“Tobias is connected to both Congresswoman Reyes-Worthington and to Nicole. Did Rick fill you in on Tobias? And my theory that he and Nicole are partners?”
“Yes,” Noah said. “I’m up to speed. The timing is too coincidental, there is most likely a connection. Dunbar has an apartment in San Antonio—I’m sending you the location. He wasn’t supposed to leave anything related to the case—”
“But you want us to verify. Absolutely. Call me if you need anything, Noah. I’m sorry about Agent Dunbar.”
“Thank you, Lucy. Please be careful out there.”
Lucy ended the call and Brad immediately said, “Logan Dunbar was killed?”
“Last night, when he returned to DC.” She glanced at Sean. He had a dark expression on his face and looked more like his older brother Kane than she’d ever thought before.
“Noah thinks that bitch is involved.”
Lucy was about to argue with Sean, try to convince him that Dunbar’s murder and Nicole’s escape were unconnected. But she didn’t believe it, and Sean would be furious if she tried to pretend there was nothing to be concerned about.
“He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence,” Lucy said carefully. “Noah doesn’t know why, but his current theory is that Dunbar knew something that might have hindered Nicole’s escape. He and Barry had been working nonstop putting together cases against those involved with the congresswoman. And Noah hasn’t discounted that it may have been one of the lobbyists Dunbar was going after connected to the Worthington case.”
Sean wasn’t buying it. “She killed five cops. Six isn’t stretching it.”
“Sean—” Lucy began.
“You two,” Sean said, cutting her off, “started this. With Ryan. You have to warn him.”
“She’s on the run,” Brad said. “Why come back here? Every cop in Texas is looking for her.”
“She didn’t pull the trigger on Dunbar, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved. Nicole is connected to Tobias. Tobias has extensive connections. Call Ryan. And then call Barry.”
Lucy felt physically ill. Would Nicole go after them out of spite? Revenge? Anger? There had to be a reason—because Nicole Rollins did nothing without a reason.
But she pulled up her phone and dialed Ryan Quiroz.
“It’s nearly eleven,” Ryan answered.
“Agent Logan Dunbar was murdered last night in DC. There may be a connection with his undercover work in San Antonio.” She hesitated, then added, “There may be a connection to Nicole Rollins.”
“That’s fucked.”
“You said it.” She hesitated. “Where are your boys?”
“Austin, with my ex. I drove them back up yesterday.”
“Do you have a friend who can check on them?”
“Yes. You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”
“I’ll call my ex-brother-in-law. He’s a cop in Austin.”
She hung up and called Barry. His phone went directly to voice mail. “Barry, it’s Lucy Kincaid. Call me as soon as you get this message, any time of the day or night.” She didn’t want to say too much over the phone, but she felt she didn’t have a choice under the circumstances. “Logan Dunbar was murdered last night. So please, call me.” She hung up.
“Why isn’t he answering?” Brad asked.
Lucy was now very worried about Barry. She’d texted him earlier, left a message earlier, she’d just called him … why hadn’t he at least reached out? She sent an email message to Abigail Durant.
Have you spoken to Agent Crawford? I haven’t been able to reach him all day.
“You need to have Juan send someone to check on him,” Sean said.
“I emailed Durant, the ASAC. Nita went into labor today. Juan’s going to be gone for the rest of the week.” She scanned emails, but didn’t see a baby announcement.
Sean glanced at Brad. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight. Our house is a fortress.”
“I’ll be okay,” Brad said, stretching. “But thanks anyway.”
Lucy walked him to the door. “Headquarters, nine a.m.,” she said.
Brad hesitated. “Are you sure about this? I don’t think you should talk to her. I doubt she knows anything.”
“We’ll find out.”
She closed the door and turned, surprised to find Sean standing behind her. “Who?” he asked.
“Elise Hansen.”
“Why do you need to talk to her?”
“You know why.”
“Her connection to Tobias.”
“And Nicole. We need information. Hans will be here in the morning, I’m not doing this alone.”
Sean touched her cheek. “I won’t ask you not to do this.”
“Thank you.”
“But Lucy—do not let her get to you.”
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her head on his chest. She didn’t have a response. All she could do was shut down her emotions, focus on the facts. She hugged him for a long minute. “I should clean up the kitchen,” she whispered.
“Tomorrow,” he said and picked her up.
Her hand rested over his heart, which was beating rapidly. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Please, Sean.”
“Asking me not to worry is like asking me to stop breathing.” He held her tight as he walked up the stairs and turned into their bedroom. “I love you, Lucy.” He dropped her onto the bed and fell down beside her. He took her hand, the one with the engagement ring, and kissed it. “I couldn’t survive if anything happened to you.”
His voice cracked and she grabbed his face and brought his lips to hers. “Nothing,” she murmured, “will happen to me.”
“Don’t,” he said, staring at her. His dark-blue eyes darkened, deepened, and she couldn’t look away. “Don’t say it. Don’t jinx it. Just be here now, just tell me you love me.”
“I love you, Sean,” she whispered.
Sean leaned in to kiss her when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. “Dammit,” he whispered. He pulled it out, planning on sending the caller to voice mail, but it was eleven at night and it could be … “Kane,” he said.
They sat at the end of the bed. “When I say it’s important, I mean it,” Sean answered.
“Tobias’s people kidnapped Andrea Walsh’s sister in Santiago to use as bait to lure me in. We took out four of the five goons, lost one of my men, and Blitz is taking Siobhan to Jack’s place as we speak.”
“Shit, Kane. Where are you?”
Lucy leaned in to listen, her hand entwined with Sean’s.
“Tracking the fifth man. I’m calling to give you and Lucy a heads-up. Siobhan said a man named Joseph put the bounty on my head. They want me alive because they think I have their money.”
“What?” Sean wasn’t easily confused, but this one stumped him.
“They will soon figure out I’m not the one with the skill,” he said pointedly.
Lucy squeezed his hand hard. Very hard.
“The FBI has their money, good luck getting it out of them. Pass it along.”
“I don’t think that’s their point,” Kane said. “I spoke to Jack, he told me about Rollins. Her escape coupled with the bounty on me—plus their desire to retrieve the money the FBI seized—makes you a target. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Watch your ass, Sean. And Lucy.”
“Watch your own,” Sean began, but the line went dead. “Damn him.” Sean stood and ran his hands through his hair. “He has a fucking bounty on his head and he’s in Santiago tracking one of the men who tried to grab him?”
“Sean—they’re going to figure out it was you.”
“They can’t. My name isn’t on anything. No one even knows I was there, and ASAC Dean Hooper is the name on the docs.”
“We should warn him, too. Do these people really think they can target federal agents and get away with it?”
“These people think they can get away with anything, and
they will—until they’re stopped.” Sean pulled Lucy into a hug, but he was thinking about Kane. And the threat to Lucy. Unspoken, but it was there. “Joseph—why does that name sound familiar?”
“Joseph Contreras worked for Adeline Worthington. We believe he’d been working for Tobias as well, and that he killed Adeline when she agreed to turn state’s evidence.”
“Tobias killed Garza and Contreras killed Worthington, and they both disappeared.” Sean stared at Lucy. “Promise me, Lucy—”
“Don’t say it. Promise me the same.”
He held her close. His life would be over if anything happened to her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Brad knocked on Sam’s door. It was late, but she’d be up.
She answered with a gun in her hand.
“What are you doing here?”
“Can I come in?”
She hesitated, then sighed and opened the door. “I’m tired, but I can’t sleep,” she said. She bolted the door behind him. “I’m lost, Brad.”
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“Of course it was!” Sam exclaimed. “You warned me. I knew she was dangerous, I knew she was a liar, but I thought—hell, I don’t know what I thought.”
Her eyes were red, and though she wasn’t drunk she was well on her way. Not good. After the call Lucy got from DC about the FBI agent who’d been killed, they all needed to be on alert. No way was he leaving her alone, vulnerable.
“This wasn’t your call,” he said. “The AUSA and the DOJ made the decision to negotiate that plea deal. I made my opinion well known, but no one cared. Except you. You did everything you could to minimize her chance of escape.”
Sam picked up a drink that looked like it was more vodka than cranberry juice. She drained it.
Brad took the glass from her and walked to the kitchen, rinsed it out and put it in the sink.
“Don’t be a dick,” Sam said.
He turned to face her. “Sammie—”
“Don’t call me that.” But she averted her eyes.
He stepped forward. “Agent Kincaid wants to talk to you tomorrow about Nicole. She’s profiling the bitch, with some high-ranking shrink from DC.”
“I know. She sent me a message. I’ll be in a meeting with Moody all morning. If I still have a job when they’re done with me, I told Lucy I’d talk to her after lunch.”
“You’ve got to get it together, Sam.”
“She killed five cops. Two were mine.”
“They were my friends, too, Sam.”
“But they worked for me. I should have protected them. Done … something different.”
“Dammit, Sam, what could you have done? The AUSA ordered the transfer from the jail to the courthouse so Nicole could talk … she had no intention of doing or saying anything that would help us. This was planned from the beginning. Yeah, I’m pissed. I’m furious. But they had inside information, otherwise they’d never have been able to pull this off. They have money and resources. A helicopter. Access to information. A fucking plan. But the plan can’t be mapped out forever. She doesn’t have enough money to hide forever. We will find her.”
“God, I hope you’re right.”
“Hope has nothing to do with it, Sammie,” he said, ignoring her previous admonition. “We’re better than she is. We’ll pursue every lead, look under every rock, we will not stop until she is in prison or dead.” Dead, he thought. He wanted Nicole Rollins dead in the worst way, and that made him uncomfortable. Not because she didn’t deserve it, but because he felt no guilt.
He didn’t want to test his character. He hoped someone else—someone stronger than him—found and arrested her before Brad had to make that decision.
Brad touched her hair, her face, her neck. “Sammie—”
“We shouldn’t be doing this, Brad. I told you last week—”
“Shh.” He kissed her.
Yeah, this was wrong. Sam was his boss. They’d had an affair years ago, when they were colleagues but equals. That hadn’t worked well, but now they were both older. Smarter. More disciplined. They’d kept their distance because Sam was his boss and he didn’t want to be forced to transfer, but the night after Nicole’s plea agreement was signed off by the court, they’d had dinner and one thing led to another and reminded Brad that he still cared for Sam. That she needed him.
And now she needed him even more.
“Brad—” she said, breathless.
“You talk too much,” he said and kissed her again.
Her resistance was short-lived. In a blink she turned the tables and pushed him against the kitchen counter, her long, lean body pressed hard against his.
Life was too short to live with regrets.
* * *
Joseph reached over Niki’s naked body and grabbed his cell phone. She ran her hands over his bare chest. “Who is it?” she asked, her voice husky from sex and sleep.
“The guy sitting on Archer’s house.”
“Don’t let him touch her.”
“I know, sweetheart.” Joseph answered the call. “What?”
“Donnelly showed up here about an hour ago. Hasn’t left. Lights just went off.”
“Interesting,” Joseph said.
Nicole sat up. “Did he say Donnelly was there?”
Joseph put his finger to her lips. “Let me know when he leaves,” he said.
“I can take them both.”
“No. Stay where you are. Report any change of status.”
“Yes, boss.”
Joseph hung up and rolled on top of Niki. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“It will fuck him up. I want to do it.”
“It’s too dangerous. We need to wait.”
“It’s my risk to take.”
Joseph used his knee to spread her legs apart. “I’m not going to lose you, Niki.” He slowly entered her. With Niki, he was always ready, always craving her. He would do anything for her. He had killed for her. He would die for her.
She sighed and closed her eyes. “You won’t lose me,” she whispered.
He didn’t talk. Instead, he showed her how much he loved her. He made love slowly, meticulously, until he felt the switch inside her flip, the one where she turned from being in control to giving it up. Her body heated and sweat glistened on her skin in the dim lights. It was late, they were exhausted from the escape and then spending all afternoon and evening in bed. But he would never be too tired to bring the woman he loved the simple pleasure of orgasm.
They’d been apart too long. Stolen hours for three years. Before San Antonio, they didn’t have to be as discreet, but he’d had work to do south of the border and there were times when they’d been apart for months.
Joseph brought Niki over the top, and he followed her. He kissed her, held her, whispered his love in her ear.
“Take me to her,” Niki said. “I want her to see me when she dies.”
He didn’t want to. He wanted to run far away, him and Niki, and disappear. Let Tobias try to run the operation without them. He would be dead or in jail within a month.
“Anything for you,” he said.
She smiled and kissed him.
“On one condition,” he added.
She raised an eyebrow. “Conditions?”
“One. I’m going with you. You do exactly what I say. If I say we leave, we leave. Trust my instincts, Niki. The one time you didn’t, you ended up in jail.”
Her body stiffened, and he almost felt bad for saying it. Except she had to see that this was where he served her best. Protecting her.
Then she sighed and relaxed. “I became too arrogant.”
“It wasn’t you. It was Sanchez and Trejo. You were juggling many things. You were simply trying to fix their mistakes.
“I could have stopped them, but I liked the plan. Donnelly was becoming bolder. Getting close. But he didn’t realize how close he was, and it was foolish of me to sanction the hit on him. I should have found another way to take him out.”
&nb
sp; “Don’t.” He kissed her again. “Don’t beat yourself up. You are the smartest woman I know. Brad Donnelly has never played by the rules, and he was already causing problems in our organization. Sanchez and Trejo simply had no talent for planning.”
“It was Kane Rogan,” she said with a scowl. “He’s fucked us over more times than I can count. That little bitch Kincaid would never have found Trejo if Rogan didn’t lead her there by the nose. They will both be dead when this is over.”
“We need to kill Rogan now. Allowing him to live is dangerous.”
“It’s the plan to interrogate him, and you agreed.”
“Yes, but—” How did he explain to her that the last two weeks had put him on edge? He’d never felt so vulnerable. Maybe because in the past, no one knew that Niki was part of the operation. Now she was America’s Most Wanted. And … he wasn’t confident that Rogan would give them anything. The man had been a marine, had gone up against some of the biggest cartels. He’d been a one-man wrecking crew in some regions, and the loyalty of his men was admirable. There were rumors about what he’d done, about what he’d suffered … but Joseph didn’t know how much was true and how much was grandstanding. Still, a marine wouldn’t break easily under torture.
Instead of arguing with Niki, he said, “We have a big enough nest egg to disappear.”
“We’ve talked about this. It’s not only about the money. We made promises, and we have to keep them or we’ll never be safe, or free.” She paused. “And what we have won’t last. A couple of years, and then what? We need the money that was stolen from us, rebuild our operation, and then we go.”
He dropped the subject. He would bring it up, again, when this stage was over.
It was partly about the money. When Adeline Worthington cut ties with Tobias and hid their money, they couldn’t retrieve it all.
Because of Kane Rogan. But it wasn’t solely the mercenary who stopped them—it was that fed, Lucy Kincaid, a bitch with a bone, digging and digging until they had to cut and run.
The bigger plan was to take their money and set up an empire in South America. With Tobias as the figurehead and Nicole and Joseph running the operation from behind the scenes—and far away—they would control the lion’s share of the drug trade into the United States. Once they put Kane Rogan’s head on a stick and paraded him around for the cartels to see, the cartels would bow down to them. Everyone wanted Kane Rogan dead, but only Nicole would deliver his corpse.
No Good Deed Page 12
