No Good Deed

by Allison Brennan

  He knew which asshole called the cops. It was the old Indian busboy. This place was supposed to be a sanctuary, but he saw how the janitor looked at him. It was more than recognition.

  But Mac had waited too long to act. He saw people starting to slip out of the bar. Half of them had guns, could take him out if they wanted to. They just didn’t want to be caught by the fucking cops because they were either on parole or wanted fugitives.

  Like that ever stopped him from carrying a piece.

  Mac made a call. The phone was answered on the first ring.

  He didn’t call Tobias. Tobias wouldn’t give a shit about him or his girl.

  “Problem?”

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t do what Dom did.”

  “Don’t let Tobias get to my girl.”

  “Be a hero, and I’ll protect her. I give you my word.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Contreras. I’ll take out as many of them as I can.”

  “Icing on the cake.”

  Mac hung up. He slipped the burner phone into his beer just in case the feds had a way of tracing the call. Yesterday, he’d considered grabbing Diana and the kid and just disappearing, but he didn’t have anyplace to go. The money he’d been paid would run out fast on the run. He’d been born and raised in San Antonio. And today, he would die in San Antonio.

  He stood up and stretched. Looked around. Half the bar had cleared out. The bartender eyed him warily.

  “Big Mac, we don’t want any trouble.”

  “You should have warned me.”

  “I didn’t know! I swear, not until people started leaving.”

  Mac grabbed a hooker who was too high to realize what was going on.

  “Hey, sugar, pay up first.”

  He’d never paid a whore in his life.

  “Not so tight!” she whined.

  He pulled out his gun. A solid .45 with a magazine of twelve rounds. But it wasn’t just the power of the gun. It was the type of rounds he used, jacketed hollow-points. Might not pierce the Kevlar, but he could do some serious damage. And one of these babies in the thigh and the bastard would bleed out in minutes.

  The whore stared at the gun and started shaking, but kept her mouth shut. Which was good because he might have just popped her there.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the barkeep reaching under the counter. Mac aimed and fired without hesitation. The bullet hit a little high—he forgot about the kick this baby had—slamming into the guy’s upper right shoulder. He grabbed himself and dropped to the ground. As if Mac would waste another bullet on him.

  Eleven bullets.

  The whore started crying and Mac held her close, the barrel of the gun at the back of her head.

  “Come in and get me, assholes,” he muttered. He kept his back to the bar, where he could see the front door and the hall that led to the bathrooms. At the end of that hall was the storeroom and a back door. The cops could come in from either entrance. Or both, simultaneously.

  The customers who hadn’t already left cowered in the corners and at their tables. He glared at them. “Make a move, I’ll kill ya,” he said.

  No one moved. Pussies.

  He heard the boots in the hall before he saw a cop. He focused on the doorway. Saw the tip of a rifle pointed slightly down. To his right, the front door jiggled, just a little. Both entrances at once.

  Sure, do it. Let’s get this over.

  I’m sorry, Diana. It was fun while it lasted.

  As soon as he saw the cop in the hall step forward, Mac started shooting.

  Ten.

  Nine.

  Eight bullets left …

  The SWAT team moved in and Mac got three rounds off, all aimed at the first guy through the door, before two bullets hit him in the head.

  But he didn’t know it was two bullets because he was already dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Supervisory Special Agent Blair Novak had been a federal agent for twenty-one years. She’d been offered an ASAC position in Omaha, Nebraska, five years ago, which she turned down because she had no burning desire to live in the Midwest, and her husband had just been promoted at Lockheed, a private defense contractor, and was beginning to make some serious money. Then three years ago she’d been offered a desk job with a 15 percent salary increase to move to Washington, DC, and work in headquarters. She and Johnny had seriously talked about that position. Not because of the money—Johnny was pulling in six figures plus even better benefits than she was—but because his mom lived in Virginia and her parents lived in Baltimore and they thought maybe they should go back home. Johnny could work at the Lockheed office in Virginia, and travel to LA as needed.

  But the kids came first. JJ was a high school sophomore and Mia was a freshman. How could she just uproot her children? They’d moved from DC to LA because of her job in the first place, when JJ was starting the third grade. The move had been hardest on the kids, and she’d vowed not to do it again until they graduated. So she stayed in LA as an SSA and never regretted it. She liked her job. She liked her colleagues. She was up for a promotion to ASAC of the Long Beach Resident Agency at the end of the year when the current ASAC retired. It would be a major advance. She’d miss the fast-paced downtown office, but she’d be in charge and closer to home.

  She would have helped Hans Vigo even if she didn’t want the promotion, but she was more than eager to do a great job because Vigo’s name carried a lot of weight in the Bureau.

  Blair Novak wasn’t stupid, though. If this case was as dangerous as she thought, no way was she talking to the mother of an escaped felon by herself. She tagged rookie agent Carter Nix. He was late entering the Bureau like so many recent rookies. When she was a new agent, the average age of Quantico grads was twenty-five. Now? Thirty-two. A lot had changed in twenty years. They now had more former military in their ranks and many in local law enforcement wanted to do a stint at the Bureau for either the benefits, the retirement package, or the types of crimes feds investigated.

  Nix was a former marine, thirty-three, and had been assigned to Los Angeles when he graduated six months ago. He was married with two little girls, and his wife was still in the process of moving the family west. She hadn’t wanted to move the girls from Denver in the middle of the school year. Blair liked Nix, liked the way he thought, but mostly she liked the fact that he was a sharpshooter with good instincts. Not that she was expecting trouble, but she preferred to have someone solid at her side.

  On the way to Tamara Rollins’s residence in Topanga Canyon, Blair thanked Nix for working late—it was after six, and they should have been wrapping up paperwork and heading home. While she didn’t mind putting in the extra hours, she increasingly appreciated the time she had with her family.

  “It’s not a problem, ma’am,” Nix said. “My family won’t be here until the end of the month. I don’t have much of a home to go home to right now.”

  She wanted to ask if there was anything wrong—she had a feeling that the assignment to Los Angeles hadn’t gone over well with Nix’s wife—but decided it was better to keep their relationship professional.

  She filled Nix in on their assignment. “The property belongs jointly to both Tamara Rollins and her sister, Margaret Hunt. The only reason it wasn’t seized in asset forfeiture when Jimmy Hunt fled the country was because it had been willed to Margaret and Tamara by their parents, and Jimmy Hunt isn’t on the deed.”

  “How’d it slip by that a wanted fugitive has a niece in the DEA?” Nix asked.

  “According to AD Vigo, Nicole’s paperwork indicates that her mother is deceased. She also listed only her mother and brother as relatives—no aunts or uncles. We don’t require employees to show a death certificate when they lose a parent, but it makes me curious as to why she lied about that. And the paperwork indicated that Tamara Rollins was living in Austin, Texas at the time.” She paused a moment as she slowed for a sharp turn. “The DEA agent responsible for verifying information about Nicole Rollins’s fami
ly made several mistakes. He’s currently under investigation.”

  “Mistakes? Or intentional?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Twenty minutes later they found themselves at a gate on a private road off Old Topanga Canyon Road, nearly halfway between the Pacific Coast Highway and the 101 Freeway. Topanga itself was an interesting community, a combination of extremely wealthy homeowners wanting the privacy and seclusion of the Topanga Canyon, and longtime residents in small, crumbling houses that may have been here since the 1960s when growing pot was just to get high, not cultivate and sell. The hills and valleys that made up Topanga Canyon were surrounded by areas like Malibu and Pacific Palisades and Mulholland Highway, but the canyon itself was peaceful, a remnant of how Blair thought Los Angeles might have been sixty years ago.

  Blair pressed a call button on the gate. Several minutes later a female voice said, “May I help you?”

  “My name is Special Agent Blair Novak with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Blair said. “I’m looking to speak to Ms. Tamara Rollins regarding her daughter, Nicole Rollins.”

  Silence. She wondered if they would even open the gate. She waited a good half minute before she said, “Ma’am? Did you hear me?”

  “Tami doesn’t live here anymore,” the voice said.

  “Are you Margaret Hunt?”

  “Yes, I’m Margaret.”

  “Do you have a minute? It’s important I talk to Mrs. Rollins.”

  There was a click, then nothing. Blair shook her head. “People,” she muttered. She was tense, because Hans Vigo had made her tense. If Margaret Hunt was involved in her husband’s illegal activity, then they had to be very careful around her.

  The electric gate slowly swung open.

  “I’m getting twitchy,” Nix said.

  “You and me both,” she said. “Stay alert.”

  Blair drove up a very long driveway to the top of a hill. The trees and brush were dangerously dry, thanks to the drought, but had been cleared from around the large and well-maintained ranch-style home. A wide porch wrapped around the front and sides of the house.

  A barn to the east had all doors closed. Two other outbuildings could be seen through scraggly oak trees that dotted the uneven land. Property records indicated that Margaret Hunt and her sister owned twenty acres, which would be worth a small fortune. The land alone was worth millions.

  Margaret Hunt met them at the door. “You don’t mind if we talk out here, do you?” she asked, though it didn’t sound like a question. She motioned to a picnic table on the porch. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you for speaking with us,” Blair said and took a seat. Nix didn’t. He stood behind her and watched their surroundings.

  Margaret Hunt was in her sixties with long silvery-gray hair she had braided neatly down her back. She wore no makeup and her glasses made her blue eyes seem bigger and brighter. She was petite with firm, tanned skin over a layer of sinewy muscles.

  “I’m going to be honest with you from the get-go. I’m not a fan. I don’t trust the police, and I certainly don’t trust the feds.”

  “Because your husband is a wanted fugitive?”

  “Because of how you all treated me because my husband is a dipshit,” she said.

  “Fair enough,” Blair said. “We’re not here about your husband. We need to speak with your sister, and the DMV lists Tamara Rollins at this address.”

  “I haven’t seen my sister in five years. I haven’t seen my husband in five years. You put it together.”

  Okay, Blair thought. Time to change gears. “Are you aware that your niece Nicole Rollins escaped from custody yesterday morning?”

  “Yep.” She gestured toward the roof, though Blair couldn’t see what she was pointing at. “Got satellite, saw it on the news. Nicole doesn’t talk to me any more than she talks to her mother.”

  “We’re trying to cover all the bases. Has Nicole reached out to you since she escaped?”

  “Nope. She’s not welcome here, and she knows it. I washed my hands of that family five years ago. I’m through. That’s what I said to the feds then, and nothing has changed.”

  “We’re trying to piece together Nicole’s background. Much of the information in her record has been falsified. Were you ever contacted by a DEA agent when the agency did a background check on Nicole prior to her employment?”

  Margaret stared at her. “Look, Agent Novak, I’m a recovering alcoholic. I barely remember living with my husband, let alone my sister and her family. Why? Because I was drunk and stoned and should probably be dead now. It took my husband picking my sister over me to make me realize I made my own fucking bed and needed to start clean. Good riddance. I never even knew what day it was fifteen, twenty years ago, let alone if any cop came to talk to me. And I doubt Jimmy would have let anyone talk to me. He never knew what I might say or do because I was addicted to anything that made me numb and happy.” She scowled.

  Blair changed tactics. “Do you remember when your sister and brother-in-law came to live with you?”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t so bad off then. Tami and John and their kids. At first it was good. I mean, Tami owns this property just like I do, she had a right to live here. She and John took the house up the road. Originally a barn, my daddy converted it to a house. But Jimmy and John fought all the time. You know—Jimmy ain’t no saint, and John was a cop. John was killed in some gang battle or something—I never knew the details. Only that Jimmy took care of his kids, Chris and Nicole.” She snorted. “And Tami. Took care of Tami a little bit too much, I tell you.”

  “We’ve been looking into the shooting that killed Officer Rollins, and there’s been some information that he was a corrupt cop who may have been caught in a sting operation.”

  Margaret stared at her. “I never heard about that,” she said flatly.

  “It’s not in any official records. Right now, it’s an unsubstantiated rumor.”

  “Chris, I’m betting.” Margaret shook his head. “He really had a chip on his shoulder. I guess I don’t blame him much, he was seventeen when his daddy was killed, and John and Jimmy never got along. The kid knew that. He left as soon as he hit eighteen. Didn’t even graduate from high school, just got his GED and joined the army. Think he might have gone through an ROTC program, you know, where you go to college and are a soldier-in-training or some such thing. I really don’t remember. Tami used to keep in touch with him, but hell if I know what she does now.”

  “There’s nothing in Nicole’s file about you or her uncle. The only family members she listed was her mother, who she claimed died two years ago, and her brother.”

  Margaret snorted. “Well, the news said she was a fugitive, a DEA agent who was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Why would you expect her to tell the truth about anything?”

  “Did she have any close friends growing up?”

  “Nope. She was a smart girl, did well in school, and fought with her mother. That’s all I remember about her. She moved out when she went to college, and the last time I remember seeing her was…” She frowned. “I really can’t say. The last time I saw her was during my fuzzy years. I think I went to her college graduation, but I’m not sure. We had a party here, I remember that.”

  “Do you recall ever meeting a man named Tobias? He would be a little older than Nicole.”

  She shrugged. “I really don’t know. Nicole didn’t bring men around. She had one boyfriend for a long time, don’t know what happened to him. His name wasn’t Tobias.”

  “Do you remember who this boyfriend was?”

  She shrugged. “It’s ancient history. Why do you care about who she dated in college?”

  College. Right before she joined the DEA. “We’re trying to figure out who knew Nicole at the time she joined the DEA. It might help us find her.”

  “Good luck with that,” Margaret said. “I don’t like my sister, and I’m certainly not going to lose sleep over her kid being hunted by you feds. I don’t like them, I don’t l
ike you, and I just want to be left alone. My husband fucked up my life, and I’m done.” She stood up. “You know, you’re all the same. Come up here nosing around, playing games. Not telling me shit, because you think I’m stupid, just like Jimmy and Tami thought I was stupid and didn’t know they were fucking around. Asking about Tobias and Joseph as if I know every idiot Nicole screwed. I. Am. Done.” She walked into the house and slammed the door.

  Blair could hardly contain her excitement. She walked to the car, got into the driver’s seat. Nix followed around to the passenger side.

  “Why didn’t you call her on that slip-up?” Nix said.

  “Because she would have stopped talking anyway.” Blair turned the car around and started back down the long, winding gravel driveway.

  “There were people in the barn. Don’t know how many, but a couple. Could have been laborers.” His tone suggested otherwise.

  “We’re going to dig around and find something so we can get a warrant and search her property and financials.”

  “You don’t believe her?”

  Blair considered as she turned onto Old Topanga Canyon Road and headed back to headquarters. “The best liars are those who mix truth with fiction. I think a lot of what she said was the truth. And a lot of what she said was a deliberate lie. Calculated so we leave thinking she’s the betrayed wife of a wanted fugitive. She’s still married to him even though he fled the country with her sister.”

  “If he left with her sister.”

  Blair hadn’t considered that. “You think that Tami Rollins is still around?”

  “Like you said, the best liars mix truth and fiction. What if she really is dead and Nicole wasn’t lying about that?”

  “There’d be a record of it. She didn’t die in Austin, as Nicole said.” Blair had that butterfly in her stomach that told her she had a juicy case in front of her. “We need to find Tami Rollins or learn what happened to her. And now we know that Joseph Contreras knew Nicole in college. Nicole went to UCLA. I worked an investigation there a couple of years back, I know the assistant dean very well. Let’s swing by and see what he’ll give us without a warrant. I find people are far more forthcoming chatting face-to-face.” And if he wanted a warrant, she would get one.