Best Laid Plans(102)
She clung to Lucy like a toddler.
“I won’t,” Lucy said, looking straight at Barry. “He won’t get to you again.”
*
Elise was back in her hospital bed. Her stitches had split open and she’d broken her wrist when the fed had pushed her to the ground. They’d patched her up and given her a pain pill and told her to rest.
She closed her eyes. Inside, she was smiling.
That bitch had believed every word.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sean sped through San Antonio toward the hospital as Kane’s cell phone went directly to voice mail.
“Call me now, dammit!” He hung up and threw his phone on the seat. That was the sixth message he’d left for his brother since talking to Mona Hill.
This whole situation was f*cked. How the hell could Tobias be involved in Harper Worthington’s murder? What the hell was going on?
Flashes of hot and cold rushed through him. He couldn’t tell the FBI how he’d gotten the information. He couldn’t tell anyone, except Kane.
Calm down. Calm down. You know Lucy is okay.
It didn’t matter that her vest stopped the bullet. She’d been shot while transporting the prostitute. All the pieces were rapidly falling together.
Mona Hill. A head prostitute who had a skill with money laundering. Probably made her money blackmailing businessmen, as well as by providing underage girls to perverts. Some men paid big money to order the exact sex toy they wanted.
Elise, the young hooker. Hired to incapacitate, blackmail, or kill Harper Worthington. Through Mona? Possibly. Because Harper had figured out that his wife was using her position in Congress to not only line her own pockets, but to launder money for the cartels. It was all there, in the BLM audit, but Sean hadn’t known exactly what he was looking at until he’d seen the tablet files that Harper had left behind in Dallas. Good thing, too—without that list of numbers, Sean would never have been able to put it together.
Adeline Reyes-Worthington. The FBI knew she was corrupt, but how long had it taken them to figure it out? Lucy said that the agent had been working the case for over a year. While Sean understood that the FBI needed solid evidence, he’d seen them go after other people in the white-collar world with far less than they had on Adeline. They were likely trying to reel in an even bigger fish … other members of Congress? Businessmen? So they kept the sting going for months, hoping to catch more in the net.
There was no doubt in his mind that if the FBI had told Harper Worthington when he’d met with them last month that they already had an operation in place, or if they’d taken Adeline down months ago, that Harper Worthington would still be alive.
But what connected Adeline Reyes-Worthington to Tobias? Something brought them together. If Adeline had hired Tobias to kill her husband, why not find an easier way to do it?
The problem was they knew little about Tobias. They knew he was running guns and drugs. They knew he was associated with Trejo and Sanchez—both of whom were dead. They knew he lived in Mexico … No, they suspected he lived in Mexico. He hadn’t even been on Kane’s radar until two months ago. No one knew what he looked like, no one knew how his operation worked, no one knew how far his tentacles spread.
Lucy. Tobias must have figured out that Lucy, not Brad, had seen him.
There was one person he could trust, other than Kane.
He had Brad Donnelly on speed dial. He didn’t trust the DEA phones anymore, so when Brad answered Sean said, “I need to see you. University Hospital. ASAP.”
Before Brad could ask why, Sean hung up. He parked but couldn’t get in through the emergency room doors because they were blocked off by SAPD. He saw Juan walking briskly toward the entrance, his badge out. Sean ran up to him. Juan didn’t say anything, but waved Sean in when he was cleared by SAPD.
“She’s fine,” Juan told Sean.
“I want to see her.”
Juan nodded and they took the elevator up to the fourth floor. They stepped out into a sea of cops and federal agents. Barry was talking to the chief of police, and Juan immediately headed over there. “Milton, Detective Mancini is a tough woman. If anyone can pull through, it’s her.”
“Thank you, Juan. Agent Crawford, thank you for your efforts on scene. As I told your agent, Juan, this is an SAPD investigation. Tia is one of ours. But because she was working with your agents, we’ll share everything. I hope you understand.” Meaning, We’re not giving this up so don’t pull any jurisdictional bullshit on me.
“Of course,” Juan said. “Any resources, any personnel you need, it’s yours. I have Barry’s report—anything come up in the last fifteen minutes?”
“We found the car, dumped under the freeway. It was stolen two miles from here less than an hour before the attack and the owner didn’t even know it was gone. I have uniforms canvassing the area, plus looking at all traffic cams near where they abandoned the vehicle. We’re processing it on scene to expedite evidence collection.”
“This is the second attempt on Elise Hansen’s life,” Barry said. “SAPD has two guards on her, one outside her door, one at the staircase.”
“And,” the chief of police said, “there will be an officer at each entrance.”
“And you’re certain that she was the target?” Juan asked.