Too Far Gone

by Allison Brennan

  Leo sat down at his computer and typed rapidly. “I’m sending a memo to the task force for a full background on the principals at Clarke-Harrison. I also didn’t get Garrett Harrison’s itinerary from CHR, and when I called it was after five and it went to a fucking answering service. Believe me, I left a message about the importance of speaking with Garrett Harrison as soon as possible.”

  “Why do they think delaying the inevitable is going to work? Harrison will be back in town at some point, and if not we can track him down.”

  “Another in a long line of questions,” Leo mumbled. “Go—we may be working this weekend, we both need a night off to clear our heads.”

  * * *

  Lucy was happy to pick up Jesse. She hadn’t had much alone time with Sean’s son, and this would give them the chance to really talk. It would be just her and Jesse alone for hours, and she didn’t want the kid to worry about what Sean and Kane were doing. They could play games, walk Bandit, maybe make cookies. Lucy wasn’t skilled in the kitchen, but she could follow a basic recipe. Besides, she really wanted to put the McMahon case out of her head for tonight. She could look at it fresh tomorrow, after a good night’s sleep.

  The conversation about the missing evidence had delayed Lucy, and she didn’t arrive at St. Catherine’s Boys’ Home until quarter to seven. Everyone was eating at the large table in the dining room. Father Mateo had taken to eating with the boys more often than not, and of course Sister Ruth, who ran the home and cared for the boys, was there. She was supposed to stay for only six months, but Father Mateo had enlisted the help of every priest he knew, including a bishop or two, to make Sister Ruth’s appointment permanent. Having continuity for these boys—ranging in age from ten to fifteen—was critical to their emotional and spiritual well-being, Mateo argued.

  Jesse was sitting in the middle of it all, listening to the chatter. Everyone looked up when Sister Ruth led Lucy in.

  “I’m sorry to disturb dinner,” she said.

  “There’s always enough for one more,” Sister Ruth said. “Please sit.”

  Lucy knew better than to refuse food from Sister Ruth, so she sat at the end of the table, next to Tito—the youngest boy who had been rescued more than a year ago. There had been seven they’d saved, plus Michael Rodriguez, the boy who started it all.

  Michael was watching Jesse closely, Lucy noted. Was he a little jealous? Suspicious? Sean had spent a lot of time at the boys’ home since he bought the house for the church, but hadn’t been over as much since Jesse arrived … Lucy could see how Michael might feel neglected. Or worried. How much did Sean share with Michael about Jesse and his situation?

  Lucy enjoyed listening to the boys. The younger kids, like Tito, had bounced back. They accepted their new life without question. They seemed happy, something Lucy didn’t think was possible after what had happened to them. Time, and love, healed the deepest wounds.

  Michael and a couple of the older boys hadn’t regained their youthful exuberance, but they did find a peace that Lucy knew was hard-fought. They looked out for the others, obeyed Father Mateo, and focused on school. They were all in summer school to catch up from the time they’d lost. Some of the boys, like Tito, had never had formal schooling until last year.

  By the time the boys cleared the table and those on KP duty were cleaning, Lucy realized that it was after eight. “We should be going. Thanks for having us, Father.”

  Father Mateo walked them to the door. “It was a pleasure. Very nice to meet you, Jesse.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Jesse looked sheepish, not certain how to address the priest.

  “Sean calls me Mateo. You can call me Mateo or Mr. Flannigan or Father, whatever makes you comfortable.”

  Jesse nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Flannigan.”

  Lucy walked Jesse out. “That was awkward,” he said.

  “It wasn’t.” They pulled out of the driveway. “You’re not Catholic, Father Mateo understands.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never even been to church. We just never do that stuff.”

  “No one holds it against you.”

  “But you go.”

  “Yes. Not every week, like when I was growing up, but often. There’s a certain peace in the tradition that helps ground me.”

  Jesse didn’t say anything for a minute. “Sean said that all those boys were held prisoner by a drug cartel. That they were forced to work for them.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Was it the people that Carson worked for?”

  “No.”

  “Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

  “No. Different people. Both criminal organizations, but not the same one.”

  “But the people Carson worked for sold babies.”

  Lucy knew that Sean had pledged not to lie to Jesse, but there were some things that were difficult to discuss with a thirteen-year-old. What exactly should she say?

  “I know he did,” Jesse said. He was angry, and Lucy didn’t blame him. “Remember, I was down there. I heard a lot. And Kane and my dad talked about it.”

  “I’m not trying to shield you or sugarcoat the truth. But I don’t know how much you want to know.”

  Lucy merged onto the freeway. One good thing about staying for dinner at the boys’ home was that she missed rush-hour traffic.

  “Jesse?” she prompted when he didn’t respond to her.

  “Tito, the little kid? Sean said he’d always walk with a limp because he was shot and it got infected and he needed two different surgeries but that leg isn’t going to grow like the other one. And when we got to the house, Sean went off with the kid Michael—the one who stared at me all through dinner like he wanted to kill me. I don’t know what they were doing, but Sean said that Michael had been through hell and Sean was the only one Michael would talk to about it. When Sean left, I helped Michael in the kitchen, but he didn’t talk much.”

  “Michael might feel a little displaced. He didn’t know about you. He’s protective of the boys in the house. If it weren’t for him, we’d never have found them.”

  “What happened to him? Tito said they were in jail. But that can’t be right, is it?”

  The truth, Lucy decided, was always the best recourse. But she didn’t have to share all the horrid details. “A little over a year ago, shortly after I started with the FBI, I was part of a joint task force. Michael had been held captive in the basement of a drug dealer, escaped, and we had information that he was being used as a mule for one of the drug cartels. He didn’t trust the police because he had been in foster care, and his social worker—a person he should have been able to trust—had turned him over to the cartels. When he escaped, he planned on going back to Mexico to rescue the boys who were used just like him. And yes, they were locked in an old jail every night so they couldn’t leave.”

  “Foster care? Like they don’t have parents?”

  “Most of them had parents who were in prison. Michael’s father is the one who turned him over to the cartel, in exchange for protection behind bars.” She paused. “Michael’s father killed his mother.”

  “That—that really sucks.”

  “Michael trusts Sean because Sean helped him rescue the boys. They would have died.”

  “Sean said Kane was there, too.”

  “Yes. Kane put together a small mercenary group who extracted the boys from a prison about an hour south of the border in the middle of nowhere. Sean carried Tito to safety. Michael sees him as a hero because he is a hero.”

  A car was following her too closely. Jerk. She pulled over into the far right lane. She wasn’t the speed demon that Sean was on the road, but she was going a steady five miles over the limit.

  She glanced at Jesse. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I just—my dad is overprotective, and I get that, but I was thinking he was just going overboard. I didn’t know all this other stuff. You know, like about Michael and Tito. It just—I guess, we
ll, I’m selfish.”

  “You’re not selfish, Jesse. Why would you even think that?”

  “Because I was just thinking about what I wanted to do and how mad I was. Kane came over yesterday and was like babysitting me. I thought it was stupid. I mean, I really like him, and he doesn’t talk to me like I’m a kid, but he’s not as fun as my dad. But now, well, I guess there was a reason.”

  “Sean and Kane are very protective of their family. You’re family. It’s as simple as that.”

  “I want to stay, Lucy,” Jesse said, his words coming out fast, tumbling over each other as he got a lot off his chest at once. “I don’t want to go back to Sacramento. And then I feel bad because I’d miss my mom a lot, but then I get mad at her because she lied to me my entire life and I think, I don’t care at all whether I hurt her feelings. And then I feel guilty for thinking that! Isn’t that stupid? I just don’t know anymore.”

  Lucy was going to respond, but Jesse kept talking.

  “And then I went over to Saint Catherine’s today and my problems are nothing. My problems are petty and childish and stupid. One of the boys, I don’t remember his name, his arm is all scarred and twisted and Sean said he’d been burned on purpose. And Tito will never walk right because someone shot him and just left him to die. All that they went through, and they don’t complain, and Tito is like this totally happy normal kid except he’s really small and he limps. And I feel like a total asshole.”

  Wow. Jesse was going through some deep soul searching, and she didn’t think he’d shared all this with Sean. They were going to have to talk, but Lucy could at least try to make Jesse feel better about the situation.

  “You can’t compare yourself to Michael or any of the other boys,” she said. “Yes, they had difficult lives, but they’re going to be okay. They’re in a much better place now with people who care about them. Sean has done a lot for them, true, but he wanted to. He found them in the jail. There were others—boys who didn’t make it. That affected all of us, but Sean in particular. He doesn’t like to talk about it, but he’ll talk to you. Just ask him.”

  “He told me some things, but I know there’s more. I’ve had everything just handed to me. I never had to work for it or worry about whether I would eat or whether I was going to die. They all have scars. Like … like they were whipped. I didn’t think anything like that happened anymore.”

  “You went through your own crucible, Jesse.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Finding out that your stepfather was working for a criminal organization wasn’t easy for you. Finding out that your mother lied about your biological father wasn’t easy for you. You have to find peace in that knowledge, and that’s difficult.”

  “But none of that hurt me.”

  “It did hurt, and you have to realize that before you can forgive them. Just because you don’t have external scars doesn’t mean it didn’t affect you. Cut yourself a little slack, okay? You’re a great kid—and yes, you’re blessed. You have a home and parents who love you and want you and would do everything in their power to protect you. Sean didn’t introduce you to the boys because he wanted you to feel bad about what you have. He did it because they are an important part of his life and he wants to share his entire life with you. Do you understand that?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Lucy didn’t know if she was getting through to Jesse, but she had an odd feeling that the car behind her had been following her too closely. She was still in the far right lane—and there were three lanes he could use to pass her. She was only a mile from her exit, but she merged left and sped up. The car followed. It was nearly dark, and the headlights made it difficult for her to see details.

  Jesse noticed. “What’s happening?”

  “A car is on my tail.”

  She moved over to the next lane to the left and rapidly accelerated.

  The car followed.

  She pressed a button on the steering wheel and her speaker turned on. “Call nine-one-one,” she said.

  A moment later an operator came on the line. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  “This is FBI Special Agent Lucy Kincaid Rogan. I’m in my private vehicle and being followed by a dark SUV. No front license plate. I have a minor child with me. I have tried evasive maneuvers and the vehicle is still following.”

  “What is your location?”

  “North on Thirty-Five, just past the I-Ten split.”

  “I will dispatch highway patrol to your location. The closest police station to you is on San Saba, less than two miles from your location. Do you know how to get there?”

  “Yes. I’ll head there now.” It was behind her, but she could get off at the next exit and backtrack.

  One of the best ways to shake a tail was to drive directly to a police station. If someone was a stalker or potential attacker, they wouldn’t stop at the station. If the police knew that you were coming, they would meet you out front and, if lucky, could pursue the tail.

  “I’ll inform dispatch that you’re on your way. From your location, I estimate ETA three to five minutes.”

  This section of the freeway was wide with lots of arteries going on and off. Lucy couldn’t immediately get over to the right because of a barrier as another freeway merged in. As soon as she was able, she cut through traffic into the far right lane. The SUV followed. She sped up, weaving around slower cars. At the last minute, she exited. The SUV cut across three lanes and horns blasted. Then he was right on her bumper. She tried to speed up, but the truck rammed her.

  It took all of her self-control not to immediately brake, which would have thrown her into a spin and likely flipped the car. As it was, the SUV came up next to her, slammed to the right and sideswiped her. She couldn’t avoid going onto the shoulder. The embankment had a steep drop. If she could just get another twenty, thirty feet the grade was less sharp.

  Her attacker jerked the wheel and pushed her car over the embankment.

  She would have flipped completely if her passenger-side wheels went over first. As she realized what the SUV was doing, she turned so she was heading straight down the embankment, front-end first, using momentum to drive down, which thankfully prevented the vehicle from flipping. She slammed into the drainage ditch and the airbags deployed.

  “Jesse!” she screamed.

  She thought she heard the 911 operator talking, but her ears were ringing and she couldn’t make out the words. She reached over to Jesse, feeling for him.

  “Jesse, are you okay?”

  At the same time she was trying to figure out if Jesse was hurt, she reached for her gun. She kept it in the center console when she was driving because it was easier to access than the glove compartment, in the event of an emergency.

  And this was an emergency.

  She didn’t know what the bastards wanted, but Jesse was her responsibility and she would not let anyone hurt him.

  She brushed away blood that dripped down her face. Her nose was bleeding, and her head ached, but she couldn’t think about that.

  Streetlights shone into the car and she saw Jesse. He looked stunned, but he was breathing.

  Her door was stuck, but Lucy couldn’t stay here. She’d be a sitting duck if the SUV parked and gunmen came for them. She didn’t see anyone, but her vision was fuzzy from the airbag powder.

  “Jesse, can you open your door?”

  “Agent Kincaid?” she heard over the speaker. “Are you there?”

  “We were rammed off the road.” She gave her location. “Jesse, open your door. We have to get out of the car now.”

  Jesse pushed aside the airbag and opened the door. His nose was bleeding, too. He could be injured, and Lucy shouldn’t move him or herself, but she also knew they needed cover.

  Jesse climbed out and tried to stand.

  “Down,” Lucy shouted, mostly because her ears were ringing and she had no idea if Jesse could hear her.

  Jesse got down.

  L
ucy climbed over the center console and crawled out Jesse’s door. She squatted next to him, using the V that the open door made as partial cover, and gave him a quick hug. “Are you okay? Jesse, is anything broken?”

  “No. No—my nose is sore.”

  “It’s from the airbag.” Lucy’s nose was bleeding. She didn’t think it was broken, but something had cut her head. She wiped more blood from her face and focused on her surroundings.

  Sirens cut through the air, and Lucy breathed easier.

  She risked glancing over the car; the dark truck was nowhere in sight. They must have bolted as soon as they pushed her car over. The drop wasn’t deadly—most people would survive. Had they only wanted to scare them?

  If anything, it pissed her off. Who were these people?

  She glanced at Jesse. Sean had been followed the other day when Jesse was in the car. Now her. How had they known? Had they followed her from St. Catherine’s? Or picked her up when she got on the freeway? She hoped Sean and Kane got answers tonight from the guy they were tracking, because if they didn’t, she was going to call in every favor she had coming to figure out what was going on.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Sean and Kane sat in Nate’s truck outside a bar on the outskirts of San Antonio. Sean had parked down the street, since Manuel Domingo knew what his Jeep looked like. Sean needed to get a back-up car for situations like this.

  It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, though Sean wouldn’t call it much of a neighborhood at all. The bar was on the corner, set back at a four-way stop. Beyond the bar were a few warehouses behind tall chain-link fencing. A two-pump gas station and quick stop stood open on one corner with no customers, and a strip mall took up another corner. None of the six businesses there were open this late. The fourth corner was a weed-strewn lot bordered by a cinder-block wall separating the lot from a dilapidated mobile home park.

  Nate was inside the bar; Domingo would make either Sean or Kane, but Nate was a new face. They had ears through Nate’s phone so they could come in if Nate got into trouble. All they knew at this point was that Domingo had arrived here at eight forty-five and seemed agitated. It was clear, according to Nate, that he was waiting for someone.