Cheating Justice (The Justice Team) (13 page)

“Don’t get pissy,” Mitch said.

As if she needed him to defend her. “I wasn’t questioning you, Brice.”

“Yeah, you were.”

She sat back, held up her hands. “Never mind. We’re all on edge. And hungry. Let’s eat, chill out for a few minutes, and regroup.”

As if a beacon had flashed over their heads, a waitress stepped up to the table. Caroline needed food. And to sleep for a month. Sleep wouldn’t happen any time soon, so she’d settle for food. Food always helped her focus.

After taking their order, the waitress swished off, her rubber soles squeaking against the tiled floor. Brice had set his phone on the table and was busy scrolling so Caroline reached across and gave him a gentle poke. “Hey, I’m sorry. You’ve gone above and beyond. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful.”

“No sweat, Caroline. You think too much. Whoa.”

Mitch leaned in. “Whoa, what?”

“What the fuck?”

He tapped the front of his phone and using two fingers, expanded the screen.

“What is it?” Caroline asked.

But Brice continued reading, ignoring them and that same panicky itch in Caroline’s throat returned.

“What. The.
Fuck
?” Brice repeated. “You guys are not gonna believe this one.”

Chapter Ten

“What?” Mitch asked.

Phone in hand, Brice slid from the booth. “We gotta go. Now.”

“We have food coming,” Caroline protested.

“Forget it. Let’s move. Got a gun shop to visit.”

Mitch dropped money on the table to cover the food they wouldn’t eat, grabbed his and Caroline’s duffels, and followed Brice out of the restaurant, Caroline on their heels.

“What gun shop?” she huffed. “This better be worth me leaving behind that quarter pounder and fries.”

“It is.” Brice stopped in the parking lot, waved at a truck pulling in. “There’s our ride.”

Mitch was surprised the damned thing actually ran. The color might have been blue. There was so much rust and mud on it, it was hard to tell. The rusted-out body made it look nearly skeletal. The front fender was missing and the windshield looked like a baseball had hit it in the lower passenger side, spider web cracks inching out from a central circle.

One of the side view mirrors hung suspended from a broken piece of plastic and a few wires, swinging erratically as the truck bounced into the parking lot.

“
That’s
our ride?” Caroline’s voice had a tight, high sound to it. “You can’t be serious.”

“No GPS. No actual record of the thing. Buddy runs a junk yard. The plates on it are from another vehicle chopped up for parts a few months ago.” He grinned and slapped Caroline lightly on the back. “You wanted off the grid. This is it.”

He jogged off to say a few words to the guy who climbed out of the truck and handed Brice a set of keys.

Mitch was grinning but hid it from Caroline. If she saw his face, she’d slug him. “What was that you said about wishing you were less Type A and more easy going?”

He dodged just as she swung a balled fist at his arm. “Shut up.”

Brice’s friend took off on foot without glancing at them. Brice motioned for them to join him. Mitch started walking, realized Caroline wasn’t following, and pulled up short. “It won’t kill you, Caroline.”

Her face was pale, lips tight. “It might. I’m not sure my tetanus shot is up to date.”

This wasn’t about the condition of the truck and Mitch knew it. “You don’t have to come.”

“Oh, I’m coming. Just give me a sec.”

Mitch held up a finger to Brice who waved frantically from the driver’s seat. “I know you want to drive, but I don’t think in this case you have a choice.”

“It’s not that.” She fingered the strap of her briefcase. “What’s this gun shop we’re visiting? He’s not telling us what’s happening.”

Her voice now held a thread of paranoia. “Brice is on our side, Caroline.”

“We barely know him.”

Yep, paranoia had entered her bloodstream. All thanks to him.

Mitch walked back to her, put his face in front of her and smiled, turning on the charm. “I’ll protect you.”

Her eyes narrowed, zeroing in on him like she had him in her sniper scope. “I don’t need you—”

He put his hands on both of her elbows. “I know. I’m just kidding. If Brice turns out to be a douchebag, you’ll take him out before I have time to blink, right?”

“Right. And down deep, where it counts, I know he’s on our side. I just don’t know how far reaching this thing is and I’m worried.”

“Comes with the territory.”

“What territory?”

“Being a renegade.”

She shivered under his hands. “I’m not a renegade. I’m just an agent looking for answers.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the truck. Brice had it running and revved the motor as he watched them approach. The engine choked and sputtered. “You
are
a renegade. You always have been. You’ve just been living in denial.”

She hit him in the gut with her elbow. Exactly what he was hoping for. He’d forced the old Caroline to rise to the surface again.

Her voice lost some of its tightness. She chuckled under her breath. “You are so full of shit.”

“Go with it, Caroline. The dark side can be a lot of fun.”

He helped her into the cab, smacking her on the ass for good measure. The truck smelled like marijuana and fast food fries.

Caroline shoved an assortment of coffee cups, 8-track tapes, and dirty tissues to the floor. “This is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

That was saying a lot when you were an FBI agent who’d recently gone dumpster diving. “Told you the dark side was fun.”

She made the
I’m about to shoot you
face and scooted over the bench seat. The upholstery was stained and torn in places. “I’m afraid I’ll contract a disease in here.”

Mitch climbed in beside her and before he even shut the door, Brice shifted the truck and they took off.

“Where are we going, Brice? And don’t say a gun shop. We know that.”

He hung a right onto the main road and hit the gas. “I just got an email from a firearms dealer in town. He saw my blog post. He’s only about ten minutes out.”

“And we’re going there why?”

Brice stopped at a red light and dug into his pocket for his phone. He tapped the screen and handed Caroline the phone. “Read this.”

Mitch leaned close, enjoying the excuse to put his head next hers and breathe her strawberry scent, although it was getting a little ripe after all the sweating they’d been doing.

On the screen was an email. It appeared to be from the gun shop’s owner.

I have information about that dead FBI agent. We need to talk. In person
.
How soon can you get here?

It wasn’t long before Mitch saw a huge red and black sign, the name of the gun shop spelled out

in gaudy gold letters. MH Firearm and Supply. His pulse sped up.

Brice took a left and there they were, in front of the dilapidated old building. He eased the pickup into the small lot, shut off the engine. “We’re here.”

Heat rose in shimmers off the blacktop. Mitch grabbed the door handle. The door squeaked as he shoved it open, a paper coffee cup falling out onto the ground.

The three of them trailed inside, a bell over the door ringing and an alarm beeping as they entered. Security system. Not unusual considering the long narrow space contained three glass display cases that formed a U-shape in the middle of the store. Each case was stuffed with handguns of every caliber imaginable. Behind the cases, the walls were lined from one side to the other with rifles ranging from shotguns to semi-automatics.

Mitch let out a low whistle.

“No kidding,” Caroline said.

Brice tapped one of the cases with his fingernails. “Lotta money.”

He breathed in and the stale, gun-oil laced air burned his throat. “Yep.”

In the back corner of the store, a guy in his thirties sat at a desk talking on the phone. He held up a finger. Sure, they’d wait. Considering this might be the guy who emailed them.

A short, balding man in blue denim emerged from the back, wiping his hands on a towel. “Can I help you?”

Brice stopped at the counter. “I’m looking for Marty. Name’s Brice Brennan.”

The guy scanned Brice, then Mitch and Caroline. “I’m Marty.”

Brice held out his phone, the email still visible.

Marty glanced behind Mitch to look out the window at the empty parking lot. “Anyone see you come in?”

“No one,” Mitch said. “Now tell us why we’re here.”

“Who the hell are you?”

Caroline stepped forward, digging for her ID. “We’re feder—”

Mitch stopped her. “We’re friends of the agent who was gunned down. The one Brice wrote about. All we’re trying to do is find out what happened.”

Marty fiddled with the towel, glancing at the guy still on the phone. He motioned them to come behind the counter. “Back here. I don’t want anyone to hear us.”

Caroline and Brice both looked at Mitch. He nodded and signaled for everyone to follow Marty. They circumvented the glass counter and shelves of ammunition, entering a back room.

A tabletop was covered with parts of a gun Marty must have stripped and was cleaning. He tossed the towel on the table and led them to an office. Once inside, he sat at a beat-up metal desk and waited for Mitch to shut the door.

“I know about that gun you’re claiming killed Agent Nusco.” Marty flipped a paper clip end over end and glanced up at Brice. “The one you posted on your blog. I sold it.”

Mitch kept his body still, not a twitch, not a shift, not even a damned deep breath—but holy hell—his system went into overload. “We need information on the guy who bought it.”

Marty nodded. “Young guy. A local. He comes in on a regular basis and buys a lot of weapons with cash. If I ask about any of them, he puts me off. A few months ago, I followed him after he bought a rifle and saw him give it to a guy parked down the street in an expensive Humvee-like vehicle. I called ATF to let them know. I mean, if he’s running guns, I don’t want my license pulled because of it. All my sales are legal. What happens when the gun leaves the shop, I can’t control.”

“What did ATF do?” Brice asked.

“Pfft. Nothing. Told me they had him under control and to go about my business. I kept my mouth shut, but I followed him again a few weeks later and he did the same thing.”

He tapped his head with an oil-stained finger. “I got to thinking about it, talked to a few of my friends in the area who run gun shops. We’d all had the same couple of guys that didn’t seem the type purchasing guns. Me and my friend, Shonny Bridge—he runs a shop about forty miles from here—we got nervous. He knows a guy who knows a guy who works for ATF. Shonny talks to him, tells him we’re seeing these guys hand off their purchases to someone in a Humvee. Could be perfectly legal, but Shonny and I’ve run into trouble before with gangs. Legitimate buyers being forced to buy for gangbangers, druggies, you name it ʼcuz the criminals got some blackmail hanging over them, or they need the money. Shonny and me, we don’t want to see those weapons end up down in Mexico being used for some drug shootout between cartels or with the police.”

Brice shifted to lean against a file cabinet. “What did ATF tell Shonny?”

“Said they’d keep an eye on these buyers. Again, told us not to worry about it.” Marty ran a hand over his face. “Thing was, it kept happening. I called the ATF to make a formal complaint. Got the runaround again. Next thing I know, some asshole shows up here one night after closing, telling me to open up. I don’t let him in, tell him to come back the next day. I thought he was part of the cartel and I got nervous. Pulled out Patty, my H&K I keep under the front counter. I pointed Patty at him and told him to haul ass before I shot him. Then he pulled a badge. He was from the goddamned ATF.”

Mitch kept his eyes on Marty. Still no sign of deception.
Holy shit.
“You let him in?”

“After I saw that badge, hell yeah.”

“What did he say?”

Marty picked up a paper clip and flicked it between his fingers. “He said, ‘You want to keep your license, keep your mouth shut. The ATF is running an operation and you need to cooperate with us and continue selling to those men you’ve been asking about.’”

Brice fisted a hand and smacked it on the file cabinet. “Damn.”

Damn was right.

Marty nodded. “I told him to go to hell.”

Mitch grinned. Marty reminded him of the truck they’d ridden there in. A little rusty around the edges, but still running. “Bet he didn’t like that.”

“Sure as hell didn’t.” He fiddled with the paper clip again. “Told me I’d lose my license if I refused to keep my mouth shut. The next day, Shonny said he had a visit from the same asshole.”

“Did you get a name or number from his badge?” Caroline stood in between Mitch and Brice, looking uncomfortable but even more determined. “Did you confirm with ATF that he was an actual agent?”