Page 1 of Deadly Revenge

Prologue

Chattanooga Detective Jenna Hart backed her ten-year-old unmarked Chevy into the church parking lot beside an even older Ford. If things went south, she could make a quick getaway. Not that she was expecting anything to go wrong.

Her confidential informant had indicated the Scorpions were meeting at the James A. Henry School tonight, and Rick Sebastian would be there. This was a first. Sebastian was slippery, and up until now, the Chattanooga Gang Unit had no hard evidence linking him to the Scorpions.

Captain Billingsley’s instructions were only to gather intel and take photos. Jenna adjusted the camera on her shoulder and doused the car lights, plunging the area into darkness.

The moonless night and absence of streetlights hid her from prying eyes, but it also hid the drug dealers she’d come to monitor. Evil always preferred the darkness to light.

She climbed out of the Chevy and flinched at the screech of tires two streets over, barely relaxing when there was no follow-up crash. She scanned the area for a marked patrol car, noting a couple of working streetlights between her and the school a block away. Where was Officer Creasy? He should already be set up in case there was an opportunity for him to make an arrest.

The gang unit used two types of surveillance, passive and active, and her captain had made it plain she was only to observe and take photos, not to arrest anyone. If Jenna observed anything illegal, she was to alert Creasy, who was supposed to be in a marked patrol car two blocks away, and he could make the arrest without compromising her position.

She quickly called his cell number, and it went straight to voicemail. Jenna left him a message. “I’m here. Where are you?”

Maybe he wasn’t coming. Creasy had made it plain when she’d worked in patrol that female officers should be relegated to handing out parking tickets. Jenna frowned. When she talked to him earlier, hehadblown off her CI, saying he wasn’t reliable. While she didn’t think he would ignore the assignment, he could always plead that he got tied up in traffic or with another investigation.

For all she knew, Creasy could be hanging out with Phillip, her now ex-fiancé. They were buddies. Jenna had heard from one of the few friends she had at the precinct that her ex-fiancé and his cronies liked to gather at the bar, downing a few beers and coming up with new ways to make her look bad as a detective. Apparently it wasn’t enough that Phillip had publicly blamed her for their breakup, even though she wasn’t the one who broke off the engagement.

She clenched her jaw. Phillip wasn’t going to win. She’d worked hard to become a detective, and she wasn’t giving it up without a fight. She could understand if he wanted out of the relationship since they had been drifting apart, something she blamed on the long hours they both worked—her with the gang unit, and Phillip with homicide. She didn’t understand why he was attacking her professionally. It was like a puzzle with pieces missing.

Where is Creasy?She didn’t think the patrol officer would actually bail on her, but he was like a lot of other officers whose attitude toward the gangs was “Let ’em kill each other off.”

Not that any of them ever said the words out loud. Jenna’s concern was for the innocent people who got in the way.

She froze as a man in a hoodie materialized out of the darkness and jogged toward the empty school, throwing an occasional look over his shoulder. It was impossible to tell if it was Sebastian, but the jogger’s lean frame was about right ... except there was something familiar in the way the man moved.

She checked her phone again for a message from Creasy. Nothing. The meeting was going down, and if she waited, she would lose the opportunity to get intel.

Jenna was on her own, not that she actually needed the officer for backup—the whole point was to see who came to the meeting and get photos. She had no plans to do anything that would give her location away.

With a quick prayer and a deep breath, Jenna moved away from her car, rubbing her wet palm on her dark workout pants before checking her pistol. She hadn’t taken time to change other than to buckle on a vest and her duty belt. She should blend in well with the dark area.

It wasn’t that she had no fear of Sebastian—she did. It was rumored the drug dealer was a cold-blooded killer and responsible for the deaths of at least ten rival gang members. Jenna wanted to send him away for longer than the five years he faced if convicted on the current drug charges of cocaine possession, but rumors were all they had. Sebastian was careful, and without hard evidence and witnesses willing to testify, she had no proof of the murders, or that he even had a connection to the Scorpions.

Without that hard evidence, the DA couldn’t bring up the deaths in court, not even for an indictment from a grand jury. While Jenna didn’t expect to get evidence pointing to any murders tonight, she would get photographs of him with known Scorpion members. Perhaps one of them could be persuaded toturn state’s evidence. And any intel she captured could be used at trial to put Sebastian away for a lot longer than five years.

Jenna took a second to text Creasy again.

Where are you?

Getting off 27. U?

James A. Henry. If I observe anything of interest I’ll radio you and you can intercept.

She blew tension from her lungs. Creasy was five minutes away. At least he was coming and should be ready by the time Jenna was in place.

She jogged toward the building, following the path of hoodie guy. Jenna turned a corner, and smack talk drew her attention. Sounded like it was coming from the apartments facing the school. She hugged the shadows of the school building and eased to where she could see what was going on.

A problem. That’s what was going on. Five or six teenage boys were playing basketball under the security lights at the apartments. Jenna checked her watch. It was after midnight. Shouldn’t they be in bed? Jenna didn’t know why she was surprised they weren’t.

After working the gang unit for two years, she shouldn’t be surprised at anything. Besides, summer heat kept kids indoors during the day, and this was a way to let off steam.

Still, it complicated matters. Jenna couldn’t help but worry that the teens might get caught in the crossfire if something went wrong in the meeting.

The hoodie guy stood off to one side, watching the game. Probably waiting for the drugs, so he wasn’t Sebastian, but again, something about him seemed familiar. One of the boys broke away from the game and approached him. Jenna inched closer and hid in the dark shadow of the large trash receptacle.

“Hey, Ross!” The teen high-fived the man in the hoodie. “What’s up?”

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