Dead Heat

by Allison Brennan

  He wasn’t sure yet. He wasn’t sure about anything. Except he had to save his brothers. If he couldn’t, he didn’t deserve to live.

  He didn’t know he’d fallen asleep until Mrs. Valdez gently shook him. “Javier?” she said.

  Michael had almost forgotten he’d given a false name.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  “Where do you want us to take you?” she asked in broken English.

  He blinked. They were in a city. Right off the freeway. Mr. Valdez was pumping gas.

  “Javier, do you need help?” she asked kindly.

  He shook his head. “I’m okay. You can let me out here.”

  She frowned. “We drive you. To your mother.”

  He shook his head again, wiped his face with the back of his hand. He’d dreamed about his mother, for the first time in months. He missed her so much, even though she’d been gone for nearly half his life. He still remembered how pretty she smelled, and how much she loved daisies. He’d pick daisies from a yard the neighborhood over just to see the look on her face.

  “I’m good,” he said. “I gotta go.”

  He got out of the car. Mr. Valdez tried to stop him. “Amigo, let us—”

  Michael shook his head.

  “Javier!” Mrs. Valdez said. She came after him with a brown paper bag. “You eat. Okay?”

  He took it and nodded. “Gracias,” he said, then turned and walked south, in the dark, ignoring the eyes that followed him.

  * * *

  Dawn had barely broken when Jaime’s cell phone rang. Only three people had this number, but this was the person he trusted the least.

  “The kid left town. Heading south.”

  “Where?”

  “You know where. He’s going to fuck everything up. You need to stop him.”

  “He’ll be dead before he gets there. And even if he manages to cross the border, there’s no way he can get to the camp without our people seeing him.”

  “Make sure of it. Or I’ll tell the general you’re the one who fucked this up.”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “‘Don’t threaten me,’” the voice mimicked and hung up.

  CHAPTER 16

  Lucy was in FBI headquarters before eight that morning to review the security disk Sergeant Younger sent over. Ryan walked in while she was watching it for a second time.

  There was nothing of value on the tape, other than confirmation that Michael Rodriquez had boarded a bus headed for Braunig Lake, and had gotten off. Lucy called Sergeant Younger to find out if his deputies had any information about hitchhikers on the interstate. Nothing yet. No one had come forward saying they’d seen a boy getting into a car anytime the evening before.

  “But,” Younger added, “we’re going to send a patrol to talk to people who work in the area, see if we can learn anything new.”

  “Thanks—you have my cell phone, call me if you learn anything.”

  She called Donnelly on his cell. “Did you see the security footage?” she asked.

  “Nicole and I just finished watching it. There’s nothing useful.”

  “Did you recognize anyone in the feed from Sanchez’s organization? Maybe someone who followed Michael?”

  “Negative. I have my guys going through it more carefully, but so far it doesn’t tell us anything.”

  “It tells us he’s heading south.”

  “Does that help me find Jaime Sanchez?”

  Lucy bristled. “Sanchez is looking for Michael, so it stands to reason that if we are looking for him our paths will eventually cross.”

  “I can’t count on it.” He put his hand over the phone and spoke to someone in the background. “Sorry,” he said a moment later. “I just forwarded you an email from DeSantos with CPS. He wants a status on Michael. Call him back or get Mendez to do it. I have a debriefing I should have started five minutes ago and two of Sanchez’s men in lockup I need to interview.”

  Lucy agreed. Jennifer didn’t know as much about Michael’s case as Bella’s, so Lucy called DeSantos back herself.

  “Hello, Mr. DeSantos, it’s Special Agent Lucy Kincaid from the FBI. Brad Donnelly said you wanted a status report.”

  “Yes—I thought you were going to keep me in the loop on this.”

  “We’ve been swamped these last few days.”

  “I heard. A girl was kidnapped from foster care Sunday night. It’s related to Michael.”

  “Why do you assume that?”

  “Assume? It’s all anyone here is talking about. A cybercrimes unit from the FBI has been working with one of my co-workers to see if we were hacked, and we have the bulletin about Isabella Borez and the man who kidnapped her.”

  Of course. Lucy rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry, I haven’t gotten a lot of sleep.”

  “I want something to tell the Popes. Do you have anything?”

  “Michael was seen at the Greyhound bus station yesterday, and the sheriff’s department is trying to pick up his trail from where he got off the bus.”

  “Which was?”

  “Braunig Lake. Did he have any friends or family there? Maybe a foster family in the area? He may have been hitchhiking to Corpus Christi.”

  “No connection to either place. Are you sure it was him?”

  “Yes. Maybe the Popes have friends or family in Corpus Christi, someone Michael would trust.”

  “I’ll ask them, but I don’t want to give them false hope,” he said. “I saw a request come through from your office to pull records on runaway boys. There were several names on the list, including Michael.”

  “Yes.” Zach was fast. She had to remember to thank him again. Maybe get him a bag of the Peanut M&M’s he seemed to live on. “According to your file on Michael, he was assigned to you from the beginning.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember Richard Diaz? A year younger than Michael. They were in a foster home together for several months, and they’re originally from the same neighborhood.”

  “I don’t recognize the name, but I’d have to check my files to see if he was one of mine. Diaz is a very common name.”

  “Richie’s mother’s a junkie, stepfather’s in prison on drug charges. He ran away from his last home six months ago, and we have reason to believe that a twelve-year-old John Doe in the morgue is in fact Diaz.”

  “What? How? Why didn’t CPS hear about this?”

  “Bullet to the head. He was found a month ago, but had no ID and didn’t match missing persons reports. The analyst here matched up CPS dental records to the John Doe, but we’re awaiting forensic confirmation.”

  Lucy realized then that Richard Diaz was found dead at about the same time Michael was imprisoned in the basement. She made note of the timeline.

  “Let me help get the information you need,” he said. “I know the system, I can access it faster than having your office request it through proper channels.”

  “Your colleague, Jennifer Mendez, is assisting us.”

  “You could have asked me.”

  “She’s been involved because of the kidnapping, but the more eyes the better. Maybe compare them with anyone Michael would have known, either from his neighborhood or foster care.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh! Just thought of this. Richie disappeared six months ago. Someone he knew in his last home may be able to help us piece together his last week.”

  “Kids move in and out of these homes often. It’s certainly not ideal, but we often don’t have control over it.” He started typing into a computer. “Okay, I have Diaz’s file here. I’ll send it to you. It’ll list all the homes he’s been in.”

  “Can you cross-reference that list with other children in the same houses at the same time? Particularly in the home he shared with Michael and when he disappeared.”

  “I’ll send what I have now, but the rest will take a while. Let me know if you want to meet later and compare notes.”

  “All right,” she said, though she had no intention of doing so. When would she have
the time? “Thanks for your help.”

  * * *

  The email from DeSantos popped up in her inbox as soon as she hung up. She opened it and skimmed, then did a double take when she saw that Jennifer Mendez had been Richard Diaz’s CPS officer.

  Why hadn’t she said anything about him during the debriefing yesterday?

  Lucy jumped out of her chair and ran to Zach’s desk, where she impatiently waited for Zach to get off the phone.

  “Wow, I’m so popular,” Zach said.

  “Jennifer Mendez. CPS.”

  “She was the officer assigned to the Borez girls. Wasn’t she here yesterday?”

  “I need a background on her. DEA said they’re doing one, but I want you to look at it. She was also the officer assigned to Richard Diaz, the John Doe you ID’d yesterday.”

  “Okay,” he said, with a glance toward Juan’s office.

  “I’m going to write up a report, promise.”

  “I know, just make sure you do, because I answer to Juan, and I need to cover my butt.”

  She went to her seat and quickly wrote up a report from her conversation with Charlie DeSantos.

  Jennifer Mendez. Could she be part of Sanchez’s operation? Someone had to tell Jaime where to find the girls. They’d assumed that it was CeCe because they’d found the phone, or that Jaime had followed someone to the Grove house, but Lucy had also suggested it might be a leak. Maybe even accidental, but right now a leak was looking more likely. It could have been Mendez. And then there was the issue of how CeCe had gotten the phone. That could have been Mendez in an effort to cover her trail.

  Lucy didn’t want to believe the young CPS caseworker was corrupt, but she’d seen enough corruption among people in positions of authority that she would believe it if she found proof.

  She got a note back from Juan on her memo. It was brief and to the point.

  Tread carefully.

  Zach approached her with a file. “Here’s a quick background on Jennifer Mendez. No criminal background, but she has a sealed juvie file. Not unheard of.”

  “Thank you.”

  “If you need more, let me know—but more will take time, unless it’s directly connected to the Borez kidnapping.”

  “It might be.”

  She opened the file. It was basic information. Jennifer Mendez was only a few years older than Lucy. She was born and raised in San Antonio until the age of thirteen, when her parents were killed in a flash flood. She was one of three girls, the middle child. They were placed in foster care because their only living relatives were a grandmother who lived in an assisted living facility, and an aunt out of state who didn’t want custody of the girls.

  Lucy wrote out the time line. The oldest, Grace, had been sixteen and a year later got her GED and was emancipated. She went to a state college on a full scholarship and was now a county prosecutor. The youngest, then eleven, was currently a cop in San Antonio. And Jennifer became a social worker two years ago. Only a short time before Michael Rodriguez disappeared.

  Could a girl who had lived in the system, who had a cop and a lawyer for sisters, be involved in something as horrific as boys being used as couriers for drug cartels?

  But there was no doubt that Diaz had been one of Jennifer’s responsibilities. Jennifer had access to information, she was one of the few people who knew where the Borez girls were staying, and she knew Lucy was interested in information Bella may have about Michael. Maybe the kidnapping wasn’t to keep Mirabelle in line, but to stop Bella from talking.

  After watching Jennifer with Bella and the way she looked out for the girl’s interests, Lucy had dismissed her initial dislike for the caseworker. But now she wondered if the woman had in fact turned Bella over to her violent uncle? Everything in Jennifer’s background told Lucy that she was a do-gooder. But it could all be a lie. It wouldn’t be the first time Lucy had encountered someone who on the surface did great things, but underneath was corrupt. Just because Jennifer was a young, pretty female didn’t mean that she didn’t have a hardened heart.

  Lucy wanted to talk to Jennifer about Richard Diaz, but she was nervous about tipping her hand. If she was right, it gave Jennifer time to contact Sanchez. If she was wrong, she could damage the woman’s reputation, as well as the tenuous working relationship the FBI had with CPS in this case.

  Except … Lucy had a reason to see Jennifer. Diaz was her charge. She needed to be notified that he was dead. The ME would notify CPS when the ID was confirmed, but Lucy could go see her first.

  No one was around, except Juan in his office. She knocked on the open door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  “Sir, I have an angle I want to pursue. To rule out someone as a suspect.”

  “A suspect for what?”

  “Someone told Jaime Sanchez where Bella was staying.”

  “I have two of our best tech people at CPS working on their security. Donnelly thinks they were hacked.”

  “They could have been. But that’s going to take time. The logical place to start is with the CPS officer who was assigned to the case. She would know who else had access to the information.”

  “Or,” he said, “you think she’s the one.”

  “No, sir.” She paused. “Maybe.”

  He raised an eyebrow and didn’t say anything.

  She backtracked, though only a bit. “I need a sit-down with her. Face-to-face, inform her about Richard Diaz, and then assess her reaction.”

  “Take Quiroz with you. Or Dunning if Quiroz is still at the DEA.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, I need to do this one-on-one. We met when we interviewed Bella. If I bring backup and she’s guilty, she’ll be suspicious and I won’t get anything out of her. If she’s innocent, she’ll be defensive and I won’t get anything out of her. This will be a public meeting. I’ll call her, set it up at her office as routine, in public.”

  He considered, then nodded. “Keep me in the loop. If you get any vibes that there’s something off, call it in. If she knows anything about where Jaime Sanchez took the girl, we will interrogate her here. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  She didn’t release her breath until she left Juan’s office.

  She went back to her desk and called Jennifer Mendez, relieved that the social worker picked up her phone and was amicable to a meeting.

  Lucy signed out and drove to Child Protective Services, which was a good thirty minutes outside the city. But it gave her time to think and figure out how to interview the woman without Jennifer knowing she was, essentially, being interrogated.

  Lucy parked in visitors’ parking and walked around to the front of the building to check in. Jennifer came out for Lucy immediately. “Can we walk?” she asked.

  Lucy hesitated, then agreed. “Sure.”

  “It’s going to be hot this afternoon, but right now it’s beautiful, and I need to get out of the office.” She pushed open the glass doors and led Lucy to three benches under a canopy of trees. Smokers used the place, but it was surprisingly clean.

  Jennifer lit up a cigarette, took a long drag, then put it out in one of the sand-filled pots. “I’m quitting,” she said, “but it’s not easy, so I don’t want to stay here. Too tempting.” She started walking again, along the perimeter of the parking lot, shielded by trees. By the worn dirt, it looked like the path was well used.

  Lucy asked, “Do you remember a boy named Richard Diaz?”

  Jennifer stopped walking and turned to face Lucy. “I thought you were here about Bella.”

  “I didn’t say that on the phone.”

  “I assumed.” Her brows dipped in concentration. “Richard Diaz? That’s the boy you were talking about yesterday at the briefing.”

  “He was murdered. We identified his body this morning.” Lucy waited a beat, trying to read Jennifer’s face. She looked wholly confused.

  “You were his caseworker.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Lucy handed Jennifer a pri
ntout of Richard’s file. She stared at it for a long minute, then tapped the bottom.

  “I inherited this boy from someone who retired last year. I never even met him.”

  “You didn’t remember that he ran away six months ago?”

  “Runaways are not unusual. I—I let him slip through the cracks.” She stopped walking and stared at the paperwork. “I know this house—I try not to place kids there anymore. I didn’t like them.”

  “Do you have a say?”

  “Not usually, but I’ve learned to manipulate the system. It helps that I used to be part of it.”

  She didn’t say it with anger or resentment, just a statement of fact.

  “Did you know that he and Michael Rodriguez were acquainted?”

  “No. I mean yesterday I listened to everything you and Agent Quiroz said, but I didn’t know then that this boy was mine. I’m truly sorry. When Maggie retired last year, I inherited half her wards. Because of budget cuts, we couldn’t bring on another counselor, and because I was new, I didn’t have as full a plate as the senior staff. But it was a lot to absorb at one time. I can look at my notes and see if I have anything that might help.”

  “I would appreciate that,” Lucy said.

  Jennifer flipped the pages of Richie’s file, slowly shaking her head. Then she tapped a handwritten note. “I wrote this. I remember this case.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It’s an internal code, but I added my own shorthand. It’s coming back to me. Richie ran away several times, always went back to his mother. He had a very mature sense of obligation to her. I never met him, but after he ran away I talked to his foster parents who said he often visited his mother’s to make sure she had food, clean up after her, check in. The woman is a drug addict, he was removed by the courts because she couldn’t take care of him or his siblings. She didn’t abuse him—that was his stepfather—but she didn’t feed him, she didn’t clothe him, she didn’t make sure he went to school or had his vaccinations or do anything a mother is supposed to do. She didn’t protect him. But…” Her voice trailed off.

  “But he loved her.”

  She nodded. “That was the sense I got. The system isn’t perfect. When he ran away, I was certain he went to her apartment. I checked a half dozen times over the next two weeks, but he never showed up. She wasn’t helpful, either.”