She shook her head.
“Did their mother pick them up?”
Again she shook her head.
Brad was getting angry, and Lucy was afraid that if he lost his temper, Mrs. Nocia would clam up for good.
“Mrs. Nocia, I’m going to call Father Mateo and ask him to come down and speak with you. Maybe you’ll feel more comfortable talking to him.”
The grandmother shook her head and glanced at Brad, then quickly looked away. Brad tensed beside her. Lucy stepped forward, partly blocking Brad so that Mrs. Nocia would focus solely on her.
“I know you won’t lie to Father Mateo.”
“Please,” Mrs. Nocia begged.
“If you want to make sure that your grandsons are safe, I need to know who took them.”
“My daughter told me a man would be by after nine to take them to school. A man came as she said, the boys knew him, they weren’t scared, I swear. They left. I—I didn’t think anything was wrong until Padre Flannigan called. I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. Are they okay? Please, por favor, are they okay?”
“Where is your daughter?”
“She works at a hotel. The Star. Good, honest job. She’s a good girl.”
“Thank you.” Lucy handed Mrs. Nocia her card. “Call me if you hear from your daughter or if the boys return. Is their father around?”
Mrs. Nocia frowned, anger tightening her lips. “No good. He’s in jail. He won’t divorce her, though Padre says he broke the sacrament of marriage, and that he would support an annulment. My Elena did nothing wrong, but Pedro convinced her that an annulment would send her to Hell, so she won’t get an annulment. He was the one who killed a man and he’s the one going to Hell.” Mrs. Nocia crossed herself again. “I knew he was bad from the beginning, but Elena was sixteen, she didn’t listen to her mama.”
“Is Pedro’s last name also Garcia?”
“Sí. The judge said he won’t be getting out of prison for twenty years. It should be longer.”
In the car Lucy asked Brad, “Do you know the name? Pedro Garcia?”
Brad shook his head as he typed on his phone. “I’m sending the info to our liaison with SAPD. We’ll pull his file, see if there’s a connection to Nicole or anyone affiliated with Tobias. Let’s talk to Elena Garcia and find out what the hell is going on.”
* * *
Lucy and Brad first checked the Garcia house, a duplex in a neighborhood not far from Mrs. Nocia. No one answered the door. Brad then drove to the Star, a top-rated hotel in downtown San Antonio. After ten minutes of the runaround, they were informed that Elena Garcia had called in sick that morning.
“She’s involved up to her eyeballs,” Brad said as he sped out of the parking garage.
“She could have been threatened,” Lucy said. “She has a mother, two kids.”
“Or she could have used her mother.”
“Why didn’t she just disappear with the boys?” Lucy said. “Mrs. Nocia said a man picked them up.”
“If we believe Mrs. Nocia.”
Brad was skeptical, but Lucy didn’t push her point. She said, “We’ll pull her finances, find out if she has other property, relatives, friends. Put someone on both the grandmother’s house and Elena’s house.”
“When I get the details on the dad, I’ll have the marshals question him,” Brad said. “Get a warrant to search the house.”
“I’ll talk to Father Mateo.”
“Will he cooperate?” Brad said. “In my experience, priests don’t like to give up their parishioners.”
“He’ll talk to me.” She didn’t add that sometimes, priests and others didn’t talk to police because the police hadn’t helped when they really needed it. Father Mateo had a sour history with law enforcement after one of his students disappeared—the police thought the kid was a runaway and hadn’t done more than a cursory search for him, if that. Michael Rodriguez had been kidnapped and nearly died at the hands of a drug cartel. Father Mateo might be a man of God, but he also had a long memory. Fortunately, Lucy had a good relationship with him, and Sean was instrumental in getting the boys’ home running and funded. Considering what had happened today—Father Mateo would help.
Her phone rang. It was Sean.
“Hey,” she said. “I only have a minute. Brad and I are on our way back to headquarters for a debriefing. Did you get my message earlier?”
“I’ve been following the news. Michael called, so I’m heading over to Saint Catherine’s. He’s scared, though he won’t admit it. Says the others are worried and want me to check things out.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Michael, even after his kidnapping ordeal, had been instrumental in helping the DEA identify many of the major players in the southern Texas drug trade. Along with Lucy, he’d seen the elusive Tobias who’d orchestrated so much violence over the last few weeks. Nicole knew who Michael was, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out that he—and the other boys they’d rescued from the cartels—were living at the new boys’ home across the street from Saint Catherine’s.
“I didn’t think that she’d go after Michael.”
“Honestly, I don’t think she will right now—her goal is to get away,” Sean said. “My guess is she’s long gone. But the bus she used was from Saint Catherine’s. I doubt that was a coincidence.”
She hadn’t considered that Nicole planned her escape down to not only using a school bus, but which bus.
“It’s about fear—these people use fear as a weapon. To scare the boys. To intimidate law enforcement.” And me.
“You’re probably right, but don’t go anywhere alone, Lucy. Just in case retribution is in her game plan. I heard she’d escaped in a helicopter, but I’m not taking chances with the boys—or with you. Call me when you know anything. I love you, future Mrs. Rogan.”
She smiled. “Love you too.” She hung up, and her smile disappeared. “Sean and I have a connection to Saint Catherine’s. So does Michael Rodriguez—and Nicole knows that Michael was instrumental in helping us stop Trejo Vasco’s operation and uncovering her involvement.”
“I’ll get a detail on the boys’ home as soon as possible. It might be a few hours—everyone is spread thin right now.”
“Sean’s going there now. He’ll stick with them today.”
Lucy wanted to believe that Nicole had left town, but she feared there was a bigger, more violent plan in the works.
CHAPTER FOUR
Elise Hansen was counting the days until she would be free.
She had no doubt that she would walk out of the courtroom on Wednesday afternoon.
The court might not consider her free. They might expect her to do community service, or live in a group home, or even check in with a probation officer every week. But that didn’t matter, because she wouldn’t be locked in a cage or in this crazy-loons hospital-prison.
Of course, she’d never do the community service or check in with a probation officer. No one in this city would ever see her again.
She sat in Dr. Oakley’s office and stared at her hands. She itched around the edges of the cast that wrapped her right hand. She’d broken her wrist two weeks ago when that bitch fed thought she was saving her life.
“Elise?” Oakley pushed.
The doctor had asked her a difficult question. Not difficult for Elise—she already knew how to answer it—but difficult for the doctor, one of those pivotal questions that would decide if Elise was a victim or a criminal.
Dr. Oakley said in her smooth, calm voice, “We were so close the other day. Don’t close me out now.”
Elise shook her head and, without looking at the bitch, whispered, “I’m not.”
She’d spoken to the doctor every day for almost two weeks. She’d gone through the gamut of emotions: belligerence, rage, fear, sorrow. On Friday she’d broken down completely after the bitch had confronted her about screwing one of the guards—but she didn’t explain herself, and she especially didn’t explain how she’d set up the entire tryst.
<
br /> She loved that word. Tryst. The guard certainly couldn’t talk his way out of it, and Elise had played the it’s-only-my-body card perfectly. But she let the uptight, do-gooder doc peel away the “layers” of her personality to get to the root of her feelings of self-worth, and then she lost it.
Oakley put her on suicide watch, which was exactly what Elise needed. Forty-eight hours of round-the-clock observation. She played the part perfectly, and now here they were.
“Elise?” Oakley said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said quietly. Resigned. Her fate was sealed, nothing the doctor could do or say would be able to fix it.
“Yes, it matters. You matter.”
“I’m going to jail forever. That FBI agent said so.”
Quiet sigh. “Elise, do you trust me?”
Shrug.
“I know it’s difficult for you to trust anyone, but what you tell me is private.”
“I don’t believe you. You have to tell the judge everything I said.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I’m a psychiatrist. Yes, I’m appointed by the court, but my opinion matters.” Pause. “I’ve worked with a lot of girls like you.”
Of course she had. That’s why she’d been appointed Elise’s shrink. Because Barbara Oakley worked with underage prostitutes and victims of sex crimes. Elise wondered why. Had little bitchy Barbara been a bad, bad girl? Had she taken it from her daddy? From her uncle? Had she walked the streets and whored herself? Or was she just a do-gooder who learned everything she knew from a book?
A book, Elise decided. Because if Barbara Oakley had spent any serious time on the street, she wouldn’t have been so easily manipulated.
Elise almost laughed. She’d never walked a street in her life, unless she had a game to play.
Tobias had told her once that the best lies were based on truth. And Elise could twist any of her life stories as if it were written in stone, and everyone would believe her.
Except maybe that bitch fed. Tobias had said to be extra careful with Lucy Kincaid, but Elise didn’t know why. The woman seemed high-strung. She was weak. She had a dark, sick past that Elise could easily exploit. Destroy her with just a few words. But after the hit on the woman failed, Tobias forbade her to engage. Why?
Elise trusted Tobias, and so she would stay away from the fed if she could.
Though she really wanted to skewer her.
“You don’t know how it is,” Elise said.
“Try me.”
Silence. Elise fidgeted.
“I want you to know that it was absolutely wrong for Officer Nance to have sex with you.”
“I said it was okay. It’s not like he raped me or anything.”
“You’re sixteen.”
“So?”
Another sigh. “There are several reasons why it’s wrong, not just because you’re underage. He’s a guard, he’s supposed to protect you, not hurt you.”
“He didn’t hurt me.”
“You’re sixteen,” the do-gooder repeated. “You’re a ward of the court. He can’t have sex with you, even if it was consensual. Even if you said it was okay. Did you really want to have sex with him?”
Of course, Elise thought. It got me extra time with you, bitch.
She shrugged. “It’s what I do.”
“No, it’s not.”
She frowned.
“Elise, my job is not only to evaluate you, but to help you. You have choices. You’re not just a sex toy. You can’t think of yourself like that. You’re a young woman, a smart young woman, who can choose to respect herself.”
“There’s nothing wrong with sex.”
“No, there isn’t—except when it’s a form of abuse.”
She frowned. Inside, she thought, Abuse? Really? What’s this woman smoking?
Elise had never allowed herself to be abused. Everything she did she did because either she wanted to, or it was part of the plan.
“Last week you told me about your mother.”
Elise’s mother was dead, so she’d made up a story. It was one she’d worked on for weeks with Mona Hill, the low-life bitch who ran out on her. But Mona was a master at cover stories and had helped falsify the documentation in case anyone went to verify. She’d been paid well for her services, but then she left. Left when Elise needed her. Her fists clenched in her lap. Elise hoped Tobias found her, gutted her, and left her in a ditch to be eaten alive by coyotes. Just rewards for that coward-bitch-whore.
The cover story was brilliant. Elise’s “mother” had been a prostitute. She’d been raised with men coming in and out of the apartment to screw her mother for money. It was “no big deal.” But her mom got arrested and the system put Elise in foster care.
“I don’t want to talk about her,” Elise said.
“You already did.”
“I don’t want to do it again.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s dead to me.”
“Is that because after she was released she didn’t get you out of foster care?”
That was the lie that Elise had implied—and the doc was smart enough to pick up on it. Score one for the doc. Or for Elise? It was her idea to be subtle. Tobias was too in-your-face, but Elise understood people. If she gave in too easily, Doc Oakley would be suspicious. So Elise had to let the doc pull every “fact” out of her.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“It’s important.”
“Why?”
Her voice cracked. She deserved a fucking Academy Award.
“Because you are important, Elise.”
What the fuck did that mean?
“No one cares about me.” Quiet. Keep your voice quiet so she can’t hear the excitement.
“I care.”
Silence.
Staying quiet was always a good cue. Up the tension and whatever. Talking too much would only get her in trouble.
“I’m better off alone,” she whispered.
“But you’re not alone. You found someone else to be a parent. Your brother, Tobias.”
Tread carefully here, Elise, she warned herself. A little truth, a little lie.
“He’s not really your brother, is he?”
She shook her head. “Not by blood or anything,” she said.
“But?”
“He looks out for me.”
“But you’re scared of him.”
“No.”
Her voice quivered. Just a little.
“Elise, you’re safe here.”
“I’m not.”
“I promise, you are safe.”
“I just … I just want to make him happy.”
“But he’s never truly happy, is he?”
“Yes, he is!” Defiant.
“Last week, you told me that Tobias was in one of your foster care homes, but that wasn’t completely true, was it?”
“Yes, it was.” Whoops. She’d had to backtrack at the time and clam up, because she had some thinking to do. Now she had a better story to go along with the half-truths and outright lies she’d already woven into her past.
“Elise? I need you to be honest with me. I can’t help you if you’re not honest.”
“He wasn’t a foster kid, if that’s what you mean.”
“He’s much older than you.”
“So?”
“You look up to him. Like a big brother. Like a father.”
“Tobias has been more family to me than anyone in my whole entire life!” Sell it, baby!
“I see that you believe that.”
“Because it’s true!”
“Family doesn’t hurt family.”
“Yes they do.”
“Real love doesn’t hurt.”
Frown. “There’s no such thing.”
“Tobias took care of you when you needed it. I see that.”
She sniffed.
“How did Tobias earn your trust, Elise? Why are you protecting him?”
A long silence. Build it up. Make the bitch
think she earned the “truth.”
Finally, she said, “Tobias was the son of my foster parents. He never once tried to fuck me. All the other guys tried to fuck me, but not Tobias.”
Make her believe that he saved you from a fate worse than death. Make her believe that without him, you’d be dead.
“He came over every week for dinner, but I didn’t think he liked his parents much. But he treated all of us like family, you know? Played games—I’d never played board games before. Or card games, or anything. He played and we laughed and it felt like—a family, a real family.
“Then his father…” Stop. Slow down. Not all at once.
Elise stared at her hands.
“And his father what?”
“He—he told me he knew I’d been arrested for prostitution. And he gave me twenty dollars to suck him off.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
Elise made sure she didn’t look at the doc, but she heard the slight intake of breath, subtle, and she knew she had her.
Hook.
Line.
Sinker, sucker.
“And you told Tobias.”
Elise shook her head. “I—I didn’t want to lose this family. I’d been in six foster homes in two years, I just wanted … I don’t know.”
“Stability. Normalcy.”
“I don’t know,” she repeated. “I guess. Just … a place to stay. My own room.”
“How did Tobias find out?”
She bit her lip. “His dad stopped paying me, but expected … more. And I gave it to him. I mean, it’s not a big deal, it’s fast, it doesn’t hurt, just get it over with and everyone’s happy. So I did it. But one day—his wife walked in and she called me a whore. Well, I guess she was right, because it wasn’t like I said no or anything. But then she kicked me out, not him, and I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave the family. I-I-I broke things. I just wanted to stay, why couldn’t she see that? I would have done anything she wanted. I didn’t want to be on the streets, I didn’t want to screw strangers again. And, and…”
She started crying. She let the doc soothe her until she “pulled” herself together. A minute of blubbering was long enough.
Elise blew her nose and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
No Good Deed Page 4
