Dead Heat

by Allison Brennan

  He also gave them a brief rundown of the sting, the raid, and what they’d found in the basement of the hardware store that fronted Sanchez’s drug and weapons storage facility.

  “DEA Agent Brad Donnelly called the shots, and he was right on. We dealt Sanchez a major blow.” Ryan motioned to Lucy. “Agent Kincaid will fill you in on her parallel investigation.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  “You said you had information about Michael Rodriguez.”

  She cleared her throat. This was the first time she’d had to formally speak in front of her colleagues. As she spoke, Casilla and Donnelly walked into the back of the room and remained standing.

  “The girl Bella Borez confirmed that the boy kept chained in the basement for the past four weeks is Michael Rodriguez. Michael was a suspected runaway fourteen months ago, leaving his foster family in what I believe was his attempt to protect them from a threat.

  “Based on interviews with Bella, Michael’s foster mother, and Michael’s priest, it seems that about a week before his disappearance, Michael started behaving strangely. He went to his old neighborhood and was seen with a younger boy known as Richard Diaz.”

  “A classmate?” Kenzie asked.

  “No, Father Flannigan didn’t know much about the boy, but suspected he was from Michael’s past. I don’t have all the details yet, I literally just learned about this right before I heard about Bella Borez’s kidnapping. However, there are several indirect connections between Jaime Sanchez and Michael Rodriguez, primarily through his father Vince and common associates.

  “Sometime after Michael first disappeared, he was scarred or tattooed with a symbol that appears to be gang-related. No one has identified it yet.” She pointed to the copy on the master board. “He was missing and unseen by anyone who knows him until Saturday, when he left a note for his foster mother”—she pointed to the copy—“and then was at his church, St. Catherine’s.”

  “His priest saw him?” Ryan asked.

  “He took his confession, and I couldn’t get any details out of him about that, as you might expect. Father Flannigan told me what he told the police when Michael first disappeared, and I think some of the leads might still yield information.

  “I also believe,” she added, “that if we find Michael, he can lead us to Jaime Sanchez.”

  Kenzie said, “I don’t understand. I thought this kid was locked up by Sanchez. Why?”

  “It may be that Michael was aiding Sanchez under duress, but at some point Sanchez felt he was a flight risk and kept him under lock and key. Bella implied that she let him go because she feared for his life.”

  “Why didn’t he talk to someone about this?” Tony, the head of the cybercrimes team, asked.

  “He doesn’t trust the police. Neither do the Popes, because they don’t think the police took Michael’s disappearance seriously. Treated him like just another runaway foster kid.”

  “But he wasn’t,” Ryan reiterated.

  “No. There’s a lot more here and if we’re going to find Bella, I think Michael is our best bet.”

  Juan cleared his throat. “We’re going to tackle this investigation from three angles. With Agent Donnelly’s agreement, the FBI is taking point. Agents Kenzie Malone and Nate Dunning will join Agents Kincaid and Quiroz specifically on the child abduction. Jennifer Mendez from CPS will be our contact person with that agency.”

  Everyone turned to look at her, and Jennifer got the deer-in-the-headlights look, though it disappeared almost immediately. She nodded but didn’t say anything.

  Juan continued. “Agent Donnelly is running the op. We have the full cooperation of the DEA when and if we need it.” He nodded to Brad, who took over the conversation.

  He said, “I’ve been tracking Jaime Sanchez for years. He’s good at getting others to take the fall for him. He’s violent and will not hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way.

  “But because of the Michael Rodriguez situation, we now believe that he’s not using the traditional gang-related drug distribution structure. We believe he’s using minors to move product across the border. If we can find this kid, we can learn how the operation works.

  “We all know that Sanchez is not the one calling the shots. He’s a high-ranking operative, but we have no intel on who he answers to. We’re hoping the ledger Agent Kincaid found at the Thirty-Ninth Street gang headquarters will lead us in the right direction, but so far we’ve had no success in decoding the information.”

  He looked around the room. “It very well could be that this boy has the information we need, not only on Jaime Sanchez, but also on who he answers to. The gang didn’t seem overly worried that we seized the weapons in the hardware store facility, and it could be because they have more coming in. It’s also clear that at one point there were drugs in the facility, but they were removed prior to our sting. We have known for some time that something big is going down and Sanchez is involved, which is why he and his brother were added to the sweep this weekend.” He glanced at Lucy. She wondered if he would have revealed that information if she hadn’t already called him on it.

  He continued. “I have a full squad of DEA agents currently shaking down every known associate of Jaime Sanchez. We’re making it hard for him to hide. We have border patrol on high alert, and now that we have the kidnapping, they’re fully engaged. We don’t know why he took Bella and not his older niece—who helped him get Bella out of the house—but we suspect it’s to keep his sister from talking. He doesn’t do anything without a reason.”

  “And you don’t know how he found out where CPS had stashed the kids?” Tony asked.

  “We’re working on it,” Donnelly said.

  Juan turned to Tony, “If you and your team can get together with Ms. Mendez and the CPS technology department and see if you can find a breach, that may answer our question.”

  Lucy glanced at Donnelly. Good call; the FBI cybercrimes unit was bigger with more resources than the DEA unit. Even though Donnelly was borderline obsessed with Sanchez, he was willing to delegate.

  “Sanchez could be in Mexico by now,” Nate said.

  “We alerted border patrol within an hour of the kidnapping,” Donnelly said. “He couldn’t have reached the border that fast. And ICE is cooperating.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s thirteen hundred hours. Fuel up and let’s find this bastard.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Ryan tossed a file at Lucy while he slid into the driver’s seat. They were heading to Michael Rodriguez’s old neighborhood. “That’s from Zach,” he said. “You asked him to run a list of foster kids who went missing in the last two years, or something.”

  “Kids in Michael’s demographic,” she said.

  “Gotta love Zach. He always comes through.”

  She flipped through the information. Not only had Zach pulled all the missing foster kids, but he’d highlighted several who had been in the same foster homes as Michael, though not all at the same time. “There are a dozen kids who went missing over the last two years who had been in at least one of the same foster homes as Michael.”

  “Together?”

  “No—except for one. Richard Diaz. He went missing six months ago. The first home they were in together for three months.” Richard Diaz. The same name that Father Flannigan had mentioned.

  Lucy’s phone rang. It was Sean.

  “Am I interrupting something?” Sean asked.

  “No. Ryan and I are driving, following up on a lead.”

  “I talked to Kane. It was very one-sided.”

  “One-sided?”

  “Kane’s like Jack.”

  “Ah.” Jack wasn’t a talker.

  “I told him about the scar, sent him the photo. All he said was that I didn’t need to call him; kids were recruited by the cartels all the time, it’s nothing new. But I think he’s interested. He’ll call you if he learns something. Just don’t expect much from him.”

  “I appreciate it, whether or not he finds something. How’s the
job in Dallas going?”

  “I know who it is. I just need to set the trap.”

  “That was fast.”

  “It took me three hours. I’m getting rusty.”

  She laughed. “I love you.”

  “Back at ya, princess.” He hung up.

  “You share everything with your boyfriend?” Ryan said.

  “Yes. His brother Kane knows a lot about the drug cartels. I wanted him to see the mark on Michael’s arm. The DEA is stumped. I thought Kane might know what it means.”

  Ryan winced.

  “What?”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I’m just following a line of investigation.”

  “Yeah, but, isn’t Sean’s brother a mercenary?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, not exactly isn’t going to cut it when Donnelly finds out you’re talking about his case behind his back.”

  “Sean didn’t tell him about Sanchez.” Though Lucy wasn’t certain of that. “We thought that Kane might know something about the mark that would help us track down Michael.”

  “You don’t have to sell me. But you need to at least cover your ass with Casilla.”

  “You’re right.” She bit her lip. She’d meant to tell Casilla about being followed from St. Catherine’s, but it had honestly slipped her mind. “Ryan, I may have been followed today.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because I didn’t have anything to share except a feeling. I went through evasive driving maneuvers and no one tipped their hand. It was more a feeling I had of being watched. I get them sometimes.”

  “Hey, I get it. I worked undercover for three years in Houston. One of the reasons my first marriage failed. You get that sixth sense. Saved my ass more than once.”

  She was relieved he understood. “I think someone followed me from Saint Catherine’s. I lost them in a neighborhood near Starbucks. Meaning, I turned into the neighborhood and whoever was following me didn’t. There were two cars that caught my attention. A dark-blue, new-model Honda without plates driven by a white female and a white panel van driven by a middle-aged Hispanic male. There was a plumbing logo on the side; I’d recognize it if I saw it again. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone else that I missed.”

  “Watch your back, Kincaid. And tell Casilla.” He pulled over on a street crowded with beat-up cars and a few shiny rides. “It’s that place, across the street.”

  The apartment structure was brown and sagging behind an equally sagging chain-link fence. Kids played in the front; men and women of all different ages, mostly Hispanic, sat on stoops and watched as the two feds approached.

  “Do you have a plan?” Ryan asked. “This isn’t a neighborhood we want to stay in.”

  “Michael came here the week before he disappeared. There has to be a reason.”

  “Over a year ago,” Ryan said flatly. He obviously didn’t think they’d find anything after this long, but Lucy was more optimistic.

  “Let’s start with the old Rodriguez apartment.”

  Michael and his father had lived in apartment 110, in the back corner. The old woman who lived there now refused to open the door. She spoke in rapid Spanish, and Lucy responded in kind. The woman still didn’t open the door, said she’d been here for three years and didn’t know anyone who lived here before.

  Lucy tried several of the neighbors. No one answered their doors. Whether they were home or not was uncertain.

  “Why would he come here?” Lucy asked almost to herself. “Wait—”

  She walked back to the front office, which was one unsecured room with mailboxes. The manager, a scrawny Hispanic man of fifty with sleeve tattoos and a telltale prison tat on his wrist, was behind a filthy glass window in a tiny, cramped office littered with tools and food wrappers. A loud fan blew air but did nothing to rid the room of the foul stench of sweat and cheap cologne.

  He glared at them. Lucy showed her badge and said in Spanish, “How long have you worked here?”

  “I don’t have to answer no questions.”

  “I can bring you to FBI headquarters and ask them.”

  “Bullshit, chica.”

  “There are two missing children.”

  “No one’s missing. I’da heard.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Two years,” he said.

  She showed him Michael’s photograph. “Have you seen this boy?”

  He didn’t even look at the picture. “No.”

  “Look at it.”

  “I ain’t seen him.”

  “What about this man?” She showed him Sanchez’s picture. Right in front of his face, plastered against the glass.

  “No.”

  But there was a flicker. Lucy was certain he knew both Michael and Sanchez.

  “It would benefit you if you cooperated.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Lucy,” Ryan said under his breath. He was standing by the mailboxes. Most had last names, some scratched out, some barely legible. A partial name at apartment 210 read:

  D Z

  At first she didn’t see it; then she nodded.

  She turned to the manager. “Thanks for nothing.”

  “Don’t harass my tenants, if you know what’s good for you!”

  Ryan stepped up to the glass, all six feet of solid cop muscle. “Is that a threat? Because I haven’t reached my quota today for arresting assholes.”

  The manager gave Ryan the finger. Ryan stared for a long minute. The manager glanced away first.

  They left the building. “I hate pricks.”

  “He recognized both Michael and Sanchez.”

  “He won’t say anything. He’s more scared of Sanchez than us.”

  Ryan looked up the address and any information on Richard Diaz’s mother. “Teresa Diaz. Never been married. Several arrests for drug possession, public intoxication, prostitution. Five children between the ages of four and sixteen, four different fathers, all in foster care.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “That’s reality. When I was in patrol in Houston, I wasn’t just a cop. I was a fucking family counselor dealing with people just like her. I swear, if I had one wish it wouldn’t be for world peace, it would be to make drugs disappear. Poof. Solve half the damn problems in this country. Stealing, murder, abuse. My prediction? Four of her five kids will be dead or in prison by the time they’re twenty-one.”

  She glanced at Ryan. A darkness had spread across his face. “That’s pessimistic.”

  “No, optimistic. I’m holding out for the youngest kid. Maybe he or she will make it out of the cycle, now that the mother is out of the picture.”

  Unlike the other neighbors, Teresa Diaz opened the door almost immediately. She was an impossibly skinny woman who looked fifty, but her file said she was thirty-three. Her stringy brown hair hung limp around her once pretty face that now had several open sores. Her eyes were red, from lack of sleep or drugs or both.

  The apartment was a pit, worse than most Lucy had seen, but Ryan barely noticed it. Rotting food coupled with stale beer and the fresher scent of marijuana. That’s when Lucy noticed the joint between her stained fingers.

  Ryan showed his badge and said, “Put that out.”

  “Fucking cops,” she said and staggered into the living room. She took a long drag on the joint before putting it in an overflowing ashtray.

  “What are you on?” Ryan said, walking into the dark room.

  Lucy followed but left the door open. There were three mismatched couches crammed into the room, and a three-legged coffee table propped up by telephone books. It was littered with drug paraphernalia including used needles and one impressively large bong. A flat-screen television was mounted on the wall. There were no real decorations, except along the hall leading to what Lucy presumed was the bedroom or bedrooms. Pictures of kids, some in cracked frames, some tacked up.

  “What’s it to you? Go ahead, arrest m
e. At least I’ll get a decent meal.”

  “We’re not going to arrest you,” Ryan said. “We’re here to talk about your son, Richard.”

  “My Richie? He do something? Not my fault. He was a good kid till you people took him away. All my kids were good kids, they did nothing wrong.”

  “When was the last time you saw your son?”

  “My son? Richie?” She blinked, confused. She was definitely high on more than marijuana. “Tommy? You arresting babies now?”

  “Richie,” Ryan said. “When was the last time you saw Richie?”

  She waved her hand. “Dunno. I used to get visitation, you know? But the pigs stopped that. Fucking assholes. I was a good mama. Better than my mama. I never hit my kids. Not once. Never.” She pulled up her sleeve. “See this?”

  “The needle marks?” Ryan said calmly.

  She poked a long jagged scar that went from her elbow halfway to her shoulder. “My mama did that when I was eleven. Blood everywhere. I don’t do that to my kids, but you assholes took them anyway. So arrest me, whatever.” She stuck her chin out defiantly.

  Ryan retained an eerie calm when he spoke, though his body was tense. He held out Michael’s picture. “Is this a friend of Richie’s?”

  She grabbed the photo and stared. “Michael. His asshole father is in prison with Richie’s asshole father.”

  Definitely not a coincidence. Lucy prompted, “They visited last year, together.”

  “Richie used to visit me every week, even though I was only allowed to visit him and my other babies once a month. He used to bring me food and money, sometimes. He’s a good boy. I haven’t seen him in months. They said he ran away. That’s not my fault, it’s theirs. They were supposed to protect him, right? Protect him from me?” She barked out a laugh. “I protected him, now he’s run away. Is that why you’re here? Because you found him? No one cares, you know. No one cares about my babies but me.”

  “He brought Michael here.”

  She shrugged. “Once or twice. Not in a long time.” She suddenly sat heavily on the couch. “You think you can get me to see my kids? They said no more visitation, which is just bullshit. They’re my kids, and they lost one. I should get them back, the rest, because they’ll just lose them, too.”