No Good Deed (34 page)

“Kane called me from Santiago and said that Siobhan had been taken as bait for him, and that meant that someone must have thoroughly investigated him. It was clear that she was a means to an end.”

“Is she okay?” Lucy asked.

“Yes. A couple of cracked ribs, but Padre is looking out for her at my place in Hidalgo until this situation settles down.”

“But the key point is that someone put a bounty on Kane,” Nate interjected.

Jack nodded. “According to Siobhan, they want Kane alive. The only reason would be to torture him, because there are plenty of bad guys who would love to get a piece of him. Against RCK protocol—rules that Kane established years ago—Kane pursued the lone survivor without backup in the hope of obtaining information about Tobias and who hired them. Kane is obsessed with this guy.”

“I’ve talked to him about it,” Lucy said, “but he doesn’t want to hear it. Especially from me.”

“Actually, he does listen—he just doesn’t let on that he does. He has a lot of respect for you, Lucy, and of course Sean. Kane’s one of the smartest people I know, he recognizes that he’s obsessed, but he also has cause to worry. In this instance, because of what happened to those boys, Kane made it his personal mission to stop Tobias. He thinks he’s the only one who can, especially since I don’t work south of the border anymore. I’ve lost my edge, my contacts are old. What he forgets is that I haven’t lost my instincts, and this situation has me on edge.”

“Tobias isn’t in charge,” Lucy said. “He’s violent and vicious, and he needs to be stopped, but I would bet my badge that Nicole Rollins calls the shots.” She filled Jack in on her theory about Nicole and her role in the organization, and where she saw Tobias fitting in. Jack listened as they ate.

Hans said, “We had word today that Joseph Contreras—wanted for the murder of Congresswoman Worthington—went to UCLA with Rollins. He has no record and we can’t find anything on him prior to his enrollment at UCLA. No birth certificate, no family, no residence—Joseph Contreras is likely an alias.”

“Kane told me about Contreras—he’s technically the one who put the hit on Kane. But you knew about his connection to Tobias already.”

“We suspected,” Lucy said. “And that’s why you’re here?”

“If they put a hit on Kane, they very well could have put a hit on you, Lucy,” Jack said seriously. “And you know damn well why.”

She nodded. Because she’d seen Tobias.

“I’m not leaving until all three of them are dead or behind bars,” Jack said.

“You may be here a long time,” Lucy said, trying to make light.

Jack didn’t crack a smile. “Have you kept up on your training?”

She could lie. But Jack would see through it. “I work out,” she said honestly.

“First thing tomorrow, we go back to training. And I’m going to find someone local to keep you fresh.”

“I’m okay, Jack.”

“Let’s keep it that way.”

They ate and cleaned up. Neither Jack nor Nate was drinking beer, which actually worried her even more. That meant they considered themselves on duty.

Lucy took out half a gallon of chocolate ice cream and some bowls and spoons. She didn’t care if no one wanted to share with her, she needed chocolate. It would calm her nerves.

“Why would she want to work for the DEA?” Lucy pondered as she ate a spoonful of double chocolate chip. “I mean, I can see the initial reasons. Find out how the DEA works, get inside knowledge of operations and processes, but for fifteen years?”

“She was the inside man, so to speak,” Hans said. “For her uncle. For Tobias. Or for herself. If she is truly in charge—at least on this end—she would give orders based on what she knew. She could steer the DEA investigations toward her competition, and away from her allies.”

“I’ve seen it before,” Jack said. “You get an in, you use it to benefit your own organization. Usually bribes do the trick, but with someone more invested like Rollins? They have far more information and power. Names of informants. Operations. Undercover ops. Raids.”

“She must have restrained herself,” Lucy said, “otherwise someone would have figured it out.”

Hans said, “Your report showed that she’d moved offices often.”

“She could have cultivated an agent in every office,” Jack said.

“The DEA is acutely aware,” Hans said. “Had you heard of Jimmy Hunt before this?”

“No,” Jack said, “and I don’t think Kane has, either. Hunt doesn’t operate in Kane’s territory. If Kane heard of him, he didn’t consider him a threat—we maintain a threat assessment we regularly update.”

Lucy glanced at Nate. “You’ve been quiet.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute. He looked from Lucy to Hans then said, “I don’t see how she could keep her true nature a secret for so long.”

“She’s a good liar.”

“She worked with Brad Donnelly for three years,” Nate continued. “He was her direct supervisor. Her partner. The San Antonio DEA office is small, a branch of Houston.”

She knew exactly what Nate was trying to say; she didn’t believe it for a minute.

“He must have suspected something,” Nate said.

“We often don’t know the people around us,” Lucy said.

Nate didn’t comment.

“Kane has worked with Brad,” Lucy said, with a glance to Jack for confirmation. But Jack was listening to Nate.

“Maybe Kane gave him information to see if he leaked it,” Nate said. “But you can’t ask him, because he’s missing.”

She said to Nate, “What do you want to do?”

“Everyone I trust is in this room—or in Mexico,” Nate said.

“You can’t mean that.”

“I do. I trust Ryan, but he has two kids. When you have kids you’ll do things you don’t expect to do. I trust Kenzie, but she has a new boyfriend. Do we know anything about him? All I know is he’s a cop in SAPD. I trust Juan, but he’s been so worried about his wife and his own family, I don’t think he’d recognize a traitor even if he walked in with blood on his hands. And Barry—you said yourself, Lucy, that Tobias kills loose ends. Barry is dead right when he was supposed to leave for his vacation. We can’t discount that he planned to escape before the shit hit the fan, and then Tobias iced him.”

Lucy had never heard Nate speak so many words at once.

“I can’t see Barry being a traitor,” Lucy said. “Or Brad.”

“Yet no one knew about Rollins for fifteen years,” Nate countered.

“Barry could have been killed for the same reason as Agent Dunbar,” Lucy said. “We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

Hans said, “It’s clear that this situation has forced us to look at our colleagues through the lens of suspicion. Everyone is on edge. Do you have anything specific, Nate, that would cause you to doubt Agent Donnelly’s loyalty?”

“I want to know how Nicole Rollins got into Sam Archer’s house and killed her. Donnelly left less than thirty minutes before. ERT said there was no sign of forced entry, and the alarm wasn’t engaged. I want to know why Nicole didn’t kill him, too, if it was so damn easy for her to break into a trained agent’s home.”

Nate was angry. Maybe he had a right to be furious.

“Brad has proven himself,” Lucy said. “But I can see why you’re suspicious.”

“We need to give him a rectal exam just like we’re giving Rollins and everyone affiliated with her.”

Hans said, “The FBI is running deep background checks on all DEA agents under the Houston umbrella.”

“And what about our own team?” Nate said.

“I can’t comment on that.”

Lucy didn’t say anything. Barry Crawford was dead and he was being looked at as a traitor. She didn’t want to believe it of any of her team, but did she really know these people? She’d only been here for six months.

“I rest my case,” Nate said. “Everyone I trust is in this room.”

Lucy rinsed her ice cream bowl and tried not to think that someone she knew was involved. So many people dead. Cops—good people—killed because they were cops.

“What does she want?” Jack asked. “Her behavior is unexplainable.”

“It makes sense to her,” Lucy said.

Hans nodded. “Jack makes a good observation. Why is she still in town? It would be logical for an escaped felon who has every local and federal law enforcement agency searching for her twenty-four seven to get out of the country as fast as possible. I can’t imagine that an escape as well planned as this didn’t have an exit strategy.”

“Exactly,” Jack said. “That helicopter could have taken her to the border. Not over it—by the time she reached the border, it was being patrolled heavily by air and land. But there are hundreds of miles where she could have had another escape route. There are dozens of tunnels. They have resources to pay to be hidden, or bribe a border patrol agent. And with her DEA connections, she would damn well know who was for sale. Or she could have headed to Canada and disappeared there for months before trying for another country on a fake passport.”

Lucy had thought the same thing.

“Yet,” Jack continued, “she stayed. Why?”

“Maybe she stayed to kill Sam Archer,” Nate suggested. “Revenge.”

“Archer isn’t the main target,” Hans said. “Archer just did her job. It was Ryan Quiroz, Kane, and Lucy who uncovered her illegal activities. And Brad Donnelly who had been tortured by the cartel.”

“You’re thinking that she’s here to kill everyone who put her away,” Jack said, looking directly at Lucy.

“The same gun was used to kill Agent Dunbar in DC as was used in the attack on Lucy and an SAPD detective two weeks ago,” Hans said.

Jack’s face hardened. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“We just learned about it this afternoon,” Lucy said. “Noah called me with the ballistics report.”

“It’s a warning,” Jack said. “You should have called me, Hans.”

“It’s more than a warning,” Hans said quietly. “It’s a promise.”

“And you people aren’t putting my sister into protective custody?” Jack said.

“Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Lucy said. “And what are you and Nate? I’m safer in this house than I am anywhere.”

“And you plan to walk out that door tomorrow and do your job, when you should be pulled from the investigation.”

She shook her head. “I’m not running away because someone threatened me. I’m a cop, Jack, don’t forget that.”

“You’re a target, Lucia,” Jack snapped. “Don’t forget
that
.”

“I get it—you’re my big brother. So I’ll forgive you. I’m not reckless. I’m not going to do anything to make it easy for Rollins or her people to get to me. But I’m not going to put my head in the sand and hide, any more than you would. Nicole Rollins is directly or indirectly responsible for the murders of seven cops in the last forty-eight hours. Nine if you include Barry and Agent Dunbar. She put an entire bus full of children in immediate danger so she could escape custody. Revenge is definitely in her playbook, but she’s here for more than revenge. She’s too smart to rush a personal vendetta if she has a chance to disappear. You’re right about one thing, Jack—she’s staying local because she wants or needs something. It’s not solely a vendetta.”

“Everyone needs sleep,” Hans said when Jack was about to argue with her. “It’s been a rough couple of days. But I think, Jack, that Lucy is right. Rollins is too smart to be swayed by emotion. For her, revenge is an added bonus. I suspect there is another reason each of those agents were targeted.”

Lucy said, “Maybe she needs something before she can disappear. Maybe they plan to get Elise out. Hans, is there any chance I can talk to her before her hearing tomorrow?”

Hans shook his head. “No. Dr. Oakley has already filed a complaint with the Bureau against you.”

“That was fast. Can you get in to talk to her? Or can we postpone the hearing altogether?”

“The hearing is mandatory because it’s a forced psych hold,” Hans said. “But it should be routine for an automatic extension as long as the AUSA can clearly articulate the reasons. We’ll go to the hearing. You’re one of the agents of record, so you should be allowed to speak.”

“Elise is good,” Lucy said, her voice cracking. “She knows how to work the system. You saw how she was with Oakley.”

“We’re doing everything possible to ensure she stays locked up, but too much is out of our hands,” Hans said.

Jack rubbed her shoulders. “Go to bed. Nate and I will take turns on watch.”

“Jack—”

“Don’t say it. I know you’re a trained agent. I know that you’re smart. But two weeks ago you would have been dead if you hadn’t been wearing Kevlar, and you still have that target on your back. I’m here because Sean can’t be. Though—knowing what I know now, I’m not leaving Texas until that woman is stopped.”

Hans nodded. “Go to bed, Lucy. We’ll talk to the AUSA tomorrow morning and see what her plan is. There’s nothing more we can do now.”

Lucy reluctantly went upstairs, knowing that they were going to be up for much longer. She was worried about Sean, worried about the hearing, and angry. Angry that Nicole Rollins had abused the system, that she’d used her position to profit, that she was partly responsible for the proliferation of drugs in the United States. The war on drugs may be in part political, but the lives that drugs destroyed were not, and shouldn’t be used as political fodder. Drugs killed everyone involved—those who sold and those who used. Everyone was at risk. So much money and violence and pain. Lives completely wasted. Hopeless. It was a cycle that seemed to be getting worse.

She showered and sat cross-legged in the middle of her big bed, acutely aware that she hadn’t spoken to Sean since he’d left this morning. Over sixteen hours. His relationship with Kane was complex and she didn’t fully understand it. The Rogan family was so different from the Kincaids. In some ways they were similar—two large families raised by two parents. Sean and Lucy were both the youngest. But the Rogans weren’t as tight as the Kincaids. There was a lot of anger under the surface, and Lucy didn’t understand why. She understood Sean—his parents had been killed when he was fourteen and his brother Duke became his guardian. There was a lot of pain and anger in what happened during those years. But why was Kane so committed to the war south of the border? Duke had been in the military for three years; why wasn’t he the one Kane called on in the rare times he needed help? Why did Sean drop everything when Kane called, even though he knew next to nothing about what Kane really did? Yet when Sean needed Kane, he couldn’t always get through.