Major Crimes. Janie Crouch

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       Chapter One

      Four years later

      Cain often dealt with the worst of humanity as part of the Omega Sector Protection and Recovery Division.

      Crisis management and bodyguarding were a regular part of his job. He and his team also dealt with hijackers and kidnappers on a regular basis.

      But his mission right now was to rescue not a person, but the entire Critical Response Division of Omega, which was being hijacked in its own way.

      They had a psychopath on their hands, set on destroying the team one by one—by killing their loved ones. And someone on the inside was helping the madman in his quest.

      Cain was currently watching a video of Damien Freihof—said psychopath—who had slit the throat of Omega psychiatrist Grace Parker last week.

      Freihof and his cohort within Omega Sector had decided it would be fun to send the murder as a live feed to all active Omega Sector agents—forcing them to watch as Dr. Parker died without them being able to step in and do anything about it.

      So now Cain was able to watch it over and over. Watch as Grace’s eyes dulled in death. Watch as Freihof’s eyes had filled with something akin to joy as the doctor—a beautiful woman in her fifties, and an integral part of the Omega team—died sitting right in front of him.

      Freihof had made it no secret that he wanted Omega Sector’s Critical Response Division to pay for the death of his wife, Natalie, years ago. That he blamed the elite law enforcement task group for her untimely demise in a bank hostage situation.

      He was determined they would feel the pain of losing loved ones like he had.

      Grace Parker had been just one of those loved ones Freihof had gone after. For the past five months he’d been the mastermind behind attacks on nearly a dozen Omega Sector agents or their friends and family. Grace had died last week. Two other Omega agents were in the hospital after an explosion.

      And Freihof was reveling in it all.

      Freihof had to be stopped. But just as importantly, the mole inside Omega—the one who was feeding Freihof information that was allowing him to be so successful in his attacks—had to be stopped. Steve Drackett, director of the Critical Response team, was unsure who could be trusted.

      That’s why Cain was here, brought from a different division of Omega, to help catch this traitor.

      Cain watched the death of Grace Parker again, hoping to notice something this time that maybe he’d missed before. He hadn’t personally known the woman, which allowed him to look at the footage more objectively, see things others—people who had cared deeply about the psychiatrist—might miss.

      Cain was known for his ability to separate emotion from the job. It was how he’d risen to assistant director of Omega’s Protection and Recovery Division when he’d barely reached his thirtieth birthday.

      Because he got the job done, no matter what.

      He’d proven that four years ago.

      Cain studied the footage again, pushing all thoughts of Hayley Green aside. Right now he needed to understand as much as he could about Damien Freihof. Because anything Cain could find out about him would hopefully lead to information about the mole.

      In a way—as psychotic as Freihof was—he was easier to understand. The man wanted vengeance. Sure, he may want vengeance for something that Omega Sector wasn’t actually responsible for, but at least his motives were clear.

      What did the traitor want?

      There couldn’t be much money involved in helping Freihof. Maybe a little, but not the sort of big payoff someone was usually looking for in order to risk their reputation and/or life.

      That left a lot of other factors. It could also be vengeance; maybe Freihof had found a kindred spirit also looking for some sort of revenge for something Omega had done. Maybe the person had a desire for control, or was some sort of political zealot, planning to bring down Omega Sector from the beginning.

      Or maybe Freihof had control over the man—or woman—and was blackmailing him or her in some way.

      The motive didn’t really matter to Cain in terms of justifying why the traitor was behaving the way he was, but understanding motive always provided information in an unknown suspect.

      Cain sat in a private conference room attached to Steve Drackett’s office. It was one of the few places Steve had assured him there was no way the mole could have any type of surveillance devices.

      While Cain trusted Steve completely, he wasn’t leaving anything to chance. Cain had his own countersurveillance device that allowed him to know for certain that no one was recording or transmitting visual or audio data from this room.

      Files of every employee—agent or not—of the Critical Response Division sat in groups on the large conference table. Cain had already been in this room for more than eight hours going through the files.

      He had four distinct groups: cleared, unlikely, unknown and suspicious.

      People like Steve Drackett, whom Cain had known for years and who had spent most of his life fighting people СКАЧАТЬ