Smoke Screen (The Darcy Lynch Series Book 2) Read online

  Other novels by Elin Barnes

  Justification for Murder

  SMOKE SCREEN

  ELIN BARNES

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 by Elin Barnes.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Paperless Reads.

  www.elinbarnes.com

  ISBN 978-0-9899880-3-2

  Cover design by CeKwaSa.

  To my mom, who sticks by me, supports me, loves me, doesn’t let me give up, and always tells me when I’ve whined enough. I couldn’t have done this without you.

  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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Monday

  Ethan Mitchell pulled the gas mask over his face and watched his crew do the same. The light rail came to a stop, and the sun reflected on the sliding doors as they opened. One passenger exited. The eight men came out of hiding and got in. As the doors closed, they grabbed the canisters hooked to their belts and yanked the pins.

  It took just a second for the gas grenades to start spewing gray smoke inside the Silicon Valley train. Nobody had a chance to escape.

  Most people fell forward or to their side. A few dropped on the floor. Ethan stepped over two bodies on his way toward the one person he cared about. His men held their positions by the doors. Ethan grabbed the tall black man who was passed out in the middle of the car, threw him over his shoulder and moved to the closest exit as the train started slowing down. When they reached the next station and the doors opened, nine men left as stealthily as the eight had come in just a few minutes earlier.

  Chapter 2

  Specialty’s Café was quiet. The lunch crowd had dissipated a while ago. Darcy Lynch sat across the table from Saffron.

  He leaned over and put his hand on hers. She wrapped her long fingers around it. Her smile reached her eyes, and he felt a rush of warmth fill his chest.

  “I’m very happy you finally decided to name your dog,” she said. “Shelby suits her, even though it’s also the name of your car.”

  “It’s not the name of my car. It’s the model.” Darcy teased her.

  “Well, excuse me.” She stuck her tongue out. He leaned back and scratched his left temple.

  “Does it still hurt?” she asked, looking at his eye.

  He blinked a few times. “It’s more a reflex than anything else.” He crossed his arms.

  “Do you hate him? Kozlov, I mean,” she asked.

  “Every day. Not because he took my eye, but because he killed Gigi.”

  A few weeks earlier, he’d told her the story of his last undercover assignment in Seattle. His last job as a rising star in the SPD and how, feeling responsible for the death of his confidential informant, he’d left everything behind and secured a transfer to the Bay Area. Once here, he refused to do real police work and only dealt with low-profile cases nobody wanted. Those that didn’t put anybody else in danger.

  He thought about how they’d met and how incapable he’d felt of protecting her just a few weeks earlier. What started as a simple hit-and-run call turned into a mass murder case in which a killer was determined to get rid of her and a dozen other people.

  He’d fallen for Saffron Meadows the moment he saw her. He’d fought to not take the case. He’d begged his captain to assign it to a real detective, because he’d felt unfit to protect her, and he needed her to live.

  “But you saved me,” she said.

  He closed his eyes, pushing away the thought of almost losing her. When he opened them again, she was staring at him, a curious look on her face. Before he was forced to say anything, his phone rang.

  “Lynch,” he said.

  “We have a situation. You need to come to the station right now,” his partner, Erik Sorensen, said.

  “On my way. Fill me in.”

  They both stood from the table.

  “I love you,” Saffron whispered in his other ear, and kissed his cheek. They walked to the parking lot, holding hands, and got into separate cars.

  A few minutes later, at the Santa Clara Sheriff’s Office, he and Sorensen stood behind their captain, staring at a grainy video flickering on a monitor. She was short and plump but didn’t take much space in front of them.

  When Captain Virago hit Play again, the three of them w
atched the split image come to life, showing the interior of two Santa Clara light-rail cars. Most of the passengers looked bored. Some were reading, while others played with their phones or stared out the window.

  A man with dark skin and a turban got out of his seat, disengaged a bike from its stand and waited by the door. A few moments later, the light rail stopped. He was the only passenger who got out. Right before the doors closed, eight people got in. Two in each door, four in each car. They were dressed in black, hoods hid their heads, and gas masks covered their faces. As the doors closed, they reached for their belts.

  Some of the people minding their own business looked up at the newcomers. Curiosity immediately turned to apprehension, then fear. The men in black dropped gas grenades on the floor, and gray smoke began to rise. A passenger stepped into the aisle, looked behind him, then toward the front as if he was trying to decide where the closest exit was. He took two steps forward, clasped his chest, gasping for air, and dropped to the floor. The gas soon reached the cameras, and the monitor went gray except for the digital time stamp, showing 2:38 p.m. and counting.

  One more stop and three minutes and seventeen seconds later, the gas had dissipated enough for the detectives and captain to see inside the car again. The eight men had disappeared, and the passengers were on the floor, bent over the seats in front of them, or slumped against the windows. Seventeen people and five bicycles, still surrounded by dissipating gray gas, peppered the ghostly VTA cars.

  “Jon needs to see this,” Darcy said. He wanted to get the intern’s perspective because he always thought outside of the box. Jon had been integral in cracking the case that saved Saffron and pushed Darcy to join the homicide unit. Since then, both he and Sorensen relied on his analytical capacity.

  Sorensen dialed his extension from Virago’s phone. “Come to the captain’s office right now.”

  A few seconds later, Jon knocked on the door. “Come in,” they all said in unison.

  “Check this out.” Sorensen nodded for Virago to share the video.

  They all watched as intently as they had the previous three times.

  “Holy crap, is this real?” Jon asked as soon as it was over. “Yes. We just got it about twelve minutes ago. The VTA conductor pressed the alarm and stopped as soon as he realized that the cars were filled with smoke. The Transportation Authority sent it to us right after.” Virago pinched the bridge of her nose, probably fighting a nascent headache.

  “Can I see it again?” Jon asked. His voice had risen, which it always did when he was excited, but his eyes were focused.

  She clicked Play again and said, “CSU is on its way, and I’m about to send these two to the scene, but I’d like to know what you think.”

  When the man with the bicycle walked out of the car, Sorensen asked, “Do you think he’s nodding back at the commando guys?”

  “It doesn’t look like that to me,” Darcy said. “Me neither,” Virago agreed.

  “Dammit. I was hoping for something,” Sorensen admitted.

  “Let me take a closer look on my computer in slow motion and see if I catch anything,” Jon said.

  “We’ll head out to the scene,” Darcy said.

  Virago leaned back into her chair as she shooed them out of her office.

  Chapter 3

  Darcy stopped by his desk and opened the drawer. Sorensen let out a loud sigh and waited for him by the door, chugging the last few drops of his third can of Red Bull that day.

  “You need to powder your nose too?” he asked while Darcy was rummaging for something.

  Not finding what he was looking for, Darcy closed the drawer but didn’t lock it. Catching up with Sorensen, he said, “Let’s take the stairs. You need the exercise.”

  “Screw you.” Sorensen pushed the elevator button while Darcy chose the stairs.

  When the doors opened on the ground floor, Darcy asked, “Who’s the slow one now?” Heading toward the front door of the precinct, he added, “My car.”

  “Did you put the top on?”

  “It’s still nice out,” Darcy protested.

  Sorensen stopped walking. “I’m not getting in that death trap.”

  “Fine.”

  The two detectives got into Sorensen’s Jeep, and Darcy eyed his candy-apple-red 1965 Cobra parked opposite the old Cherokee. Before they were out of the parking lot, his phone rang.

  “Lynch.”

  “It’s Jon. You have to come back up. We’ve had another hit.”

  “What do you mean, ‘another hit’?” Darcy put the phone on speaker and looked at Sorensen, who stopped the car in the middle of the lane.

  “I was downloading the video when I got a text from a friend to check a link. I clicked on it, and it was an amateur video of a bunch of guys dressed in black gassing a coffee shop.”

  Before Jon had finished his sentence, Sorensen put the car in reverse and pulled back into the same parking spot.

  “Is it a hoax?” Sorensen asked while they walked.

  “Hard to tell at this point, but it’s gone viral,” Jon said. “Send it to Virago. We’re in the elevator.”

  A moment later they walked into the captain’s office as if they’d never left.

  “What the hell’s going on?” she asked, rubbing her eyes and smudging mascara all over them.

  Jon pressed Play, and they watched the images, which were obviously taken with a phone. The video was shaky, as if the person was walking while filming it. Darcy observed the six men with gas masks covering their faces coming from the south side of the street. The sidewalk was flanked by parked cars, including a large black SUV big enough to fit the perps. The men could have come from there or from any other place, Darcy thought.

  The person filming walked across the sidewalk and hid behind the corner of a building. The red brick blocked the lower right portion of the frame. The only sounds were the person’s breathing, traffic, and the beeping of a distant van backing up.

  One of the six men opened the coffee shop door, while the others walked in. A white car passed in front of the phone, blocking the view for a moment. Seconds passed. The cameraman moved the phone from his right to his left hand, and the brick no longer blocked part of the image. After fifty-four seconds, the door of the coffee shop opened, and a mass of gray smoke spilled onto the sidewalk.

  “Woah,” the cameraman said, and moved from the side of the building to behind a light blue car.

  When the smoke finally disappeared, the men and the black SUV were gone.

  The video stopped, and the download count, indicated by the ticker, kept growing, now with over a hundred fifty thousand hits.

  Chapter 4

  “Go to the Red Bean first. CSU is in the middle of processing the VTA, so you may get more at the coffee shop crime scene,” Virago instructed her two detectives. “And remember: be nice to SJPD. We’re trying to make this pilot task force work.”

  Waiting for the elevator, Darcy said, “Are you sure we can’t take my car?” He paused, not fully convinced he should say what he was thinking.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Sorensen said.

  “Your car smells like wet dog,” Darcy mumbled.

  “What? It’s your fault. It smells like dog from when you rescued the mutt from that crazy cabin in the woods.” The elevator doors opened, and they walked into the garage. “You still owe me a detailing, by the way,” Sorensen said, getting in his jeep.

  The office was not that far from downtown San Jose. Sorensen drove and double-parked on First Street right behind a couple SJPD patrol cars and three ambulances. Curious bystanders stood behind the orange tape, snapping photos as if everything was worth sharing on social media.

  “I wonder if the city gets the orange tape because it’s cheaper,” Sorensen said as they approached the cordoned-off area.

  “Uh?” Darcy was searching for familiar faces from SJPD.

  “You know, like at the Sheriff’s Office we have the crime scene yellow tape. At least it says ‘crime scene.’ But
SJ only has this plain orange tape.” Sorensen grabbed the tape and shoved it toward Darcy. “It looks more like decoration for a quinceañera party.”

  Darcy gave him a pleading look to not antagonize SJPD. “What?” Sorensen raised his hands, faking innocence.

  They showed their credentials to an officer, who jotted down their names and the time. Sorensen lifted the tape, and Darcy ducked underneath it. Before he was on the other side, the tape came loose on one end and fell limp onto the ground.

  “Sorry.” Sorensen handed it to the uniform and walked past him. Seeing the sergeant in charge by one of the ambulances, he yelled, “Hey, Marra, what’s going on here?”

  “Oh no. You?” Marra joked. “Causing trouble again?” he asked, looking back at the officer retaping the scene.

  “Nah.” Sorensen shook his hand.

  “I just got here.” Marra released the officer he’d been talking to and addressed the two detectives: “You saw the video? Six perps. Everybody passed out, but the gas doesn’t seem to be lethal.” He looked toward the door of the coffee shop, then to the paramedics loading the victims into the ambulances.

  “You heard about the VTA, right?” Darcy asked.

  “Yep.” Sergeant Marra brushed a hand over his shaved head.

  “Any connection?” Sorensen asked. “You know as much as I do.”

  “Did they take any cash?” Darcy asked. “Something like this, I expect a bank or a jewelry store. But a coffee shop and a VTA train?”

  Marra shrugged. An officer walked toward them.

  “Sergeant, all the victims are heading to the hospital. They’re stable, though they’re rushing an older man with a possible heart attack.”

  “We’re going to take a look around,” Sorensen said. He pulled two pairs of latex gloves from his pocket and handed one of them to Darcy.

  “Thanks. I couldn’t find my box.”

  “I stole it,” Sorensen said.

  Darcy almost smiled. When Virago made them partner together, he’d expected some rough edges, but working with Sorensen was proving to be more interesting than he’d predicted.

  They both walked into the store.

  “It smells sweet. It could be halothane gas, but Marra said there were no casualties, right?” Sorensen said.