Mark: Campbell Agency, #4

By Clara Kendrick

This is the fourth book in the Campbell Agency series, with over 50,000 words of romantic suspense.

 

Rachel Mashburn isn't welcomed by her biological family, but she's found a new family on the police force in New Orleans. Over the years, she's occasionally worked with Mark Thompson of Cambell Agency, so when she has an off-the-books mission she needs assistance with, she feels comfortable asking for his help. Late nights and long conversations, however, lead to more than she could have ever expected and a whole new definition of family.

 

Mark Thompson is determined to track down the man who has for so long been plaguing Campbell Agency, and having a source on the police force is a great asset. He's eager to help Rachel when she asks, but the chemistry between them starts to get distracting. What he could never have predicted is that helping her with her own secret investigation might just crack his own wide open.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clara Kendrick
• Release date: Nov 15, 2017
• ISBN: 9798224917624

Clara Kendrick

Discover the captivating world of Clara Kendrick's romantic suspense. With her masterful storytelling and skillful blend of intrigue, romance, and passion, Kendrick draws readers in and keeps them hooked until the very end. Get ready to be swept away by her thrilling and steamy tales of love and suspense. Signup and follow at: Books2read.com/ClaraKendrick Facebook.com/AuthorClaraKendrick

Book preview

PROLOGUE

VINCE WARD

Hiding was his specialty. He had done it for years, often disappearing into someone else’s identity, or simply lying low, getting his never-ending supply of loyal followers to act for him. He was hiding now, and he would hide for along as it took. When the men of Campbell’s Search and Rescue Detective Agency had taken on Vince Ward, humiliating him, they had no idea what kind of enemy they were making.

He had given them a chance to make it right. All Bridget needed to do was be as loyal to him as Nora, Gwen’s lovely mother, had been. He would make her life wonderful, and he would leave alone the men whom he had promised to destroy. It was a small price she had to pay for their lives.

But she had betrayed him all over again. First Alex and his merry band of detectives, then Bridget. They had all betrayed him, and now he was serious. Now there were no more chances.

But he was a patient man. He would wait—wait as they puzzled about where he had gone to after months of torturing them. He would wait while they tried in vain to find him. Nobody could find him. He had created too many rabbit trails to lead them down, and he was too good at what he did. He would wait, wait, and wait, until they had given up, become distracted, moved on with their lives, and presumed him no longer interested in their destruction.

And then, just when they were all feeling safe and content, he would strike. He would strike harder than he ever had before, and it would be his last strike. Ward was prepared to go out—he was tired of his life that had become so blasé for him—but he would go out with a bang, and he would go out taking Alex and his fellow goons out with him. The women, he would leave to mourn the men forever, ruining their lives not by ending them but by making them empty and worthless.

This plan was the only thing that brought him joy any longer. It was his obsession, his one desire, and his whole life. He would have fun with them. Toy with them. Torture them by making them question their own abilities and memories.

It was the perfect way to spend the last year of his life.

CHAPTER ONE

MARK

Good girl! Mark urged Gertie, his search and rescue dog, on as she kept her nose to the debris-littered ground, navigating her way through the streets of New Orleans after the floodwaters of their most recent hurricane had receded. It had been a brutal hurricane season, with a total of four high-level storms terrorizing the city. The most recent, category three Hurricane Yasmin, had blown through the week before, interrupting everyone’s Thanksgiving Day celebrations. Now, as people’s belongings lay scattered in the streets, houses sagged in disrepair, and displaced families wandered the streets, it was a busy time for the Campbell Search and Rescue Detective Agency. All five of the military veterans and their dogs were on constant call, working with the fire departments, police force, and outside disaster relief organizations to try to clean up the city after five months of heavy storm damage.

Gertie, named after Mark’s grandmother, Gertrude, who had raised him, nosed her way around a mailbox that hung limply in front of a two-story house with blown out windows and a partially-missing roof. Mark followed her, watching and knowing that if there were injured, starving, or frightened humans inside, Gertie would soon let him know.

On the other side of the street, Alex and Jason worked to uncover a storm shelter door while Ruby and Thunder sat nearby, having alerted their handlers to the presence of humans nearby. Yasmin had blown over the neighbor’s tree, causing the heavy palm to fall across the storm shelter, blocking the occupants from crawling out once the high winds had passed.

Another team of rescuers arrived to help Alex and Jason, so Mark turned his attention back to Gertie, watching her grow closer to the house’s sagging door, the water in the yard still high enough to lap at the underbelly of her collie-coat. Search, Gertie, he called out, though she needed no reminding. Of all the dogs at Campbell’s, Gertie was by far the hardest worker, even surpassing the naturally-talented Thunder. There was nothing that could stop Gertie from finding her subject once she’d been given her instructions. Right now, her instruction was to alert to any human life—cadaver work would come later.

It was a relief, Mark mused, as he paused in following Gertie long enough to shove a toppled-over couch off the main walkway to the house they were approaching, that the personal lives of the Campbell’s team had settled significantly over the past five months. With no explanation, the man who had been torturing them, Vince Ward, had gone silent. He had come into their lives when Jason, one of Mark’s closest friends, former comrade-in-arms, and fellow member of Campbell’s Agency, had gotten involved with a woman named Gwen. Gwen’s family had been torn apart by Vince Ward—her father framed for Ward’s hundreds of successful assassinations and her mother captured and held hostage for the past seven years.

Once Jason was involved with Gwen, and therefore with Ward, the rest of the agency had rallied behind him, making them all targets of Ward’s wrath. The assassin had a brilliant mind for subterfuge and had managed to set fire to houses, lodged car bombs in their vehicles, and had even managed to kidnap Alex’s girlfriend, Bridget, for six weeks before mysteriously letting her go and then disappearing from their lives. Never once could any of those events be traced back to him, nor had they been able to trace the taunting notes that he left them prior to his disappearance.

Mark didn’t know what to make of any of it, but Alex, the financier and de facto leader of their agency, had instructed them to all remain on high alert. In theory, Mark agreed, but with the chaos of the last few months, it was hard to focus on anything but the immediate need his city was in. The threat of trained assassins faded further to the background with each new set of rescue missions and personal milestone. Jason and Gwen’s wedding was coming up in just a few short months, Caleb—another of Mark’s friends at the agency—and his girlfriend, Juliette, were six months pregnant with their child. Juliette was Alex’s sister, so he and Bridget were just as excited as Caleb and Juliette, and amongst the chaos there had been family visits, baby showers, and Bridget’s little boy, Wyatt, running around the office excited by the news that he was getting a baby girl cousin.

No, there hadn’t been much time for focusing on the man who had come close to ruining—or taking—their lives, and though Mark knew the inherent danger of forgetting about Ward, he was also eager to just focus on living life again. There were enough dangers in the day-to-day for the time being.

Gertie turned back to look at him, signaling with a single bark at the front door of the house, then sitting down. Mark radioed in to the leader of the team he was working with, letting him know that he was going to be entering a residence and that he might need back up. Then he jogged up the sodden steps, praising Gertie with a light touch behind her right ear and a word of affirmation, then pounding on the door.

Search and Rescue! Is everyone okay in there?

There was no answer, and Mark glanced upward, seeing the caved-in second floor. Looking backward, he saw that Alex was jogging across the street, having gotten the tree off the storm shelter door.

I’m going in, Mark told his friend, stepping back and kicking his powerful left leg out, his size-thirteen boot crunching against the soaked wood. The door splintered inward with just one blow and, together, Alex and Mark worked to remove enough of the ruined wood to allow them to enter. They didn’t have to speak, years of working together on missions making them uniquely tuned into each other. This particular house happened to be on a residential New Orleans street. Others had been in bomb-devastated areas in Afghanistan. In either scenario, the men worked together seamlessly.

The woman they found trapped beneath a fallen beam had to be in her seventies. She was unconscious, her leg crushed cruelly beneath the wood. The water in her house had receded to a mere few inches, though there was no telling how much water had surrounded her in the previous few days. Her clothes were waterlogged, her skin was thin and shriveled, and her shock-white hair soaked and scraggly. She didn’t awake when Mark and Alex carefully lifted the beam off of her nor when the paramedics came in to lift her onto the stretcher and load her into the ambulance.

Mark feared the worst for her, but he knew that if Gertie had not found her, she wouldn’t even have the slim chance of survival that she had now.

Makes you wonder where her family is.

The voice came from behind Mark as he stood back out on the sidewalk, waiting for the signal that the team leader was ready for him to begin his next search. He turned, knowing exactly who he would see standing there.

Hello, Rachel.

She was his contact within the police department—someone who had helped the agency out when cases, like the Vince Ward case, got too big for them to handle on their own. He didn’t know her well, but he appreciated her total disregard for following protocol when it came to things like record keeping. She always helped him off the books, though he tried not to call on her too often. Why she helped him, he’d never known for sure. He’d met her years ago through a mutual friend—a man she had been dating at the time—and they’d crossed paths from time to time ever since. Five months ago, when Bridget had still been missing, he’d asked her for help and she’d agreed, but when Bridget had suddenly reappeared, there had been no need for her to follow through.

He hadn’t seen her since, though he never minded a chance encounter with the woman who was only three inches shorter than his six-foot-two frame, had warm, tanned skin, chocolate eyes, tightly-packed muscle beneath her curvy silhouette, and long, straight black hair that hinted at her native heritage. Mark appreciated a beautiful woman, and Rachel was that and more. Their relationship had always been professionally cordial, and Mark didn’t make it a habit of dating people he worked with, but under other circumstances, he would gladly have disappeared with Rachel for a whirlwind getaway weekend that neither of them would ever forget.

That was all it would ever have been, though, since that was all it ever was between Mark and the girls he entertained. Cliché thought it was, he was a commitment-phobe of the highest degree, and three of his friends’ recent plunges into lust, love, and commitment had done nothing to shake his determination to remain entirely autonomous.

Are you listening? Rachel asked, arching an eyebrow with some mixture of amusement and resignation.

He hadn’t been. At all. Say it again? he replied, not directly answering the question.

The police woman sighed and the way her uniform moved against her as she took a deep breath in threatened to distract Mark once again. But he managed to focus on her this time.

I was saying that your team has done well, Rachel repeated. The five of you guys have been huge assets to us out here, so thank you. It’s nice of you to volunteer.

It would be nearly criminal of us not to, Mark pointed out. After all, this is what we’re trained for.

Well, it’s appreciated nonetheless. Rachel looked up the street, shielding her eyes against the setting sun as she tried to catch a glimpse of what her team was doing up ahead. Any news on that case you asked me about early summer?

Mark shook his head, wishing that he had never jumped the gun and brought it up to her, considering there had been no need for her assistance after all. To protect Gwen’s father, William Grange, against possible location by the FBI—he was at the top of their most wanted list for his supposed string of assassinations—the agency was keeping the Ward investigation as discreet as possible. No, that sort of all died out, he told Rachel, shrugging a shoulder casually. Maybe the person responsible fled to escape the hurricanes. It would make him the smartest of all of us.

Snorting a laugh, Rachel nodded in agreement. Tell me about it. Glad your boss got his girl back, at any rate. Listen, don’t you owe me a favor or four?

He smiled slightly, crossing his arms over his chest. One could make that argument, I suppose. But since when are you keeping track?

Since I need a favor that’s bigger than any you’ve ever asked of me. Rachel’s easy smile was nowhere to be seen as she stood in front of him, legs at a wide stance, hands on her hips. This was official. I’ve got a situation that I need backup before, but I can’t make it official with the police department, meaning I can’t get backup from them.

Because ... he prompted.

Rachel shook her head. No questions. I just need someone with a certain set of skills who owes me a favor or four. You fit the bill.

Curious, Mark reached down and rubbed Gertie’s head, letting her know that he wanted her to stay right beside him, despite the fact that he could tell she was antsy to go on another search. Okay, well ...depending on when you need this person, I’m in. I’ve got to finish my shift here with this team, though. We’ve got another hour of daylight and plenty of people still waiting for help.

Fine, Rachel agreed. We can’t go out there before about midnight anyway, because I’m on duty ‘til 11:00 tonight. Meet me outside the station in your car. I’ll give you directions as we go.

This is all very mysterious, Officer ... Mark trailed off, realizing he had no idea what Rachel’s last name was.

Officer Mashburn. Rachel rolled her eyes at him and stepped back, ready to go rejoin her partner. See you tonight, Detective Thompson.

Mark watched her walk away, giving a slow shake of his head as his gaze focused on the ample curve of her backside, highlighted by the tight fit of her uniform pants. Whatever she needed his help for, he was happy to oblige. The woman was smart, and he did admire her impulsive streak and her rule-breaking ways. If there was a small part of him that hoped that whatever it was they were doing would require her to go undercover in a short, fitted dress, he crushed it down somewhere beneath the weight