Kara Quinn relaxed once Michael dropped Matt off at FBI headquarters on their way from LAX to LAPD headquarters downtown.
Matt Costa, their team leader, would be at the courthouse to listen to her testimony, but his concern for her safety had made her tense. She understood all the reasons why, but his stress gave her one more thing to think about when she already had far too much on her plate.
“He knows this is risky,” Michael said. “Cut him some slack.”
She glanced at her partner. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“He doesn’t think you’re taking the threat seriously.”
“I am. I just don’t want to talk about it 24/7. You have my back and I trust you. Matt has talked to court security a gazillion times and we have a dozen contingencies. I’m wearing this stupid vest all day.” She hit her chest. The Kevlar was wholly uncomfortable. She’d never gotten used to it when she’d been in uniform, and it didn’t feel any better now.
The unspoken truth: she was in a relationship with Matt. That was why Michael was coming with her to the courthouse. It was one thing to work together—she and Matt had proven they could be professional on the job. It was another to have the woman you cared about testifying against the criminal who had put a bounty on her head.
She changed the subject. “I wish I was a fly on the wall during Matt’s meeting.”
Michael grinned. “I’d join you.”
Matt was meeting with Assistant Special Agent in Charge Bryce Thornton, the asshole who had nearly destroyed Kara’s case against David Chen. Also in the meeting was an assistant US attorney working on federal charges against Chen. Because the state case was stronger—and because Thornton had fucked everything up seven months ago—the state was prosecuting Chen first.
Depending on what happened today at the courthouse, Kara would have to answer questions about Chen’s operation tomorrow at FBI headquarters. She wasn’t looking forward to it. Matt was there today to have Thornton removed from the case, something that should have happened months ago when he almost let Chen walk free and clear.
“I’ve never been here,” Michael said.
“You’ve never been to Los Angeles? Are you kidding?”
“I didn’t travel when I was a kid—I don’t remember ever leaving Chicago until I enlisted in the Navy, and boot camp wasn’t far from where I grew up. I went to SEALs training in Coronado, but never drove up here.”
“I wish I could show you around. Take you to Santa Monica—that’s where my condo is. One of my favorite Mexican restaurants is walking distance. Oh, and there is this amazing fish place on the pier. Best salmon I’ve ever had. There’s so much to do here, and no one pays you any attention. Usually, I hang out at the beach on my days off.”
“You, Ms. Workaholic, actually took days off?”
“Once or twice a month,” she said jokingly, even though that was the truth.
“Don’t know that we’ll have the time, or if it’ll be safe.”
“Don’t remind me,” she muttered. “Lex, my boss, has someone watching the place, and there’s been no sign that Chen’s known associates have been checking it out. I’d really like to go by before we leave town.”
The hearing was bullshit, Kara thought. Chen’s attorney had moved to dismiss the entire case by having Kara’s testimony and statement tossed for some legal reason she didn’t quite understand. Craig Dyson, the DDA who was prosecuting Chen, and who Kara had worked with while she was undercover to prevent just these types of legal maneuvers, needed her to answer questions the judge may have. He’d told her that if she didn’t show, there was a fifty-fifty chance the judge would dismiss the case. If she showed, he was confident that no evidence would be tossed and Chen would go to trial as scheduled.
“Traffic is worse than in DC,” Michael complained.
Michael was following his GPS, though Kara could have navigated him to LAPD headquarters. Because the Harbor Freeway was backed up, GPS told him to continue on the 10 to the first exit, then drive through side streets.
Kara would have told him to just take the Harbor because it was a more direct route, and you never knew what you’d face on downtown streets, but in the months they’d worked together, she knew Michael didn’t like backseat drivers, so she remained silent.
She looked around at her old stomping grounds. She had worked here, played here, but in the seven months she’d been gone it had changed, and not for the better. So many more homeless, the tents lining the streets leading from the freeway into the downtown area. Graffiti had plagued the city for years; it hadn’t gotten better. New tags over old. Crime was always a problem, but now the smash-and-grab in broad daylight was so commonplace, most people didn’t report the theft. The homeless were both victims of crime—rape, beatings, murder, theft—and the perpetrators. People preyed on people, and drug addiction made it worse.
It was sad to see, but she didn’t have the answers.
The year before he was killed in the line of duty, Colton, her former sometime partner, had gone undercover in Venice Beach to find a killer targeting the homeless. The killer started here, in downtown Los Angeles, and moved west. Colton followed. Took him nearly two months, but Colton caught him. Justice served.
But the plight of these people hadn’t gotten better. Colton had become invested in the communities, so angry with the politicians who talked a good game but didn’t solve any problems. He’d always been tightly wound, but he’d been a damn good cop and didn’t deserve to die. She still missed him. They’d had something between them—mutual respect, trust, an attraction they scratched from time to time. Colton had been the closest thing to a relationship she’d ever had, but because of who they were it had never progressed to something permanent.
Well, the closest thing to a relationship until Matt, she realized suddenly.
As they neared the government center, the rows of tents disappeared, as if law enforcement moved the homeless along until they were out of sight from the people who might be able to do something about it.
Michael turned the corner and LAPD headquarters came into view. Her heart swelled.
Home.
“That is the ugliest building I’ve seen yet,” Michael said, “and there have been plenty of monstrosities between here and the airport.”
“Jeez, what’s this, rag on the West Coast week?” She tilted her head to gaze at the contemporary structure built fifteen years ago. “I guess I don’t really notice it anymore. It opened before I was a cop. But yeah, it’s certainly not as nice as FBI headquarters,” she said sarcastically.
“Point taken.”
Michael drove to the parking garage, showed his credentials and was directed where to park. They took the elevator up to Special Operations.
Special Operations oversaw LAPD detectives, the counterterrorism squad and certain specialty units. Kara’s squad, led by Sergeant Lex Popovich, was one of the few dedicated undercover units.
Kara had been one of his first hires, right out of the academy because she fit a need. Lex obtained an exemption for her to work undercover at a high school to ferret out a drug ring, à la 21 Jump Street, and then she had to do a year in uniform when that assignment was over, before returning to the unit full-time. She loved it. She’d found a home, a place where she belonged, people who respected her, and justice.
Then it was ripped away from her. Painfully, ruthlessly, unfairly.
She missed everything. Lex, her team, the cases, even this building.
Michael let her lead the way. Lex’s squad was at the north end of the fourth floor. She stopped outside double doors labeled “Special Operations Division III, Sergeant Alexander Popovich.”
“I’ll give you some space,” Michael said, “but don’t leave the building without me.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks.”
She appreciated Michael understanding her need to reconnect with her old squad. Trust and respect were not qualities she gave out lightly, and Michael had earned both, despite their occasional disagreements.
Kara walked in, nostalgia wrapping around her like a bittersweet blanket. The energy of the room beckoned her: ringing phones, keyboards clacking, the chatter of her fellow officers filling the space. She breathed in the familiar scents of sweat and cleanser mixed with the metallic tang of guns and the burnt aroma of old coffee.
The seven months could have been seven days or seven years. It was the same...but everything had changed. She didn’t recognize half her colleagues. Her desk, the farthest on the right, was now occupied by a young, lean, black detective. He looked sharp in his blazer, jeans and skinny tie, with his badge and gun prominently displayed on his belt. His long legs were stretched out, crossed at the ankles, as he chatted on the phone.
At her desk.
Not your desk anymore.
What’s that old phrase? Time stops for no one?
“Quinn? I’ll be damned.”
She’d recognize Detective Charlie Dean’s voice anywhere. She turned and grinned at him, so happy to see a friendly, familiar face.
“I heard you were coming to town,” he said, “but couldn’t get any info from Lex.”
Charlie rose from his desk and gave her a tight hug. In his fifties with a slight beer belly, Charlie was the kind of cop who would stay until he was forced into retirement. He didn’t work undercover anymore, but now ran his own small squad within Lex’s unit, focusing on fraud against senior citizens. The last case they worked together—five years ago—he’d posed as a substitute teacher at a high school and Kara had been a student. They’d uncovered an identity theft ring.
“Damn, it’s great to see you,” she said, feeling surprisingly emotional.
“It’s not the same here without you, Q.”
“Hey, hey, hey!” another familiar voice said from across the room. She turned as Pete Diaz approached and took over the hug from Charlie. Pete was a wiry Puerto Rican only an inch taller than her (just under) five foot four, with a bright smile and sharp instincts. He’d been a uniformed officer for six years before transferring over to the gang unit, then moving to Special Operations a couple years ago. She’d tapped his brain often because of his deep knowledge about gangs. He squeezed her tight, then let go. “You owe us big-time,” Pete said. “No calls, not even a postcard.”
“Beer’s on me.” As she said it she knew she couldn’t go out in public. Not when David Chen had put the word out that he was paying for her head. “When all this bullshit is over,” she added. “Unless you want to hang out with me and a couple of feds in a stuffy hotel room.”
“We’re holding you to it,” Charlie said.
“So many people at their desks, you’d think there was no crime out there,” she said.
Charlie rolled his eyes. “Getting new undercover gigs approved is a clusterfuck. The layers of bureaucracy have grown even since you left.”
“Place isn’t the same without you,” Pete said.
“Well, hopefully once this is all done, it’ll be like old times,” she said.
Of course, nothing would be the same. Colton, her sometime partner and sometime lover, was dead. She glanced over to the far corner. His desk was empty. He wasn’t coming back, but no one had filled his space. No one could. He had been one of a kind and the world was worse off with him gone.
She sensed someone watching her and when she turned, saw Lex Popovich standing in his doorway. He frowned at her. “I still can’t make him happy,” she said to her former colleagues, and crossed the bullpen. She smiled broadly. “Hey, boss.”
He motioned her into his office, then shut his door. “What the fuck are you doing here, Quinn?”
“Good to see you, too.” She plopped down in the vinyl-covered visitor’s chair. It was more lopsided than she remembered.
Lex stared at her, his lips a thin line. He’d aged faster than she expected. More wrinkles, less hair, and seemed to have lost twenty pounds. Maybe he had a few to lose, but he didn’t look like her boss.
“By the time you leave this building,” he said, his voice low with restrained anger, “every dirtbag will be waiting to kill you. What about ‘contract for your head’ don’t you understand?”
“I understand the threat, Lex. I have two feds watching my back every minute of every day.”
He waved his hands in the air, made a point to look around his office. “Where are they? Right now, they’re not watching your back.”
His reaction seemed over-the-top. Kara didn’t remind him she was in the heart of LAPD surrounded by hundreds of cops. “I wanted to see a friendly face and that certainly wasn’t going to be in the federal building.”
Lex walked behind his desk and plopped down into his worn chair with a sigh. “Nothing has changed. If anything, things are more volatile.”
“I’m here because David Chen’s lawyer is moving to dismiss the entire case. Dyson needs me. The federal case is moving as slow as molasses, but we can nail him on murder—I’m not letting him walk on it. We win this, it’s a good thing. Murder keeps him behind bars and brings me one step closer to home.”
He stared at her. “It is good to see you, kid.”
“I knew you missed me.”
“I don’t miss your bullshit.”
She pinched her thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Not even a little?”
Now he laughed and every muscle in her body relaxed. “The feds treating you well?”
She shrugged. “More or less. They are feds.”
“True.” He sipped from a coffee mug on his cluttered desk, grimaced and put it down. “Greer sends me reports on your investigations. You’ve done some good work.” Tony Greer was the FBI assistant director who oversaw the Mobile Response Team.
“Great work,” I emphasized.
“They don’t seem to have complaints about you.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“You look good. Happy.”
“Working for the feds is much better than sitting in a safe house for a year twiddling my thumbs and binge-watching Netflix. But now that we have a trial date, this is almost over.”
“The trial is still three months away. It’s too dangerous for you to be on the streets of Los Angeles.”
“My condo hasn’t been compromised.”
“Not to my knowledge, but it’s risky to stay there.”
“The feds got a hotel somewhere around here.” She waved her hand to indicate the downtown area. “But I want to go by, check things out myself. I miss my place.” It wasn’t much—a tiny one-bedroom condo in Santa Monica. But it was on the beach, and it had been her eight-hundred-square-foot sanctuary for years.
“Not alone.”
“Not alone,” she repeated, exasperated. “Damn, Lex, I don’t have a death wish. You of all people should know that.”
“I don’t like that Dyson couldn’t get this motion quashed without you having to come back.”
“Yesterday I was on a video call with Dyson going over my previous statement, the evidence, everything a thousand different ways. We’re meeting before the hearing to cover all our bases.”
“Court—I should have figured that’s why you’re all dolled up.”
She grimaced. “Dolled up?”
“Slacks, blazer, blouse, makeup.” He grinned. “Court attire.”
“Yeah, well, anything to help our case. The case is tight, we have evidence to back up my testimony. These...” she waved her hand in the air “...theatrics are Chen’s attorney blowing smoke. I’d put my money on Dyson any day of the week.”
Kara took down an illegal sweatshop eight months ago, rescuing hundreds of Chinese nationals who were forced to work in horrific conditions for long hours. She’d been undercover as a clothing buyer for a big-box chain and was proud of her work until Chen killed her informant. Sunny’s death still haunted her, and Kara would never forgive herself for not pulling the young woman earlier.
You tried. She wanted justice for her family and friends.
Chen, the owner of the sweatshop, filed charges of civil rights abuses against Kara after she killed his bodyguard in self-defense. Though it was a justified shooting, Kara was investigated by the LA FBI, instigated by Bryce Thornton, who she’d butted heads with the first time they met.
Thornton had his hand slapped by the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility for opening the investigation into her actions and jeopardizing the case against Chen, but a reprimand only made assholes like Thornton more dangerous.
Chen was out of jail on a too-modest bail and had even put a hit out on Kara. Though it couldn’t be proven, Lex and other authorities knew it was him. To avoid being stuck at a desk or in protective custody, Kara had joined the FBI’s Mobile Response Team.
“Who’s the new guy, and do I get my old desk back after the trial?”
“Rob Becker.”
“He looks twelve.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“He’s the new Kara Quinn?”
“No one can replace you, Kara.”
“Damn straight.”
“He’s taken some of the cases you would have taken,” Lex acknowledged. “He went undercover with Pete at UCLA at the beginning of the school year, took down a group manufacturing date rape drugs in a campus chem lab. Just came off that case last week, lots of paperwork. And he doesn’t complain about it.”
“Me? Complain about paperwork?” She smiled. “As long as he knows that’s my desk.”
“When do I get to meet your partners?”
“Come listen to me be on my best behavior in court.”
“I’ll pass.”
“Dinner? Breakfast?”
She missed Lex; she needed to reconnect with her boss so they could go back to their old comfortable camaraderie when she returned to the squad.
“Text me. I’ll see if I can get out.” He paused, assessed her. “You like your team, right? Costa, the others?”
“Yeah, sure.” She wasn’t going to mention that she and Matt were in what Matt called a relationship. The term made her squeamish, and she was actually looking forward to a more long-distance relationship. She liked Matt—a lot—and she liked sex with Matt—a lot—but it was getting...well...she didn’t know how to explain it to herself, let alone someone else. She wanted to be with Matt, but she also wanted her own space, and it was increasingly difficult to balance those two needs.
“They’re good cops,” she continued. “They have my back, that’s what’s important. Why do you care?”
“Because I care about you. I want you to be happy.”
“Well, happy is a tall order.”
“You look good.”
She shrugged. “I’ve been challenged, that’s always good. I like the travel, which I didn’t think I would. Even went to the San Juan Islands for a case, got to spend Fourth of July weekend on R & R after we solved it.”
“Now I’m jealous.”
“But there’s no place like home.”
“Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“Always.”
“Let me introduce you to the new guys. Rob, of course—you’ll like him—and we have a lateral move from San Francisco who has experience in sex crimes, training under Charlie because he’s retiring at the end of the year.”
“Retiring? Charlie?”
“He has twenty-plus years. He had a heart scare over the summer.”
She frowned. Talking about the health of her friends and colleagues made her squeamish. She worried enough about her grandmother that she didn’t want to worry about anyone else.
“I’ve been thinking about retiring, too,” Lex said after a moment.
That surprised her. “You said a thousand times you never wanted to retire.”
“Well. Yeah. The last couple years have been pretty damn crappy. I’m thinking, haven’t made a decision. I have a couple cases I want to see through. But sometimes the idea of buying a couple acres in the Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming, sounds awfully good to me.”
“Wyoming. With cows and horses and not much else.”
“Peace, Kara. There’s a lot of peace up there.”
He sounded wistful. Almost...sad.
“I have to get to work,” he said.
“I thought you were going to introduce me around.”
“Next time. A meeting reminder just popped up on my computer. I’ll walk you out, meet these feds of yours.”
She rolled her eyes. “Kicking me out so soon.”
Then he stared at her, eyes hard.
“It is not safe for you to be here, Kara.”
“What’s going on?”
“Dammit, Kara, you’re not this dense.”
She bristled. “This is a cop shop. I’m safest here.”
“Not anymore.”
She didn’t want to ask, but she did. “Why?”
He was wrestling with something, and she couldn’t believe he didn’t want to tell her.
“What are you keeping from me?”
“I can’t talk here. Shit. I told Dyson not to let you come back.”
Now she knew something was going on. “What the fuck, Lex? Is this about Chen?”
In a low voice, he said, “You are not an idiot. This hearing is a smoke screen. As soon as you walked into this building, Chen knew where you were.”
“So what? He knows I’ll be in court this afternoon.”
But then it clicked.
“Here. There’s a cop here in headquarters who is working for Chen?” The realization made her sick to her stomach. “You know who it is?”
Lex shook his head. “It’s not just your case that was compromised. I have someone I trust deep cover and that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
Kara stared at him. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“You don’t work for me anymore, Quinn.”
She felt like she’d been slapped. “Not now, but—”
“Not ever. You can’t come back, not until I know that every fucking prick that works for Chen is gone. And even if he goes to prison—and that’s a big fucking if—he still has people. It’s not just Chen. And if you would get your head out of your ass long enough to think, you’d realize Chen’s operation couldn’t have worked for so long unless he had someone high, high up protecting him.”
She slowly rose from her seat. She felt gut punched.
You can’t come back...
“You have work,” she mumbled and turned to leave.
“Stop.”
She did, but she didn’t look at him. She was shaking. Anger that there was a bad cop in this building. Frustration that she wasn’t here to root him out. Sorrow that Lex didn’t want her back.
She felt...lost.
“Kara, I didn’t mean to take this all out on you. It isn’t your fault.”
“I get it. Goodbye.”
She walked out and Lex didn’t stop her. She heard something break behind his door, but it gave her no joy.
When Michael met her in the hall he said, “What happened?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about it now. “Let’s go.”
Lieutenant Elena Gomez picked up the call from her sergeant, Lex Popovich. “Gomez,” she answered as she reviewed reports. She liked being in command; she didn’t like the explosion of paperwork. It never stopped coming.
“Quinn is here.”
“I know. She’s testifying this afternoon. Dyson assured me that it’s one hearing, and she’ll be gone by tomorrow.”
“We need to tell her.”
She put her pen down. “Lex, no.”
“At the time, it was the right call to cut her out of the investigation, but she’s here, she needs to know what’s going on.”
“She came to see you, didn’t she? Now you’re feeling guilty.”
“You would be, too, if you had lied to her face!”
Which was precisely why Elena had avoided Kara. She had been Kara’s training officer, her friend. It was better not to talk with her than to be forced to lie.
“Try to avoid her, Lex. Twenty-four hours and she’ll be back on a plane to DC and we’ll finish this investigation.”
“She wants to come back. She thinks she can.”
“Maybe—”
“Right,” Lex said, barking out an angry laugh. “She’ll come back and work for us when she learns we’ve been lying to her for months. Fuck it. She’ll never forgive us. I don’t know if I can forgive myself.”
Even if Kara could return to LAPD, it wouldn’t be in the capacity she’d want.
“Stay the course, Lex.” She hung up.
Guilt washed over her, then it disappeared. It would return, but she had a job to do, and she would damn well do it.