Hidden Agenda

The squad room was a long rectangle, with a row of grime-streaked windows high up on one wall that let in the gloomy November sunlight. Metal desks stuck out from the walls like boat slips; those placed in the center of the room butted up against each other, front to front. All desks had identical telephones, computers and ancient rolling chairs.

Carrie noted the room’s backwash of noise changed to a murmur when she stepped into view. She sensed eyes watching her while she followed Linc through the maze of putty-colored desks. Any cop new to a unit was a subject of curiosity. In normal circumstances, she would have had to prove herself before she could expect anything other than surface acceptance. That wouldn’t happen here. She’d be yanked from the SEU the instant she ferreted out the evidence that Internal Affairs needed to file charges against Linc Reilly.

If the evidence even existed.

Linc paused at a metal desk as run-down looking as all the others. The nearby wall held a cork bulletin board loaded with yellowed fliers, notes, cartoons and bureaucratic memos.

“This is it,” he said, then flicked his gaze to the cup in her hand. “Guess you didn’t want coffee after all.”

“You’re right, I didn’t.” She sat the foam cup aside and met his gaze. His golden-brown eyes looked a little harder than the floor beneath her feet.

“Look, Reilly, I’m sure you’ve got major concerns over taking on a new partner while you’re involved in a high-profile investigation.”

A muscle in his cheek jerked, but his eyes stayed level. “That sums it up.”

“Your concerns are understandable,” she persisted. “I don’t have delusions of grandeur. I’m not supercop, out to prove how good I am at taking down bad guys. The bottom line is, I’ve never worked undercover. I want to learn as much as you’re willing to teach me. All I ask is that you give me a chance.”

“Fair enough,” he said, his expression impassive.

“Hey, Reilly, you got a call on line three.”

The voice that had Linc glancing across his shoulder belonged to a dark-haired detective with a scraggly beard who sat at a paper-piled desk on the far side of the squad room.

“Put it on hold,” Linc said, then looked back at Carrie.

“After I take this call, I’ll introduce you around the squad. Then I’ll head to Intelligence to get those photos and tag numbers from The Hideaway. I’ll drop the list of car tags off at dispatch. The run should be ready by early afternoon. We can get together then and I’ll bring you up to speed on what we’ve got so far.”

“Thanks, Reilly.”

“Don’t thank me, McCall.” He smiled now, a quick, powerful strike. “You screw up, I’ll be right there in your face.”

“I don’t plan to screw up.”

“Then we shouldn’t have a problem.”

The usual hubbub of ringing telephones, raised voices, rattling coffee cups and clicking computer keys restarted when Carrie settled at her desk. She kept Linc in her sights as he headed across the squad room. His sure, determined walk sent the message he was a man who possessed total confidence in himself and his abilities. Since she was still puzzling over her own reaction to him, she could attest to the power of his physical presence.

Taking a deep breath, she shifted her thoughts to another aspect of the man. Other officers had told her that in a pinch, he was fearless, the type of partner they wanted next to them when there was trouble. It was rumored Reilly could be as ruthless as the dopers, robbers, gang members and killers who had it in for the cops.

Nothing wrong with that, Carrie conceded. Sometimes a cop survived solely because he was as hazardous as the scum with whom he dealt. Problems surfaced when that ferocity pushed a cop to dole out his own form of justice. Became a self-appointed death squad. An avenger.

Had the vicious murder of his wife transformed Reilly into one of those cops? Had the pain and trauma—and no doubt, the guilt—he had suffered transformed him into a rogue who had become judge, jury and executioner?

Before leaving the SEU, Carrie would know the answers to those questions.

Chapter 2

Linc had decided to bring Carrie McCall up to speed in the drab, windowless interview room that jutted off the main squad room. With various printouts, photographs, rap sheets, mug shots and the detailed plan he’d drawn up for the operation at The Hideaway, they had a mountain of paperwork to go over. The scarred table in the room’s center was big enough to spread out everything. What he hadn’t factored into the equation was that the interview room was small enough to take on an intimate edge when he enclosed himself there with a woman who wore a kick-a-man-in-the-gut perfume.

What the hell had he been thinking? he silently berated himself while watching her leaf through surveillance photos. Her gaze was intense, her demeanor serious as she examined the pictures of people and vehicles that had shown up in The Hideaway’s parking lot over the past nights. Just because she was all business didn’t change the fact she looked like a million dollars, with her perfect face and that mass of coppery hair that slid with each subtle movement past her shoulders to her breasts.

A cool, composed, sexy million dollars.

He averted his gaze to one of the bare walls, painted an institutional green. It annoyed him that just by sitting across a table from him she could deflect his attention from the case that should have his total concentration.

“From the outside, The Hideaway looks like a good-size place,” she commented while shuffling the photos.

He felt an additional twist of irritation when it took his thoughts a second to click off her and on to business. In the two years since Kim’s death, he had barely noticed any woman, much less had one seemingly take over his mind.

In a flash of intuition, he knew that no matter how his new partner handled this assignment, even if she made no mistakes, she was going to give him a great deal of trouble.

The sort of trouble he didn’t want or need.

“The Hideaway was once a farmhouse that’s been enlarged,” he said finally. “There’s a main bar room for drinking and dancing. Another for playing pool, with a handful of smaller rooms jutting off it. I’ve got a layout of the interior which we’ll go over.”

“I never heard about this place while working patrol.” She glanced up from the photos, her blue eyes intense. “I rode one of the far northwest districts and The Hideaway is way southeast, so that’s probably why. How long has it been in operation?”

“Long enough for people who live in the area to complain about the drunk and speeding drivers, loud music and everything else that goes along with a place like that.”

“Why not put a couple of traffic units out there to pull over the customers after they drive off? Cite the bar owner for noise violations? Things like that.”

“We did. Then one day a thirteen-year-old boy took a detour by The Hideaway and found skin magazines in the Dumpster.”

“Thirteen years old?” Carrie angled her chin. “Don’t tell me that young man complained about the content of the magazines.”

“Actually, he believed he’d struck gold, until his mother found them under his mattress. She confronted the kid and he ’fessed up to where he’d found the stuff. She called the mayor’s office, threatening fire and brimstone if the city allowed—and I quote—that ‘den of sin’ to continue operating. The mayor’s up for re-election and the woman promised to get her church’s congregation to campaign against him if he didn’t take action. The mayor called the chief and ordered him to do whatever it takes to shut down The Hideaway.”

“Do we have any idea what all is going on there?”

“Gambling, illegal liquor distribution, live sex acts.”

“Sounds like quite the party place.”

“An understatement. About the same time the irate woman called the mayor, one of my snitches gave me a tip about the activity going on there. I sent a report to Quintana.” Linc kept his expression neutral. He had no intention of telling his new partner about the covert role he’d played in engineering this assignment. He had finally caught the scent of his wife’s killer, and it led to The Hideaway. “When the order to shut down the bar came from the chief, Quintana assigned the case to me since I already knew about the place.”

“So, how do you have this operation set up?”

“Quintana and I agreed that if a couple of guys went in to scope out The Hideaway, they’d get viewed as either holdup men or cops. Either way, all criminal activity would stop while the unknowns were there. That happened, we’d have nothing to make arrests on.”

“And the mayor gets real unhappy.”

“Exactly. On the other hand, a man and woman go in and cozy up to each other, they’re viewed as married, or maybe just messing around. Takes the heat off.”

“Makes sense,” she said, looking back at the photos. “From the dress of people, I’d guess the place gets a mix of clientele. Some cowboy wannabes, construction worker types. Blue-collar guys. And pickup trucks are the vehicle of choice for the majority.”

“Right on all points.” Linc gestured toward the stack of criminal history sheets the Records Bureau had compiled from his list. “Over thirty percent of the people who own those pickups have felony convictions. A couple of robberies. Assaults. Burglaries. Indecent exposure. Like you said, a real mix.”

Carrie nodded. “So, the dress of the day for us is jeans and boots.”

Linc took in her stylish sea-foam-green sweater, the trendy gold chain looped at her neck, the matching earrings. If she even owned a pair of jeans, they probably had some designer logo stitched on the butt. “The right kind of jeans and boots, McCall. The basic rule of appearance in any undercover operation is look like what you’re supposed to be, not what some movie or TV show tells you undercover cops look like.”

Crossing her forearms on the table, she leaned in. “You tell me what you want me to be, Reilly. That’s what you’ll get.”

What he wanted her to be was gone. To take her hot, steamy scent and that husky, just-had-sex voice and get the hell away from him. He knew that wasn’t going to happen.

“You can’t walk in there looking like some fashion plate,” he said, aware that his voice had taken on an edge. “What you need to be specifically is something you and I have to talk about. Since we don’t know each other and have no idea of each other’s interests, the way for us to play this is as a couple who’s been out on a few dates. That way it’ll ring true if we know only surface details about each other. We’ll say we’re both new in town, met a few days ago in a checkout line at Wal-Mart.”

“Do we have jobs yet?”

“I don’t. When I was in college, I spent summers working as a roofer, so I know the lingo. My story is that I’m looking for a roofing job. It’s November, so those are scarce. No one’s going to question why I haven’t found work.”

“What about me?”

“What about you, McCall? Your family has cops out the wazoo.” Since that morning, he’d found out her grandfather and father were retired OCPD. She not only had two sisters on the force, but three brothers. It turned out that Linc had gone through recruit school with Bran McCall. “Do you have any job experience other than wearing a badge?”

“My mother owns a landscape nursery. Growing up, I worked there weekends and summers. I can talk plants, flowers and sod with an expert and not get tripped up.”

Linc gave her a thin smile. “That how you know about… What the hell is that stuff you told me to put in my coffee?”

“Stevia.” Shaking her hair back, she sent him a smug smile. “A perennial shrub of the aster family. Asteraceae, to be exact. It tastes sweet, but has no calories.”

“You’ll impress all the beer guzzlers at The Hideaway with that kind of information.”

She slid him a look from beneath her lashes. “I don’t expect my goal is to dazzle anyone with my mental capabilities.”

Not when she could walk into a room and have every man around instantly fantasizing about getting her underneath him.

“You’re right,” Linc conceded. “Still, knowing as much as you do about the nursery business is a good cover in case you run into some expert on petunias.”

“Do I have a job here?”

“Do most garden centers hire during this time of year?”

“No. They operate with a skeleton crew.”

“Then you haven’t snagged a job, either. That tightens our cover. We’re unemployed, but still have money to party every night. We drive nice cars, which we’ll borrow from the department’s asset forfeiture inventory. All that gives the impression we’re not above doing something against the law to get our funds. And to spend them on illegal activities.”

“Like maybe you paying to engage in a ‘live’ sex act with one of The Hideaway’s working girls?”

“Like that.” He leaned back in his chair. “This is another advantage to my going in with a female partner. I’ll sure as hell let any of the working girls proposition me. Name their price. That’ll get them busted during the raid. Since I’ve got you with me, I’ll decline all offers. Don’t want to mess up my deal with you by having a roll with some other woman.”

“Where have you been all my life, Reilly?” she asked dryly. “My heart’s all aflutter, knowing my boyfriend is so devoted.”

“Lover, McCall. I’m going in as your lover, and you mine. That means we do a lot of hand holding. Touching. Dancing. You think you can do a convincing acting job?”

“Like I told you, I’ll be exactly what you want me to be.” She pursed her glossed lips. “Our deep commitment to each other clearly means I have to turn down any men who come on to me.”

“That’s the idea.” Testing her, Linc leaned in. “With your looks, you’ll get offers that involve a hell of a lot more than a lip-lock session in the back seat of a patrol car.”

Irritation flicked in her eyes. “No lip-lock session took place. That rookie’s idiot wife got jealous and couldn’t handle him riding with a female partner. It’s my bad luck she took her fictional story to the chief. Who then gave my lieutenant orders to separate me from the idiot’s husband. The next day, I was transferred out.”

That McCall didn’t hesitate to defend herself pleased Linc. In undercover work, an easygoing personality that was sometimes punctuated by a strong showing of a refusal to let oneself get run over could be very effective.

“Let’s get back to that flood of offers you’ll receive,” he began. “When a guy comes on to you, lays a hand on you, tell him I’ve got a hair-trigger temper. Make sure he knows if anybody touches my woman, I believe in big-time payback.”

“So, do you have a hair-trigger temper? Believe in big-time payback if someone messes with your woman?”

For some reason, Linc sensed the question was just as loaded as the Glock holstered at his waist. “Doesn’t matter. As long as people at The Hideaway believe I do.”

“Well, lover boy,” Carrie cooed in a husky voice that slid over his senses. “I’ll try not to rile you up. I wouldn’t want to find out about your temper firsthand.”

“That’s wise, sweet thing.” Linc was fast becoming aware that Carrie McCall could stir him up just by being in the same room. “While we’re on the subject of getting riled, is there a man who’ll have a problem with your spending the next handful of nights with me?”

“No.”

“How about some hulking cop who’ll thump me with a sap just for dancing with you?”

“You don’t have to worry, Reilly. I have this ironclad rule about not getting involved with other cops.”

“Guess that rookie’s wife didn’t know about your rule.”

“Guess not. Your questions work both ways. Is there someone who’ll have a problem when you cozy up to me at The Hideaway?”

Linc looked down at the reports spread on the table while emotion scraped at him. At one point he’d had a life outside the job. A woman he couldn’t wait to go home to. He would forever carry her blood on his hands.

“There’s no one.” He looked up in time to see compassion flash in Carrie’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I know what happened to your wife.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought there might be someone…recent.”

“No.” He never again wanted a real life. He had his job, a safe place in which he hid his grief in the ruts of routine.

“Okay.” Easing out a breath, Carrie looked back at the stack of photos in front of her. “So, our undercover personas are new to Oklahoma City. How’d we wind up at The Hideaway?”

His new partner asked good questions, Linc thought. When you worked undercover, you needed a believable reason to be wherever you showed up. You could die if you didn’t have one.

“There’s a dive motel about a mile south of there,” he said. “The Drop Inn. After I snagged this assignment, I rented a room on a weekly basis. I told the clerk I was new in town and asked where I could get some booze, food and action. He told me about The Hideaway.”

“Are you staying there during the operation?”

“Off and on, in case someone decides to check on me. When I don’t stay there, it’ll look like I went home with you. It will help our cover if you’re seen at the Drop Inn with me. We can go into the office and I’ll ask the clerk some question. We’ll want him—and anyone else watching—to see you go into my room. We’ll stay a while, leave the bed looking like we really are lovers.”

“When do we start?”

“Tomorrow night. Does that give you time to get whatever clothes you’ll need?”

“You think I work at my Mom’s nursery in designer jeans? Think again, Reilly. I dig in the dirt, haul bags of manure and peat moss. I’ve got plenty of appropriate clothes.” Leaning back, she steepled her fingers. “Of course, if our undercover personas are engaging in illegal activities, we’d have money for nicer clothes. I’ll have to think about my wardrobe. Maybe wear quality stuff I could have bought in a consignment shop.”

When he remained silent, she asked, “Am I off base on the clothes deal?”

“No, you made a good point.” He angled his chin. “I’m trying to picture you wielding a shovel. Hoisting bags of manure. The image won’t gel.”

“Proves you don’t know anything about me.”

“That’s a fact.” He didn’t want to, either. Unfortunately, this assignment required him to get to know her.

Just then the door swung open. Linc’s shoulders tensed instinctively when Don Gaines stepped in.

The detective’s dark, deep-set eyes flicked from Carrie to Linc, then back to Carrie. “You’d be Carrie McCall.” Stepping to the table, he offered his hand. “I’m Don Gaines. I was out of the squad room when you got introduced around.”

Carrie offered a smile and her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Gaines looked back at Linc, handed him a message slip. “I took a call from a detective in Tulsa. He wants to talk to you about a homicide they had over the weekend.”

Linc bit back a curse when he read the victim’s name. Arlee Dell had a mountain of priors by the time his name came up as a suspect in a series of home invasions Linc investigated. He’d pulled Dell in a couple of months ago, but could never prove his connection with the crimes, so he’d walked. Linc suspected Dell pulled another invasion two weeks ago where an elderly couple had been tied up, tortured and strangled.

Linc met Gaines’s gaze. “Thanks, I’ll give the cop a call.”

“He said Dell was shot,” Gaines added. “Twice in the heart, once in the head.”

Linc tightened his jaw. The man who had once been his closest friend was a good, thorough cop. Had Gaines also picked up on the fact that over the past year and a half a number of scum handled by SEU cops had wound up shot in the head? If so, Gaines would know Dell was victim number seven.

A knot settled in Linc’s gut as his mind worked. In college, Gaines had been crazy about Kim; though she’d chosen Linc over him, his feelings for her had never cooled. Gaines blamed Linc for Kim’s death. He would like nothing better than to see Linc pay for what had happened to her. Was that why Gaines had gone out of his way to deliver the phone message? Linc wondered. Because he wanted Linc to know he’d connected the killings that had commenced one month after Kim’s body had been found tossed in a ditch?

While his mind continued its systematic, methodical analysis, Linc felt a cold realization settle inside him. Suspicion. As a cop, he lived with it, always casting as wide a net as possible, encompassing every possibility, distasteful or not. Which was why he now found himself wondering if the deep loathing Gaines felt for him had, over time, taken on an intensity so dark that Linc had failed to see it. Was Gaines so obsessed with making Linc pay for Kim’s death that Gaines had decided to make him a mark for the murders?

After all, Kim’s killer had never been found. The bastard had escaped justice, just as the now-dead seven other maggots had. It was possible a grieving husband might begin a killing spree to avenge his wife. If that husband were a cop, he would know how to get away with those murders. The last of which occurred during the past weekend. Somewhere in Tulsa. Linc had spent the weekend with Kim’s family in Claremore, a twenty-minute drive from Tulsa.

Linc’s sense of unease gathered strength when he remembered sitting at his desk last Friday, telling Tom Nelson his weekend plans. Gaines could have overheard the conversation. He knew where Kim’s parents lived.

Linc lifted his eyes from the message slip. He could read nothing in Gaines’s face. Linc couldn’t afford to trust, to discount, to filter possibilities through a screen of denial the way most people did. He’d learned a long time ago that the simple truth of the world was that people, even otherwise decent people, regularly did rotten things to others. Now, Linc needed to figure out a way to find out if Gaines had allowed himself to step over the line. If he’d become one of the people they had both spent their lives pursuing. If his bitterness over losing Kim to the man who he blamed for her torturous murder burned so hot he would commit seven homicides with the intention of pinning them on his former friend.

Gaines nodded to Carrie. “Hope to work with you soon.”

“Same here.”

Gaines flicked Linc a look before walking out.

“That homicide sounds serious,” Carrie commented.

Linc’s shoulders felt like high-tension wire, and a stone had lodged in his chest. “Isn’t every homicide?”

“Real serious. If the head shot came after the victim was already dead, doesn’t that sound like the work of a pro?”

McCall might be his new partner, but she was an outsider. Linc had no intention of discussing this with her. What he did plan to do was find out what the hell was going on. And who was behind it. And if he was some bastard’s intended patsy.

A sick, seething anger swirled in his gut.

“Work of a pro,” he repeated, a slash of the anger sounding in his voice. “You gain that expertise watching Mafia movies?”

Her eyes went as cold as winter. “I’m not some green rookie, so spare me the attitude. I’ve snagged calls to enough homicide crime scenes to know how to spot the work of a pro.”

“Maybe you should have transferred to Homicide.”

“No.” Now her eyes were as deep and dark and potent as her voice. “I’m right where I should be.”

“I need to return this call, then go by Quintana’s office.”

“Fine.”

Rising, Linc scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but he now felt its dark, menacing presence aimed directly at him. His new partner, however, wasn’t to blame for whatever problems he had, he reminded himself.

“Sorry about the attitude, McCall. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No problem.” She shrugged. “I’ve got a tough hide.”

He skimmed his gaze down her face, her throat, elegant and thin. Her hide didn’t look so tough to him, he thought as he headed out the door. It looked like cool, creamy silk.

Two hours later Carrie had a headache that was almost off the chart. She knew it was partly due to the stacks of printouts, mug shots and reports piled on the table in front of her. Her brain had simply overloaded on the names and images of people who frequented The Hideaway. Then there was the stress that came from spending time in close proximity to the man presently seated across the table.