Hidden Agenda

She cast him a quick glance. Linc sat in silence, studying a report, his jaw set, the look in those intriguing golden eyes disturbingly detached.

After returning, he had not alluded to what the Tulsa detective told him about the homicide. Nor mentioned why he’d swung by Quintana’s office after that. Carrie hadn’t asked. Couldn’t ask. The last thing she dared do was show too much interest in what might be another killing of a do-wrong whom an SEU cop had handled. Linc specifically.

Just then he laid the report aside and met her gaze. She sought out the man behind those dark eyes, eager to determine his level of involvement in the murders, but saw nothing revealed.

“We’ve put in a full day,” he said. “Let’s meet here tomorrow afternoon and review things. After that, we make our first visit to The Hideaway.”

“Sounds good.” Before she could rise, he placed a hand over her wrist.

“Sorry about that spurt of attitude earlier.”

Carrie stared at his strong, firm hand while ordering herself to ignore her jittery stomach. “You already apologized.”

“So I did. See you tomorrow.”

The November sky hung like a curtain of gray velvet as Carrie made her way to the parking lot where the biting wind swirled paper and leaves into small cyclones. Her teeth chattering from the cold, she steered her sporty little lipstick-red MG out of the lot, drove five blocks, then stopped at a pay phone.

At home she downed extra-strength aspirin, showered, ate dinner, then climbed back into the MG and headed to Penn Square Mall. The digital clock on the dash glowed an eerie green eight when she pulled behind a black van that sat idling in the lot’s shadowy perimeter.

She shoved open the door and stepped out into wind so cold it felt like a razor slashing against her face. The van’s passenger door swung open just as she reached it.

“Slide in here, Sergeant, before you catch your death.”

Shadow obscured the face of the woman sitting in the driver’s seat. From their previous meetings, Carrie knew Captain Patricia Scott habitually wore her salt-and-pepper hair twisted into a severe topknot. She had a strong, intelligent face with a network of lines pulling at the flesh around her eyes. Scott had been a cop for twenty-five years, the last three spent as commander over the OCPD’s Internal Affairs Division.

“So, McCall, how’d your first day in the SEU go?”

Carrie lifted a shoulder, the gesture masked beneath her thick sweater and heavy coat. “I’m there under false pretenses, investigating another cop…”

“No one said it would be easy.”

Carrie stared out the windshield at the sea of cars parked beneath the mall’s security lights. Working Internal Affairs was not an assignment she would have picked. It had been thrust on her when the rookie’s wife made her accusations about Carrie and her husband to the chief. At the same time, IA had needed a female cop to go undercover. The rat squad had been a convenient place for Carrie to get transferred.

“We went over this, McCall,” Scott continued. “If a cop turns vigilante and starts killing people, we have to stop him.”

Nodding, Carrie remet the captain’s gaze. “Did you have time to find out about the Tulsa homicide after I called?”

Scott plucked a file from between the bucket seats. “All I had to do was mention the specifics of the shooting—two shots to the heart, one to the head, and they knew what homicide I was calling about. Arlee Dell is the victim’s name.”

“Does his murder match the others?”

“Yes. Dell has a rap sheet thick enough to use as a booster seat for a kid. Priors for seven felony convictions, including rape, attempted rape, assault and stalking.”

“Nice guy. What’s his connection to Linc Reilly?”

“He hauled Dell in for questioning about home invasions, but didn’t have enough evidence to hold him. A similar invasion occurred two weeks ago where an elderly couple was tortured and strangled. Dell is—was—Reilly’s prime suspect.”

“Sounds like Dell’s life’s work was harming people.”

Scott gazed at Carrie through the inky shadows. “Dell is the seventh person to die over the past year and a half who’s been handled by an SEU detective. This isn’t a coincidence. The shootings are too efficient. Never any witnesses. No collateral damage. Never any cops close by—at one incident, patrol units were decoyed away from the area by a bogus call to 911. Clearly, the shooter preplans his getaways. All that’s left at each scene is a dead scumbag, shot at least once in the head.”

“Scumbags who would continue to pull maybe forty or fifty bad crimes a year,” Carrie added, mentally reviewing the rap sheets in the file IA had given her. “I can’t work up remorse over the Avenger’s choice of victims.”

When Scott tilted her head, a shadow fell across her face like a veil. “The Avenger?”

Carrie nodded. “That’s what I’ve pegged him. Or them. It could be two cops capping the bad guys. A team.”

“Either way, your Avenger handle is a good one,” Scott stated. “McCall, no one expects you to feel remorse over evil people dying. I don’t. It’s how they’re dying that’s the problem. IA’s job is to make sure cops don’t step over the line. If we don’t keep a lid on things, you can bet some citizen board will get formed to do it for us. Most cops prefer IA watching over them than civilians who have no idea what it’s like dealing with human garbage. It’s when a cop breaks the law while dealing with the garbage that we step in. We have to.”

Carrie massaged her right temple. Talking about her covert assignment had stirred her headache back to life. “You’re right. I just don’t like lying about what I’m doing.”

“Hopefully you won’t have to for long. And you’re right—we might have a team of cops doing these hits. But when you run the dead guys against the cops who handled them, Reilly’s name keeps coming up. Too many times for it to be a coincidence. So, right now he’s our focus. What’s your take so far on him?”

He’s dark, moody and sexy as hell. That her physical impression of the man was the first thing to pop into her head had Carrie struggling against a nagging unease. Then there was her over-the-top response to his touch that had alarm bells shrilling in her head.

“Reilly’s thorough,” she began. “He has the undercover op we start tomorrow night totally mapped out. He insisted we go over the concept today at least five times. We’ll do that again tomorrow. I doubt the man leaves anything to chance.”

“Neither does the Avenger,” Scott murmured. “How did he react when Gaines delivered the message about the Tulsa murder?”

Carrie paused, considered things. The instant Gaines walked in, she had felt the weight of tension in the room. She sensed Linc stiffen; Gaines had stood as rigid as a flagpole. Some sort of conflict existed between the men, she was sure. Since she had no idea what had caused it, she decided to keep the observation to herself for the time being.

“Reilly didn’t outwardly react when Gaines told him about the murder,” Carrie responded. “I tried to get him talking about it after Gaines left. He wouldn’t. If Reilly’s the Avenger, he won’t be tripped up. And the last thing he’ll ever do is confess. The only way to nail him is to catch him in the act.”

“That’s why you’re assigned to work with him. Get close to him.”

“I’ll only get so close,” Carrie blurted.

Scott studied her while silence stretched. “If you’re informing me you won’t sleep with Sergeant Reilly, I never intended for you to,” she finally said.

“Just wanted to make that clear.” Carrie pressed her lips together. She knew sleeping with Reilly wasn’t in her job description. So where the hell had her comment come from?

“Glad that’s settled.” Scott opened the armrest between the seats, pulled out a small metal box and handed it to Carrie.

In the weak beam from a far-off light, Carrie saw the brand name of a well-known throat lozenge printed across its top. “You think I have a sore throat?”

Scott smiled. “That’s what someone will think if they spot that in your purse. There’s clay inside to make impressions of keys. You get Reilly’s house key, press both sides of it into the clay.”

Carrie stared at the box. “Once I get the impression, how do I get the key made?”

“Bring the box to me. I know a vice officer who has a connection who will make the key overnight. Discreetly.”

“Are you sure my going into Reilly’s house is legal?”

“This makes it legal,” Scott said, handing her an envelope. “It’s a covert entry warrant for your search. It authorizes you to hunt for certain evidence. If you find anything linking Reilly to the murders, photograph it, then leave. Write a report detailing what you saw and where it’s located.”

“What about notice? Doesn’t Reilly have to be notified that a search has occurred?”

“For this type of warrant, the courts have a procedure for delaying notification up to seven days after the search.”

Carrie closed her eyes. “I don’t like the idea of going into another cop’s house. What if Reilly isn’t the Avenger?”

“What if he is? At some point an innocent person is going to get hurt. We’ve got to find the Avenger, McCall. If it isn’t Reilly, fine, but we have to know.”

Carrie’s cop brain told her what she was doing was right. Still, in her heart she felt a tug of guilt, a ripple of unease.

“Reilly’s house is alarmed,” Scott continued. “We could send in a guy to disable it and do the search, but there’s a chance Reilly has some fail-safe measure to alert him if someone screws with the system. Plus, he lives in an older housing addition so neighbors are home during the day. Some guy messing around outside the house will get noticed.”

“I can’t exactly ask Reilly his alarm code.”

“True.” Scott reached into the pocket of her coat. “If you wind up at his place and he has to enter the alarm code, use this.”

Carrie studied the small recorder Scott handed her. “How do I get his code with a tape recorder?”

“That’s a high-power recorder. Keep it in your pocket and activate it when Reilly enters his alarm code. The recorder will pick up the tones. One of the department’s tech guru’s will translate the beeps into the code.”

“Slick,” Carrie murmured.

“Once you have the key and the code, you drop by Reilly’s house when you know he’s tied up somewhere else. If you find anything that connects him to these homicides, we take him down. End of story.”

“Just like that.”

A few moments later Carrie slid back into her MG. She started the engine, let it idle while the taillights of Scott’s black van disappeared into the night.

Instead of driving away, Carrie shifted her thoughts back to that afternoon. She wished she hadn’t seen the flash of grief in Linc’s eyes when she mentioned his wife. The man who had kidnapped her, then raped her over a span of days before killing her was still free. A man who was as evil as seven others who no longer presented a threat to innocent citizens.

Carrie figured half the people in the city would cheer the Avenger if they knew he had prevented hundreds of violent crimes. Saved the lives of uncountable decent people. Hell, a part of her cheered him!

She clenched her gloved fingers around the steering wheel. No, she thought. She carried a badge, she wasn’t allowed to think like that. Murder was murder.

She’d been ordered to take down a killer. That’s what she intended to do. If Linc Reilly was that killer, so be it.

Chapter 3

The following evening, Linc watched his new partner slide into the passenger seat of the hunter-green SUV he’d checked out from OCPD’s asset forfeiture inventory. Firing up the engine, he noted with relief she’d forgone her come-and-get-me perfume for their first visit to The Hideaway. All he could smell on the crisp November air was the aroma of soap and skin.

A half hour later, he decided the warm, natural scent of woman that slid around him—into him—was far more enticing than anything bottled. Damn near erotic, he amended as he whipped the SUV into The Hideaway’s parking lot, gravel crunching beneath its wheels.

“What is it about macho guys and pickup trucks?” Carrie asked while scanning the vehicles crowding the lot. “Clue me in, Reilly. Do guys believe that driving a pickup enhances testosterone production?”

Linc took a measured breath, which failed dismally at easing the tightness in his gut. “The macho drug dealer who owned this SUV must not have thought so.” He killed the powerful engine, then gazed out the windshield through the frozen twilight. In the yellowish glow of the sodium-vapor lights that illuminated the lot, he counted about ten pickup trucks to every car. “Neither do I,” he added. “My personal vehicle is a Cadillac Allanté.”

“Cops don’t count,” she said, flicking down her visor and popping open the cover of the vanity mirror. She fluffed her dense, wild hair, the mirror’s bright light enhancing the gold and fiery-red accents. Studying her, Linc noted she’d used a heavy hand tonight when applying her makeup. Instead of giving her a cheap look, however, the smoky eyeshadow, dark liner and emergency-exit-red lipstick enhanced the smoldering, alluring mystique she must have been born with.

He scowled, annoyed he felt a glimmer of curiosity over her last comment. “Why doesn’t the kind of vehicle a cop drives count?”

“They’re armed. On the macho scale, a cop packing a gun is equal to some redneck civilian driving a pickup truck.”

“McCall, that has got to be the biggest pile of…”

Linc let his voice trail off when a going-to-rust blue Chevy rumbled into the slot on the SUV’s passenger side. Seconds later a burly man with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail climbed out of the Chevy. Shoulders hunkered beneath his denim jacket against the cold, he lumbered toward the bar’s entrance.

“Recognize him from the mug shots you studied?” he asked.

“Howard Klinger. a.k.a. Howie Kling.” Carrie snapped off the mirror. “He has priors for larceny. Was once nabbed on a residential burglary charge, which got reduced to possession of stolen property.”

“Good memory, McCall.”

“Comes from all those years riding patrol. You have to keep track of the baddies and what they’re up to.”

“Yeah.” Linc also possessed a cop’s honed memory. One that enabled him to picture in detail the portion of a snake tattoo captured two years ago on a grainy surveillance tape. He was haunted by the possibility that the tattoo had been one of the last things his wife had seen. Most nights he jerked awake in a cold sweat, half expecting to see the dark, slippery tail of the snake slithering beneath the closet door. Recently, a snitch had seen a pool player at The Hideaway with a similar tattoo. If Linc didn’t spot Kim’s killer on this visit, the assignment he’d engineered for himself gave him the luxury of spending as many nights at the bar as necessary until the bastard showed.

“Where’d you go, Reilly?”

He slicked his gaze across the SUV’s front seat. Carrie sat unmoving, studying him with the open scrutiny of a cop.

“Just running over the details of this assignment one last time,” he stated. “Ready to get started?”

“Ready.” Leaning, she nudged her purse under the seat. “So I don’t have to keep track of it all night,” she explained.

“Where’s your gun?”

“Inside my left boot.”

He looked down, saw she had on black leather boots with low, spiky heels. “No cowboy boots for you, McCall?”

“I put a lot of thought into image, and decided to go with my own unique look. Since our undercover personas have money to burn and no jobs, I opted for a mix. Jeans and silk. Toss in a little faux fur.” She shook back her hair. “What’s the verdict, Reilly? Like the combination?”

His gaze moved down her short, mink-look fur jacket to the black jeans that molded her trim butt and slim legs. “The look works for me,” he answered calmly, even as his blood stirred. “What are you packing in your boot?”

“A .25 baby Browning. How about you?”

He shifted his left leg, felt the reassuring hardness of the automatic secured in the leather insert he’d had sewn inside the top of his left boot. “Brought my .380 Sig. Let’s go.”

What had been on Reilly’s mind? Carrie mused as she slid out of the SUV into the dark, cold air. She doubted it had been their assignment as he’d claimed. She could think of nothing about a covert bar investigation that would set his mouth in such a grim line and transform those yellow-gold eyes into hard, cold chunks of amber.

Her thoughts scattered the instant Linc settled an arm around her waist and nudged her against his side. When her shoulders did an instinctive jerk, he glanced down.

“We’re hot for each other, remember?” he asked while bass rhythm coming from the bar thumped on the night air.

“Right.”

His arm tightened on her waist. “You need to get used to this.”

“No problem.” Despite the layers of clothing they both wore, she was aware of the strength in his arm, of the hardness of his thigh against her hip. The faint, spicy fragrance of his aftershave made her insides clench. She gave silent thanks he didn’t know about the little flips going on in her stomach.

Flips that had no business being there, she told herself. It wasn’t like he was someone she could consider jumping into a relationship with. The man had maybe murdered seven people. Even if he turned out to be as innocent as a virgin, he was a co-worker. Her partner. She’d learned the hard way the pitfalls of getting romantically involved with another cop.

She swallowed around a knot of tension as she and Linc crunched their way across gravel through the sea of vehicles. To get her mind off her flipping stomach, she focused on the structure coming into view.

Linc had mentioned The Hideaway’s management had set up shop in a vacant farmhouse. The place hadn’t totally lost the look, Carrie judged when they advanced up the steep steps leading to an old-fashioned wraparound porch. She checked both ends, half expecting to see a wooden swing hanging from ceiling hooks.

“Want to bet about a zillion drunks have toppled down those narrow steps?” Linc asked.

“I’ll pass.” The weathered boards beneath her feet vibrated with music. “You’d rake in all the chips on that one.”

“I know.” Grinning, he raised a shoulder beneath his scarred bomber jacket. “I only wager on sure things.”

A red glow from the neon beer signs hanging in the front windows angled across his face, highlighting day-old stubble. In the crimson light he looked sexy, rugged and a little ruthless.

The flips in Carrie’s stomach transformed into somersaults. Why did the cop she’d been ordered to investigate have to be the type of man who lured her like a moth to a blowtorch?

When Linc pulled the door open, a wall of sound and a cloud of smoke hit them. “After you,” he said over the noise.

Inside, a bouncer with huge biceps looked them up and down. A red bandana topped his shoulder-length blond hair; he wore black pants and a sweatshirt with the sleeves razored off. Carrie pictured him lying on a weight bench, straining beneath a barbell loaded with iron plates the size of tractor tires.

“No cover charge for chicks,” the bouncer said over the racket of pool games, loud talk and a country tune crooning from the jukebox. He nodded toward Linc. “Men pay twenty bucks.”

“Sure thing.” Linc tugged the department-supplied flash roll from the front pocket of his snug Levi’s.

Stepping away, Carrie slid off the faux-mink jacket she’d picked up that morning in a trendy consignment shop. Through the smoke-laden air she noted the glint in the bouncer’s eyes when Linc peeled a twenty off the thick layer of bills.

“You charge all male customers to get in?” Linc asked.

“Not the regulars.”

“How many visits do I have to make before I’m a regular?”

The bouncer’s mouth curved, more sneer than smile. “I’ll let you know.”

“First rip-off of the night,” Linc murmured when he joined Carrie.

“Get the feeling the Incredible Hulk runs the complaint department?” she asked. “Grouse about something, and see how fast he pounds you into dust.”

“I’ll try to avoid that.” Wrapping his hand around hers, Linc threaded a path for them through a maze of occupied tables.

His touch reactivated the somersaults in her stomach. Get real, McCall, she told herself, and shifted her attention to her surroundings.

As Linc’s sketch had shown, the long, polished bar spanned one entire wall, booths another. Tables filled the rest of the main room, surrounding a spacious dance floor, presently packed with couples waltzing to the country tune oozing from the jukebox. Through an archway Carrie glimpsed several pool tables, each with a rectangular light fixture suspended above it. Beyond the pool tables was a wall dotted with closed doors. Linc’s snitch had said those were the small rooms where The Hideaway’s working girls entertained clients.

Just as they reached the far end of the crowded bar, two men slid off their stools and tossed bills beside their empty glasses. Carrie draped her jacket across the back of one stool while Linc did the same to the one beside it. The location afforded them a view of both rooms. She noted Linc doing a slow survey of the men gathered around each pool table.

“What’llitbe?” The bartender wearing a T-shirt with a beer company logo barely glanced at them while he filled a pitcher from a beer tap. A jagged scar ran through his lower lip halfway to the tip of his stubbled jaw.

Looking back, Linc settled his hand on Carrie’s thigh. “Want your usual?”

She could swear she felt the heat of each of his fingers seep through her jeans. “Not when the evening’s still young.” Even to her own ears her voice sounded low and throaty. “I’ll start with something tame.”

Linc tucked a finger under her chin and gave her a slow smile that had her throat clicking shut. “Babe, so far I haven’t found one tame thing about you.”

While Carrie struggled to breathe, he ordered a diet soda and a beer. It’s an act, she reminded herself.

When the bartender placed their orders in front of them, Linc peeled a twenty off the roll of bills and tossed it onto the bar. “Keep the change,” he said.

“Thanks.” Interested now, the man slicked them another look. “New in town?”

“I just moved here last week,” Linc said, and dipped his head toward Carrie. “Same goes for her. I’m staying at the Drop Inn. The night clerk said I’d find good food here.”

“Hamburgers are great. The five-alarm chili will set you on fire.”

“And some action.”

The bartender grabbed a whiskey bottle from in front of the dingy mirror that ran the length of the bar. “What sort?”

Smiling, Carrie leaned in. “What’s your name, handsome?” She already knew the answer. The jagged scar on his lower lip had still been raw in the mug shot she’d studied.

“Zack.” He filled one glass with whiskey, then another.

Aitken. She mentally added his last name while reviewing the misdemeanor gambling arrests on his record. “Well, Zack, I’m Carrie. My friend, Linc, and I are looking for all sorts of action.” She gave him a wink. “What do you recommend?”

Zack glanced toward the opposite end of the bar where customers were feeding coins into several tabletop video games. “We’ve got video poker. Pool. And lots of friendly folks.”

Linc sipped his beer. “If I want to play video games, I’ll go to an arcade.”

Zack gave them another once-over. Carrie knew she and Linc wouldn’t get an invitation to participate in illegal activities until they’d been checked out. She’d wager the Drop Inn’s night clerk would soon receive a call about Linc.

“You folks keep dropping by,” the bartender said. “You might find more interesting stuff to do down the line.”

“Fair enough,” Linc said, then turned to Carrie. “Want to play pool?”

“You go ahead.” Their plan was to split up part of the time during each visit and try to spot as much illegal activity as possible. “I’ll try the video poker Zack suggested,” she added. By law, Oklahoma did not allow games of chance that paid off in cash winnings. Gaming machines were legal only if the players racked up points that netted additional free games. Raising a shoulder, she glanced at the dance floor. “If I get bored with poker, I bet I can find some cowboy to give me a whirl.”