Best Laid Plans(99)

He hadn’t traced her money—he hadn’t had time. He knew that he could do it, just like he’d tracked the businesses, but money and banking issues would take far more time to dig into.

But Sean was a very good liar.

“I will kill you,” Mona whispered.

“Then my partner will go to the FBI with the evidence I’ve accumulated. And my partner will also go directly to Darlene with proof of everything you’ve done.”

Her chin trembled but she didn’t say anything.

“Who wants the video?”

She didn’t say anything for a long minute. Sean saw the inner debate.

“You’ll never survive,” she finally said. “He’s powerful. He’ll beat you to a pulp and have his gangbangers cut off your dick and shove it down your throat.”

“Who?”

“If I tell you, I’ll have to run. He’ll know. He knows everything.”

Sean slammed his fist on the table. She jumped. “Name!”

“Promise me you won’t go after my sister. She doesn’t know anything.”

“If you lie to me, I’ll tell her everything. If you tell me the truth, I’ll lose her file.”

Through clenched teeth, Mona hissed, “Tobias.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE



Lucy decided that the best thing to do was to ignore her previous conversation with Barry about Rick Stockton and Matt Slater. She wished it had never happened. Fortunately, Barry seemed to agree because he didn’t bring it up, either.

It was twelve thirty, and Tia had just sent them a message that the doctor was currently checking on Elise Hansen, but she should be released within an hour.

“Elise didn’t tell us she’d recorded Everett,” Lucy said, focusing on the case. That was where she and Barry worked best. She could never be friends with him, not anymore. That saddened her.

Never say never.

It wasn’t likely.

“I noticed,” Barry said.

“It’s something I can push her on. She implied she took photos, but didn’t say it outright. Not about Everett.”

“If you’re ready to go after her.”

“I’m ready.” She sounded defensive, which was the last thing she wanted. “Elise knew that Worthington was dead when she left the motel. She staged the scene to make it look like he’d received oral sex, but we know that he wasn’t sexually aroused. Yet, less than an hour later, what did she sound like to you on the tape?”

“Like she was playing a part. Having fun.”

“There are cruel people in this world,” Lucy said. “But it takes an especially cold person to leave one man dead and then play sex games with another. To create an audio recording and, presumably, take pictures. But I’m wondering if those pictures even exist. Elise was vague, upset, and calculating all at the same time. Everett would have noticed being photographed, wouldn’t he?” She didn’t wait for an answer, and continued. “She didn’t drug him—we saw him leave the hotel looking fine only hours after they had sex.”

“She lied to us. Repeatedly.”

“Whether out of fear of someone else, or fear that she was going to be caught, I’m not sure yet.”

“Still, someone shot her.”

“What is that expression? No honor among thieves? Maybe she actually told the truth, that she took Worthington’s phone and they were angry about it. Or maybe she made a mistake we have yet to uncover. Maybe she wanted more money. Maybe whoever hired her didn’t want a witness.”

“I’m going with the latter. She’s the only connection between Worthington and Everett. Someone gave her the curare to inject into Worthington. That’s not a poison you can buy on the street.”

“Mona Hill knows,” Lucy said. “If we can’t break Elise Hansen, we have to go back to Mona.”

“We should be able to break her,” Barry said. “Are you really up for this?”

Lucy had gone into this investigation thinking that Elise was the victim. That she’d been used and abused for years, ending up in a life of prostitution because that was all she knew. And maybe that was how it started. But turning to blackmail and murder? That she hadn’t been disturbed about Harper Worthington dying haunted Lucy. Elise was concerned about her own freedom and culpability—and freely admitted that she thought she was giving him a knockout drug—but showed no remorse that he ended up dying from her actions.

Lucy had let her sympathy for victims of the sex trade overshadow her years of training in criminal psychology. She should have seen Elise Hansen for who she was at the beginning. She might not have known that the drug was lethal, but Elise was calculating and would say or do anything to get out of the mess she found herself in.

“I am definitely up for it.”

*



Tia Mancini met Lucy and Barry at the hospital. “We’re good to go,” Tia said. “We can bring her to the station, interrogate her, then admit her into juvenile detention pending charges. We’re going to put her in the medical wing because of her injuries, as well as for her own safety.”

“I’d like five minutes alone with her,” Lucy said.

Tia was suspicious. “Why?”