Dead Heat

by Allison Brennan

  Jennifer closed her eyes. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “He was murdered, Jennifer. A month ago. At about the same time Michael Rodriguez was taken prisoner by Jaime Sanchez.”

  “I don’t understand what this all means. Is Richie dead because of Sanchez? The same man who kidnapped Bella?”

  That’s what Lucy thought, but she didn’t say it.

  Jennifer sat down. Right where she was, in her pretty blue dress, on the grass under an elm tree. Lucy sat next to her.

  “I try, every day I try to make lives better for kids who have lost all hope. You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to have everything you know taken from you. Even though it’s usually bad, often unsafe, it’s familiar. And then it’s gone. You’re put in a house with people who don’t know you, who pretend to care about you or, worse, pretend you don’t exist.” Jennifer glanced at her. “You have no idea what it’s like to have no hope.”

  “You don’t know me, Jennifer.”

  “Jenny.” She closed her eyes. “I had a wonderful childhood and then it was taken away. I saw an underbelly I had no idea in my perfect childhood even existed. Parents who abused their kids. Drug addicts, child molesters, kids who at fourteen were just as hard and violent as the people who spawned them. I had to try to stop it. And sometimes, I win. Sometimes, I get a victory. But mostly? I get shit. I get kids who are shuffled from good homes into bad because beds need to be found. Kids who are split up from their families because a foster home can only take one, not all three.”

  Can only take one, not all three.

  Very specific. Very personal.

  “I failed that boy. I didn’t follow up. I didn’t know he was in trouble, but I should have. Now he’s dead and no one cares.”

  “I care and you care,” Lucy said. “I need your help.”

  “Why does the FBI care about the dead kid of a junkie and drug dealer?”

  “Why do you?” she snapped. “You had a chip on your shoulder when I met you Sunday, and it’s still there. We care. It has to be enough.”

  Jenny looked at her for a long minute, took a deep breath, and said, “What do you need?”

  “You’re already helping by working with us, but the faster we get those files the FBI requested, the faster we find Michael. I believe that.”

  She nodded. “I can do that.”

  * * *

  DEA Special Agent Brad Donnelly had wasted the entire morning. He’d gone back and forth between two Sanchez lowlifes trying to get one of them to break. Nicole had taken a stab at each of them as well, but nothing. They weren’t talking, they weren’t helpful, and one even went so far as to say he hadn’t seen Sanchez in over a year.

  “We’re not hanging with the same amigos, comprende?”

  No comprende. Gangs didn’t just change loyalties. If these two assholes weren’t talking to Sanchez, that meant they were lying or Sanchez didn’t trust them.

  He’d also planned to interrogate again the five gangbangers who’d been at the warehouse, but three had been released on bail. Brad had gone through the roof when he heard. Their lawyers had gotten their bail set low, claiming that they didn’t know there were guns and drugs in the basement; they were just hanging out with friends. Brad didn’t buy that for a minute. But the two who’d fled through the tunnel had their bail set higher, and they were still in jail.

  He buzzed Nicole. “Hey, can you set it up for me to interview the two pricks from the warehouse? Guiterrez and Hansen.”

  “Do you really think we’re going to get anything more from them?”

  “We’ve got nothing, I’m willing to go at them again.”

  “Okay.”

  He’d just hung up when his private cell phone rang. It was an unknown number. This was the line he used for snitches.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “It’s Dixon. Ten minutes, usual place.”

  “I’m in the middle of a huge investigation. I can’t drop everything right now.”

  “It’s related.”

  He hung up.

  Brad holstered his gun and ran out of the office.

  CHAPTER 17

  It took Brad twelve minutes to get from headquarters to the San Antonio Botanical Gardens. Brad didn’t know what Dixon did for a living, if anything. He suspected the old man was an illegal immigrant, but doubted that he was breaking any other laws.

  They’d met shortly after Brad started in the San Antonio field office. He’d busted a meth distribution network and during the cleanup, Dixon had approached him.

  “You didn’t get them all.”

  The old man handed him a slip of paper with an address and walked away.

  The address had led to another meth house, bigger than the first, and the arrest of the ringleader of the operation. It was a good bust all around.

  Brad didn’t know if Dixon was the scrawny Mexican’s first name, last name, or a fake name. He didn’t even know how old the man was, or where he lived. He dressed like a bum, but had expensive leather shoes. His face was like well-worn leather, pinched around the faded, irregular scar that ran from his temple to the middle of his cheek, as if he’d been hit with a broken bottle; his teeth were straight and white. Brad would have thought they were dentures, except he’d seen a flash of fillings when Dixon first sought him out. The man spoke fluent Spanish and fluent English, but had no accent.

  He had to be over sixty, but he might have been eighty and Brad wouldn’t be surprised. Once, Brad had followed him into a modest middle-class neighborhood to see if he could figure out where he lived and how he always seemed to find verifiable information. But the old man had lost him, and Brad wondered if the entire excursion had been a wild goose chase.

  Unlike most of Brad’s snitches, Brad had no way of contacting Dixon except through an anonymous email. Brad had traced one of Dixon’s responses to a public library and, on occasion, staked it out, but had never seen Dixon come or go.

  More often, Dixon called when he heard something valuable, even before Brad put the word out. Brad suspected that he was the grandfather or great-grandfather of a gangbanger, someone who seemed invisible to others, but heard everything. Or maybe he hung out at a bar, sipping draft beer and listening. Dixon would never say. Probably to save his life.

  Brad liked him. He’d offered money for information, but Dixon always refused. So Brad stopped offering.

  Dixon was sitting on a bench feeding the ducks. The day turned out to be nice—eighty degrees, clear sky, low humidity. As soon as Dixon spotted Brad, he started walking down one of the trails. Brad followed.

  “I almost didn’t call you,” Dixon said.

  “I appreciate it.”

  “You might not.” He walked a few steps and when they were out of view of any other passersby, he stopped and looked up at Brad. Brad towered over him, but Dixon looked neither intimidated nor scared. “I only heard part of a conversation, but because there’s a missing girl, I decided to tell you.”

  “Where?”

  “That’s off-limits. And it wouldn’t matter, he’s not there.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The man you’ve been after.”

  Brad’s heart raced. “Whatever you have.”

  “McAllen. All I heard was that he left in the middle of the night, with the little girl, for a safe place in McAllen. If I knew more, I would tell you.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “No. But I’ve seen him from time to time.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t. Mr. Donnelly, you’ve never asked me to say more than I can. If I told you where I heard, where I saw, the wrong people would know I talked. I must go.” He turned to leave.

  “Why do you do this? Why risk it?”

  He stopped, didn’t look back. “If not me, who?”

  * * *

  Brad went immediately back to the DEA office. The San Antonio field office was small, an offshoot of the main Houston office, so he wasn’t surprised when his
boss, Assistant Director Samantha Archer, was standing in the lobby talking to Nicole.

  “Brad, I didn’t know you went out,” Nicole said. She gave him an apologetic look over Sam’s shoulder.

  “I just needed fresh air.”

  Sam said, “Brad, a minute please.”

  He nodded, because what else was he going to say? “Your office or mine?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does. Your office means I’m in trouble. Mine means I’m not.”

  She almost smiled. Then she said, “Yours is fine.”

  He led the way. The office wasn’t large, but his office was on the opposite side of the suite from Sam’s.

  Samantha Archer had the title of Assistant Director, but she was also a good field agent. She only had five years’ seniority on him, but he was a year older—he’d spent time in the military before college, and she’d joined the DEA right out of college. She’d always had her sights on being in charge, and with her brains and political savvy, she’d be up for a major national appointment within the next five years.

  He was her Achilles’ heel, he knew, and he used it whenever he could. Maybe in some ways he resented that she’d been quickly promoted. It wasn’t that she didn’t deserve it, it was because she was both a great agent and cautious, but she’d forgotten that sometimes in the field, dirty work was necessary.

  Too many times they’d played fair, and their friends and colleagues had been slaughtered.

  Drug cartels never played fair.

  “Do you need to step away?” she asked as she closed the door.

  “No.” He sat behind his cluttered desk and picked up a stress ball. Squeezed.

  She stared at him for a minute. She had worry lines around her crystal-sharp blue eyes, a few strands of gray in her sunstreaked blond hair, but she was still as beautiful as when they’d first met. And smart. He had a thing for smart blondes. “I understand why you’re obsessed with Sanchez, but—”

  He bristled. Except when they tried to play shrink with him. “I’m not obsessed. No more than you.”

  “When was the last time you slept?”

  “He kidnapped a little girl!”

  “And the FBI is running with it.”

  “Sam, something big is going down, I feel it. You do, too.”

  “We have no proof. All this could be because of one typical drug shipment.”

  “It’s not. You’d agree if you weren’t—”

  He cut himself off. Insulting Sam wasn’t going to get her to see the truth.

  “I want Jaime Sanchez as much as you do, Brad. If he falls, a lot of dominoes fall. I like that. But I don’t want you to risk your career over this.”

  “I haven’t crossed any lines.”

  “We can’t keep Mirabelle Borez.”

  “Like hell we can’t.”

  “The most we have her on is harboring a fugitive. The fact that one of her brothers was killed in jail and her daughter has been kidnapped is in her favor. She has a hearing tomorrow morning in front of Axelrod. She’s going to be released.”

  He tossed the stress ball into the trash can. “We have to stop it.”

  “I don’t know that we can. I’m not going to fight it. The AUSA doesn’t want to, in light of what’s happened to her daughter.”

  “Does Mirabelle know?”

  “She doesn’t know we’re not going to object. The AUSA is going to move for a strict probation, but that’s it.”

  “Then I want another run at her beforehand.”

  “Her lawyer isn’t going to let her talk.”

  “I have another idea.” He had none. But he wasn’t going to tell Sam that.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to bring in FBI Agent Kincaid—she’s a psychologist, she got info from the girl, I think she can push Mirabelle’s buttons.”

  “Is Casilla okay with us using his people?”

  “I talked to him in person yesterday. I sent you the report.”

  He was grasping at straws, he knew it, but he didn’t know what else to do. And he had the info from Dixon. Not a huge tip, but it was something. If he could push Mirabelle on McAllen … maybe she would give them something more to work with. A name, address, any straw.

  Sam was watching him, and he kept his face as tight and blank as possible. He retrieved his stress ball and squeezed it once before putting it back on his desk.

  “All right,” she finally relented. “I’ll have the AUSA work it out, tell her to keep it zipped about tomorrow until the hearing, and maybe you’ll have some leverage. If you and Kincaid can get her to give us anything I’ll take you both out for beers when this is all over.”

  “I need one more thing.”

  She sighed. “Brad—”

  “It’s legit. I have a tip that Sanchez might be heading to McAllen. Might already be there.”

  “Where?”

  “An informant. He’s been reliable in the past.”

  She mulled that over. “I can call the SSA down there, find out what they might know. They already have an alert on him, they would have called me if he’d been spotted.”

  She started to leave, her hand on the doorknob, but before she opened it she said, “Brad, we’ve been colleagues for fifteen years, as well as friends. You’re my best agent, you know that, but you’re also the only one who truly worries me. Don’t let Sanchez destroy you.”

  “He won’t.”

  She wanted to say more. He looked her in the eye, almost daring her to bring up their past. If things had been different—if he hadn’t been transferred under her command, if she hadn’t suspended him for two weeks last year when he disobeyed orders, if they didn’t see the job from different angles—maybe they could have made it work. But there were too many obstacles, and too many fundamental disagreements. She wanted to fix him. He didn’t need fixing.

  “Let me know what happens.”

  “You know I will,” he said, standing.

  “Why don’t you take Rollins with you instead of the FBI agent?”

  “Nicole is good in the field, but Kincaid has a knack with people.”

  Sam nodded. She, of all people, appreciated when strengths were used. “Remember, Nicole is part of your team, don’t shut her out.”

  Sam left. What did she mean by that? Did Nicole feel he was keeping things from her? Ridiculous. He’d shared everything with everyone on his team.

  He dry-swallowed three aspirin and left to track down Nicole. She was on the phone. He wrote a note.

  Off to run at Borez one more time. Sanchez might be in McAllen—Archer is calling down, follow up with her. Text me if anything breaks.

  There. He wasn’t a control freak, or obsessed. He’d just delegated an important task.

  He walked out and dialed Lucy Kincaid’s cell phone.

  “Kincaid? I need you to help me break Mirabelle Borez. Meet me at the jail in thirty minutes.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Brad was practically bouncing on his heels when Lucy walked into the county jail where Mirabella Borez was being held.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said.

  “Of course.” Lucy eyed him, half suspicious. Brad was both distracted and excited, an odd combination. “I was surprised, though, considering the first interview with Mirabelle.”

  “I told you yesterday we might do this.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Push her on the danger to her daughter. You’re the shrink, I think you can do it. You said you wanted another run at her.”

  “I’m not a shrink.”

  He dismissed the comment. “Look, Lucy, I’ve read your files. I know you have a master’s in criminal psychology, and your brother is a respected forensic psychiatrist. You understand her, right?”

  “I think so, but—”

  “You said she didn’t care about her daughters, and that might be true—”

  “That’s not exactly what I said. I said that she would be fine with them going into the system because she didn’t
think that she’d be held for longer than a few days. She was weighing the situation, calculating.”

  “Look, I’m going to be honest with you.”

  She tilted her head. “That would be nice.”

  “They’re going to cut her loose tomorrow. She doesn’t know, but the AUSA isn’t going to fight the defense’s motion. I don’t know the legalese, I suspect they’re going to try to have everything tossed, use the grief card, we’ll get probation, time served, some such thing. But she doesn’t know. I want to push her as hard as I can to get something that will lead us to her brother. Get her to slip up.”

  Lucy was shocked. “What about Michael? She had a child locked in her basement.”

  “And she’ll say she didn’t know. Or that he wasn’t held captive, he was living down there.”

  “That’s bullshit, and you know it!” Lucy rarely swore, but she was seeing red right now. “Her daughters both knew.”

  “CeCe isn’t talking and Bella is missing. This is our last opportunity to compel her to talk. Anything we can get is better than what we have.”

  “I’ll do my best.” But Lucy was not happy with the situation. There was no doubt in her mind that Mirabelle knew all about Michael being held against his will.

  “We need an idea about where Sanchez might be holed up. Safe houses. Friends, family we don’t know about. I got a tip that he’s already in McAllen. I have locals there following up on it, but I can’t go down myself unless I have something tangible.”

  A corrections officer approached. “The prisoner wants a minute with her lawyer. You good here?”

  “Yes,” Brad said. He waited until the guard was gone, then said, “I’m going to observe. You’re in there with just her and her lawyer. Keep your earpiece in, I may have some questions for her if you get her to open up.”

  “More likely I’ll get her to slip up than open up,” Lucy said.

  She filled him in on her meeting with Jennifer Mendez and the possibility that there were many more boys from the foster care system who’d been marked as runaways, but were in fact coerced to work for Sanchez. “There’re too many similarities. The scar on the forearm is only one. There’s at least one common foster home between Richie Diaz and Michael, both of their fathers are in prison, they don’t have a mother in the picture. Different CPS counselors, they’ve been gone different lengths of time, and Richie was murdered—but the fact that they both originally came from Sanchez’s neighborhood tells me that they either knew him, or their fathers knew him.”