Best Laid Plans(106)
“It’s more than her job,” Brad said quietly. “You know that.”
“No—we saved your ass because you’re one of the good guys, and you’d have been dead and buried a thousand times over in the time it would take to cut through the bureaucratic bullshit. It may not be a job we get paid for, but it’s our job nonetheless.”
“Based on what Nicole told me—if I can believe her—Tobias orchestrated the murders of those nine people. What does that tell you?”
“He didn’t trust Trejo’s operation. Or he blamed them for what happened in Mexico.”
Brad shook his head. “They weren’t his people, Sean. That’s all I can come up with. Tobias wasn’t part of Trejo’s group. But Tobias blamed Trejo for losing the guns, and Sanchez for not killing me.”
“What do you mean by that? They tortured you.”
“For no reason. It was fun for Sanchez. It was punishment because I’d f*cked with him, tore him down in front of his amigos. Got his sister to turn against him. But Trejo was furious. He said something, I don’t remember all of it, but something like, ‘You were supposed to kill him.’”
“So Tobias blamed Sanchez because you’re alive—maybe more because if he hadn’t taken you to Mexico, we would never have gone down there. And they would never have lost the guns.”
“Bingo.”
“Tobias is cleaning house. Taking out the gang, going after Lucy. But how does this connect to Adeline Worthington and her husband?”
“Maybe it doesn’t.”
Sean shook his head. “Too many coincidences. It’s all connected.” He wished he could talk this out with Lucy, but Brad was going to have to do. “The girl, Elise Hansen, confessed that Rob Garza—Adeline Worthington’s campaign manager—hired her to take pictures of Worthington, and then when she went to collect the rest of the money, he shot her. If Garza is responsible for her attack, the feds must think that Garza is behind the shooting here at the hospital.”
“Does Garza have those kinds of connections? Since when does a political campaign manager go around killing people?”
“Fact: Mona Hill works for—or with—Tobias. Fact: Mona Hill sent Elise Hansen, the prostitute, to James Everett’s hotel. Fact: Rob Garza sent Elise Hansen to Worthington. It reasons that Tobias is also connected to Rob Garza.”
“And where does the congresswoman fit in? A pawn?”
“A co-conspirator. I’m not supposed to know this, but the FBI is already investigating her for political corruption.”
“Then why kill her husband?”
“Because she doesn’t know about the investigation, and Harper was digging into her finances and her abuse of power. HWI hired me to assist with the security and forensic audit. Though I haven’t put all the pieces together, Harper found evidence in an audit that Adeline was using her position to create artificially high land values—when she wanted to sell, or when a friend wanted to sell—or artificially low land values when someone in her circle wanted to buy.”
Brad stared at him, incredulous. “And no one figured this out?”
“We’re talking about huge tracts of land, manipulating the environmental impact reports, causing delays or expediting processes. And isolated, these transactions appear perfectly normal. It’s when you put them all together and identify the buyers and sellers, who benefits and who doesn’t, it’s clear that there’s a major financial scam going on to defraud the government and defraud Adeline Worthington’s opponents, as well as benefit her and her supporters.
“I’ve also been looking into her finances,” Sean continued. “Not legally—so I can’t give any of it to the FBI. But I can steer them in the right direction. She’s been hiding money all over the world. If she wants to flee, she has the resources to do so.”
“We have to tell Juan.”
“I need to talk to Kane first.”
“He’ll give you cover?”
Sean nodded without hesitating. Kane would protect him just like he protected Lucy when he left her out of his report about what happened at the Trejo compound. Sean glanced at his watch. “Lucy should be done by now. How long do x-rays take?”
He stepped out of the office and into borderline chaos. The cops in the waiting area were all talking on phones or listening to Juan speak. Barry rushed by.
Sean grabbed him. “What happened? Is Tia okay?”
“She’s still in surgery, still fighting,” he said. He glanced at Brad, obviously surprised to see him. “I have to go.”
“Where’s Lucy?”
“I thought you knew she was done. She and I have to go.”
“Not without me.”
Barry turned to him. “Rogan, I don’t know what your thing is, but your girlfriend is a federal agent and has a job to do.”
“Lucy was the target.”
“That’s absurd.”
Brad intervened. “Barry—an informant contacted me earlier, that’s why I came here. There’s some chatter that Tobias planned to take out a fed today. We assumed it was someone in the DEA, but when I heard about the shooting here, I realized that both Ryan Quiroz and Lucy were on the task force that took down Tobias’s San Antonio operation. She could very well be a target.”