No Good Deed (44 page)

Hans was trying to make light of the situation, but Lucy shook her head. “You all did this behind my back because you knew that it was a bad idea. Don’t you understand that as soon as he does what they want they will put a bullet in his head?”

“Kate and Sean worked together on the technical end of the plan—”

“They’ll use him as a hostage! You haven’t thought this through. No one has! Sean gets their money, they kill him, it doesn’t matter if we find them,
Sean will still be dead!
”

“Lucy,” Hans said firmly, “Agent Adam Dover was murdered yesterday morning.
Before
we learned that he falsified Nicole’s reports. Dover was sent by Tobias’s organization to trap Kane in Mexico; we know he was killed by his own people. Between your reports, what Kane learned from Dover, and what Blair Novak learned in Los Angeles, we have a clearer picture of what is going on. Jimmy Hunt is the patriarch of his family. Nicole Rollins is his niece. Rollins’s mother and Hunt’s wife Margaret are sisters. Jimmy Hunt has been a fugitive for five years, and we believe that was when Rollins stepped up her game. She killed Ramos, transferred to Houston, then San Antonio. She’d been helping her uncle for years, until he could no longer operate in the States. We believe that Joseph Contreras is Rollins’s lover, that they met in college and together with Jimmy Hunt control a large segment of the drug trade into the Southwest.

“But this goes beyond drugs. Criminals and cartels pay them for safe transport of whatever they need moved—drugs, guns, human beings. What we don’t know is how Tobias fits in. Is he partners with Hunt? What’s his real name? How does he know Elise Hansen, and where does she fit in?”

Hans caught her eye, but Lucy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to do—the man she loved was in immediate danger.

Hans said, “One hour ago, Blair Novak took a search team back to the Hunt property with a federal warrant, and they are now in the middle of a standoff. Margaret Hunt and her people have fired on federal agents and the entire canyon has been sealed off by law enforcement.” He paused. “We’re doing everything we can to resolve the situation peacefully, but we suspect this was their plan all along, to go down in a bloodbath.”

“And now Sean is in the middle of it,” she said. Why would Sean do this? Why would he risk himself? Not just put himself at risk—it was suicide. It was a damn suicide mission, because Lucy couldn’t see a way out.

She looked pointedly at Hans. “Do you know exactly where Sean is right now?”

Hans said, “Sean rigged the GPS in his watch to give off intermittent bursts of data, in case they have high-tech scanning equipment.”

“I can see a million ways this can go wrong and no way that this can go right.”

“Agent Kincaid,” Abigail Durant said with both a firm but understanding voice, “through extensive police work and hundreds of man-hours, we’ve narrowed down the area where we believe Rollins is hiding. We seized the electronics from the two men we arrested this morning. We have the phone from the bar shooting last night, and though it was damaged our tech team is working on it. The documents that Kane Rogan retrieved from Agent Dover in Mexico give us far more information than we had before. We have pooled information, resources and evidence from every federal and local law enforcement agency in the state. Zach has been working with Quantico around the clock putting together all the data and coming up with an actionable plan. The information you found in Agent Dunbar’s records related to the property that Texas Holding bought and sold is so far our single best exclusionary data—we’ve already input the data and excluded where Rollins
cannot
be, thereby narrowing our search. We have six separate SWAT units ready to recon possible locations, and as soon as we have a confirmed location, we’ll be there. No one wants your fiancé harmed in any way.”

“They’ll see you coming. Nicole is a meticulous planner. She’ll kill Sean just because she can.” Lucy glared at Hans. “How do you know exactly what happened to him? How do you know he’s not dead? Did someone just
watch
him get abducted?” Her voice hitched. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

Hans hesitated, then nodded to Nate. Nate showed Lucy footage from her own house, the security system that Sean had put together. He was sitting in the driveway for a long minute in a car she didn’t recognize. A van pulled in behind him and four men with semi-automatic rifles surrounded him. Thirty seconds later Sean got out of the car, hands up, then hit one of the men and two others threw him to the ground. Hit him. Cuffed him. Put a bag over his head and dragged him to the van. Seconds later they were gone.

Gone.

“Nate? You knew?”

“I’m sorry, Lucy.”

“No. No!” She jumped up. She couldn’t do
nothing
. “They will kill him. Even if he does what they want, they’ll kill him. You all knew about this idiotic plan this morning. And you didn’t tell me!”

“Lucy, you’re a good agent, but Sean’s your blind spot. You never would have let it happen.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t! And Noah—he knew. That’s why he was asking me all those questions—oh my God, oh my God, I’m the one who said they wouldn’t kill him right away. You did this because of my profile. What if I’m wrong? Dammit, Hans! What if I got it wrong and he’s already dead?” She could scarcely breathe.

“We did this because we all agreed that the money is the single most important thing to Rollins and Tobias.”

“I will never forgive you.” She felt sick to her stomach. Sick with loss. “I need air.”

Nate followed her out. “Go away!” she screamed at him.

He didn’t. He stayed several feet back as she left the building, walking around the path that circled to the FBI garage. She was hysterical, she needed to control herself. She needed to get it
under control
! She was a trained agent, why was she acting like a hysterical lover?

Because she would never see Sean again. In her heart, she knew this stupid, stupid plan was going to get the man she loved killed. And everyone was in on it except her. Everyone was involved. Her closest friends. Her own brother. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this work anymore—not after all she’d learned in these last three months: that these criminals abused children, used them, killed them; that they had no respect for human life; that they killed federal agents just because they were in the way, just because they were doing their job trying to keep the streets safer. People safer. Kids safer.

And for what? To lose everything? Kane was nearly killed in Mexico because he saved a woman who had never done anything to anyone, but had simply been easy bait to lure Kane in. Sam Archer was killed in her own home. Barry Crawford was tortured for hours before he was killed. And now Sean was a hostage.

They had Sean. They wouldn’t let him live. Especially since they knew that he’d been the one that caused this chain of events in the first place. If he hadn’t worked with the FBI and siphoned off their money two weeks ago, Nicole would have escaped and disappeared because they would have already had everything they needed to complete their plan.

Nicole would kill Sean out of revenge, but she would also do it to punish Lucy. That bitch knew that the best way to hurt Lucy—and to punish Kane Rogan—was to kill the person they both loved best.

Lucy stopped pacing, bent over with her hands on her knees, and took several deep breaths. They’d never let her be part of this if she couldn’t control her emotions. Wasn’t that what she excelled at? Keeping her emotions in check? Wasn’t that what happened earlier today when Kenzie called her, wanting a friend to talk to, not an agent to discuss case details? Her ability to control her feelings made her a good agent, a good investigator. It was only with Sean that she let her emotions ooze over into everything else.

Her heart rate slowed. She took another deep breath. Her thoughts came into focus. She put herself in Sean’s shoes. What had he been thinking?

Time.
They’d run out of time. Whatever Kane had learned in Mexico meant that time was against them, and more people would die in order for Nicole to get her money, unless Sean stepped up and allowed himself to be taken. All the legwork would have landed them at their hideout … except it was taking too long.

Lucy knew Sean better than anyone. If he believed that he could help, that he could stop innocent people from being hurt, then he would step up and risk himself to save others. Because he could. Because he had the skill. Because he was smart … and ruthless.

She pulled out her cell phone. She didn’t expect Jack to answer, but he did.

“I know,” she said.

“I’m not going to let him die.”

Hearing Jack say it gave her a small nugget of hope. “What’s happening?”

“I’m monitoring Sean’s GPS signal and putting together a map. As he moves, I’m positioning myself as close as possible without being spotted.”

“Where are you?”

He didn’t say anything.

“You’re not going to tell me.”

“You do your job, I’ll do mine.” He hung up.

Lucy pocketed her phone and walked back into the building. She ignored everyone else, but went to Zach. “Where’s the map? I want to know how close we are to finding them.”

“We have a command post set up in the main conference room. All data is being fed into there.”

She went to the conference room. The map of southern Texas, everything within a three-hour radius of San Antonio, had been posted on one wall. Large areas had been blacked out. Multiple computers were being used to process data and eliminate properties one by one. One computer monitored Sean’s GPS every fifteen minutes.

She was about to sit down and go through more property records when Hans said, “Lucy, we have something you need to see.”

Her heart skipped a beat, then she said calmly, “What?”

He handed her a printout. “We informed Agent Dover’s supervisor that he was missing and presumed dead and was under investigation for kidnapping and corruption. His office searched his apartment and found a safe with evidence that will put Jimmy Hunt away for life. Plus, a letter. It answers some of our questions. I just sent a copy to Blair Novak in LA; she might be able to use the information to get Margaret Hunt to stand down.”

Lucy read the letter. It was dated three months ago, the day after Nicole was arrested.

To whom it may concern:

If you’re reading this, I’m dead. If I was killed in the line of duty or in a seeming accident, most likely Margaret Hunt put a hit out on me.

Twenty-three years ago I was approached by Jimmy Hunt, a low-level drug dealer seeking to expand his base. He’d known I’d looked the other way on some cases in order to earn a little extra money. At the time, I didn’t think much about it. They were minor cases and no one was getting hurt. This time, he had a job for me that would change everything.

His brother-in-law, John Rollins, was a cop with LAPD who initially was helping Jimmy with his dealing. But according to Jimmy, Rollins made a pact with a rival dealer. Family does not betray family. We set up an operation, called in Rollins’s team as part of LAPD backup, and in the course of a firefight Rollins ended up dead. It was a hit, pure and simple, and Rollins could go out a hero while Jimmy was able to regain and expand his own enterprise.

I helped Nicole Rollins obtain a job in the DEA as an agent. She was recruited on her own, but I taught her how to make herself appealing to the DEA so they would recruit her. I falsified interviews and reports in order to ensure that the DEA wouldn’t easily be able to find out she was related to the Hunts.

Five years ago when I could no longer protect Jimmy Hunt from his illegal activities—documentation and my diary are enclosed in this file—I alerted them that my office was getting a warrant. Jimmy fled the country and Margaret destroyed all evidence at their ranch in Topanga Canyon. She’s a terrific actress and fooled everyone into thinking that her husband ran off with her sister. While it’s true that they had an open marriage, Tamara Rollins did not leave with Jimmy. Margaret killed Tamara when she learned that her sister had given the DEA anonymous information about Jimmy that led to his exile. Tamara’s body is buried in a barrel somewhere on Margaret’s property. I blame myself for her death; I’m the one who told Margaret that Tamara was the only one who could have leaked the information. Now I’m not so sure. It might have been Nicole herself, in an attempt to take over her uncle’s operation completely. It’s clear that Nicole is smarter than Margaret and Jimmy think.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family, and being with the Hunts was a roller-coaster ride that at times was amusing, in a dark and creepy way. Margaret and Jimmy have a son, Tobias Hunt, who is a sociopathic killer. For years, the family has been cleaning up his messes, which usually involve rough sex with prostitutes or drug addicts he picks up—girls he doesn’t think will report the abuse or are willing to do anything for a fix. There have been times when the violence resulted in murder. When Nicole left for DEA training, Jimmy took Tobias to Mexico to teach him how to control his sexual urges. But after Jimmy’s daughter was born, Jimmy told Nicole that Tobias was her responsibility.

To Nicole’s credit, she came up with a plan that both kept Tobias under control and gave her more power than she’d ever had on her own. Tobias is a formidable opponent. He’s rash and violent and puts the fear of God into people. He hides his violence behind a soft face and he enjoys the contradiction. He makes friends easily, and kills them just as easily. He enjoys the role Nicole created for him because he gets what he wants—fear—while being able to protect the family. Nicole keeps him in women, keeps him in Mexico on one of six properties she owns through a shell company, and she gives him specific assignments.

Five years ago something changed. I don’t know exactly what happened, but Nicole killed Ramon Ramos in San Antonio claiming he was a DEA informant. I think—but can’t prove—that it was really Nicole who set Jimmy up, framed her own mother, and killed Ramos as a cover from her own family so they wouldn’t know she orchestrated the entire thing. Tamara was flaky and weird, and after she had the baby she went a bit crazy. I would, too, if my kid was a sociopath who gutted cats and drowned dogs for fun.