had said the guy stabbed in the bar was named Leo Bardman, and that he was indeed dead.

  Lacey reached far back into the closets of her memory and searched around. No. She would probably have remembered that name, because it sounded like it belonged to a Shakespeare-like figure, a poet – and the man who had approached her had seemed antithetical to poetry. Well, the nice kind of poetry – the poetry of Keats or Whitman. Maybe he could have been a Don John in Much Ado about Nothing, but that was really beside the point. The point here was—well, she had actually reached two points of conclusion—Lacey had never heard Leo Bardman’s name before, and she had no desire at all to reach out to Steve.

  Truth be told, thinking about Steve only piqued her sense of resentment. She blamed him, on some level, for being in this situation right now. It was, after all, Steve’s idea to meet in the bar before going out for dinner. And it was he who failed to show up. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting to speak to Steve again. At that moment, the only person Lacey wanted to talk to was Deep Del Toro.

  Lacey typed in her password for Carbonite, which allowed her to pull up files from her personal computer. She searched her downloads for the business card she had scanned in on the day Deep and Jane had stopped by the gallery to gather evidence against her.

  There was a lot of evidence to gather too. She was indeed culpable. Her Uncle Bartholomew had her acquire art for a retrospective. It was some grand scheme on her uncle’s part to get Iniquus’ artwork out of their headquarters and into a storage unit. Why? She had no clue. Absolutely no clue. It made no sense to her at all. Even the FBI had scratched their heads. Iniquus knew. They’d said it was an industry secret that they’d never reveal. Case closed.

  Lacey could understand Iniquus’s wanting to keep this quiet. Iniquus was a privately-owned company who did specialty contracts for both the US government and private citizens. What exactly that entailed, she hadn’t dived in deep enough to ask, but everyone at their headquarters seemed to have come from a military background, and she knew it had something to do with security. That was probably why everything was kept so hush hus
h. The idea that someone (she) had gone in and removed their corporate art from under their noses wouldn’t be great for their reputation.

  Lacey sucked in a lung full of oxygen then tried to let it out as smoothly as she could to slow her racing thoughts. She pictured Deep winking encouragement her way as things had gotten tense at Iniquus Headquarters where Deep had stood beside her, literally and figuratively while the case unraveled itself. He made sure that she bore no responsibility and was not held accountable for her role in the fraud that lead to the Iniquus corporate art being removed — stolen.

  Could she trust Deep? She flung herself backward and stared at the ceiling. Was he the one person she could trust when she was told to trust no one?

  In that whole Iniquus fiasco, she had been innocent, Lacey reminded herself, and had been following through blindly on her uncle’s orders. Hmm, it seemed that Lacey had been going along blindly for a while now, both in her business life and personal life. It was time she opened her eyes. Was she equally blind about something else going on? Why did Leo Bardman think she was Danika?

  I’m all questions, no answers.

  A car’s engine sounded outside. Heat flowered across Lacey’s chest as her fingers and feet went numb. A sharp prickle across her scalp made her pull her body in tightly, trying to make herself small. Listening. No, the car didn’t stop. It drove on past. Slowly, she uncurled herself and pulled the computer down to the floor next to her. She minimized the picture of Deep’s business card. Then she scrolled back through the paintings in the first file on the thumb drive. She shouldn’t be afraid of the authorities. She hadn’t done anything wrong, Lacey reminded herself. Well, not really. Yes, maybe. But . . .