Santa' Wayward Elf (19 page)

Five minutes past the hour, a line of sedans approached the
warehouse. Derek’s pulse kicked up a notch. Even though the information had
been good, part of him had been worried the mob boss wouldn’t show. But that
was Saldino and his crew, no doubt about it. The man liked to travel in style.

Derek had hoped the vehicles would stop in front of the
warehouse, so they could get video of Saldino’s men dragging the drug dealer
inside, but the vehicles didn’t slow down. The big doors of the warehouse
rolled up and all six sedans drove inside, then the doors came back down. A
moment later, two men dressed in suits came out of the main entrance and took
their posts on either side of it.

Shit
.

Not only wouldn’t they have any video footage of them
dragging their hostage inside, but the two guards at the door would make the
approach to the warehouse more difficult.

Derek glanced over at the men sitting at a table in the back
of the room with headphones glued to their ears. “Any audio coming out of there
yet?”

Both men shook their heads.

“Negative,” one of them said. “There’s some kind of
interference scrambling the signals. They might have jammers installed in
there.”

Shit
.

The captain looked at him. “It’s your call. Derek. Without
video or audio, we’re going in there blind.”

Maybe, but they couldn’t wait until they heard for a gunshot
to go in and bust Saldino. Not only would that get the drug dealer killed, but
they’d have no way to prove it wasn’t self-defense on Saldino’s part. That’s if
one of Saldino’s guys didn’t throw himself on the sword and take the blame. No,
they had to catch the mob boss red-handed, and they had to move quickly.
Knowing Saldino, the man would savor the moment for a while before he pulled
the trigger, but Derek couldn’t depend on that. If Saldino popped the drug dealer
before they got inside, they were screwed.

“We go in now, but not like we originally planned,” Derek
said. “If we don’t get those two guards at the door out of the way, we’ll never
be able to surprise Saldino, so Aaron and I will go in first. Everyone else
waits for my signal.”

The captain gave him a nod. “Watch yourselves out there.”

Derek took off the blue jacket with the word “POLICE”
printed on the back in big block letters and shoved his gun in the back of his
jeans, then shrugged into his leather jacket, zipping it up to hide the
bulletproof vest he wore. Once Aaron had done the same, they headed down the
street to Saldino’s warehouse. The two men standing guard at the door exchanged
looks as he and Aaron approached.

“What are you doing here?” one of the men demanded. “Mr.
Saldino gave everyone the day off.”

“We’re here for our overtime checks,” Derek said. “We were
told to pick them up tonight.”

The two guards looked at each other again. “Well, whoever
told you that made a mistake. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

Derek glanced at Aaron, giving him a slight nod before
turning back to the two men at the door. He thanked them, then made as if to
turn away, but instead he drew his gun and leveled it at one of the men while
Aaron did the same to the other.

“Not a word,” Derek said softly.

The two men eyed them, clearly debating whether they should
go for their own weapons, but must have changed their minds when Derek and
Aaron were surrounded by a dozen other cops a few moments later.

As two uniformed officers cuffed the guards and led them
away, one of the commo techs moved in to attach an audio probe to the wall
beside the door. While he did that, Derek checked on his radio to make sure the
other entry teams were in place at the back and side entrances to the
warehouse. He’d even stationed an undercover team in a boat off the pier in case
Saldino tried to escape that way.

“Anything?” he asked the commo tech.

The man shook his head. “Nothing. There’s definitely
something interfering with our equipment.”

“Damn.” Derek lifted his radio, thumbing the button on the
side. “Anyone got an eyeball on what’s going on in there?”

Each team had the same reply—negative.

Derek swore under his breath. They couldn’t wait any longer.
They had to make their move—now.

He lifted the radio again to give the order when the sound
of gunshots echoed in the warehouse.

Shit
.

“Go, go!” Derek shouted.

At his order, the SWAT team with him immediately mobilized,
the entry officer in the front busting open the door with a battering ram.
Derek and his fellow cops surged forward, weapons ready. The other teams burst
into the warehouse from three different directions, SWAT leading the way in
black ski masks, waving automatic weapons and barking orders.

Derek expected to find the drug dealer lying dead on the
floor, or at least wounded and begging for his life, Saldino using him for
target practice while his men watched. Instead there were twenty kids sitting
frozen in their chairs staring at him and the rest of the cops wide-eyed. Some
of them were holding the remnants of popped balloons in their hands. Others
were frozen in the act of shoving birthday cake into their mouth.

In the stunned silence, one of the kids started crying, then
another and another until the whole warehouse was full of bawling rug rats and
their screaming mothers.

Several men stood off to the side, Sammy Saldino among them,
an angry but satisfied expression on his face.

Shit
.

They’d been completely set up. And the bastard Saldino had
used a kid’s birthday party to do it, not giving a damn any of them could have
been shot. Or maybe the mob boss had been hoping one of them would be so he’d
have something else to use as leverage against the NYPD.

“Lower your weapons!” Derek shouted to the cops who were
still aiming their weapons at the group. “Lower them now, dammit!”

Saldino smirked as they followed the order. “Looks as if
you’ve given me more ammunition for my harassment lawsuit, Detective.”

Derek clenched his jaw. Unzipping his jacket, he holstered
his gun. That was when he noticed the video cameras sitting on the table. Oh,
hell. The kids’ mothers must have been recording the party, which probably
meant they had captured everything on tape. Could this fiasco get any worse?

He found out the answer to that question a moment later when
the captain walked in with the brass and the assistant district attorney. The
ADA threw him a furious glare, then hurried forward to apologize profusely to
Saldino. The glower the ADA gave him didn’t compare to the looks his boss and
other senior officers sent his way. He was so fucking screwed.

Figuring their presence in the warehouse would only make
things tenser than they already were, Derek got SWAT and the rest of the cops
out of the building. Once he did, he made sure to tell all the support teams on
the perimeter to stand down as well. After that, he thanked the SWAT team leader
and commo techs and got them the hell out of there before the press showed up.
That left him standing with Aaron, Tony and the rest of the organized crime
task force.

“How the hell did Saldino manage to set us up?” Tony
demanded.

“He must have known we were listening in and fed us some
bogus shit over the wiretap,” Nick said.

Matt frowned. “I don’t know. I mean, he couldn’t have faked
all that intel we got off the street.”

“I agree,” Tony said. “Saldino was planning to pop the drug
dealer tonight, I’m sure of it. Somehow he found out we were planning to bust
him.”

“What are you saying?” Aaron demanded. “That someone on the
inside ratted us out?”

“I don’t want to think one of our own might be dirty any
more than anyone else, but I don’t have another explanation, do you?”

The other detectives didn’t answer.

Derek refused to go there. “The only people who knew we were
moving on Saldino tonight were you guys, the captain and a couple of
high-ranking personnel in the DA’s office—and I’m not going to label any of
them a rat. There has to be some other explanation.”

They were still trying to figure out what that other
explanation might be when the captain walked out of the warehouse. He looked
older than his years and tired as hell.

“I need to talk to Derek,” he said. “The rest of you can go
on home.”

The other men looked reluctant to go, but after giving Derek
a nod, they turned and walked down the street to their respective cars.

The captain fixed him with a hard look. “I want you and your
badge in my office first thing in the morning. And bring your department-issued
sidearm.”

Derek didn’t have to ask why. Most cops used their own
privately owned weapons rather than the sidearms issued to them. The only time
a cop ever brought it out of the lockbox he kept it in was when he was going to
retire or be suspended. Derek had expected the captain to chew him out, maybe
transfer him to another division. He hadn’t expected to get suspended. But
someone had to take the fall for the fiasco that had happened tonight and as
the lead detective on the investigation, it was going to be him.

Aaron and Tony were waiting for Derek by his car. Both men
wore grim expressions.

“What did the captain say?” Tony asked.

Derek clenched his jaw. “He wants me in his office tomorrow
with my badge and my gun.”

“Shit,” Tony muttered.

Aaron cleared his throat. “Derek, there’s something I need
to say to you and I don’t want you to get pissed off.”

Derek swore silently. He wasn’t in the mood to be lectured
by Aaron. Not after the day he’d had.

“You said the only people who knew we were making a move on
Saldino were us, the captain and the DA’s office, but that’s not true,” Aaron
continued. “There was someone else who knew exactly what we were going to do.”

“Who?”

“Your new girlfriend, Sosie.”

Derek stared at him incredulously. “You’re joking, right?”

Aaron didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. The expression on
his face said everything Derek needed to know.

Derek shook his head. “Fuck you.”

Aaron took a step forward. “Dammit, Derek, listen to me for
a minute.”

“The hell I will. Sosie doesn’t have anything to do with
this.”

“You sure about that?” Tony asked. “Aaron might be on to
something.”

Derek clenched his jaw. He should get in his car and leave
them both standing there. But he didn’t.

“What do you know about this girl, Derek?” Aaron asked.
“Other than the fact that she comes from somewhere up north and makes great
pasta? You don’t even know if Sosie is her real name.”

He knew she was beautiful and sweet and that she could make
him laugh. He also knew she was better with a toolbox than he could ever be. On
top of all that, she was some kind of amazing in bed. He wasn’t about to tell
Aaron any of those things, though.

“I know that she came to New York with some friends and they
abandoned her at the club where I work.”

“She came to New York with friends and they abandoned her.”
Aaron snorted. “Right. Let me guess, she came up to you and said she needed
your help?”

“No. I saw some lowlifes drag her into the men’s bathroom,
so I followed and told them to get the hell away from her before I arrested
their punk asses. I didn’t know she came to the club with anyone until I found
her standing outside the place two hours later still waiting for her friends to
come get her.”

Aaron exchanged looks with Tony. “And you don’t think the
whole thing could have been staged for your benefit? You do have a habit of
helping strays and damsels in distress, you know.” The older man swore under
his breath. “Look, I’m not saying I’m right about her. I’m just saying it’s
suspicious. This girl comes into your life out of nowhere and suddenly Saldino
serves himself up on a silver platter right when Sosie happens to be in the
wiretap van.”

“Then when we move on him, we make complete asses of
ourselves,” Tony added.

Derek looked from one man to the other, his jaw tight. He
wanted to clock both of them right there. But they weren’t worth the trouble.
“You know what? Fuck both of you.”

He jerked open the door of his car and got in, speeding off
without a backward glance. He couldn’t believe Aaron and Tony would accuse
Sosie of setting him up. The girl didn’t have a deceitful bone in her body. The
idea that she worked for Saldino was ridiculous.

Or was it?

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. As much as he
hated to admit it, Aaron had been right. He didn’t know anything about Sosie
other than her name and where she came from. Which now that he thought about
it, sounded fishy. He’d known something about her hadn’t added up right from
the beginning, but he’d ignored his gut instinct. That wasn’t a good thing for
a cop.

The way he and Sosie had met was too convenient. She’d
supposedly been with some friends at the dance club, but he hadn’t seen her
with anyone. What kind of friends left and never came back? She’d made no
attempt to get hold of them, either. That didn’t sound right. She’d had no
money, no cell phone, not even a wallet or any form of ID he knew of. If she
was here from out of the country, where the hell was her passport? Shouldn’t
she at least be worried about losing it?

The thing that really should have had his cop meter pegging
was the fact that she didn’t nag him about what he did for a living. In fact,
she didn’t act as if she was interested in his job at all, which was unusual.
The women he’d gone out with had all thought his job was cool and sexy, but
when it came to putting up with the crappy parts of the profession, they
usually didn’t want any part of him. Sosie had taken it in stride when he’d to
leave at o-dark-thirty in the morning or work late on a stakeout. That more
than anything convinced him there was something going on with her.