Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

FEbrUARY 8

Present Day

F BI Special Agent Delilah Quinn was tired and grouchy as she waited outside the office of the Special Agent in Charge of the San Diego Field Office. The door opened, and she stood quickly.

Peter Ridgeway’s expression dropped at the sight of her. “Can it wait?”

She hesitated. Shook her head.

He released a sigh that ruffled his thinning bangs. “Come in. Be quick. I have a meeting downtown.”

She strode inside as Ridgeway went around to the other side of his desk. He didn’t sit.

“Joseph Scanlon was released from military prison three weeks ago.” She crossed her arms and tried to make it a position of power rather than the self-hug she feared it actually was.

His expression didn’t change.

“You already knew.” Inside she deflated.

“Friend of mine at Coronado kept me updated.”

But he hadn’t thought to inform her. She didn’t know whether to be pissed or take it as a compliment .

“Scanlon was an exemplary prisoner. He apparently planned to head back to his hometown in Louisiana to work in the family business.” Ridgeway pushed his wireless glasses up his thin nose. Cleared his throat. “If he’d been staying in the area, I would have let you know, but I’m sure you agree that I can’t be expected to keep track of every released felon and notify all the agents involved in their cases. That would be a full-time job in itself.”

His tone aimed for humor but only managed patronizing.

“Of course not.” Her tongue stalled as she opened her mouth to tell him of the unsettled sensation she’d experienced recently. The feeling of being watched. Ridgeway overtly checked his wristwatch, and she knew her time was up. Just as well. The idea of appearing paranoid with her boss was not high on her wish list.

“How’s your father?”

She set her teeth. “Fine. Thank you.”

As a former Assistant Director of the FBI, her father was well-known and respected throughout the Bureau. More so than Ridgeway.

“Give him my regards.”

“Of course.” Her father considered SAC Peter Ridgeway a bit of a toady, but Delilah wasn’t about to tell him that. Thoughts of her father sank her mood even lower.

Ridgeway headed to the door and let her exit before him. “Scanlon’s served his time.”

Debatable .

“He’s rehabilitated, found God, and hopefully learned the error of his ways.”

She raised a skeptical brow. The disgraced former Navy SEAL she’d crossed paths with was a mean, angry, dangerous individual, but she had to hope the prison system had some positive effect on its inmates, even if it was simply the desire never to go back.

“Let’s hope so, sir.”

Ridgeway nodded vigorously as if they’d agreed on something and then strode away .

Delilah stood for a moment in the corridor and stared out of the huge glass windows across Vista Sorrento Parkway and I-805 to the green hills beyond. The sun was shining, but then this was Southern California. Even February was beautiful here.

Old memories side-swiped her. Thoughts of Scanlon and the op that had captured him always brought back painful reminders she preferred to ignore.

None of that mattered anymore.

Old history.

She should warn Scanlon’s ex-wife, who’d taken their daughter and headed north to Washington State.

She should notify FBI HRT operator, Cas Demarco, but the sonofabitch could look after himself.

Even the thought of him made her grind her teeth. Last time she’d seen, or rather heard the rat bastard, he’d been in court, hidden behind a screen under a fake identity in order to protect both his undercover personas and his real identity.

Agent Z.

It suited the guy—all dark, brooding mystery and sexy swagger.

But the attempts at secrecy had been performative as far as Scanlon was concerned. Despite his illegal activities, Joseph Scanlon had enough friends back at Coronado that it wouldn’t be difficult for him to track down the name of another former SEAL, now turned FBI agent, who’d been working with the DEA and CIA and posing as a cartel member across the border in Mexico. A man who had helped get him thrown off the teams and into Miramar.

She was pretty sure Demarco had been avoiding her as much as he’d been avoiding the media with the whole Agent Z thing. Avoiding the chance she might make a scene or embarrass him again.

Not in this lifetime.

Six years ago, the Bureau had been after Lorenzo Santiago—at the time an associate of Manuel Gómez, head of El cartel de Mano de Dios down in Colombia. But not long after the operation started, Gómez and most of his organization’s leaders had been scooped up and arrested following an anonymous tipoff. The few remaining Mano de Dios members, and Santiago, had gone so deep underground that the FBI had almost folded up its investigation and gone home.

But then Demarco had heard a whisper about an active-duty Navy SEAL who was said to be transporting drugs across the border. No way could the FBI ignore that rumor because if a SEAL was willing to smuggle drugs, what else might he be willing to do?

So Demarco had gone even deeper undercover, and that’s when Delilah had appeared on the scene. She’d been his FBI contact, his “handler”—if a man like Demarco was capable of being handled—posing as his drug-addicted girlfriend. She never met the major cartel players face-to-face, but she’d known they watched her undercover persona’s apartment sometimes and searched it when she was in “rehab.” Her identity had been backstopped to the n th degree and her appearance easily disguised with a short blonde wig she still kept in the go-bag of her vehicle.

After the bust, the Bureau had decided Demarco was too much of a potential target and had taken him out of his undercover work and moved him far from the border.

And he’d been all too happy to leave.

The Hostage Rescue Team had been his dream all along and, as expected, he’d passed selection and made the cut.

Bitterness twisted in her stomach.

Nowadays most of those cartel members were dead or in prison. Santiago’s organization had imploded spectacularly last month in the Arizona desert. It was doubtful there were many people who even remembered a young man named Ricky Alonso or his flaky girlfriend, Lacey Reed.

Even if Scanlon was looking for revenge it was doubtful he’d go after another former SEAL and active member of the Hostage Rescue Team. The cowardly asshole was much more likely to go after his ex-wife, and her, the rookie female agent who’d helped arrest the motherfucker—for using his esteemed status as one of the premier military operators in the world to earn money as a drug mule for the murderous cartel.

The hatred in his eyes as he’d lain on the asphalt was something that woke her up from her dreams sometimes. Not that she’d ever told anyone that.

Someone touched her arm.

She jumped.

“Hey, you okay?” Her partner, David Gonzales, had appeared at her side.

She glanced at him. They were assigned to the Public Corruption Unit, her undercover days long over. She didn’t miss them. She just missed him . And that was something she’d deny to her grave.

“Fine.” She shook it off. If she worried about every ex-con she’d helped put away, then she was going to have a very stressful life and would be better off quitting now.

She wasn’t a quitter.

David didn’t look convinced.

“Scanlon’s out.” She couldn’t help smiling at her very handsome colleague as he sent her a heavy frown.

“That’s early, right?”

“Nearly two years early.” She shot him a look. “Good behavior, not to mention, he found the Lord .”

“Didn’t know He was lost.” David raised his chin on the inhale. “You think he’ll come after you?”

She shook her head. No way was she about to share her paranoia with David. “But I figured Ridgeway would want to know.”

David shot the empty office a look. “What’d he say?”

She barked out a laugh and started walking back down the corridor toward their squad room. “He already knew. Someone at Coronado felt it prudent to inform him.”

“But he didn’t tell you.” David easily kept up. “Hmm.”

“What’s hmm mean?” She kept her voice light because David was one of the smartest people she knew, and if he thought something was suspicious then so should she.

“It means that either Naval Command or SAC Ridgeway is wrong about the threat Scanlon might present.”

She pulled a face. Neither of them thought that highly of their SAC. “I’m going to reach out to the ex-wife. Make sure she knows he’s out.”

“He’d be a fool to go after anyone,” he eyed her pointedly, “especially a Fed.”

She rubbed her arms. “Scanlon’s an arrogant ass, but he’s not stupid.”

He nudged her elbow. “Want some good news?”

“What?”

“Clarence organized a meet with Gunther.”

“Finally.”

Clarence Carpenter was David’s Confidential Informant who he’d flipped after Carpenter tried to bribe a city planner who was a close personal friend of David’s. The planner hadn’t taken kindly to the offer. Now the FBI hoped to use Carpenter against a local mayor rumored to be open to taking under the table payments in exchange for preferential treatment.

Delilah switched gears. It was stupid to be worried about Scanlon. He was probably back in the Louisiana swamp that had spit him out as a young man. Sipping brews and eating crawdads. She probably never even crossed his mind.

Time to get on with her job, the job she lived for. The job she loved. “When’s the meet?”

“Tomorrow morning.” He slanted her a glance. “Early.”

That didn’t give them a lot of time. “We have the recording equipment ready?”

“I have it. We’ll meet him at 7:30 a.m. to wire him up. I booked a room in a nearby hotel so we can be close-by in case anything goes wrong.” David sent her a smile that could have conquered Hollywood .

The memory of the heated golden eyes of another handsome FBI agent punched through her chest and made her heart clench.

Demarco had made his choice. She hadn’t been worth it five years ago. She doubted he even remembered her nowadays—too busy making a mark for himself, making a name, clawing away at the need to prove himself a hero rather than a villain.

The love she’d once felt for him had morphed into contempt. She might not be the smartest person in the room, but Delilah had always been a straight A student. Because she was really, really good at learning her lessons and never made the same mistake twice.

Joseph Scanlon stared through the Steiner Military-Marine 10X50mm Tactical Binoculars and watched the whore leave work and get into her car. A surge of something that felt a lot like joy unfurled inside him.

She was right on time.

Right on schedule.

For years, he’d been planning this operation down to the last second.

She might not know what hit her, but he would. It was a pity there wouldn’t be more time to catch up, but he was on a tight schedule and had no intention of going back to prison.

He slid backward through the dry brush as slowly and carefully as withdrawing from an enemy position. Once he was out of visual range, he checked his surroundings before stepping out onto a path.

He slipped the notepad into his back pocket and began hiking back to his vehicle, careful to keep up his cover as a birder, just in case someone was watching as the day turned to dusk.

He was going to make them all pay, one at a time, and then he was going to live out his life with no one ever being able to prove he’d done anything illegal .

Not this time.

Special Agent Delilah Quinn was first. She was going to get what was coming to her. He just wished he could hurt her enough to make up for the years he’d lost. But he couldn’t. No one could. But he’d get the bitch. And then he could move on to the next target and finish this thing. No one got the better of him. No one. Especially not a lying bitch or a greasy two-faced loser.