Puppeteer

  Copyright 2012 Tamsen Schultz

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

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  Cover Design by Greg Simanson

  Edited by Julie Molinari

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  PRINT ISBN 978-1-935961-51-2

  EPUB ISBN 978-1-62015-055-9

  For further information regarding permissions, please contact info@booktrope.com.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948618

  Dedication

  To Nav, even though

  you don't read fiction

  Acknowledgments

  Books may be written in solitude but they certainly aren't published that way. I'd like to thank my first introduction into the world of professional writing and editing, Andrea Hurst of Andrea Hurst & Associates, Sarah Martinez (who is one of the most positive, encouraging writers and editors around) and my editor, Julie Molinari (who must have “who said this?” on auto-populate for me). Booktrope and the entire Booktrope team have also provided invaluable support, advice, and encouragement—while signing any new author is a leap of faith, I'm particularly thankful they made that leap for me.

  Now on to the personal acknowledgements. Saying thank you to my family, who somehow manage to let me have blocks of hours to write but can't let me brush my teeth without needing something, seems so inadequate. You make me laugh, keep me grounded, encourage me, and remind me every day of what is really important. I am also grateful (and lucky) to have a number of amazing women in my life. Special thank yous go to Sarah C and Angeli, you may be thousands of miles away at any given time, but you're never far. And to Lisa, because you never let me doubt myself, Sarah A, because you're my partner in crime, and Jere, because under that fabulous Nicole Miller is one of the strongest women I know. And last but not least, to my parents who instilled in me both a love of reading and the knowledge that while there are some things I shouldn't do, there is very little I can't do if I decide I want to.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Preview of A Tainted Mind

  MORE GREAT READS FROM BOOKTROPE

  Chapter 1

  AGENT DANIELLE “DANI” WILLIAMSON examined the picture lying in front of her. The subject wasn't the man she was looking for. None of the other twenty or so photos she'd looked at were any closer. The subjects were either too young, too old, not the right race, not the right build, not the right gender. She sighed and slid them back into the envelope the courier had dropped off earlier.

  Rising from the non-descript hotel bed, she walked to the window. The room was a hotel version of her utilitarian apartment in Washington, DC, and a far cry from her more luxurious apartment overlooking Central Park in New York. But she'd picked this hotel for a reason. It was seven blocks from the police headquarters, where she would be giving a briefing to the local vice department in the morning. And it was also three blocks from a bar owned by a family friend—a place she knew she could rack a few games of pool to help clear her head if she needed. And she needed.

  Dani's hand jerked as she pushed the curtain further aside. Her body was as unsettled as her mind. She knew that until she was physically with her team, working their case, she wouldn't feel at ease. But, compliments of the team director, she was stuck here for a night, twiddling her thumbs. She was pretty sure he'd given the briefing assignment to her as warning not to go off half-cocked.

  Pool, she thought, moving toward her bag.

  Grabbing a top that was more ‘woman’ than ‘agent’ she changed. Sliding on a pair of heels that were anything but sensible, she didn't fool herself into thinking that a game or two, even if accompanied with a glass of wine, would take her mind off of the case at hand. But, glancing at her weapon in its holster on the bedside table, she could at least try to act like a normal person for a night, clothes and all.

  Pulling out her gun safe, she placed her weapon inside, put the whole thing in her bag, locked the zippers together, and slid it under the bed. No, a couple of games of pool wouldn't take away the images in her mind, imprinted there for over half her life, and she didn't want them to. A game wouldn't erase her excitement about this case or the healthy anxiety she felt in believing she was this close to getting the answers she'd been seeking. But what a few games would do, what she was counting on them to do, was focus her mind on something else for a short time. If she didn't calm her mind down, she wouldn't be able to calm her body down. And if she didn't do that, she would never sleep tonight. And, though she could go hours without sleep, knowing she was giving the briefing tomorrow, knowing she would stand in front of a room full of alpha males and feed them half-truths, a little rest couldn't hurt.

  Grabbing her key and her purse, she took one last glance at the room. The envelope lay on her bed. Since, out of context, there was nothing incriminating in the photos, she left it there. Everything else looked nice and normal, just like it should. Sliding her key into her clutch, Dani turned and headed into the night.

  Chapter 2

  NOT A FLICKER OF RECOGNITION.

  Ty Fuller was impressed. Annoyed, but impressed. But, being honest with himself, he wasn't sure what irritated him more: the fact that, as good as he was at hiding his reactions, Agent Dani Williamson—or, “Ella,” as she had introduced herself last night—was better, or the fact that she was hiding hers at all.

  “Nice to meet you Detective Fuller.” She shook his hand, as professional and as cool as the briefing room where they all sat, tucked away like errant children, on the fourth floor of the police headquarters.

  “And you, Agent Williamson,” he responded, pleased that only a miniscule amount of sarcasm laced his voice. He wasn't being fair, and it wasn't as though he expected her to admit they'd already met, or that, not more than three hours ago they'd been ‘meeting’ each other in every conceivable way. But it didn't sit well on his wide shoulders that she'd no more than glanced at him when they were introduced. That she'd just given him the same perfunctory handshake she'd given all the other detectives in the room. Not even a smile.

  “And this is Detective Warren, Fuller's partner.” Captain Jefferies continued the introductions by indicating the man standing to Ty's left.

  “Detective.” She turned to the left and shook Warren's hand.

  Ty pushed aside his personal bias, and let's face it, ego, and focused objectively on the person in front of him—not the woman he'd met last night a
nd taken home, but the agent working the room. Her tone didn't change from one officer to the next, she was seasoned and sure. Both her words and the way she said them were matter-of-fact and neither condescending nor nervous. Her demeanor was confident—free of any apprehension she might feel as a DEA agent stepping into local territory. She knew her job well.

  As she moved about the room meeting the other detectives, he noted that her language, both verbal and body, was subtly different than other federal agents who had visited the department in his six-year tenure. Ty frowned. She was here to give the obligatory, one-big-happy-family-that-is-law-enforcement talk like most feds. Or in other words, she and her team intended to play nice only as long as everyone played their game by their rules.

  And there was nothing unusual about the approach. What was different was that she didn't seem to care much one way or the other as she made her way around the room. The feds were usually either very clear about wanting vice out or very clear about what they needed from the locals. In the former instance, they didn't bother meeting the team. In the latter, they tended to go overboard.

  Dani wasn't doing either. She was making the rounds and taking the time to meet and greet everyone. Her sincerity each time she smiled at someone was the easy kind—the kind a person uses when making promises they know they'll never have to deliver on. And if Ty had to guess, since collaboration of any sort didn't seem to be on her mind, he'd bet she was going to share some information, make them feel like they were part of the investigation, then walk away as soon as she had reason to.

  Watching her shake hands with yet another detective, it occurred to him that she probably even hoped they wouldn't play along. If they didn't, it would be easier to sever the tie between the two agencies. And she could place any claims of lack of cooperation squarely on their shoulders. It made Ty wonder what would happen if they cooperated, if no one ever gave her a reason to sever the tie.

  He watched her move down the line, toward the last of the detectives from his department. Whatever the DEA was up to, they'd been up to it long enough to believe they had all the information they needed—or had the resources to get it. And whatever it was, he would know soon enough. Or, he conceded to himself, he would know at least what she wanted them to know.

  “Now that you've met everyone, why don't we get started?” Captain Jefferies directed, as he stepped aside and let Dani move to the front and center of the room.

  She moved into place without a single hint of unease or self-consciousness. She faced six of Portland's top vice detectives, all of whom were men, and many of whom were ex-military of some sort, himself included, without batting a single one of her long eyelashes. It was more than most men accomplished. And she did it with style.

  “Thank you, Captain,” she began. “Thank you all for meeting with me this morning.” She continued the pleasantries with a businesslike nod to the men. He could feel the tension creeping up in the room and he could sense, if not see, that all eyes were focused on Agent Williamson. He wondered if they were fooling Dani but he doubted it. Yes, they were interested in what she had to say but, these alpha males were much more interested given the messenger—a five foot eleven blonde who carried a gun. Her conservative black suit and slicked-back hair did nothing to hide the fact that she looked like she'd stepped straight off of the set of Faster, Pussy Cat! Kill! Kill! She had all the curves and confidence that made a man look a time, or three. Sexist? Yes, but true. His men would listen a whole lot closer to words coming out of a mouth like hers. Whether or not they would hear anything was up for grabs, but they would listen. Hell, he was no different. Yes, he was as interested as the rest of his men—probably more so—in what came out of that beautiful, familiar mouth.

  * * *

  Dani had almost laughed out loud when she walked into the non-descript briefing room—and it wouldn't have been the good kind. The room itself was the approximate temperature of the Antarctic, and about as gray and somber. But Dani was pretty sure that, despite the dreary environment, someone somewhere was yukking it up, and at her expense—someone with a twisted enough sense of humor to throw a man like Ty Fuller at her on this case.

  After shaking hands with him, she slipped into autopilot, going through the mechanics of introductions, as she had hundreds of times before, with the rest of the team. Knowing she knew her stuff well enough that no one would suspect a thing, she let her mind linger on Ty, wondering what he thought about this turn of events. He must have been surprised at meeting her here, in this room, in this role. She certainly was. But he was good at hiding his reaction. Almost as good as she was.

  Her thoughts ventured to the night before, even as she made her way down the line of vice detectives. A couple of games of pool had taken her mind off of things for a short while. But then Ty had walked in. Dark hair, strong jaw, and a way of moving that had caught her eye. And so the night had unfolded in a very different stress-reducing way. She would give credit where credit was due. Ty had done the job and done it well. Never before had she spent the night with a man she'd just met. And never, in all her adult years, had she wanted to. But when the bartender, an acquaintance of hers, had vouched for him, she had gone where her hormones had urged her to go since the first moment she'd laid eyes on him. No last names, no shop talk or small talk, and no expectations of seeing each other ever again. It had seemed so easy, so perfect. And now, thanks to the preceding hours, she was relaxed, with her body still lingering in the memory of their night together.

  Maybe the twinge of regret she'd felt when she'd left his place in the early hours of the morning—regret at thinking she would never see him again, would never really know him—was enough to tempt the fates. Whatever it was, he was here, in Technicolor, and they were now officially working together. For the moment anyway—as soon as her appointed liaison gave her cause, she would drop the pretense of collaboration.

  Dani pulled out a half dozen folders from her briefcase, then handed them to Ty in the front row to pass around. She caught his eye for a split second. Irritation lurked there but she chose to ignore it. She could see his point. Given what had happened between them, he had a right to at least be acknowledged. And she regretted she couldn't, she really did. The problem was she couldn't do that without the rest of the room jumping to conclusions. That they would be the right conclusions didn't matter. If it were a different situation, maybe she wouldn't mind as much. But not now, not with this case.

  “These folders contain information on the investigation that brings us to your fair city,” Dani began the presentation. “Ramon Getz, resident of Portland, is the primary focus. The first page has his photo and general stats.” She called up his image on a projector the captain had prepared for her at her request. The face looking back at them was that of a forty-five-year-old man in a well-cut suit and silk tie. His first name was Hispanic, but Getz's features, like most Americans, were mixed enough that it was impossible to tell his heritage.

  “Over the years, he's been making his way up the drug distributor food chain.” Dani clicked to the next slide showing a picture of younger Getz standing on the tarmac of an airstrip in Colombia. “He got his start over thirty years ago as a transporter for one of the South American cartels. He made enough contacts and enough money that he went into business for himself about ten years ago.” The slide she clicked to next showed a map of the United States with cities color coded to dates.

  “At first his influence was pretty much limited to the Portland area but in the last year or so, through various avenues of information, we've been hearing his name crop up in places like Miami, Seattle, and LA.” She paused, studying the map. “He's getting big and we'd like to make sure he doesn't get any bigger.”

  “His cartel buddies just let him go into business for himself?” one of the vice detectives asked, not bothering to hide his cynicism.

  Dani smiled to herself, it had been her first reaction too, when she heard about Getz. Drug cartels tended to hold tight to their markets and thei
r members. Getz was an enigma in more ways than one. “They were—lucky for Getz—short sighted,” she explained, turning back toward the room. “Portland just wasn't on their radar. The cartel was focused on the big cities: New York, LA, Miami. Maine was too remote, not wealthy enough, you name it.”

  She pulled out the third page from the folder and held it up. “The intelligence we've collected suggests that Getz made a deal with them. He'd stay out of their territories and they would leave him alone. In exchange, he would do a certain percent of his business with them. At the time, it was a standard high-risk investment for him. He took on all the risk of obtaining and distributing the drugs in newer, untested markets while there was only an upside for the cartel.

  “By the time they realized how short sighted the deal was, Getz had already built himself quite an empire and it was easier and less costly to keep the status quo than for the cartel to try to change the arrangement.”

  “Convenient for Getz,” Ty interjected.

  She glanced at him and saw a hint of amusement flash across his features. It almost made her smile. Almost, but not quite.

  “He's a nasty son of a bitch. But, unfortunately for all of us, he's not dumb,” Dani responded in acknowledgement. “He has no formal education beyond tenth grade, but he grew up in South Boston in one of the toughest neighborhoods on the Eastern Seaboard. He knows how to move drugs through a community—he lived it firsthand. He learned what drugs can do to people and he's used this knowledge to pit people against each other in ways that leave him on top. He manipulated his former employer in a way that would almost be admirable, if it weren't so dirty.”

  “So now that he's a big dog, the DEA is sweeping in to clean up the mess?” Detective Warren asked.

  Dani saw Ty slide his partner a look. It was a subtle show of support that was both surprising and welcome. Warren's comment echoed the cries of local agencies all over the US—that the DEA didn't really care about the drug situation until it got big enough that resolving the problem would earn them congressional kudos, and more budget, of course. In the meantime, the locals were left to do all the dirty work.