Lost and Found Read online

  Table of Contents

  LOST AND FOUND Prologue

  LOST Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  FOUND Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  New York Times bestselling and award-winning authors Allison Brennan and Laura Griffin team up for this exciting new series featuring the unforgettable Southern California detective duo, Moreno & Hart.

  Praise for Allison Brennan & Laura Griffin:

  “Brennan knows how to deliver.”

  – New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner

  “Griffin excels at detailing the mystery and the chase.”

  – Publishers Weekly

  “Brennan is a master of suspense… tops in the genre.”

  – RT Book Reviews

  “Gritty, imaginative, sexy! You MUST read Laura Griffin.”

  – New York Times bestselling author Cindy Gerard

  “Brennan does murder better than most everyone writing in the suspense genre.”

  – Armchair Interviews

  “The perfect mix of suspense and romance.”

  – Booklist on Laura Griffin

  LOST AND FOUND

  By Allison Brennan and Laura Griffin

  LOST AND FOUND Copyright © 2015 Allison Brennan and Laura Griffin

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved

  LOST AND FOUND

  Prologue

  Three and a Half Years Ago…

  “If you’re here to ask me to clear you for duty, Scarlet, I won’t.”

  Doctor Carolyn Swan put her chart down and motioned for Scarlet to sit on the edge of the bed. Scarlet continued to stand. She’d only been out of the hospital for three weeks and just looking at the bed terrified her. She never wanted to be that vulnerable again.

  Or that close to death.

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  Swan raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  Scarlet liked Doc Swan. The fifty-year-old was no-nonsense. She didn’t placate Scarlet or couch bad news between bits of good news. But Swan was a doctor, not a cop. She might have saved Scarlet’s life, but she didn’t understand what it meant to be that close to dying and not know why.

  Swan leaned against the wall. “Your vitals are strong, your range of motion in your arm is improving, your tests all came back normal. You’ve come a long way this last month, but you’re not one hundred percent. I’ll bet when you over-exert yourself, you start limping.”

  Scarlet didn’t say anything. How did the doc know?

  “You were shot three times. While the bullet that nicked your lung was the far most dangerous of the three, the muscle around the wound in your leg and your reconstructed elbow are still healing. You can’t tell me you’re physically ready to resume your duties.”

  “One was just a flesh wound,” Scarlet said. She resisted the urge to rub her elbow. It was still bandaged. Her elbow was the only thing that wasn’t healing like it should, even though it was technically the minor injury.

  “I can’t give you more pain pills. I told you when I gave you the prescription that they were highly addictive, and you should have another week left.” Swan narrowed her eyes and cocked her head. “You’re in pain. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Scarlet pulled the unopened prescription bottle from her pocket and tossed them at the doc. To her credit, she caught them, then inspected the bottle. She frowned. “You haven’t taken any? You must really be hurting. When I said they were highly addictive, that was as a warning to avoid over-medicating. If you use them as I prescribed, you won’t have a problem.”

  The first few days out of the hospital were hell. But she survived, and she wasn’t going to be loopy because she couldn’t handle a little discomfort.

  “I hate pain pills. And the pain really isn’t that bad.” Okay, that was a lie. Last night she couldn’t sleep because her elbow throbbed like a fucker. Scarlet rolled her neck. “I’m not going back to work, Doc. I just need some time off and wanted to make sure everything was fine before I disappeared.”

  Swan raised her eyebrows. “Disappear?”

  “Go off the grid. Get my life back together.”

  Find out what the hell I should do now that I’m no longer a cop.

  “I can understand your need to get away, especially after what you went through. Just make sure you call if you feel any fatigue or the pain increases. Anything out of the ordinary. You’ll need to see me before you go back on duty.”

  “I’m not going back. I quit.” The words came from her mouth, but they sounded foreign. Was that the first time Scarlet had said I quit out loud? She felt… sad. Deeply, horribly miserable.

  Swan was surprised. “Don’t you think that’s a little rash? You suffered a major trauma. Taking time to fully recover is wise, but I expect you to be one hundred percent in four to six weeks.” She paused. “I looked at your record, Scarlet. You’re a good cop. If you don’t want to talk to the department psychologist, I can recommend a good psychiatrist to work through any lingering issues from the shooting.”

  “I don’t need a fucking shrink.” Scarlet winced. “Sorry. Twelve years as a cop and my language goes to shit.”

  “I’ve heard worse.” Swan shook her head and picked up her chart. “I don’t think you should quit, not like this.”

  “Already done. I can’t explain everything to you, but trust me on this—I can’t go back.”

  Swan looked at her oddly, but Scarlet couldn’t read her expression. “Good luck. Call me if you need anything—I mean that, Scarlet. Things will look different in a few weeks.”

  Different? Her life had been turned upside down and inside out, and she had nothing left. What she had believed was the truth were lies, and what she didn’t know was going to drive her crazy until she looked under every rock until she found the answers.

  She asked Swan, “Can I run?”

  “Moderate physical activity is fine. Preferable, in fact. Don’t over-do it, and I mean that. First sign of pain, stop. Did you meet with the physical therapist I recommended?”

  “I didn’t like him.” What a conceited, condescending jerk. “But I have his list of daily exercises. I won’t do anything stupid, Doc. I just want to get back to full-strength.”

  “Are you really leaving town?”

  “I don’t know yet.” That was a lie. She knew exactly where she was going. She needed to be on her own. She wasn’t going to tell anyone, except maybe her brother. But so help John if he showed up uninvited. “Thanks for saving my ass, Doc.”

  “You’re welcome. Though there wouldn’t be an ass to save if your partner hadn’t stabilized you before the paramedics arrived.”

  Swan didn’t have to say that twice. Scarlet owed Krista her life and more.

  “Schedule a check-up with m
y nurse. You might change your mind about rejoining the force. I’d probably clear you in a month if your recovery continues as it has been.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind, but thanks.”

  Scarlet left the exam room, but bypassed Swan’s nurse. She’d call when she came back to town, make an appointment, but there was no rush. She’d only come in today to get the X-rays and blood tests to make sure everything was the way it should be so she could leave without worry that something was going to go wrong. Having a couple pins in her elbow was going to annoy her for the rest of her life—but at least she had a life.

  She’d parked in the patient parking, in the far corner of the packed lot. She spotted her beat-up Jeep Wrangler. It was old, didn’t have a top, but she would never part with it. It might not be pretty, but it was reliable.

  Krista Hart, the rookie cop who Scarlet had been assigned to train before the world turned upside down, sat in the passenger seat. What the hell was she doing here? Scarlet didn’t want to talk to her—she’d have to tell her why she quit.

  Scarlet scratched her elbow and winced. Shit. She didn’t want to do this now. Though she supposed Krista deserved an explanation.

  Scarlet opened the half door. She wasn’t quite up to jumping into the Wrangler like she did before she had been shot in the back.

  Krista said, “John told me you were here.”

  Scarlet glanced over at the pretty, wiry blonde. Krista didn’t look like a cop. But she was a lot stronger than she looked.

  “Why were you talking to my brother?” She didn’t start the ignition. Might as well get this over with.

  “I went to your condo first. Matt said you left last night and he thought you were at John’s. Did you have a fight? Matt didn’t look so hot. He was seriously hung over.”

  “Fight implies passion. There was no passion in the disagreement. Matt doesn’t believe I got a call from Gabe sending me to that warehouse, and I can’t marry a guy who doesn’t believe me.” At least, a call she’d thought was from her former partner, Gabe Stone. They’d been friends since she’d made detective, but it could have been someone pretending to be Gabe.

  “John said you quit. He wants me to talk you into staying.”

  “Save your breath.”

  “I resigned this morning.”

  “Fuck no.”

  “Fuck yes.”

  “This is on me, Krista. Not you. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She paused. “I’m glad. You saved my life.”

  “Why did you quit, Scarlet? Out of every cop I’ve met in the three months since I graduated from the Academy, you were the last one I thought was a quitter.”

  “Someone tried to kill me. Remember?” The sarcasm rolled off her tongue. Scarlet regretted it, but couldn’t help herself.

  “It’s a dangerous job. Isn’t that what you told me when you took over as my training partner?”

  “Someone tried to kill me. It was a fucking assassination attempt. I know that as well as I know my name. This wasn’t a random shooting. This wasn’t a kill the cop scenario. It was kill Scarlet Moreno. Someone wanted me dead and I don’t know why. You were nearly killed because of me. I can’t go back on the job if I don’t trust the people I work with.”

  Krista sucked in her breath and Scarlet realized what that must have sounded like. “Look, Krista, you’re the only one I can trust. You and my brother. But I’m done.” Done. Was she? Because the number one thing on her list was to find out who had set up the ambush that nearly got her and Krista killed.

  Gabe Stone, Scarlet’s partner before they were split up only weeks before the ambush, had sworn up and down that he hadn’t made the call that sent her to the warehouse. But Scarlet believed at the time that it was him. It had sounded like him, but the connection was poor. Static-y.

  Hey, Scar, can you check something out for me?

  Scar. Only Gabe called her Scar. But anyone who had worked with them would know that. Gabe swore to her he hadn’t called, and I.A. had checked out both his phone and hers. She’d gotten a two-minute call from an untraceable burn phone. They thought that she’d been talking to a snitch, that she didn’t follow protocol, that she’d gone into a potentially dangerous situation with a rookie and without backup. They didn’t believe she was simply doing a favor for a friend, a simple walk-around an abandoned building to make sure all was well.

  John said Gabe hadn’t left the waiting room until he knew she’d made it out of surgery. He’d stopped by for a visit once, but she was kind of out of it, and she hadn’t spoken to him since she was released. Now he wasn’t returning her calls. Something was up.

  Gabe knew something he wasn’t telling her.

  But she didn’t believe he would set her up to be murdered in cold blood. They’d been partners for seven years, ever since she’d made detective. He’d trained her. She worshiped him. He was the best cop she knew outside of her dad. If not Gabe, who? Definitely someone on the job, someone who knew that Gabe called her Scar, that he was her friend and mentor, that she’d do him a favor because she was that kind of cop.

  Someone they both knew had set her up. It had to be a cop, because they only associated together with other cops or family. But dammit, she didn’t know why. Not knowing why she’d been targeted was driving her crazy.

  “I understand,” Krista said after a long moment of silence.

  Scarlet doubted that.

  “I thought I wanted to be a cop,” Krista continued. “I graduated in the top five percent at the academy. I liked being part of a team, part of a greater good. My first training officer was a jerk, but I learned a lot. You, however—after working with you, I realized I wasn’t really cut out for this.”

  “You were good for a rookie.”

  “Yeah, I was—but it was just a job. Scarlet, you love it. You’re a cop inside and out. You bleed blue. For me, it was a job I liked, a job I wanted to do well. But I shut it down when I went home. Went surfing or to the gym or worked on the old house I inherited from my grandmother last year. I admire you because you’re the type of cop I want to be. Yet… I don’t want to be my job.”

  “I came from a long line of cops, Krista. It is in my blood. That doesn’t mean you aren’t a good cop.”

  “You nearly died,” she said quietly, looking at her hands.

  “You’re good on your feet. You have great instincts.”

  “I have nightmares. You lost so much blood, Scarlet. I thought you were dead. I thought I hadn’t acted fast enough, didn’t know enough—”

  “You did and you do.”

  “It’s not in me. Not anymore.” She paused again, then said, “I.A. doesn’t believe me, either. Because I didn’t take the call, they think you just told me you were doing a favor for Gabe because you didn’t want to tell me the truth.”

  Scarlet’s blood turned cold. “And?”

  “And I know you didn’t lie.”

  “How?”

  “Because that’s not you. You took the call. You believed that Detective Stone wanted you to check out the warehouse. You didn’t lie about that.”

  “It was against protocol.”

  “But friends help each other out.”

  “You could have died.”

  “But I didn’t. You didn’t.” Krista took a deep breath. “I want you to go into business with me.”

  Business? What did that mean?

  Before Scarlet could ask, Krista continued. “Private Investigations. Moreno and Hart.”

  “Are you putting my name first because you’re trying to sell me?”

  “It sounds better that way.” Krista smiled. “I said it both ways, wrote it out both ways, before settling on Moreno and Hart.” She paused. “And yeah, I want to sell you on it.”

  Scarlet almost smiled, but she shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I… I need time. I’m going away for a while.”

  “Where?”

  She didn’t answer. “I need to figure
this out. Find out why someone wanted me dead.” And who.

  “And if you don’t?”

  “I will.” She had to, or she would be stuck in limbo for the rest of her life.

  “I’m here to help. You know that.”

  Scarlet had no doubt that Krista would help her. But there was no way in hell she was going to let the rookie cop—the former rookie cop—get involved in something this dangerous. Scarlet already felt guilty that Krista had quit in solidarity with her. Because that’s what it was—Krista could have been a good cop. She needed some seasoning and experience, but the pieces were all there. And now, she had nothing. Because of Scarlet.

  It wasn’t your fault.

  Right. She could keep telling herself that, but she’d missed something. She had to have missed something.

  “You’d make a good P.I.,” Krista said. “Think about it, okay? It’s going to take me a couple months to find an office, get my license, put together a marketing plan. No pressure.”

  Scarlet wanted to say no, but she couldn’t. She just nodded once.

  Krista handed her an envelope. “Information on how to get your license. It shouldn’t be difficult, especially for you with your experience. You can do most of it online. I’ve already started the classes.”

  Scarlet stuffed the envelope in her glove compartment. “I’ll think about it. Promise.”

  “Call me if you need anything. Anything.”

  Scarlet looked at her and realized Krista meant every word. That kind of loyalty couldn’t be bought—and Scarlet had no idea what she’d done to earn it. But that faith came when Scarlet needed it the most.

  “Thank you,” she said, surprised at the rush of conflicting emotions that washed over her. “I’ll let you know when I’m back in town.” She cleared her throat and coughed. Leaving was harder than she’d thought it would be.

  Krista got out of the Wrangler and Scarlet drove off.