Hot Mess 14

Chapter Twenty

STORMY GLENN

Chapter One

Lany

There are times in life when clarity suddenly hits and you realize that life is one fucked-up mess after another.

As I sat on the floor in the backroom of some derelict drug house, cradling my aching cheek in my hand, I realized this was just another dramatic moment in a long line of dramatic moments that seemed to plague me, whether I wanted them to or not.

Either fate really hated my ass or I had done something horrific in every past life I had ever lived. No one could have this much crap happen to them unless they had burned down an orphanage in a previous life or drowned a litter of puppies living with a group of nuns. It just wasn't possible.

I had to be cursed.

How in the hell did this keep happening to me? That's what I truly wanted to know. This exact same thing had happened to me all those years ago, except I had a hot Italian SWAT officer to rescue me. I had been smacked around by some goon who thought he had the right to put his hands on me.

There would be no rescue this time, no handsome man coming in to sweep me off my feet and whisk me away from danger.

I was totally on my own.

I was so fucked.

I should have said no. It was as simple as that. I should have said no when the DEA came to me and asked if I could help them with a case. My dealings with the DEA had not been good up to this point, and this was a perfect example of that fact.

I really needed to stop letting people talk me into things. Yes, I wanted to be one of the good guys and help good persevere over evil, but maybe going undercover as a computer whizz for some drug-dealing street thug was not the way to go about that.

Considering I knew more about the right way to tumble down the stairs or fall from a tree without serious injury than I did about computers, I really should have thought this one over or at least talked to Sal about it before I agreed to anything.

Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it—he was away for a training conference in Denver, Colorado, and wasn't expected home for another week. I had hoped to have this undercover gig dealt with and done by the time that happened.

Wasn't looking good for me.

“Get up!”

Conscious of the really big silver gun aimed in my direction, I slowly climbed to my feet. Luckily, there was a wall behind me so it made it a bit easier, but my cheek was throbbing from where this asshole had smacked me and my head was spinning and I just wanted to go home.

Doubt that was going to happen.

“I want to know where the money is.”

“Yeah.” I swallowed tightly. “About that...”

If this guy didn't shoot me, Sal would. He was going to be so pissed. I doubted I'd even have the luxury of being placed in a hermetically sealed bubble and grounded for life. He was going to strangle me.

Man, this idea of going undercover was getting worse by the second. Maybe I needed to consider calling it a day and just go home. The DEA could find the evidence on their own. I certainly didn't seem to be making any headway.

The DEA had given me an account to reroute the money to, but under Lyn's advice, I had sent it to an offshore account he had set up for me. Even if the DEA couldn't bust him, the guy was going to be broke soon.

Lyn Philips—my best friend, a former police officer on Sal's SWAT team, and now a member of the FBI's Cyber Crimes Division—had shown me how to set it up so that the money trickled out of the guy's account and into another account a little at a time.

The missing money wouldn't be noticed until it was too late.

Hopefully, I would be long gone and back home with my family by then.

“I'm not exactly sure where the money is,” I said.

Floating around in cyber space was my best guess.

“I want my money!”

Before I got smacked again, I decided to go on the offensive.

“Look, man, it's the middle of summer. I warned you about the heat.

I told you that I needed more fans or the hard drives would overheat.

You were the one that didn't want to spend the money to get them.

It's not my fault the computers won't work now.”

“You have a fan.”

I eyed the small rusted olive-green fan that sat on top of the desk beside me.

That thing looked like it came out of World War II.

“That isn't going to cut it. I need cooling fans to keep the hard drives from getting too hot.

Electronics like this are very delicate.

They simply will not work when it's too hot.”

“You were the one that promised you could funnel my money out of the U.S.” The guy raised the gun and pointed it at my head. “Do it, or you won't need to worry about the heat.”

As if to reinforce his threat, the guy slammed the butt of his gun into the side of my face. I barely had time to register the pain before I was dropping to the floor, the world about me fading in and out and then going dark.

* * * *

A loud bang woke me. It actually jerked me awake. I sucked in a shaky breath before opening my eyes and glancing around. When I saw that the room was empty, I pushed myself up into a sitting position.

I immediately wished I had stayed where I was, preferably unconscious.

My cheek was throbbing, and my head was pounding.

I also had a sharp pain in my ribs on my right side that I wasn't sure how I got.

I didn't remember getting hit or kicked there, although I wouldn't put it past that asshole to do something to me while I was unconscious.

At least I still had all my clothes on.

That was always a plus.

I started to climb to my feet, but the sudden sharp pain in my side made me change my mind.

Maybe I would just stay here on the floor until the DEA figured out that this undercover mission had gone sideways and they sent someone in to rescue my ass before I got shot, if it was at all possible.

When I heard another loud crash, I gritted my teeth and made myself push through the pain as I climbed to my feet. I held on to the desk with a death grip to pull myself up. I didn't know what was going on out there, but I did not want to be sitting on the floor if it came in my direction.

I stepped over to the desk and grabbed the flash stick with all my information on it. Where the DEA's account was located, where the drug thug's account was located, how much money was being transferred, and how I was transferring it.

Lyn had beaten it into my head to have a backup of everything. I think he'd gotten a little paranoid since going to work for the FBI, but whatever. He knew more about computers than I did. If he says back it up, I was backing it up.

I slid the flash stick into my pocket just as the door was kicked in.

“Police! Hands in the air!”

I didn't even have time to turn around before I was being shoved down to the floor and my arms jerked behind me so handcuffs could be placed around my wrists.

“Got one in here, Sergeant!” a deep, baritone voice shouted.

Wait.

I knew that voice.

I craned my neck to look at the officer with his knee in my back. “Sam?”

Officer Sam Brodsky, one of the officers on my husband's SWAT team and the man married to my brother-in-law.

Told you I was cursed.

“Lany?” Sam whispered.

Fuck my life!

I sighed with resignation. “Could you get your knee out of my back, Sam?” It wasn't doing my ribs any good.

The handcuffs were quickly removed, and then I was pulled up. I met a pair of wide eyes on a very pale face. I smiled. “Hi.”

“Lany, what are you doing here?” Sam snapped. “You are supposed to be at home with the kids.”

“Yeah.” I winced. “About that...” Just as quickly as I had winced, I frowned. “I don't suppose we could keep this from Sal, could we?”

I didn't have a chance in hell, and I knew it as soon as Sam's eyes narrowed.

“Lany!” Sam snapped in clear exasperation.

“Lany?” asked a voice behind me.

I groaned as I turned and found Sergeant Victor Clarke—second-in-command of Sal's SWAT team and the husband of my best friend, Lyn—standing in the doorway in full SWAT gear. “Hey, Clarke.”

I was so dead.

“What in the hell are you doing here? Have you lost your mind?” Clarke stiffened suddenly and then shook his head. “You know what? I don't want to know. Sal can figure out your crazy ass when he gets home. Put the cuffs back on him, Brodsky.”

“You want me to cuff Lany?” Sam asked slowly as if he wanted to be perfectly clear on the demand.

“He was found in a drug house when SWAT was called in to bust the place,” Clarke said. “Cuff his ass and throw him into the back of a squad car. Sal will be back by the end of the week. Lany can spend that time thinking about why he shouldn't hang out with drug dealers.”

“Wait, wait,” I said as Sam grabbed me. “You don't understand.”

Clarke just needed to call my DEA contact and everything would be explained. Hell, even Lyn could explain it, as he was the only one besides the DEA that knew I was working undercover.

“Nope. Nope.” Clarke shook his head. “Not listening to a suspect.”

A suspect?

Seriously?

“We're just here to bust your ass and put you in jail,” Clarke said. “Your husband and your lawyer can figure out the rest.”

“Clarke!”

“Not listening,” Clarke said as he turned and walked out of the room.

“I'm going to kill him.”

Clarke stuck his head back into the room. There was a hint of laughter in his voice as he said, “Threatening a police officer is a crime.”

I narrowed my eyes as I watched him disappear again. I swear to god, I was going to use my one phone call to call Lyn and tell him what his husband had done. Let's see him laugh his way out of that one.

“I'm sorry about this, Lany.”

“Are you seriously going to arrest me, Sam?”

“My sergeant ordered it, so...” Sam looked as if he would rather face a raging suspect hyped up on PSP than deal with me right now.