Lethal corruption, p.1
Lethal Corruption, page 1
“Stay still.”
Black lace edged Shannon’s vision. She struggled to clear it.
“Are you all right?” Rafe asked.
“I think so. What about you?”
He didn’t answer but rolled off her.
It was then that she saw the gash on his face. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
“‘Nothing’ doesn’t bleed like that.”
“I said it’s nothing. Leave it.” A layer of ice coated every word, and she shrank from them. From him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Shannon got to her feet. A wave of faintness had her wobbling.
“We need to get you checked out and report this.”
How had the perpetrator gotten into the building after hours? It was locked down at night, with security people at every entrance. No one got in without proper ID, yet the same thing had occurred when Shannon had been attacked in the lobby.
The implications were chilling.
Jane M. Choate dreamed of writing from the time she was a small child when she entertained friends with outlandish stories complete with happily-ever-after endings. Writing for Love Inspired Suspense is a dream come true. Jane is the proud mother of five children, grandmother to ten grandchildren and staff to one cat who believes she is of royal descent.
Books by Jane M. Choate
Love Inspired Suspense
Keeping Watch
The Littlest Witness
Shattered Secrets
High-Risk Investigation
Inherited Threat
Stolen Child
Secrets from the Past
Lethal Corruption
Visit the Author Profile page at LoveInspired.com.
Lethal Corruption
Jane M. Choate
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
—James 1:12
To teachers.
You are heroes and heroines every day.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Dear Reader
Excerpt from Covert Takedown by Kathleen Tailer
ONE
Recycled air from the building’s vents huffed ineffectually against the lingering heat of a late August night. The courthouse of Shadow Point, Colorado, held on to the late summer heat with a vengeance.
Shannon DeFord, DDA with the district attorney’s office, hurried down the steps to the main floor. The ancient elevator moved too slowly to keep pace with her racing thoughts. She had stayed late to get a jump on the coming day’s work.
In the lobby, she paused long enough to sweep her hair from her neck and wipe away the sweat that had gathered there, a palpable reminder that her office air conditioner wasn’t working—again—and that she hadn’t had even a moment to call building repair.
The air stirred behind her, causing her to startle. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Moments later, an arm reached out to circle her neck in a bruising hold. In a flash, a knife appeared and was poised at the base of her throat.
She forgot to breathe. Terror crawled up her spine, the trace of its cold finger in sharp contrast to the heat she’d complained of only moments earlier. Her skin pinched like it was shrinking on her scalp, squeezing, pressing, crushing, until she wanted to claw at it and tear it away.
“Drop the case against Newton and his men or suffer the consequences.” Though muffled, the threat got through loud and clear.
Her assailant tightened his hold, and she glimpsed something dark and menacing on his forearm. He must belong to the gang who had been terrorizing a block of Shadow Point shop owners into paying protection money. The crew was led by Bobby Newton, who was out on bail.
Newton’s gang was a nasty group. As the weekly amount grew to exorbitant rates, the tactics to extract payment had become increasingly violent.
Thanks to the courage of one woman who had come forward to testify, Shannon had an indictment against Newton and three others.
Her eyes flashed back and forth as she looked for the night guard. He was nowhere to be found.
She wasn’t given time to ponder over that when the threatening voice spoke again.
“Do you understand?”
The sting of the knife punctuated the words, and drops of blood trickled down her neck. The coppery scent of it nearly made her gag. Or was she only imagining the smell? Didn’t matter. All that mattered was her survival.
She managed a nod. If she still believed in prayer, she would have been begging the Lord for His protection right now.
If.
“Good.” The arm dropped from around her neck, and she stumbled free, falling to her hands and knees on the veined marble floor. “See that you remember it.”
Releasing the breath she was still holding, she stayed there for a minute, maybe two, as she struggled not to let out the scream building in her. Her throat hurt with the effort to keep it inside.
Get it together, girl.
After assuring herself that the assailant was gone, she gulped in a breath and stood. Then she pulled her cell phone from her bag and punched in 911. Fingers clumsy, she tried several times before she could get the number correct.
The security guard eventually showed up. He expressed no surprise or concern when she told him what had happened. “Been on a bathroom break. You look all right to me.”
“Thanks.” She wasn’t a favorite in the police department after prosecuting one of their own for accepting a bribe. Apparently that disfavor extended to the security guard, as well.
A nasty thought occurred to her. Could he have been in on it? Making certain she was alone when the attacker showed up? But how could anyone know when she’d leave her office? Right now, she had more questions than answers.
Forty-five minutes later, a police unit showed up. She made a point of checking the time on her phone. “I thought 911 calls received priority.”
“They do. Your call must have gotten lost in the shuffle.” The older of the two officers smirked at her, letting her know her call hadn’t been lost at all.
They took her statement. Their bored manner indicated that they knew exactly who she was and had little, if any, interest in finding the person who had attacked her.
“We’ll keep you posted.” He snapped his notebook closed.
“You do that.” She didn’t bother to mask the sarcasm in her voice.
“You’d best be careful, Ms. DeFord,” the younger officer said, speaking for the first time. “Lots of bad stuff going on. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt or nothin’.”
“I appreciate your concern.”
The gloves were off. “You took the badge of one of ours.” The first officer’s voice was as hard as the nightstick he shifted from one hand to the other. “You won’t find much sympathy from the rest of us.”
“The blue wall,” she murmured. “Too bad it’s misplaced in this case.”
She didn’t give them time to answer, but, instead, turned on her heel and walked away. Why couldn’t they see that protecting a bad cop tainted them all with the same brush?
Most of the police officers she knew were good cops, honest and dedicated, but a few had banded together against her, against justice in this case. Her goal had been to prove to them, to the entire city, that no one was above the law.
A gang looting and blackmailing the store owners thought exactly that—that they were above any law. That could not stand. Not on her watch.
In another hour she was in her cozy Craftsman-styled house. It needed work—a lot of work—but it was in a decent area and within walking distance of a shopping center.
If she’d kept her job with the private law firm, she could have had her pick of luxury apartments. Every now and again, she wondered if she’d made the right choice of taking the job with the DA’s office then remembered the empty feeling of working solely to make rich people richer. There was nothing wrong with that, but she’d wanted more. Needed more. She wanted to make a difference in the world. She couldn’t do that working corporate cases.
Her decision had cost Shannon her fiancé, who claimed he’d proposed to a corporate lawyer, not a lowly deputy district attorney. It was then that she’d accepted that he’d been attracted to a big paycheck and all the perks that went with working for a prestigious company rather than to her.
A week after that, when he’d asked for his ring back, she’d told him that she’d sold it and given the proceeds to her favorite charity, a cat-rescue organization. The look on the face of this man who couldn’t abide animals, especially cats, had been priceless.
Despite the heat, she’d taken a hot shower and pulled on a flee cy tracksuit. Gooseflesh peppered her skin as she recalled the cold metal of the knife pressed to her throat.
She touched the wound on her neck, which she’d covered with a small bandage, and admitted to herself that she was as vulnerable as the next person. In response to that, she fingered the gold chain, a gift from her brother, Jeff, that she was never without. It was her touchstone.
Jeff had been her anchor. He had kept her grounded ever since she could remember. When he had been killed while on deployment in Afghanistan, she and God had parted company. What kind of God let a good man like Jeff die? If He was all-powerful, why hadn’t He saved him?
Without Jeff, she’d floundered. Only her desire to honor his memory by doing her best had sustained her through the long years of college and law school, when she’d both worked at a fast-food place and gone to school full-time, managing to maintain a 4.0 GPA and to be chosen for the law review.
She’d searched for answers but had found none in the beliefs she’d been taught as a child. The pastor she’d gone to for help hadn’t had any answers, either—at least none that made sense to her. He spoke of God’s will and submitting herself to it, but she couldn’t accept that it was God’s will for her brother to die.
Finally, she’d given up seeking answers and had gone her own way. A way that didn’t include the Lord. She shook that off and reminded herself that she had a job to do. She had chosen this life, had chosen to prosecute the members of the gang. That wasn’t going to scare her away no matter what she’d promised her attacker.
Shannon knew she needed sleep. She also knew that she wasn’t going to get any tonight. She was wired. The adrenaline spike following the attack wasn’t going away. Work was the only antidote to calm her racing thoughts.
She opened the files and spread them out on her bed. Painstakingly, she went over every statement. One witness, Charlotte Kimball, had been able to recount the men’s threats practically verbatim. She would make an outstanding witness.
Shannon wished the other store owners felt the same. They had refused to testify. She didn’t blame them. Newton’s crew had terrified them, even going so far as to pistol-whip one.
Not for the first time, she wondered why Newton and his men had chosen that particular block to terrorize. The stores were small, the owners mostly older people who made a modest living. They couldn’t afford to pay protection money, which Newton had to know.
Money couldn’t be the primary reason. There had to be something more, but she hadn’t been able to ferret it out. There’d been talk of a new highway going in, but the location hadn’t been disclosed. Could that be it?
Was Newton’s gang trying to frighten the storeowners away to pick up the properties at bargain basement prices? Whatever the reason they wanted the property, the owners had a right to choose for themselves.
If she failed to secure a guilty verdict, she feared the storeowners wouldn’t survive. Their livelihoods would be gone, as well as their homes, since many lived above their shops.
How could they start over after losing everything they’d worked their entire lives for? More importantly, how could they start over after losing hope?
She squared her shoulders and slammed the door on the unaccustomed moment of vulnerability. She wouldn’t back down, and she wouldn’t back off. She wouldn’t be frightened away from doing her job.
Not today. Not ever.
She wasn’t her father.
* * *
Raphael Zuniga hadn’t wanted the protection assignment for the pretty DDA.
Give him an enemy stronghold to take down, a munitions dump to take out or a hostage rescue team to lead, and he was your man. You could take the man out of Delta Force, but you couldn’t take Delta Force out of the man.
The rueful acknowledgement reminded him that a soldier’s job was to take orders and he took them from Shelley Rabb Judd, a pint-size boss who could be every bit as intimidating as the toughest drill sergeant. It didn’t matter that Shelley was two thousand miles away in Atlanta, Georgia, S&J’s headquarters.
He’d interviewed with her and her copartner and brother, Jake Rabb, last year and had come away awed at what they’d built. Following that, he’d spent several months training with other S&J operatives in Atlanta before taking the job in his home state.
“Since Gideon’s on special assignment, I’m contacting you directly,” Shelley had said, referring to the boss of S&J operations in Colorado. “Dani’s friend Shannon DeFord is in trouble. Dani says she’s good people.”
Rafe had listened some more and gotten the details.
Dani Rabb, Jake’s wife, had brought the case to S&J Security/Protection’s attention and asked for help. One-time college roommates, Dani and Shannon had kept in touch. When Dani learned that her friend was being threatened for taking on a case against a violent crew blackmailing a group of store owners, and in doing so had put herself in the line of fire, Dani had asked for S&J’s help in protecting her friend.
It wasn’t that Rafe didn’t admire what Shannon was trying to do—he did. It was that he didn’t want to spend his days cooped up in an office. Give him an assignment that involved action. He preferred doing to sitting any day.
He’d arranged to meet her at the DA’s office. Before announcing his presence, he stood in the doorway and spent a moment studying his latest assignment. Medium height, slender, with light brown hair the color of a fawn’s coat, she had the fresh, wholesome looks of a girl next door. Until you looked closer and saw the purpose in her eyes and the determined tilt of her chin. They promised that she was far more than a pretty face.
He stepped forward. “Ms. DeFord? Rafe Zuniga.”
She stood and held out a small hand. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Zuniga.” Her office was ruthlessly organized, with only a single file and a laptop on the desk. “I’m afraid I overreacted when I told Dani what happened, and she and Shelley did the same when they asked for your help.”
“Shelley said you were attacked here in the building, that someone held a knife to your throat.”
“That’s right.” She folded her bottom lip beneath the upper.
He had a feeling she did so to give herself time to collect herself before continuing, so he pretended not to notice the shaky breath she took.
“The cut turned out to be scarcely a nick. When I’d calmed down, I realized that whoever did it only wanted to scare me.” She held his gaze. “I don’t scare easily.”
“There’s no shame in being scared.”
Her nod was crisp.
“It could have been worse,” he said. Unspoken were the words much worse.
She shivered, seeming to acknowledge the implication. Her hand moved to her neck. “I know. But I can’t let a threat keep me from doing my job. That’s not who I am.”
“No,” he said, taking in the firming of her jaw. “I can see that.”
“I don’t want to take your time for what was only a threat.” She looked down at her hands, then met his eyes squarely. “And I can’t afford S&J’s rates.”
“It’s on the house.”
She shook her head. “I can’t let you do that.”
“You get the friend-of-a-friend discount. Don’t worry about the fee right now. We’ll work it out.” Though he hadn’t wanted the job at first, he couldn’t walk away from someone needing help. It wasn’t in him.
“I know you mean well, but I can’t have you trailing around behind me. Part of my job involves interviewing witnesses. One look at you, and they’ll take off for the hills. No offense, but you’re a bit intimidating.” She paused. “Make that a lot intimidating.”
He assumed a meek expression. “I’m gentle as a lamb.”
She laughed. “And I’m the queen of England.”
He angled his head to study her. “Funny, you don’t look like the queen. And you don’t carry an ugly purse.”
“Just a beat-up briefcase.”
He’d kept his tone light. Until now. “It’s been my experience that threats like this only get worse. Not better. I’ll stick around. I promise not to get in the way.”
She nodded. “Okay. I’ll figure out a way to pay you.” Her lips quirked at the corners “Maybe I can give up lunches and dinners for the next six months.”
