Best Laid Plans(62)

“I guess I have a hard time believing you did it for the money,” Brad said, his voice a low growl. “But unless you tell me otherwise, it was all done out of greed. You’re a f*cking sociopath.”

Her lips turned up ever so slightly. “So, you know why I did it. The money. The thrill. The adrenaline rush! Mostly, the money. That’s not what I was talking about. You want to know why you didn’t see it coming. How you could be so blind. So stupid. So it’ll never happen again. Trust me, Brad, it will. You think your house is clean? It’ll never be clean.”

Nicole glanced down at his hands, which were clenched on the table. She smiled and leaned back, victory shining in her cold eyes.

She was deliberately baiting him. And it worked. He felt the anger burning inside him, and he wanted to hit her. God help him, he wanted to beat that smirk off her face.

“There is absolutely no incentive for me to tell you anything,” Nicole said. “I’ll never see the outside of a prison—unless, of course, I manage to escape.”

“You won’t.”

She shrugged. “I’m not scared of the DEA or the DOJ. You can’t hurt me.”

“Whoever took out the rest of Sanchez’s gang killed a kid. An eight-year-old boy.”

“There’s no future for these children. You have such a bleeding heart, you think that anyone can be saved. Haven’t you learned better by now?” She laughed. She was enjoying this, whatever this was. A conversation? An interrogation? A game? That’s what it felt like to Brad—that Nicole was playing games with him, with everyone. He was a pawn, she was the master chess player.

“Wake up, Brad,” she continued. “The war on drugs? It’s over. They won. You either join them, or keep tilting at windmills until one of their bullets pierces your skull. Don’t you realize that our focus on stopping them raises the price of drugs and increases the violence? But they will continue to bring in heroin and cocaine and marijuana and pseudoephedrine, and for every shipment you stop, every gang you shut down, three more spring up. Grow the f*ck up, Donnelly. Get out while you’re still breathing.”

Brad had to stop letting Nicole steer the conversation. “I suspect,” he said slowly, “that with Sanchez and Trejo dead, Tobias was attempting to solidify his organization. Because he was weakened, another player went after him. He’s done. Every one of Sanchez’s associates is dead or in prison.”

“You will never understand because you have no vision, Brad.”

“Then explain it to me, Nicole! What don’t I understand?”

She stared at him for a long minute. He was losing it. He’d planned on being completely calm, in complete control, but she’d goaded him, and he’d let her. He forced himself to breathe slowly to calm his pounding heart.

“Only because I actually feel sorry for you, I’m going to explain one thing. Tobias isn’t scared of you. If someone took out Sanchez’s people, Tobias let it happen. Two nights ago? If Tobias was at all angry about it, you would have already seen a bigger bloodbath.”

“Who is Tobias?”

She smiled. “So that’s what you really want. You want Tobias. I’m certainly not giving him up to you—even if I could.” From her tone, Brad realized she knew far more about Tobias and his operation than anyone else. She might imply she didn’t, but it was clear she enjoyed keeping the information to herself. “I’m not loyal to you or the f*cking DEA. You go ahead and charge at those windmills, but watch your back while you’re sitting on your high horse. You f*ck with Tobias, he’ll f*ck you back twice as hard. You might want to tell that rookie you have the hots for to watch her back, because she pissed off the wrong person.”

For a minute, Brad didn’t know what Nicole was talking about.

“Lucy?” he asked.

“You want to screw her so badly.”

“You’re insane.”

“I know you, Brad. I know you better than you think I do. That rookie five years ago who Jamie Sanchez iced? Don’t think I don’t know that you were sleeping with her. That’s why you went all psycho anti-rookie. Guilt. Guilt is a powerful motivator, isn’t it?”

Brad didn’t say a word. The past haunted him, the mistakes he’d made, the people who had gotten hurt because of it.

How does she know about Rebecca? We weren’t even working in the same city.

But he didn’t ask. She knew a lot of things, and that made him wonder if she was corrupt long before Vasco Trejo caught her on camera killing a drug dealer and stealing his cash.

“And I’m pretty sure you’ll feel just as guilty if serious, sad, pretty little Lucy Kincaid gets whacked because of your obsession with going after a man who has more power behind him than you can possibly know. And that’s all you’re going to get, Brad.” She stared at him. “Of course, if you can convince the powers that be to put me into witness protection—on my terms—I’ll give you everything you want, and more. But Sam Archer put her foot down. She thinks I know nothing of value.” Nicole smiled widely. “She is so very wrong.”





CHAPTER TWENTY



Sean drove Lucy to work Tuesday morning. He hadn’t asked her to stay home, though she could see in his expression that he didn’t want her working after last night. And for about two minutes, she’d considered calling in sick. She had no energy and the makeup she’d layered on couldn’t completely hide the dark circles under her eyes.