Phantom in the Night (B.A.D. Agency, #2)(8)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

Bennie’s lucky day.

Nathan had never enjoyed shooting a man, but that feeling might pass once he faced Jamie’s murderer. He reached up and pushed the hood off his head and leaned forward to let the light catch his face.

Bennie gawked. His beady eyes rounded to the size of black dimes. "You ain’t dead," he whispered. "Men at the docks that found you said you had a hole in your head. Deader than a doornail."

Frantic clawing broke through the red haze of anger Nathan barely kept tethered. Bennie’s gaze shot straight down to the origin of the sound_the plywood floor beneath his feet.

A thin piece of wood that was a removable false bottom to the enclosure.

" W-w-what’s that?" Bennie stuttered, not quite as cocky.

He’d find out soon enough. "Who sent the shooter? Who wanted me dead?"

Bennie trembled. His gut heaved with panicked breaths. "I-I don’t know."

"I think you know something." Nathan reached down and stuck his fingers into the holes he’d cut for a handgrip and slid the board out of the way.

Bennie’s eyes bulged and sprung tears.

Two years ago, Jamie had researched everyone he could on Marseaux’s payroll while Nathan took his place during the trial What Jamie had lacked in street sense he’d made up for with amazing research and computer skills that led to an interesting tidbit on this warthog.

Bennie feared rats more than death.

The floor of the enclosure moved with wall-to-wall street rats, hungry and vicious rodents. With the lid out of the way, they started biting at each other and crawling all over one another, leaping.

"Get me outta here." Bennie swung back and forth, kicking his feet.

Bad idea. That excited the rats even more.

"Not until we finish chatting, Bennie. I’ve got plenty of cheese and nowhere to go until you tell me what I want to know." Nathan swung the cheese down to where Bennie’s legs dangled.

One of the smaller rats leapt up to brush Bennie’s right foot. He screamed like a little girl and jerked his legs higher, an impressive sight given the girth of his Michelin-style belly. "Marseaux… had to be him."

Nathan waited for more, but Bennie denied him. He teased the rats with the cheese, stirring them into a bloodthirsty rage before he jerked it up and hooked the string to the front of Bennie’s shorts.

His captive wailed, jerking his feet up.

"Scream all you want, Bennie. No one will hear you out here."

"I-I told you. Help me!"

"Help you? Like you helped those poor homeless boys just wanting a place to sleep and eat?" Nathan shook with the need to make this pedophile pay for hurting defenseless children.

Death wouldn’t clear his tab, but a dose of terror would be a fair down payment.

When Bennie couldn’t hold his feet up any longer, a rat jumped straight up, claws digging into the pudgy big toe. "That’s all I, ahhh_" he cried out, eyes and nose running.

Three more rats jumped, two catching hold. Blood trickled down his foot.

Bennie screamed.

While Doughy exercised his lungs and struggled to walk on air, Nathan considered his next options once he was finished here. He fished a business card from the chest pocket of Bennie’s jacket and moved the black type under the light.

TERRI MITCHELL, LAW ENFORCEMENT CONSULTANT.

Nothing about the DEA, but undercover operatives didn’t advertise. The card had a photo_didn’t do her justice_and a cell number.

Plenty of information for Nathan to go on to find out what his little B&E babe knew about Jamie’s death.

Nathan put the card away. Bennie was blabbering something about the dead bodies walking around. "Where did these guys see my body? What shipyard?"

CHAPTER FOUR

"I’m on the way in, Sammy. What’s the status on the container at the docks?" Terri flipped open a notepad as she drove to headquarters. With commuters headed for home clogging the roads downtown, she could have walked from her grandmother’s house to the police station faster.

"NOPD and DEA argued over jurisdiction and right of evidence possession, but we won the battle for once. Captain Philborn ordered a tractor trailer to pick up the container. It’s on the way to our secured yard right now. I got a note here for you somewhere." The sound of paper ruffling and low muttering followed.

"I’m not surprised the captain got his way. He’s pretty persuasive." Terri swerved into a faster lane.

"Nice to see us get a break once in a while, but only fair since the tip came from a contact that belongs to one of our guys. Damn, where is that message?" More fumbling noises.

"Clearly belongs to the NOPD," Terri agreed, not the least bit guilty about her role in all this.

After Sammy called this morning to alert her about the drug bust at the docks, she’d phoned the head of the BAD agency, Joe Q. Public_yes, that really was his name and anyone who teased him for it regretted the error shortly thereafter_for some assistance. Joe had a friend in the DEA who owed him a favor so the pissing contest was shut down quickly. She’d had just enough time to get Grandma to a doctor’s appointment and back, grab a late lunch, and change into her just-the-facts charcoal gray suit. One with pants instead of a skirt this time.

Joe hadn’t jockeyed the container out of the DEA’s hands just to give the NOPD first shot. He wanted the contents examined by a BAD representative first, and she intended to be the one he sent in. She needed first crack at it to see what else might be inside besides the drugs.

Could this be the shipment Conroy had been trying to tell her about the night they were ambushed? The one with something more than a shipment of coc**ne, something deadly? If Conroy had lived, Terri would have met the woman who told him a bizarre conspiracy story that involved secret material being transported with one of Marseaux’s drug shipments.

One thing bugged Terri. Why had the snitch waited so long to make the call to tip NOPD about the drugs? Why now?

"Here it is." Sammy triumphantly read off Brady’s name and phone number.

"Anyone else call?" She’d deal with Brady in due time.

Maybe he wanted to talk about the body… or drinks. She hoped not.

"Someone called here asking about you this morning."

"Yeah? Who?"

"Didn’t say. The call was routed to me. This guy wanted to know if you were with the NOPD. I told him you consulted. Then he asked what kind of consulting work you did. I told him I couldn’t share that type of information."

"Good. Probably someone I interviewed about that body from the docks, which reminds me_did the DEA find the body?" She tapped her brakes and grumbled at the sluggish movement. Terri hated the traffic but loved the city. Good thing, since she wouldn’t move away from Grandma, who had lived in the French Quarter since long before it became chic to own a condo there.

"Nope, nothing yet on the stiff. And that guy who called asking about you, I don’t think he was someone you interviewed."

"Why not?" She lifted her cup of coffee and took a sip.

"He asked if you consulted on B and Es."

Terri spewed coffee on the steering wheel and cursed. Good thing she’d only taken a sip. She stuck the cup back in the console cup holder and grabbed a napkin, wiping her pants leg.

"You okay?"

No. She swiped her hands and steering wheel, then growled over the spots on her clothes. "Yeah, I’m fine. Someone cut me off and I spilled coffee. That guy sounds like some lunatic. Just ignore it. I’ll be there in a few minutes."

She hung up and brushed her palm across her forehead and the top of her hair. How had that perp found her? And who was this character? Why would he track her down at the police station?

He wasn’t behaving like a common thief. He was starting to sound like a stalker.

Or someone from another agency.

And he was really starting to tick her off.

She parked the car outside in the lot reserved for everyone working in the temporary precinct and moved as quickly toward the two-story building as her leg would allow her. Her leg muscles seized up when she sat for more than fifteen minutes and hurt like a son of a gun when she stretched them.

Once she reached her desk, Terri eased down onto the chair, grimacing when she hit that one point in bending that turned her stomach with the sharp ache.

Her phone rang before she had her hands free. If this was that thief from the Drake house, she’d…

What?

She didn’t know, but the minute she did he’d get an earful. Snatching up the receiver, she answered briskly: "Terri Mitchell."

"This is Sammy."

She stretched her neck to see around people between her and Sammy’s desk, where he grinned and flapped his hand in a wave, "What do you need, sweetie?"

"You got a visitor on the way up."

"Who?" But she knew the answer before Sammy said, "Josie Silversteen from the DEA’s office."

The woman was already leaving the elevator, snapping toward Terri with determined steps. Five-eight even without the slut shoes she strode forward on, Josie’s navy-and-red-striped business suit fit her perfectly shaped body. She had the look of a corporate viper with an ax to grind.

She paused at Terri’s desk and gave her a withering stare. "Want to tell me what happened to that Drake body?" Long brunette hair swept across her shoulder when she leaned her head down and made a show of wiping off the wooden chair situated for visitors.

Terri blinked a minute, trying to get her bearings. What was Satan’s spawn doing here? What would make the Queen Viper come down from on high to visit the little people?

Josie snapped her fingers in the air as she sat down in the chair, somehow without splitting the overly tight skirt. "Mitchell, you here or what?"

Terri blinked twice and quelled the look she really wanted to give Josie. "I’m here."

Josie let out that irritating noise Terri hated. The one the sounded like a gruff spurt of steam escaping a teapot. "Do I gotta repeat myself?" she said in a Jersey snark." What’s the matter? Can’t you follow along or what? Here, I’ll use small words so that you won’t get lost again, capisce?"

Terri curled her lip at the sarcastic terror who had given one hundred and ten percent to making every day of Terri’s life at the DEA miserable. Josie had even campaigned for her position from the first day Terri spent in the hospital after the attack.

And got her job, damn them all.

Silversteen could put on that phoney street slang, but she was from old money in New Jersey. Why couldn’t she have stayed in the lap of luxury and not been a sandspur in Terri’s hide?

"Okay, real slow this time, Mitchell_"

Terri glared at her. "This isn’t the morgue. What? You get lost or something?" She mimicked Josie’s accent. "If you got stiffed on a body, that’s your problem, not mine. No pun intended." Terri tapped her fingers on the desktop, ready to end the unscheduled meeting.

"Very funny, Mitchell. That Drake killing is our"_Josie tapped a maroon fingernail against her chest_"jurisdiction. Did one of these NOPD boys pull a fast one?"

"Why would they?" Terri slapped her hand down on a stack of reports and leaned forward. "Look, I’m busy and not interested in your missing body. Why don’t you call Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin to put together a search party for the hospital bathrooms and stop wasting my time?"

Josie studied her perfect manicure. "You re the last one to see the body. In fact, Brady said you were giving the corpse hot looks. Never been into necrophilia myself, but I guess it’s hard for a gimp to get laid."

Terri’s face flamed with embarrassment. Beautiful, wealthy, and not half bad at her job, Josie went right for the buttons that destroyed feminine confidence in other women and never missed an opportunity to exploit a weak spot. Terri clutched the edge of her desk to keep her fingers busy so she wouldn’t use anything around her as a weapon.

"Oh, sorry," Josie cooed in a phony tone and splayed her hand above her immense bust. How did a woman stay that skinny with boobs the size of cantaloupes? "My bad for mentioning your leg. So hows the rehab going? I’m surprised you’d come back around an investigation after, well, you know… the screwup."

"I didn’t screw up."

"Tell that to Conroy’s widow."

Now that burned on a level so deep it was all Terri could do not to reach out and start ripping out Josie’s brunette mane. Her knuckles turned white from the pressure of keeping them in place. "If that’s all you came to talk about, you know where the exit is. Or should I reacquaint you with the street, butt first?"

Josie lifted her delicate brows and cocked her head slightly in a look that let Terri know she didn’t take her as any kind of serious threat. Big mistake there. Terri could have had her skinny ass down in less time than it’d take to dump a cup of coffee. "No, that’s not all. Talking to me right now would be in your best interest."

"Why?"

"In case you’ve forgotten_I know, a problem for blondes_you’re still under investigation. Refusing to work with the DEA could be considered a hostile attitude."

Terri’s street fighter genes simmered, wanting to burst out of her skin and show this viper exactly how hostile she really was. "I haven’t forgotten and I haven’t been hostile." Yet. "So get back to your point in this visit."

"That is my point," Josie purred. "I’m now heading the investigation on you and Conroy."

"What do you mean, Conroy? He’s dead, for crying out loud."

"This investigation has moved in another direction that I’m not at liberty to discuss. We know someone was sharing DEA information with Marseaux. Right now, all evidence points at one of you two. So if it’s Conroy, poor Sally won’t get any benefits." Josie’s lips pooched in a fake expression of concern. "However, if it’s you…" She smiled, genuinely excited. "You’ll have all the benefits allowed any other federal prisoner. Now, you want to play nice or push me to hunt answers elsewhere?"

Stunned at the audacity of that threat, Terri couldn’t believe the length Josie would go to bury her. Bad enough that she and Conroy were both suspected of working with Marseaux, but to deny his widow benefits would be the final insult.