“So Cassidy was here on Monday.”
“Yes. I saw her bringing in my cans in the afternoon. She left, came back when I was going to bed. I think I might have heard her car drive off late Monday night. I can’t right say for certain, I was sleeping, but it woke me up.”
“Do you remember what time?” Lucy rubbed the back of her neck. She had the distinct impression someone was watching her, but she glanced around and couldn’t see anyone. Maybe a neighbor hiding behind curtains. They were driving an FBI pool car, and in a neighborhood like this they might think police.
“No, I’m an early-to-bed, early-to-rise gal.” Emmaline chuckled. “I was in bed by nine. It was dark, though, and quiet—I went right back to sleep. My sister—she’s two years older than me, lives up in Austin—she has such trouble sleeping. Wake her up and she’s up for hours. Not me!”
“You said you’ve lived here three years?”
“Yes, ma’am. Three years last February.”
“Did Cassidy ever discuss her job with you?”
“Not really. She’s a very smart girl, I don’t understand half of what she talks about. It’s an important research job, but honestly, I can’t remember where.”
Leo texted Lucy, told her to come back to the other house when she could.
“Did Cassidy ever discuss her employer with you? One of her supervisors?”
“Cassidy is very private,” Em said, which wasn’t really an answer, but Lucy didn’t know if she was being deliberately evasive, or if the comment was her way of saying Cassidy didn’t talk about work.
Lucy handed the elderly woman her business card. “When Cassidy returns, if you could please have her call me. It’s important—it’s about her former supervisor at Clarke-Harrison, where she works. We have a few questions, and her assistance would really help us.”
“Of course, anything I can do to help.”
“Are you concerned that you haven’t seen her in a couple days?”
Emmaline shook her head. “Should I be? Because Cassidy, bless her heart, is not a people person. I’m a people person, I like people, I like talking to them. How can one find out about anything if you don’t talk to people? But Cassidy—too many people make her nervous, I guess you’d say.”
“Does she have any friends who come by? Someone she’s close to?”
“Not that I recall.”
But the woman didn’t look at her. Why was that?
“Are you sure? Cassidy is young, she doesn’t have a boyfriend? Girlfriends?”
“I’m sure she does, but I don’t want to be a nosy neighbor. I respect her privacy.”
“I understand. Remember, have her call me when she returns. It’s important.”
“Of course, anything I can do to help. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”
Lucy walked down the stairs, then around back to where Leo was standing on the small porch in front of Cassidy Roth’s unit.
“Something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The house is buttoned up tight, but I walked around and there’s a backyard. Someone was watering this morning—the flower beds are damp. And before you ask, I checked—there’s no sprinkler system.”
“Maybe the neighbor did it.”
“What if she saw us drive up? Look here—security cameras by both the front and back doors. What research assistant installs security cameras?”
Lucy concurred that it was odd.
“I want to put a cop on the house, but she might not come back.”
“I gave Ms. Granger, the neighbor, my card. Told her to have Cassidy call me as soon as she saw her. She was very forthcoming, said Cassidy left late Monday night—after nine p.m.—and she hasn’t seen her since. But when I asked about anyone who came to visit her, I think she lied to me.”
“How so?”
“She didn’t look at me. She was chatty and friendly, and then it was a subtle shift.”
“I want to get a warrant to search her place, but we don’t have cause.”
“We can swing by later, or wait until Monday and track her down at CHR.”
“That might work, though I’d like to talk to her without a CHR lawyer breathing down our necks. She owns a white Honda Civic. They’re a dime a dozen, but I’ll put out a BOLO for it.”
They walked back to the street. Ms. Granger was still sitting on the front porch. She waved as Lucy and Leo drove off. His phone rang.
“It’s Tia again,” Leo said. “You’re on speaker with Lucy and me,” he said when he answered.
“Okay, I found McMahon’s second place and it’s been cleaned out.”
“Tossed?”
“No—there are some clothes here, personal items, food—but his computer and papers are gone. And get this: The manager said his daughter came by Wednesday and took out two boxes.”
“Daughter? She was in San Marcos on Wednesday. She’s not old enough to drive.”
“Dark-blond hair cut short, dark eyes, between twenty-five and thirty, comes by once or twice a week since he moved in May sixth. Maybe she was a mistress but the manager assumed she was McMahon’s daughter. Or maybe McMahon said it was his daughter.”
“He moved in early May?”
“The day after he was fired. It’s a month-to-month, a furnished studio. Kind of a crap-hole neighborhood, but the building is well maintained.”
Lucy flipped through her phone and showed Leo Cassidy Roth’s DMV photo.
“Could be her,” Leo said.
“Who?” Tia asked.
“Cassidy Roth. We’re at her place now, but she’s not here. Talked to her neighbor—she left Monday night and hasn’t been seen since, but I think she was here this morning. And she has security cameras on her doors.”
“What time Wednesday?” Lucy asked.
“He wasn’t certain—around one in the afternoon, maybe a little later.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Leo said, “but SAPD didn’t release his name to the press until late Wednesday afternoon.”
“I’ll bet she was there, a bystander.”
“That could make her an accessory.”
“That’s a stretch,” Lucy said, “because there’s no evidence that he planned to take anyone hostage.”
“He had two guns on him.”
“But he was sitting in there for over thirty minutes before he engaged.”
“Working up the courage.”
“I want to go over the video footage again. We should have photographs and video of the crowds as well as security videos.”
Tia spoke up. “Did you forget I’m here?”
“Sorry,” Leo said.
“I heard what you said, we’ll have all that at headquarters. But we need to find this girl. If she took anything from his apartment because it might incriminate him—or her—that’s serious.”
“Can your people spare an unmarked car to watch her place?” Leo asked Tia.
“Maybe for a day or two. I’ll call the lieutenant and run it by him. Shoot me the address.”
“If you can get the manager to confirm that Cassidy Roth is the one who picked up McMahon’s things, we might be able to get a warrant for her place,” Leo said.
“I’ll check and get back to you.” Tia hung up.
* * *
Cassidy watched the FBI agents leave. Her jaw was so tight she was giving herself a headache. She rubbed the tension away, took a deep breath. She should have figured they’d come talk to her eventually; she just didn’t think they’d be here so quickly. And why did they sit out front for so long? Were they watching the place? She needed to a safer place. Maybe Adam would let her stay with him. But that might be awkward. He was already doing so much for her …
She wanted to run Charlie’s hair samples because she had a vague idea what to look for—she knew the chemicals and drugs available at CHR. But Adam wouldn’t let her—he said that would be far riskier for him than if he ran the tests late at night. He had full access to the university lab. On Wednesday nig
ht he ran standard toxicology screens, even though Cassidy knew that wouldn’t yield anything. Now he was running more advanced tests. She needed to prove that a drug that CHR was developing had somehow infected Charlie.
But waiting was killing her.
Charlie must have been terrified during the hostage standoff. He didn’t know what he was doing, he couldn’t have. He would never take a room full of people hostage. That wasn’t him. He was the kindest person she knew. And smart. But who would believe her? The FBI didn’t understand complex chemical reactions. They wouldn’t know what to look for at CHR. If they even believed her, what would they do? Go to Cortland Clarke and ask if there had been an accident in the lab and what Charlie had been infected with? Like Ms. Clarke would ever admit to any problem at CHR. Not when problems cost them money.
She needed proof. Something solid, like a report from Adam—who worked at a top university laboratory—that said exactly what Charlie had been exposed to and why he took fifteen people hostage.
Em came back in the house. “Honey, maybe you should talk to that nice girl FBI agent.”
Cassidy took the card from Em’s hand. LUCY KINCAID, SPECIAL AGENT.
“I can’t, not right now,” Cassidy said. “Thank you.”
“I told the truth, mostly, but I don’t like fibbing, even a little.”
Cassidy didn’t like asking her friend to lie for her, but when she saw the car she ran from her house to Em’s and begged her not to tell them she was here. Almost everything she said was the truth—Cassidy had left on Monday night, and she hadn’t come back until today. She was trying to help Charlie, and then …
She swallowed. Cassidy wasn’t an emotional person, but thinking about Charlie being shot by the police made her feel sick. Reading the newspapers—listening to those fools who thought he was a bad guy. She didn’t know how to fix it. She didn’t know if she could. She was relying on a friend who had no vested interest in the outcome, but she had no one else to trust.
She owed it to Charlie to find proof that Clarke-Harrison was responsible for whatever had happened to him. Paul Grey promised he would help … and now he was dead, too.
What if they weren’t real FBI agents? What if they were from the company and sent to kill her?
If they wanted to kill you, they wouldn’t come over Friday morning and talk nicely with your neighbor. They would come for you in the middle of the night and make you disappear.
She was so close to figuring out what Charlie had forgotten. So. Damn. Close.
She just needed to spend more time with his journals—the journals that were in code, journals Charlie barely remembered writing. She needed to push Adam for the lab results, convince him to let her help.
“I’ll figure it out, Charlie, I promise.”
That was the last thing she’d said to him, on Monday.
And she’d failed him. She couldn’t protect him, and now he was dead.
I won’t let them get away with this, Charlie. I’ll find out what they did to you and expose them all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Jesse had been acting odd all morning. He didn’t want to play video games; he swam for a while but got bored quickly, then sat on his phone doing something Sean wasn’t sure about. He could ask—or covertly find out—but he didn’t want to break Jesse’s trust.
“What do you want to do for lunch?” Sean asked, sitting next to Jesse in the sunroom.
He shrugged. “Where’d Kane go?”
“To check out something for me.”
That morning, Sean had received a call from Jimenez at the US Marshals’ office. He wouldn’t send Sean the photo he’d obtained through the red-light camera, but he did give Sean enough information about the driver Manuel Domingo—including a long and colorful criminal history—that Sean wanted to check him out. The criminal history was mostly work-for-hire, not human trafficking or drug running. He’d done five years for robbery—a warehouse where he and his team stole more than ten million dollars in microprocessors. Because most had been recovered, he’d been granted a reduced sentence.
Sean wanted to go himself, but Kane convinced him to let him and Nate check it out. Nate had gone through his psych eval that morning and was cleared to go back to work Monday—but he was bored, and Sean understood how that felt.
“You’re lying to me,” Jesse said.
“No—why would you say that?”
“You promised you would always tell me the truth.”
“I have.”
“Then tell me exactly what Kane is doing. It’s about those guys who followed us on Wednesday, isn’t it? You think they work for the Flores cartel.”
“Yes, it is about those guys, and no, I don’t think they’re working for the cartels.” Jesse was thirteen—how much should Sean tell him? He’d already seen violence in his young life, and Sean didn’t want to coddle him, but at the same time, did he have to know everything?
It was harder, Sean suspected, because he hadn’t been around for most of Jesse’s life. Sure, he was his biological father, but he hadn’t raised him, and things they did together were what friends—what brothers—might do. Play video games. Go to baseball games. Swim. Watch movies. They played together. Sean wasn’t going to be around every night to tell him to do his homework or help him with his math. He probably wouldn’t even see him on his first date, or drive him to the prom.
That realization—that he hadn’t been around for the important moments in Jesse’s life, and likely wouldn’t be in the future—upset him.
And now Jesse was expecting him to lie. Sean could see it on his face.
“I don’t want to scare you, but I don’t want you to think everything is just fine,” Sean said cautiously. “My life, Kane’s life, even Lucy—well, none of us have taken the safe and easy road. Growing up, I was around guns every day. Both my parents had been in the military, and then two of my brothers. Security was like second nature to us. I learned personal safety because my dad wouldn’t have it any other way, and working with Kane I had the best on-the-job training out there. You’ll learn to protect yourself, to see potential threats, but it doesn’t happen overnight, so yes, I’m worried about you.”
“Why can’t you train me?”
“I already am, in a way. But it’s a long process. You can’t just expect to pick up everything in a couple weeks. And you’re a kid. I want you to be a kid for as long as you can.”
“A kid.” Jesse grunted. “I haven’t felt like a kid in a year.”
His voice cracked, and Sean wondered if there was more here that he wasn’t seeing—that he didn’t know how to see because he was new to parenthood.
“I was forced to grow up fast, too,” Sean said. “It’s not fun, and you feel like you’ve been cheated.”
“Are you going to tell me why you’re babysitting me? And why you sent Kane out? Why couldn’t we do it together?”
“First, I don’t know what these thugs are up to, so I’m not going to bring you on some reconnaissance mission when I don’t have enough information to ensure your safety. Second, I’m not babysitting you.”
“You aren’t working.”
“I chose not to work while you’re here. I only get you for six weeks. I finished up a big job before I picked you up in Sacramento, and I have another job lined up after you go back. You don’t have to worry about that. Unless you’re bored with me.”
“No, but it’s just weird.”
“I guess it is. To answer your question, I trust Kane to get to the bottom of whatever those guys are up to. That’s why he’s looking into it.” Sean paused. “Are you bored? We can have another barbecue this weekend. Or—” He stopped and considered what he could do. He’d been thinking about taking Jesse over to St. Catherine’s since Michael texted him the other day. Why was he worried about it? It would be good for Jesse to meet the boys. He was feeling sorry for himself and Sean didn’t know how to quell that except to show him that there were other boys, his age, who were far less fortunate.
He didn’t want to diminish what Jesse had suffered, but he wanted Jesse to put it in perspective.
“What?” Jesse asked.
“Last year Kane, Lucy, and I rescued a group of boys who’d been used by the drug cartel to serve as mules. That means they brought drugs across the border. They were beaten, starved, threatened, many were killed. One of the boys escaped and through a series of events, we found him and he led us to the rest of those held captive. These kids have had a rough life—their parents are dead or in prison. They don’t have any support from family. I usually go over there once a week to help them with their homework, talk, whatever. School’s out, so I didn’t think it was a problem, but one of the boys—Michael, the kid who escaped—texted me the other day and wanted to know if I was around.”
“Go ahead. I’m okay here, I really am. Bandit and I will just hang out.”
“I know you are—my security is the best. But why don’t you come with me?”
“Really? You don’t mind me coming?”
Sean put his arm over Jesse’s shoulders. “I like having you around. You’ll like the boys. They don’t trust easily. They might be wary around you at first, but they’ll warm up. Just be yourself.”
* * *
Kane trusted Sean’s instincts about security, but after he checked with his sources and was confident the Flores cartel was completely disbanded and no one had put a hit out on the Spades or his brother, he thought maybe Sean had become marginally paranoid. With good reason—the Rogans had made a lot of enemies in the drug trade, and with Jesse just coming out of WITSEC and Carson Spade helping the feds as part of his plea deal, someone could be biding their time.
Still, Kane trusted his contacts, and he had pulled in favors to ensure that both Sean and Jesse were safe—as safe as anyone could be in their line of work.
Nate was driving—he knew San Antonio better than Kane. Once they had Domingo’s name it was easy to track him. They located him at a gym in a sketchy warehouse district southeast of downtown.
Too Far Gone Page 14
