Best Laid Plans(50)

Mona laughed humorlessly but didn’t answer.

“Agent Kincaid asked you a question.”

“Get a f*cking warrant, and I still won’t tell you.”

“I think you will,” Barry said, irritated.

No, she wouldn’t. Lucy was certain this was the extent of the information Mona would share. Enough to give them a lead, not enough to put Mona or this Elise in any direct harm from the authorities. In fact, it was too easy. She gave them one thing—a way to track Elise. Why? Why even give them that? She could have lied, said she didn’t have a number. She could have told them to pound sand. But she gave them a lead.

Mona stared at Barry without blinking. “Arrest me, or leave my property.”

“We’ll be back,” Barry said. “We have more questions, and like I said, it’ll be here or at headquarters.”

He turned to the main door and opened it. As he stepped out, Lucy followed. Mona said, “Agent Kincaid?”

Lucy turned. Mona had a half smile on her lips, but there was nothing friendly about her expression.

Mona said, “I never forget a face.”

Lucy’s head spun and if Barry hadn’t touched her arm just then, she might have collapsed. She turned and walked out with tunnel vision. She didn’t really remember how she got to the car, only that she was in the passenger seat sitting on her hands to keep them from shaking.

Barry asked, “What happened back there? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Nothing,” Lucy said.

Everything.

“Talk to me.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“Hill was just trying to get under your skin. You got us in, that’s the first step. We’ll come back and push harder.” He glanced at Lucy, then turned the ignition and pulled out of the parking space. “I thought you had a thicker skin than this.”

She straightened her spine. “I’m fine. She just caught me off guard.”

“We don’t have that luxury,” Barry said. “She’s savvy. She’ll hold us at bay for as long as she can. But we’ll run the phone number, see what we can get. Probably a burner, but it’s a local area code. We might get lucky and track down where it was purchased, see if we can get more info about this girl. It’s nearly five, we need to head back to headquarters.”

Lucy just wanted to go home.

Mona Hill couldn’t possibly know about Lucy. Other than Operation Heatwave, she hadn’t been involved in any major cases or investigations in the five months she’d been in San Antonio. Lucy had irritated the woman, so Mona turned around to issue an idle threat. It couldn’t be because she recognized Lucy; it was simply a threat that she’d never forget or forgive the intrusion. At least, that’s what Lucy wanted to believe. It wouldn’t be the first time a suspect had tried to intimidate her.

Mona had been in the porn industry. Legal porn was big business, but illegal porn was bigger. The chances that Mona knew about or had seen the video of Lucy’s rape eight years ago were slim to none. And while nothing online was ever truly gone, the FBI—and Lucy’s family—had gone to extraordinary lengths to suppress copies of the video. In this day and age, porn was higher quality and far more prevalent, the quantity growing exponentially. On one popular porn site users uploaded more than one thousand new clips daily. The chances that Lucy’s rape video would be readily available—without digging deep for it—were slim to none.

But in the back of her mind, Lucy’s fear grew. That her past would always be with her, that she’d never be able to escape what she’d done … or what had been done to her.

*



By the time they got back to FBI headquarters, it was after five. Barry handed Zach the phone number he’d gotten from Mona, and Lucy sat down at her desk. She responded to a bunch of emails so she could leave with a clear plate.

Barry asked Zach, “Where are we on the tablet Jolene Hayden gave us?”

“It’s not only password protected, but has a fail-safe. I didn’t want to risk erasing the data, so passed it off to the tech unit. They know it’s a priority.”

Lucy almost offered Sean’s services to crack it, but decided she wasn’t going to further irritate Barry. They’d been making progress in this partnership until her near panic over Mona’s threat, and she didn’t want to give him any reason to pull her from the case. She thought she’d recovered well, but now he thought she had a thin skin.

If he only knew just how thick her skin really was.

Ryan rolled his chair over to Lucy. Their cubicles were kitty-corner from each other. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she said.

“Donnelly said to say hi.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Physically he seems fine. He said when he gets tired his knee gives out. He’s in physical therapy, but is hoping to be cleared this week.”

“Desk duty is probably driving him up the wall. What happened out there?”

“Nasty business. Nine dead. Three with known ties to Sanchez, so it reasons that they either were the remnants of the Trejo/Sanchez enterprise, or the remaining few were trying to rebuild the organization. Could have trampled over someone else’s territory. And remember, Sanchez had been involved in recruiting or killing off smaller gangs. Could easily be old-school retaliation. One shooter was injured, SAPD and the DEA are trying to track him down. It might help ID who targeted the group. But get this—they left the drugs.”