Deadly Pursuit (SCVC Taskforce) Read Online Free Page B

I’m sure he’ll want to hear all about your takedown as soon as he gets back.”
    He left her standing there, hands on hips, but she still had to get in the last word.
    “I’ll meet you in your office in one hour,” she called to his back as he crossed the sandy beach toward the boardwalk. “And I’ll bring the Starbucks.”
    Cooper, head down, let go of the chuckle he’d been suppressing, glad it was muffled by the sound of the waves. “Plain, black and hot,” he called over his shoulder, and then he added, “kid”, emphasizing it just to make sure he pissed her off royally.
    Message dittoed.

 
    Chapter Four
     
    Six months later
    Des Moines, Iowa
     
    Cooper Harris put his eye to the sniper scope in the upstairs bedroom window of 1621 Boylston Avenue and looked up the street to a pigeon-gray duplex he was surveilling. The house was a mirror image of the one he was standing in except the perp’s girlfriend’s needed a new front stoop. The concrete steps were crumbling and beginning to sag from the landing. The wrought iron railings on each side of the stairs leaned out like a pair of woman’s legs. He would have to remember to watch his footing when he and his teammates rushed the house.
    Cooper and his group of DEA agents had been tracking Dickie Jagger for the past thirty-six hours. This particular SoCal criminal had a rap sheet as long as Cooper’s leg, including armed robbery, drug trafficking, rape and assault. He also had information Cooper needed about an upper level lieutenant in the Palermo-Londano operation who’d managed to escape arrest. Like most of the criminals Cooper went after, Dickie considered himself above the law.
    Cooper felt it was his duty to show the guy otherwise.
    “Heads up, Coop,” Thomas said. He was sitting in a chair next to Cooper with binoculars growing out of his eyes. “We’ve got company.”
    Cooper took his eye away from the scope and squinted through the gauzy curtain at the street traffic. The only thing that stood out was a turd-brown Ford inching its way down the street. Cooper grabbed Thomas’s binoculars. “Local or Feds?”
    Thomas stood and grabbed his flak vest off the chair back. “The only people in Des Moines who’d be caught dead in a POS Fairmont are Feds. Even the poorest of drug dealers wouldn’t drive that.”
    “Suits?” Cooper lowered the binoculars. “What the hell are they doing here?”
    Thomas secured his vest and pulled on his black windbreaker. DEA was spelled out across the back. “Must have gotten your bulletin that Dickie was in town. I’m sure they want to talk to him as badly as we do.”
    “Yeah, they want their fingers in the pie.” Cooper swore under his breath and raised the binoculars. The Fairmont turned into the driveway and he saw the driver hesitate a moment before opening the door.
    A pair of red leather boots and jean-clad legs finally emerged. A second later, the rest of the woman materialized and a warning bell rang in Cooper’s head—instant certainty, he knew this woman.
    Petite, with long, dark hair, a hint of mocha in her skin, and curves in all the right thank-you-Jesus places...
    Cooper shook his head. It couldn’t be her; had to be someone else. Probably not even a Suit. Probably just another of Dickie’s gun-toting, get-away-car-driving girlfriends.
    The woman hesitated again, eyes glued to the front of the house while she stood behind the open car door. Cooper scanned her backside looking for the bulge of a weapon. Her hair spilled down the back of her red jacket. The hair and the jacket ended just above a very nice heart-shaped ass.
    His gut flashed a wave of certainty even though her backside was devoid of a tell-tale bulge. “No way,” he grit out between his teeth. “No goddamned way.”
    “What?” Thomas asked, his eyes bouncing between Cooper and the Fairmont.
    Cooper stood silent as he watched the woman’s gaze leave the house and then, very discreetly, scan the street. Yep, gun or no