“Don’t apologize, Elise. You have nothing to apologize for.”
Elise nodded.
“What happened after you broke things? Did your foster mother call child services? The police?”
Elise shrugged. “I-I don’t know. I ran out of the house and called Tobias. He saved me then and has always protected me.”
“But he also had you do things for him, didn’t he?”
“It was just sex. It didn’t mean anything.”
“You had sex with him?”
Confusion in the doc’s voice, and Elise realized she’d gone too far ahead. “No, never! He loves me, like a sister. He just … sometimes … well, with other men, to, you know, so he could get information or whatever. I don’t know, I just did what he told me, and he gave me a place to live, and clothes, and food—”
“He was your pimp.”
“No way. He didn’t take any money. I got to keep it all. And he bought me everything I wanted. He took care of me. He loves me. Like his little sister. He always said he wanted a sister, and now he has m-m-me.”
“He used you, Elise.”
“No. No, no, you got it wrong.” She squeezed out more tears, then wiped her face with the back of her hand. Barb handed her another tissue. Tears always worked with idiots like Barb, but too much and Elise would lose the edge.
“Elise, Tobias gave you a syringe and told you to kill a man.”
“No! He said it was drugs, to make him want to fuck me so that we could get pictures and blackmail him. That man wasn’t supposed to die. I didn’t know, I didn’t know and I wish I could go back, I—I—I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared and Tobias—” She stopped.
“Tobias what?”
“I didn’t want to make him mad. He was counting on me, and I thought I’d screwed up. And I just want to make him happy, because—”
“Because?”
“Nothing.”
“Elise, tell me the truth.”
“I—I know what happens to people who don’t make Tobias happy.”
“What happens to those people?”
Quietly. “They die.”
That, at least, was the truth.
* * *
Before sitting down to talk to Michael, Sean checked the perimeter of the boys’ home, the fences and gates and the alarm system. He’d installed it himself, and it was nearly as elaborate as the security he had installed in his and Lucy’s house. Everything checked.
He’d tried calling Kane, but as usual was forced to leave a message. Sean didn’t doubt his brother would return the call quickly—Kane had become more than a little obsessed with tracking down Tobias. He’d even made the unprecedented move of calling his old friend Rick Stockton, assistant director of the FBI, for information.
“Michael,” Sean said, “was there any other reason you called? Did you see or hear something?”
“No,” the thirteen-year-old boy said. “But Sister Ruth told us what happened, and where Father Mateo went.”
Sister Ruth was a fifty-year-old nun who’d been brought to St. Catherine’s to help set up the boys’ home. She had extensive experience in the administration of such group homes, and state law required that a licensed adult be on the premises at all times. She ran the house—and the nine boys—like a well-oiled machine. Truth be told, Sean was a little afraid of her.
“Lucy’s there, too,” Sean said. “None of the kids on the bus was hurt.”
“That’s what Sister Ruth said.”
“Call me anytime, day or night. No matter how silly you think it is. You have good instincts, Michael. I trust them.”
Sister Ruth walked into the kitchen where Sean and Michael were talking. “Mr. Rogan—I’m so sorry. He shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“I don’t mind,” Sean said. He didn’t. He came by the house several times a week. The house was large, but old and in need of repair. It got hot in Texas, so Sean commissioned a pool. The boys had been through hell and then some; he wanted to give them peace. “I’m going to stay for a while, if that’s okay.”
She frowned. Sean wasn’t sure that she liked him, or the arrangement he’d made with Father Mateo over the boys’ home. But it was his deal, and he didn’t care if the nun approved or not. Sean would do anything in his power to make sure these boys had a sense of normalcy.
“Do you think that’s necessary?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sean said. “These people are ruthless. I don’t think they’ll go after the boys, but I’d rather be cautious. I asked Lucy to look into a protection detail on the house, at least for a few days.”
“They’ve been through so much,” she said, then seemed to notice that Michael was still in the room. “Michael, would you please help the others with their math homework?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Michael said. He nodded to Sean. No smiles. The boy still didn’t smile much, if at all. “Thank you, Sean.”
Sean squeezed his shoulder, then watched him leave.
“He puts the weight of the world on his back,” Sister Ruth said quietly. “I want to help ease his burden, but I can’t seem to break through to him. Unlike you.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Sean said. “He’s slow to trust. But you’re good for him.”
“I’m trying. I don’t know if living here is the right thing for him.”
“It’s the only right thing,” Sean said, tensing. “Michael needs to know that the sacrifices he made, the decisions he made, led to something good. This is good. He needs to see it come to fruition.”
“He’s a thirteen-year-old boy and acts twice his age.”
“You can’t force him to be a child, Ruth.” Lucy and Mateo called Ruth “Sister” but it didn’t roll off of Sean’s tongue smoothly. He hadn’t been raised in any religion, and he wasn’t Catholic. “He needs these boys as much as they need him.”
“I hope you’re right, because my heart aches for him. He’s seen so much violence.” She paused, then said in an even lower voice, “I did missionary work in Guatemala, many years ago, when I was much younger. It was both rewarding and extremely heartbreaking. I saw—” She hesitated, then sighed. “I don’t need to share the details. But sometimes Michael looks like the boy soldiers who came through the village on occasion. Old. Defeated. Empty.”
Sean knew everything about Ruth Baxter because he’d done an extensive background check on her before he allowed her to come to the house, even though Jack Kincaid’s old army buddy Padre heartily recommended her. She’d seen a lot more in her missionary work than boy soldiers walking through her village. She’d seen much, much worse. It was because of her empathy and experiences that he, Mateo, and Lucy thought she’d be good for the boys. If it worked, she’d be here a lot longer than the six months the diocese originally had agreed to loan her to Father Mateo.
“Michael is none of that,” Sean said. “But he has his own demons to fight, and that’s why we’re here—why we opened this house. Why you’re here helping them. Michael, all of them, are survivors, and we’ll make sure they have a future. But to ensure the future, we need to be diligent.”
“I understand, Mr. Rogan.”
“And please, Ruth—stop calling me that. I’m Sean.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Brad and Lucy arrived at FBI headquarters a few minutes after the debriefing started. Every seat in the large conference room was occupied, so they stood in the back of the room while US Marshal Stan Dalton finished his report. Five dead cops—three from the detention center and two from the DEA. The two marshals were both awake but had concussions. They’d given near-identical statements—they’d driven through the intersection on a green light, which immediately changed to red. The transport van couldn’t follow because the school bus rolled into the intersection and stopped. They attempted to call in the threat, but their radios were jammed. Their first thought was that the prisoner was in jeopardy since she was turning state’s evidence against high-ranking cartel members. Though they were on alert with weapons drawn, they were immedia
tely jumped and incapacitated by two men who seemed to have come out of nowhere.
That meant there were more than three individuals involved. Two or three came off the bus, according to Officer Isaac Harris’s statement. Two incapacitated the marshals. That left one or two bad guys who shot and killed the DEA agents. A minimum of five operatives to pull off the escape—and most likely six, counting the getaway driver. The scenario made Lucy wonder if Nicole deliberately spared the marshals while killing DEA agents. If that was true, Nicole had a twisted psychological reason for that decision.
She’s at war with the DEA. They turned on her, investigated her, arrested her.
So did the FBI.
But she worked for the DEA.
“We’re at three hours, forty minutes since the escape,” Dalton said. “Every law enforcement agency has been alerted. We’ve beefed up security at the border—the marshals’ office and the DEA field offices in McAllen and El Paso are heading up the border watch. Where we don’t have a station, we’ve tripled our air patrol and will keep it high for the next seven days at least.”
“She’ll know that,” Brad mumbled. “She’ll wait until we pull people back.”
Either that or she’s already gone, Lucy thought.
Dalton said, “The FBI tech team put together a video of surveillance cameras that has helped us track exactly what happened. If you can, stay after the briefing to watch it. It shows better than I can tell you how violent these bastards are. Here’s what we know: two masked and armed men boarded the bus on South Brazos Street where the driver was scheduled to pick up two brothers. The driver was killed immediately. No child was able to give a description of the shooters but all agreed there were two men. This happened only twelve minutes before the attack on the transport van. The timing was impeccable.”
Dalton looked around the room, his expression grim but fierce.
“It’s clear, based on what Officer Harris had witnessed,” Dalton continued, “that these men will kill without hesitation. Harris was told that if he put down his gun, he would be spared. His partner fought back and was shot and killed. When Harris put down his gun, Rollins told him that there was a bomb on the bus that would explode in five minutes. He risked his life to bring all the children to safety. Not one child died today. We had losses in our ranks, but no child died and dammit, I will take that victory.”
He took a long drink from a water bottle. No one spoke.
“We believe that the explosion had a dual purpose—to give first responders or survivors a distraction, such as the ultimatum given to Officer Harris, and to signal the escape helicopter,” Dalton said. “The helicopter was mocked up to look like a media chopper, but we have located it ninety miles east, approximately halfway to Houston. We have people processing the chopper now. Based on where it landed, we don’t believe that they could have reached the border yet. However, we can’t discount that the location east is a diversion, hoping we’ll move our resources toward Houston so they can escape using another route. Every federal and local agency in Houston is going to work the area from the landing site toward their city, while we’ll focus west of the landing site.”
Lucy was relieved. Nicole would have considered law enforcement protocols and how they would allocate resources, and if she really was heading east she would have landed in a less conspicuous location.
Dalton added, “The Texas Rangers are assisting, their focus in the rural areas. They know back roads and potential hideouts better than anyone. Every law enforcement branch is fully engaged. We will find them. But we all need to keep in mind that they are ruthless and dangerous. They killed five cops today. Every one of you needs to be on full alert at all times. Wear your vests. Go nowhere alone. That is an order, or I will have you removed from this investigation. I want no more dead on my watch.”
Samantha Archer stepped forward. “Thank you, Marshal Dalton. I know you all want to get to work. To that end, the FBI and DEA will be working closely with all other agencies. My office has already identified every known associate of Nicole Rollins and is tracking them down. It is clear that Rollins was involved in the planning. She knew about the bomb even though she has been in solitary for nearly three months. She still had access to an attorney, and had been transported twice this past week to the courthouse. She has used moles in the past, and she very well could have one or more now.”
Surprised murmurs spread through the group of collected agents, but it didn’t surprise either Lucy or Brad.
Archer said, “Agent Donnelly has a report from the field.”
Brad spoke from where he stood and heads shifted toward the back of the room. He told the group about the Garcia brothers and what he and Lucy had learned from their grandmother about the father in prison and the unknown man who picked up the boys.
“We need to remember that Nicole Rollins had us fooled for years,” Brad continued. “She was my partner on several major drug enforcement investigations. She was privy to years of sensitive information about drug dealers and the cartels. She’s been feeding some of them information, yet helping us take down other groups. She subtly steered us to take down the enemies of her boss, Tobias. We don’t have a last name. We believe that he is in charge and Nicole is a high-ranking member of his cartel—otherwise he would have had her killed today. My boss and I have spent the last three months compiling a dossier on how she operated in preparation for a trial that was stopped when she agreed to a plea deal—a plea deal she never planned to complete.”
Lucy frowned. That wasn’t what she and Brad had discussed earlier. But she didn’t say anything. Maybe Brad had a reason for the disinformation. Or maybe he didn’t agree with her that Nicole was in charge.
Brad walked to the front of the room as he continued. “You all need to understand how these people work. Two weeks ago, immediately prior to Nicole agreeing to the plea deal, Tobias orchestrated a hit against his own people. If it weren’t for our partnership with the FBI and the SAPD, we may never have seen the connection. I say this because you might not know what’s important when you see it. We need every detail, no matter how small or irrelevant it seems. It took us years to uncover Rollins as a traitor—she slipped up, but her slip was caught only because good agents were doing their jobs well. In addition, Tobias—using information we believe Rollins gave him about our procedures—disguised a bomb in heroin that took out our evidence locker and killed a security guard.”
Sam Archer said, “We have a team in Washington poring over Rollins’s finances. We had previously uncovered over two million dollars in hidden assets, but to orchestrate an escape like this, she must have had more resources. In addition, Tobias was able to siphon off nearly four million in funds that the late Congresswoman Adeline Reyes-Worthington had laundered for him through her real estate scams. The FBI managed to cut off their money supply, but these people are resourceful and vicious.”
Dalton and Archer answered questions from the group, then Abigail Durant, one of the FBI’s three ASACs, stood up and said, “Dalton and the marshals’ office will be taking the lead on tracking the fugitive Nicole Rollins. I will liaison with the marshals. Any information that directly relates to a sighting or Rollins’s whereabouts must be reported to your immediate supervisor or me, anytime of the day or night. Please see your direct supervisor for your assignments.” She looked over at Lucy. “Kincaid, I need to see you in my office immediately.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lucy stood outside Abigail Durant’s door, her stomach doing little flips, but she couldn’t think of a reason why she’d be in trouble. For the ten minutes she waited she went through everything she’d done today and during her last investigation into the murder of Harper Worthington and grew increasingly nervous that something was seriously wrong.
Abigail walked briskly down the hall toward Lucy and smiled apologetically as she opened her door. She motioned to one of two chairs opposite her desk. “Thank you for waiting, Agent Kincaid. Please, sit down.”
Lucy sat bu
t remained rigid. She admired Abigail, a crisp, professional woman in her forties. But she’d rarely spoken to her directly—assignments came through her direct supervisor, SSA Juan Casilla.
“Juan will be out for the next few days,” Abigail said. “Nita, his wife, went into labor this morning.”
“Is everything okay?” Lucy liked Juan’s family, and regretted that she hadn’t spent time with them recently.
“Nita collapsed this morning. They may be performing an emergency C-section. Juan said he would let me know, but I don’t expect a call anytime soon. I’m supervising your unit until Barry returns. I left him a message this morning and asked him to call in. We need all hands this week.”
When Lucy first worked with Agent Barry Crawford, she thought he not only was too by-the-book, but clocked out at five without any thought to putting in extra time to solve cases and give victims peace. She’d learned that he led a very balanced life, and the time he did put into the job was focused and dedicated. They were certainly quite different in how they approached their jobs, but Lucy had grown to respect Barry’s methodology and sharp instincts. That said, they hadn’t spoken much since the Harper Worthington murder investigation ended. Lucy trusted Barry as a cop, but not as a friend after she learned he’d called agents in Washington, DC, to investigate her behind her back. She was trying to accept it, and move on, but it still bothered her.
Lucy was curious why Abigail was waiting for Barry when there were other senior agents who could take over temporarily. She didn’t say anything, however.
“When Juan and I spoke,” Abigail continued, “he said that Brad Donnelly asked for your assistance, a loan to the DEA for the duration. He wants both you and Ryan Quiroz.”
“Agent Donnelly has some trust issues right now.”
Abigail nodded. “Juan explained. I need you on another part of the task force and I’m not sure you can do both.”
Abigail opened a drawer and pulled out a thick folder. She slid it across the desk toward Lucy. “Nicole Rollins’s file,” Abigail said. “Her initial background check, psych exams, test scores, evaluations. Essentially, an expanded personnel record. Before the debriefing, I contacted headquarters to expedite a profile of Rollins. I spoke with Dr. Hans Vigo, an assistant director whom I understand you know well.”
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