Best Laid Plans(115)

“Who?”

“I’m not telling you until I get something actionable.”

“That’s f*cking bullshit, Lucy is there.”

“Suck it up, little brother. If I’m wrong, and you slip up, you can kiss RCK’s relationship with federal law enforcement good-bye, and that includes all the cover we’ve had for gray ops. I’m not putting us at risk because you want to play cave man.”

“Fuck you.” Sean remembered why he hated working with Kane. Until he’d moved to San Antonio, he’d only worked with him once in a blue moon. Now, it seemed they were working everything together.

“I’ll tell you this—it’s not Nate Dunning. He knows there’s someone inside, and he’s going to be my eyes and ears until we figure it out.”

Sean’s phone vibrated. He answered.

“Lucy.”

“I’m heading to the hospital.”

“Is Tia okay?”

“She’s out of surgery and critical. That’s all I know. I’m going to re-interview Elise Hansen.”

“Why?”

“Some new information has come up.”

“What?”

“Sean—I can’t really talk about it.”

“I don’t care that Barry is in the car with you. Kane is with me. Something bigger is going on, and you’re in the middle of it. I’m going to send you a security video that Kane found. Call me right back.”

Sean hung up. “Give it to me.”

Kane shook his head. “This is why I never fell in love.” He pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons.

“Your loss.”

“I sent it to Lucy.”

Less than thirty seconds later, Lucy called him back.

“I showed the picture to Brad,” she said. Her voice was edgy, nervous. “It’s Tobias. Did he kill Garza? Elise said that Garza is the one who shot her the other night, that he’s the one who hired her in the first place.”

“That may be the truth, but if it is, that means Garza was working for Tobias, and we know that Tobias likes to kill loose ends. You found the Garza connection, and Tobias figured he’d flip. He must have known something that Tobias didn’t want made public. I found a connection between James Everett and Adeline Reyes-Worthington that implicates both of them in illegal land deals. I sent everything to Dean Hooper.”

“Sean—”

“I didn’t break any laws. But I don’t know Dunbar from Adam, and I trust Hooper. If anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with Hooper. You need to watch yourself, Lucy.”

“Go to the hospital,” Kane told him.

Sean made an illegal U-turn and headed to the hospital.

Sean said to Lucy, “Kane has information that Mona Hill was working with Tobias as well, through an intermediary. This bastard has his fingers in everything. Trust no one.”

“If Mona Hill was working for Tobias, and Garza was working for Tobias … Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Elise. She’s lied to us about a few things, but they didn’t seem to be relevant lies. Now they are. She told us she took sexually explicit photos of her and Worthington for blackmail, but one of the photos she took was of him dead. And Tobias is the one who sent it to Adeline Reyes-Worthington, claiming that Adeline had his money.”

“Where’s Adeline now?”

“Home. We left about thirty minutes ago. We have agents on her house making sure she doesn’t get the same idea that Garza had and try to leave.”

Kane shook his head. “She’s already dead.”

Lucy said, “What did you say?”

“Kane thinks she’s dead.”

“We left her with her personal assistant and two agents.”

“Call the agents, have them put eyes on her immediately,” Sean said. “Tell them to bring her into protective custody. And tell them to be on high alert.”

*



Joseph Contreras brought Adeline tea as soon as the three feds left.

He’d been itching to kill them, but the presence of Brad Donnelly threw a wrench in the mix. Donnelly knew who he was—not by this name, but he would certainly recognize him if he saw him. So Joseph stayed in his office and monitored the security cameras, watching Donnelly walk the grounds.

It had been far too close. If Donnelly had come to the door, Joseph wouldn’t have been able to disappear.

“I don’t want tea!” Adeline exclaimed.

“It will help you sleep. You’ve been through hell this week, Adeline.”

Drink the damn tea, bitch.

“I don’t want to sleep. We’re leaving. Tonight.”

“There are two federal agents in the driveway.”

“Which is why I had you move Harper’s car to the barn. We’ll go out the back road. We’ll be at the plane in less than an hour. It’s very handy that you’re a pilot, one of the many reasons I hired you. I’m already packed. I just need to get the cash from the safe, and my insurance package.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should cooperate with the FBI. They can protect you.”

“Hardly. I’m not going to jail, Joseph! But Tobias will pay for this. He threatened me, recruited Garza, then probably killed him because that’s what Tobias does, isn’t it? He’ll pay. I will use every dime to track him down and make him suffer. He created this problem in the first place—and I’m damn well not going to go to prison or die because of it.”