After the glass broke in the main door, Kara and Colton went into action. Together, they pushed the large conference table on its side. A hand reached inside the new opening and tried to unlock the door but couldn’t because the lock required a key on both sides, and the key was in Will’s pocket. Thank God there were security bars on the door, but they wouldn’t hold for long.
Kara ordered Will to secure the back door. It was a fire door and would be near impossible to break down, but Kara assumed that someone would be waiting for them to escape that way.
Will ran into the back office where the door was and made sure it was locked, then pushed a desk against it.
“Stay low!” she commanded, and Will dropped to the floor, behind the half wall. She didn’t like that the top half was all glass, but he was safer there.
Colton pulled out his Glock and fired three shots at the intruder, then they both squatted behind the table.
The hand disappeared and there were voices, but Kara couldn’t hear what they were saying. She drew her SIG and said, “We’re sitting ducks here.”
“We just need to hold them off. Costa is on the way, right? We just need a little time.”
“I have two guns, twenty-eight bullets between them. You?”
“Now I have fourteen.”
“You’re only carrying one gun?”
“I have a knife.”
“So do I, but I don’t want this to come down to hand-to-hand combat.”
A series of bullets hit the table and Kara made herself as small as possible. Then they stopped and a male voice shouted, “Fox! All we want is your phone with the pictures. You can walk away.”
Colton called out, “Won’t do you any good, I already sent everything to my boss.”
“I know that’s not true,” the voice said.
Who is that? Kara mouthed.
Colton shrugged.
“You don’t have the only copies, do you?”
“No, but... I think...” His voice trailed off.
“Talk!”
“Yesterday morning I was at the Sunflower main office and took pictures of people I didn’t recognize. I don’t know how they could possibly know I was there.”
“But Peter knew—he knew you were still out in the field yesterday, before we met here. He must have suspected something.”
“Aw, shit.”
“Send them now. Send them to me, send them to Matt, to everyone. There’s something important there and—”
More gunfire made Kara yelp. Someone started hammering at the security screen on the door. It was only a matter of time before they got in. Kara looked to Colton. “I’ll cover you, just get those photos out in the wild right now.”
Colton pulled out his phone and Kara brought her gun up and fired her entire clip at the door. She hit someone, heard a grunt and lots of swearing. They moved away and he said, “My phone isn’t sending anything. There’s no service.”
“Give me your phone,” she demanded.
He hesitated, so Kara grabbed it out of his hand and gave him her phone. Matt had given her a backup after she destroyed hers at the park. She then put Colton’s phone in her boot. It didn’t completely fit, but she pulled her jeans down over it.
“This isn’t going to work,” he said.
“We’re buying time. Tell them.”
She didn’t believe that whoever was out there wouldn’t kill them when they got the phone, but Matt would be here any minute. She needed to hold them off until then.
She glanced back to the offices and saw Will under the desk. He looked a little scared and a lot angry. Exactly how she felt.
“Okay!” Colton shouted to the attackers. “How do I know if I slide out my phone you won’t try to kill us?”
Silence.
“Hello?” Colton said.
“Slide your phone to the door,” a voice said.
“How many do you think are out there?” Kara asked. She thought two, and likely one in the rear. “Did you see Conrad?”
How many people were involved in this damn conspiracy? Politicians and staff and the son of an FBI agent? Enough people to hire these assholes to steal Colton’s phone at gunpoint in the middle of the day?
Did the gunfire draw attention to the area? Had someone called the police? Response time had gotten worse over the years. She glanced at her watch. Only four minutes had passed.
“Slide the phone now!” the man shouted. “Do it!”
“He sounds panicked,” Kara said.
As if to emphasize her point, three more bullets hit the table. There were voices outside—two, maybe three.
“Colton Fox, goddammit, you slide me the phone now or I’ll blow your brains out all over the fucking room.”
“Definitely panicked,” Colton said.
“Do it. They have to come in and retrieve it. We’ll at least see who he is. He knows you. Look at him—be careful,” she added quickly.
“It’s coming!” Colton called and slid Kara’s phone as far across the floor as he could without it going out the door. It rested three feet inside.
No one moved.
Staying low, Colton and Kara peered around opposite sides of the conference table and watched.
A man stepped in through the broken security screen and fired two rounds at the table as he bent down and grabbed the phone.
“Doug Meyers? What the fuck!” Colton jumped up.
She knew the name, but didn’t have time to think about why. Colton was going to get himself shot.
Meyers fired at Colton at the same time as Kara pushed him down. They ended up sprawled on the floor without the protection of the table. Kara fired her weapon toward the door as Meyers fled.
“That prick! He’s a cop.”
It was the same man Kara had seen on Tuesday morning when she was looking for Will, the man she thought she recognized.
“Are you hit? Tell me!”
“No, I’m going after that bastard—”
He scrambled up and Kara said, “Don’t be stupid, he’s leaving.”
“I’ll destroy him.”
A crash outside had Kara and Colton diving back behind the table, then there was more gunfire.
Matt, Kara thought.
She jumped up and ran to the side of the door, then cautiously looked out into the small parking area.
Meyers had crashed his car into Matt’s. She didn’t see what happened, but Matt was behind his driver’s door, gun out, and Meyers was stumbling from his car, clutching his side. Blood streamed from his head. He aimed at Matt but Matt fired and Meyers fell to the gravel, unmoving.
That’s when she noticed a man collapsed outside the broken door, unconscious and bleeding.
Kara saw no one else. Had there really only been two men?
“Quinn!” Matt called.
“We’re okay,” she shouted back and waved to him.
She walked over to the prone shooter and searched him, removed his gun, found his wallet. No ID. She cuffed him. Matt went to Meyers, kicked his gun away and cuffed him.
They met at the end of the small row of warehouses.
“No one could reach you.”
“They jammed our phones. They wanted this.” She reached down and handed Matt Colton’s phone. “Colton must have gotten something good yesterday for them to go through all this.”
Matt ran his hand up and down her arm. “You’re really okay.”
“Promise.” She touched his cheek, wiped away a small amount of blood. “You’re bleeding.”
“From the glass. I’m fine.”
He looked over her shoulder and saw Colton.
“He’s a cop,” Colton said and motioned to Meyers. “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “Ambulance is on its way.”
Will came out of the building at the same time two unmarked police cars with grille lights roared onto the street. Elena, Lex, Michael and a uniformed officer jumped out, looked at the two unconscious men. Michael immediately started first aid on Meyers, then stopped. “He’s dead,” Michael said.
“Meyers?” Lex said, incredulous. “Colton, what happened?”
“He wanted my phone. Shot up the place, we gave him Kara’s phone, he ran.”
“He hit my car and shot at me,” Matt said. “I returned fire and he went down.”
Elena was on the phone calling for more cops, an ambulance and the coroner. Kara didn’t envy her right now—sometimes, command sucked. Because after all this, there was a dead corrupt cop and Elena would have to go to the brass and explain everything.
“What did you have that he wanted?” Matt asked, opening Colton’s phone.
“Can I?” Colton asked, and Matt handed him the phone. “These are the photos I took yesterday morning at Sunflower. I don’t know what’s important here, because nothing stood out to me. This person? This is Muriel Coplin, Zarian’s sister. What’s she doing at Sunflower? She’s there because she and her brother are conspiring together,” Colton answered his own question. “Ben showed up immediately after, then four other people came in, about the same time, and I figured for a meeting. But I didn’t know any of them.”
They were all well-dressed. Two Asian men, a white man, and a Hispanic woman.
They scrolled through photos. “I know this person,” Kara said, tapping the screen. “I don’t know his name, but he was at Chen’s factory many times. He would come in, take several women, leave.”
“For the sex trade?” Matt asked.
“I don’t think so, they weren’t always young women. Sunny said Chen worked with other businessmen in the same line of work—smaller factories in different cities. We didn’t have a good handle on that end of the business, but hoped to build it up once we had all his files. But when he found out about the raid, he destroyed his files, so we only stopped his operation.”
“The woman,” Will said. “She’s familiar, but I don’t know her name. The old white guy? I know him. Larry Klein. He’s Lydia Zarian’s biggest donor. Owns a shipping line, lots of property.”
“Want to bet his property is making money the same way Chen’s was?” Colton said.
“Why are they meeting with Muriel Coplin?” Matt asked.
“Muriel is Lydia’s campaign manager. This is damage control, my guess—yesterday, twenty-four hours before the press conference. Damage control and strategy meeting. Damn them,” Will said. “I’ll bet as we dig deeper into the finances of Sunflower and the other nonprofits we’ll find that Zarian’s donors are all profiting. God, I hate politics.”
“We don’t know that they were doing anything illegal,” Matt said.
“Then why would Meyers want my phone?” Colton countered. “There must be something here we’re not seeing.”
“Where’s Peter Sharp?” Kara asked.
“Headquarters,” Lex said. “Why?”
“Colton, Will and I realized that Peter Sharp is the only person who could have taken Colton’s reports out of Craig’s office. Everything we got from his office was light—you said it, the FBI said it. Files are missing, specifically Colton’s photos.”
“We still don’t know,” Lex said, glancing at Elena, who was still talking on the phone.
Kara shook her head. “We know. Craig had everything in his office when I was there. I remember glancing at stacks and stacks of files. Will said there was only one box logged into evidence. Where are the missing files? Where are Colton’s pictures? Sharp knew on Friday that Craig was impaneling the grand jury. That gave him more than enough time to put together the hit, then take or hide the files during the chaos after Craig’s murder, before his office was sealed.”
“That’s a serious accusation,” Lex said.
Will started to explain about the podcast, but Michael cut him off. “Violet’s not returning my text messages.”
“Where is she?” Kara asked.
“At headquarters. When we couldn’t reach you, we left her and Sharp in the conference room.” Michael looked stricken.
Lex got on the phone and walked away. Michael tried calling Violet; no answer. Matt said, “Violet’s the only person who knows how to retrieve the deleted files.”
“And Sharp knows that,” Kara said. “Did we get the warrant?”
“We were waiting for it when we left,” Michael said. “If anything happens to her...”
“We’re going to find her,” Kara said. She didn’t want any more innocent blood on her hands.
Lex came back. “I talked to security. Peter left twenty minutes ago. Violet was with him.”
“Can we track them? The car? Phone?” Matt asked.
“They’re going to the data center,” Kara said. “This is the big ‘cover your ass’ move. The press conference. Getting Colton’s phone with pictures of Zarian’s donors. But if they don’t get that backup drive and destroy it, they’re all toast.”
“Let’s go,” Matt said. “Lex, I need your car.”
“I’m going with you, the lieutenant has to stay here and deal with the fallout,” he said. “Peter.” He practically spat out the name. “That bastard. Craig was my friend. Why, dammit!” He climbed into the driver’s seat. “Why the fuck did he do this?”
Kara slid into the seat next to him. Though it was a rhetorical question, she answered: “Money. It’s all about money and power.”
Matt and Colton got into the back and Kara glanced at them. They glared at each other, both suspicious, wary. Matt caught her eye and she winked. “We’re going to stop him. No one else is going to die today.”
“I think I have a plan,” Matt said. “I need to make a call.”
“What?” Colton demanded.
Matt ignored him, and Colton looked at Kara as if to say, See? All feds are pricks.
Kara said, “I trust Matt.”
Colton stared at her. She didn’t avert her gaze as Lex picked up speed as they headed to the freeway.
Colton looked away first.