A Covert Affair Read online

  I’m not letting you go either.

  Good, because he couldn’t let her go. As soon as this op was over, he was making some changes and putting in a request to be transferred to the Miami location permanently. And no more undercover work. It might piss Burkhart off, but if he wanted to choose having a life and happiness, Amelia was going to win.

  “Is it hard doing what you do and having a family?” He kept his question as vague as possible as Selene pulled up to the front of Lopez’s house. Nathan knew Selene’s husband, had served with the guy back in their Marine Corps days. Now Levi was a civilian with no ties to the NSA other than Selene.

  “Some days. The traveling sucks, but you do what you have to do and you make it work. If you love someone and they’re willing to put up with your bullshit hours, then you don’t lose sight of that.” Her words were blunt with the sharp ring of truth.

  Nathan had no doubt Amelia would put up with his hours. She didn’t exactly have a nine-to-five job anyway. That was the least of his concerns, though. His only issue was their past. But that was quickly fading as a concern too. She’d been seventeen. Yeah, he was pissed she hadn’t trusted him, but twelve years had passed. He would only focus on who they were now and move forward.

  He never got a chance to respond, because two of Lopez’s guys opened their doors. He and Selene went through the whole pat-down and scanned-weapons check again before being escorted through the massive house to the pool area instead of the office.

  Today Lopez had on cargo pants and a hideously bright Hawaiian-style button-down shirt. He immediately dismissed his guards and motioned for Nathan and Selene to sit in one of his covered cabanas. The white billowy curtains giving them privacy rippled in the breeze.

  “You have what we need?” Selene asked, not bothering with niceties.

  Lopez nodded, his expression grim. “I started asking around about Mercado, but got stonewalled when it came to Iker. But not his daughter. She’s been into some nasty shit, apparently.”

  Nathan straightened slightly. Collette wasn’t even on their radar. They’d looked into her initially because of her father—but apparently not deep enough.

  “Some of this is just rumors, so take it with a grain of salt. Allegedly about three years ago she got involved with some wannabe gangbanger. Guy cheated on her and his life did not end well.” Lopez shuddered. “Supposedly he was found with his throat slit and his cut-off dick in his mouth. I don’t know if that’s true, but a few months later she started moving drugs with a small team of former military guys. She had the capital and a lot of contacts to get an operation off the ground and they were turning a tidy profit. I know that’s true because I heard about it back then. Her father got angry and worried that she’d piss off one of the cartels so he used his influence to get her shut down by another outfit.”

  “The cops or DEA never knew about her?” Nathan asked. Because she hadn’t been on anyone’s radar.

  Lopez shook his head. “No. She hadn’t been in the business long enough. About seven months after that she very quietly—so quietly I didn’t know about it until I started making inquiries yesterday—bought up abandoned properties all over Miami. Not sure what she’s using them for, but I heard she had some of her guys trolling clubs and homeless hangouts for young girls. That part is just a rumor because she’s been very quiet the past two years. But if she was looking to scoop up young girls and women . . . I can think of a lot of reasons for that. None of them good. She could be using her properties for . . . hell, I don’t even want to think about it.”

  Yeah, neither did Nathan.

  Lopez’s expression darkened as he continued. “She might be who your client is after. It’s only a potential lead and I’m going to keep pushing my contacts for more, but I wanted to tell you this now. If she’s behind all those women being found—shut that bitch down.”

  Selene glanced at Nathan. He kept his expression neutral even as inside his blood had turned icy. Amelia had been around Collette on more than one occasion. Just yesterday, in fact.

  “I’ll wire your normal fee if this pans out,” Selene said, standing. Nathan stood with her.

  Lopez shook his head and followed suit. “This one’s on me.”

  “Thanks,” Nathan said quietly as Selene murmured the same thing.

  Once they were on the road, Nathan tried calling Amelia to check in. He needed to hear her voice and to make sure she was headed home. He needed her safe.

  When it went straight to voice mail, he called Elliott and relayed everything. If Collette was involved in kidnapping so many women, they’d figure out where she was keeping them. Once they had that, ripping apart her life should be easy enough, especially for Elliott.

  “Can you ping Amelia’s phone?” Nathan asked Elliott as Selene pulled onto the highway. He didn’t care if he was being paranoid; he wanted to know where she was. She’d told him in her text she’d be heading home after errands. Didn’t matter, he needed to know she was safe. And it bugged him that her phone had gone to voice mail right away. As if it was turned off.

  “Yeah, just a sec . . . Her phone’s not pinging.” He could hear the slight confusion in Elliott’s voice.

  “At all?” That was not good. His heart rate kicked up and he swallowed back the sharp taste of fear.

  Elliott was silent for a moment, the soft clicking of fingers over a keyboard the only sound coming over the line. “No. Her battery has to be out. I can’t get a signal.”

  Nathan looked at Selene. Panic gripped his chest, the talons digging in and making it difficult to draw breath. “Get off on the next exit.” They were headed to Amelia’s restaurant now.

  He knew her last location, so he’d work from there. Maybe he was being completely paranoid, but Amelia wouldn’t just turn her phone off, much less take her battery out. Not with everything going on.

  A gnawing feeling in his gut told him something else had happened. “Try tracking her credit cards and run her face through—”

  “Already on it.”

  “Run Collette’s phone and—

  “Running that too. Not getting anything. She’s probably using a burner.”

  Of course he was on it, Nathan thought. Elliott wasn’t an amateur. “I’ll call you back in a sec.” He hung up and dialed Detective Sinclair. The last place he knew Amelia had been was her restaurant. Since Sinclair had already questioned all her employees once before, he was going to get the detective to do it again.

  Nathan could go in and start questioning everyone, but Sinclair already had a rapport with a lot of the people who worked for her. While Nathan hated asking for outside help, he’d do anything to find her.

  As the phone rang, he tried to tell himself that this was just a mistake. Maybe she’d dropped her phone in water and shorted it out. Even as he had the thought, he knew it was utter crap.

  If Collette was kidnapping women, some from Amelia’s restaurant, it wasn’t out of the realm of reality that she’d make a play for Amelia. Maybe out of revenge. The reason didn’t matter.

  If she had, she was going to pay. No matter what, he was going to find Amelia.

  Chapter 20

  Infiltration: the secret movement of an individual (or small group) penetrating a target area with the intent to remain undetected.

  “Have you done a thorough sweep yet?” Wesley asked Cade as he glanced down at the dead body on the kitchen floor. The woman’s pale eyes were open in shock and her limbs stiff, rigor mortis having set in. As far as dead bodies went, he’d definitely seen worse. Her clothes were on and there was no blood. A slight puncture wound on her neck told him she’d been poisoned with something. At this point it didn’t matter what.

  “As thorough as possible.” Cade pointed behind Wesley with his gloved hand. “This way.”

  He fell in step behind Cade. Cade and the rest of the team had been following up various leads, specifically people from Maria’s center or Amelia’s restaurants who’d had contact with multiple missing women. Lita Cla
rk had been one of Maria’s volunteers—and she’d abruptly quit yesterday after two years of steadily putting in hours at Bayside.

  Burkhart didn’t like the time frame and Elliott had confirmed some interesting financial data on Clark. Her husband had left her three years ago for a much younger woman, screwing her out of decent alimony, yet she’d somehow managed to pay off her house and continue volunteering regularly without much extra income. They’d missed some of the info on the first round of digging because she had no red flags and she paid for a lot of stuff in cash.

  “There was either a safe inside or stacks of cash.” Cade nodded at the giant cutout hole in Clark’s walk-in closet.

  Wesley nodded. “Yep.” He’d seen the same thing too many times. Drug lords and various criminals liked to keep their cash close at hand. Hiding it in walls or burying money underground was a favorite. “Explains why there wasn’t a digital link to her and whoever’s behind this,” he muttered more to himself than Cade. Cash was damn hard to trace.

  Whoever had set up this operation was careful. There’d been no unusual phone activity on Clark’s line, no large deposits into her bank accounts, and her lifestyle had been anything but extravagant.

  “What do you want me to do?” Cade asked.

  “Call Nieto, get the locals down here.” They could deal with the body and cleanup. Wesley had the information he wanted. Clark was clearly dead because whoever was in charge was cleaning house. Or that was what his gut told him. His instinct was almost never wrong.

  As Cade pulled out his cell and strode from the walk-in closet, Wesley’s own phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. He answered when he saw Ortiz’s name. “You find out anything from Lopez?”

  “Yeah. Amelia’s missing and we’re pretty certain Collette Mercado took her. She’s behind this operation, and from the look of it, her father has no clue what she’s been doing.” Ortiz’s voice was tight and grim.

  His jaw tightened. Wesley knew there’d be more details to catch up on, but for now he focused on the most important facts. “You’re sure Amelia’s been taken?”

  “Yeah. Her phone’s not pinging and I got Sinclair down to her restaurant to question the staff. One of the cooks walked her to her vehicle, but she got into a BMW with Collette. That was two hours ago. Elliott can’t fucking track Collette either. Her vehicle GPS is disabled. She had to have had it done professionally. No ping on her phone either, but she’s probably using burners anyway.”

  Damn it. Ortiz sounded in control, but Wesley knew he cared for Amelia. “Where are you?”

  “Base.”

  “I’m on my way.” He disconnected and headed out. Cade could handle things here and they had their first solid lead. He hated that a woman Ortiz clearly cared about had been kidnapped, but the shitty silver lining was, these women were being killed months after their abductions. Amelia had a shot at surviving this.

  Unless Collette had taken her because she suspected Amelia’s involvement with the police. If that was the case . . . He steeled himself against that thought. He couldn’t think about that now. He had a job to do.

  Nathan swiped the stylus over his screen, adding a blueprint to it. On the oversize screen on the wall, the same image popped up for everyone in the conference room to see. It was a small team so far, with him, Dax, Freeman, Bell, and of course Elliott. Burkhart should be in soon, and he knew his boss would pick a team to send for their infiltration, but for now he wanted to start going over the details with his three guys.

  They’d worked together enough and he’d be requesting to work directly with them for the upcoming op. And Burkhart better not fucking bench him for the mission to save Amelia. He couldn’t just sit on his ass and do nothing.

  “This is a former medical testing facility,” he started, only pausing when he heard the sliding glass doors whoosh open behind him. Nathan turned to see Burkhart stride in, but his boss just nodded at him to continue.

  He turned back to the screen. “It’s one of the many places that Collette Mercado scooped up a couple years ago when it went into foreclosure.” Nathan swiped the stylus across his screen again, motioned to a new image. “And this is a shot from a satellite that Elliott managed to hack into.”

  Nathan continued. “It’s not the clearest shot, but you can see two pregnant women in this courtyard area. An armed guard is near them at all times. Combined with the huge perimeter privacy fence, this might be where the women are being held.” He refused to think about what might be happening to Amelia right now. His only focus had to be on finding her.

  “Amelia’s phone lost its signal two blocks from here,” Elliott added, looking back at Burkhart.

  Their boss stepped forward, his expression dark. “I read the intel you sent me on the way over here,” he said to Elliott before turning to all of them. “I agree—this is likely where they’re being held. It’ll be sunset in a couple hours, so we move in then. I’ve already called three more teams together. Ortiz, you’re going to lead the group here, but I want to talk to you in private. Now.”

  Everyone filed out without a word. Nathan wanted to protest waiting until sunset even though he knew that was the smart choice. He hated the idea of Amelia being injured or worse. He flat-out refused to contemplate that she wasn’t okay.

  Burkhart crossed his arms over his chest, looking every bit the lieutenant general he’d been. “You okay for this mission?”

  Nathan wasn’t even going to pretend not to know what his boss meant. “Yes. I care for her.” More than care, but he wasn’t telling Burkhart that before he told Amelia—and he would tell her. “My objectivity right now is the same as it would be even if she hadn’t been taken. I want to save her and the women. I’m trained and when we go in, there could be mass confusion or hysteria with the women. We don’t know what they’ve been through, but a bunch of guys armed to the teeth storming their facility is going to be terrifying no matter what. Amelia knows me and some of the others. She’ll be able to relay her trust in us to the women. It’s a better choice to have me go than to let me sit on the sidelines. But I’ll respect your decision,” he added grudgingly. Okay, the last part was bullshit. If he got sidelined . . . he might lose it.

  Burkhart raised an eyebrow. “You practice that little speech?”

  “I did, sir.”

  A real smile tugged at his boss’s mouth, for just an instant. “Stand down. You’re not in the Corps anymore. And I agree with everything you said. You’ll head up the team for Bell, Freeman, and Dax. Unless you have any arguments?”

  The tension in Nathan’s shoulders loosened. “No.”

  “Good. I’ve already put in an order to have a drone fly over the area, see if we can get some better images. Until then, gear up and meet back here in thirty. We’re going to nail down a solid infiltration so there’s no question of who does what. I want to put an end to this operation tonight.”

  “What about the other properties Collette bought up?”

  “I’ve got Karen looking into them and seeing what she can find via satellite. I’ll put a few men on the ground to do visual sweeps, but this place”—he nodded at the screen—“is the most likely for what we think she’s doing. We’ll have eyes on it until we move in.”

  “Okay.” Nathan nodded, agreeing completely. Now it was go time. He just prayed that Amelia was okay. She was strong, one of the strongest women he knew. She’d make it through this.

  Blinking to clear away the fuzziness, Amelia wrapped the pillowcase around her fist multiple times and stood up. She’d been awake for maybe twenty minutes and had already gone to the bathroom. She kept expecting someone to come into her room and knock her out again or something. Since that hadn’t happened, she was going to take action.

  Yeah, she might feel woozy, but she could take on that prick of a doctor if he entered her room alone again. She just needed to get a weapon. The bathroom door squeaked as she opened it. There was a shower area, a toilet, and a small mirror hanging over a white sink. It was all very sparse
.

  She slammed her wrapped fist against the mirror, once, twice . . . crack. The glass splintered, sending a jolt of adrenaline ricocheting through her. She could do this.

  With trembling fingers, she pulled on one of the pieces until it broke free from the broken mirror. She set it on the sink ledge before pulling off another jagged piece. A few shards dropped, falling onto the sink and floor.

  Careful not to move near them, since her feet were bare and she was still unsteady, she took the first piece and cut the pillowcase in half. She sliced part of her palm but barely felt the sting. Her adrenaline was pumping too fast, her heartbeat out of control. If someone had heard her banging on the mirror, they could be here any second. Or maybe they were recording her room. She hadn’t seen any overt cameras, but that didn’t mean jack.

  She wrapped both jagged pieces on one end with the pillowcase strips. Now she could hold on to the glass without slicing herself up and actually use them as a weapon.

  On shaky legs, she stepped out of the bathroom and pulled the door closed behind her. She didn’t want to risk anyone seeing the broken glass. Chills racked her, more from terror than anything else. The adrenaline surging through her was good, though; it was pumping her up more. She had a feeling she’d only get one chance at attacking and escaping. She kept her makeshift weapons close to her body, hoping to hide them in case someone was watching her. After tucking them under her pillow, she opened the mini-refrigerator.

  There were juices and various fruits on the shelves, but she didn’t trust anything these people provided not to be drugged. Shutting the door, she strode back to the bed. No one had stormed into her room yet, so she lay down on it and stretched out. She needed to regain her strength.