His boss, Zack Waverly, was at the head of the table and motioned for Nick to come in.
Nick shut the door and took a seat beside his boss.
“Nick,” Waverly said, “you already know ADA Tom Hicks. He only has an hour window before his next court appointment next door. That’s why we met over here instead of at the DEA office.”
Nick leaned over the table and shook Hicks’s hand.
“And this,” Waverly said, motioning to the man sitting at the other end of the table, “this is Special Agent Michael Rickloff. He works out of the Miami office and is heading up the Key West Task Force. He’s the one who called and asked us to perform the sting on the club Friday night.”
Nick shook Rickloff’s hand. “Miami? You’re not from Key West?”
“Miami native, born and raised. Key West is my current target, thus the name of the task force I put together. A major drug pipeline is coming up from the Keys into my city, and as you found out, even as far north as Saint Augustine. I want it stopped. And I need your help to do it.”
Nick turned to Waverly. “My help? Is my suspension lifted?”
“Assuming you agree to Rickloff’s plan, yes.”
“But the internal investigation will continue,” Hicks said. “And if we find anything that concerns us, you’ll be pulled from the operation.”
So that was why the ADA was here? To warn Nick to be a good boy? If it weren’t for the carrot of having his suspension lifted, he would have gotten up right then and walked out.
Ignoring Hicks, he focused on Rickloff. “What plan? What operation?”
“When you raided the club for us, we were obviously hoping you’d find more than a knapsack with four kilos of cocaine. We were hoping you’d catch Lily Bannon meeting her contact here in north Florida. I wanted a bigger fish than Miss Bannon, to ultimately lead me to the head of the pipeline. Since that didn’t happen, I need another way to bring my target down. That’s where you come in.”
Nick crossed his arms and sat back. “I’m listening.”
* * *
AFTER PAMPERING HERSELF with a shower and a long soak in the tub, Heather was finally starting to feel normal again. She’d clipped her nails short the way she liked them and filed them smooth. She’d styled her hair into long curly waves that hung down her back, and she was wearing one of her favorite pairs of slacks—the soft, copper-colored chinos, with an exquisite pair of Italian leather sandals cushioning her feet—clothes she rarely got to wear because she was usually working.
Her typical work clothes consisted of T-shirts and jeans, things she didn’t mind getting dirty or torn if she had to duck behind a Dumpster to avoid her mark catching her with her camera.
Thinking about work reminded her of the disastrous phone call with her client she’d made a few minutes ago—correction, former client. He’d been furious that she hadn’t called him Saturday, and no amount of apologizing or telling him there was an emergency had soothed him. Now she’d have to work extra hard to be even more frugal until she could get another big case lined up.
Determined not to think about her business and financial woes for now, she straightened the bathroom and went to work on her bedroom. Lily must have searched through all of Heather’s drawers hoping to find some hidden money, because every single one of them was hanging open. Heather sighed and straightened the mess, then headed into the living room to tackle the mess in there.
She stood in indecision, not sure where to start. Not only were there piles of laundry, papers and DVDs lying around wherever Lily had chosen to drop them, but some of the drawers and doors in the entertainment center on the far wall were hanging open.
She blinked and studied the room more carefully. Was it a coincidence that her apartment was so horribly trashed, after everything that had happened? This wasn’t a typical “Lily mess.” It was far worse. The apartment looked like it had been...searched. She’d worried about Greary and his “employer” finding out about the fate of the drugs. Had they broken into her apartment and searched it? She gasped as an even worse thought occurred to her. What if Lily had been home when they broke in?
Her entire body started shaking. She whirled around and rushed back into the hall. She twisted the knob on Lily’s door. Still locked. She pounded on the door, praying the awful, sinking feeling inside of her was because she was overtired and overreacting.
“Open up, Lily! Please. I need to know you’re okay.” She pounded on the door again. No answer. “Are...are you in there?”
Nothing except for the beat of the music, the same music that had been playing earlier, as if it was on a constant loop playing over and over.
Oh, no.
She ran to the kitchen, her gaze darting to every corner, as if someone might be hiding, ready to pounce on her. She yanked the junk drawer open beside the stove and grabbed the skeleton key before running back to her sister’s room. She shoved the key in the lock and pushed the door open.
Shock had her frozen, pressing her hand against her throat. Everything in the room was shredded, as if someone had taken a razor-sharp knife and gone on a rampage. Nothing was spared. Not the drapes on the windows, the clothes in the closet that was standing wide open or even the comforter on top of the bed. Everything had been destroyed with a violence that sent a wave of fear crashing through her. And there, on the bed, was a small white piece of paper. A note.
When Heather read what it said, she whirled around and fled from the apartment.
Chapter Three
“You’ve been building an undercover presence in the Keys for quite some time,” Rickloff said.
Nick shrugged. “About eight months, off and on, in preparation for a major op next year. We’ve been coordinating with the Key West office on that.”
Rickloff waved his hand as though that was inconsequential. “That operation is a long ways off. My need is more immediate. I need you to use your cover now, on my task force.”
“The Key West office is okay with this?”
Rickloff exchanged a glance with Waverly. “I haven’t notified them yet, but I will. That’s not for you to worry about. And I’m not asking much here. I just want you to help me draw out the big fish.”
A gnawing suspicion started in Nick’s mind, the suspicion that Rickloff wasn’t being honest with him. Why would a task force out of Miami operate in the Keys without coordinating with the head of the Key West office?
“All right,” Nick said. “I’ll bite. Who’s the big fish?”
“Jose Gonzalez.”
“The Jose Gonzalez? The top of the food chain in the Keys?”
Rickloff nodded.
Nick snorted and shook his head. “Exactly how do you plan to get Gonzalez? The man has never even had a speeding ticket. Everyone knows he’s dirty, that he’s the biggest dealer around, but no one can ever get any evidence against him.”
Rickloff
