Stolen

by Allison Brennan

  “There’s no one I would rather have with me when I find the evidence of what PBM did to Travis in my hands. You’re the only one who understands what this means to me.”

  “I’m a danger to you right now,” Sean said. He almost told Colton everything. Noah wanted Sean to read Colton into the investigation and get him to help, but considering the truth about Travis was at stake, Colton would not do it. And could Sean stop Colton from learning the truth? “I shouldn’t go to the carriage house, and I can’t go to my apartment,” Sean said. “I don’t know if the feds are looking for me, or what.”

  “Well, I’ve been manning the police chatter and there’s no APB out on you. Maybe she wasn’t able to identify you at Hunter’s.”

  “She knew exactly who I was,” Sean said.

  He and Colton got into the BMW and Colton sped off. He didn’t say anything and Sean feared he was getting suspicious. Sean would be.

  Sean said, “Do you know who killed Hunter? Any idea at all?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “It’s connected to what we’re doing.”

  “Maybe PBM found out about our plans.”

  “One of the reasons I went to D.C. was to run facial recognition on that guy who was at the carriage house yesterday. His name is Kurt LeGrand. He has no connection to PBM. You didn’t recognize him, but do you know the name?”

  “No.”

  But Colton had hesitated just a bit. Sean didn’t know if Colton was suspicious by nature or if he did know LeGrand.

  “Someone met LeGrand at the carriage house, Hunter saw him on the camera, and now Hunter is dead.”

  “Then it’s a good thing that we’re changing the plan. If PBM suspects we’re going to break in, we have to move up the timeline. We’re doing this tonight, Sean, not tomorrow. I didn’t tell anyone yet, but they’re all waiting at the safe house.”

  “Safe house?”

  “Completely secure, no communication, in or out.” He glanced at Sean. “If you want out, tell me now.”

  Sean should. But he couldn’t. He had a bad feeling that one of the others was about to double-cross Colton. Someone needed to watch his back. If nothing else, Sean owed him that.

  “I’m in.”

  * * *

  Noah looked at the phone message from Sean:

  We’ve been ordered to power down. Will try to reach you later.

  Sean had told Noah they’d be powering down twelve hours before the operation, but a day before? Did Colton suspect someone was a traitor? Was Sean in danger?

  Too many unanswered questions, too many unknown variables. Noah wished he could pull the plug, but there was no way to reach Sean. And Noah doubted that Sean would back down now that he was so close to getting the goods on Paxton.

  And this new player Kurt LeGrand made everything more complicated.

  Suzanne ran down the hall toward where Noah was using a small desk on the fringe of the violent-crime squad. “Noah, we have shots fired at your apartment building. NYPD is on the scene, one dead female inside unit four-oh-two.”

  “That’s Sean’s apartment.” Noah grabbed his gun from his drawer and holstered it. “Any word on Duke?”

  “We know his flight landed and he used his credit card to take a cab, but we’re still waiting to find out where he was dropped off. NYPD can get it faster than me.”

  “My bet is on Sean’s apartment. He wouldn’t have come to New York unless he knew where to find his brother.”

  If Duke could track down Sean, someone else might be able to as well.

  Suzanne drove to the apartment in SoHo. “Any ID on the victim?” Noah asked.

  “The coroner is en route. I explained to the lead detective that this is connected to an FBI case, and he’s keeping a lid on everything.” She glanced at Noah. “You don’t think Lucy is in town?”

  “She’s in Stockton’s office in D.C. Rick isn’t letting her come up. It’s safer for everyone if she helps from headquarters.”

  “So she’s involved?”

  “Not until last night when Sean paid her a visit at Quantico and told her everything.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  Noah had wondered the same thing. “My guess? He knows this just got a whole lot more dangerous. From the beginning he told me that he wanted to be the one to tell Lucy. He didn’t like keeping her in the dark, but agreed it was for the best.”

  “He thinks he might not have another chance.”

  “He will. No way in hell am I letting him get killed.” Noah had brought Sean into this; he was responsible for him.

  “Where’s Sean now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “This is Sean we’re talking about!” Noah slammed his fist on the dashboard. “Don’t you know a shortcut or something?”

  Suzanne’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “Don’t take it out on me.”

  Noah let out his breath. “I’m sorry.” His jaw was tight and he thought of a dozen different ways he could have gone after Jonathan Paxton without bringing in Sean Rogan. Yet all of Noah’s other plans had holes. Was this one any better?

  “I saw his video. Bold.”

  “That’s Sean for you.” What woman could be in Sean’s apartment? Noah had a sick feeling. He called Rick Stockton. “Did you get my message about the body?”

  “Yes, are you there?”

  “ETA three minutes,” Noah said. “Where’s Duke?”

  “I just spoke to JT Caruso in Sacramento. RCK staff tracked Sean down through a wireless signal on his laptop, and Duke was heading to his apartment straight from the airport.”

  “His flight landed more than four hours ago.”

  “JT hasn’t been able to reach him since he landed. The last person who spoke to him was a staff member, Jaye Morgan, just after nine a.m.”

  “I have to go,” Noah said, and hung up on the assistant director.

  “That didn’t sound good.”

  “It’s not. Sean’s brother is missing.”

  Suzanne parked behind the coroner, and both she and Noah walked in through the garage.

  Suzanne pointed to a black Mustang. “Isn’t that Sean’s car?”

  “He wasn’t driving yesterday.”

  They showed their badges to an NYPD officer manning the elevator, then took the lift to the fourth floor. The coroner had just released the body for transport, and his assistant was bagging it up. But Noah saw who it was.

  “It’s Deanna Brighton,” he said.

  “Oh shit,” Suzanne said.

  Detective Hayden Tucker was already on scene. “I got your call, Suz, and my boss cleared me to take jurisdiction because of the connection with Hunter Nash, since this isn’t my precinct. Frankly, when the responding detective found out the feds were involved, he was happy to pass it to me.”

  “I appreciate it,” Suzanne said. “What do you know so far?”

  “First, I got my boys pulling all the surveillance in the building and any street cameras, so hopefully we’ll get something from that. Shots fired at ten thirty-seven this morning. First responders on scene at ten forty-eight. In eleven minutes, the shooter cleared out.”

  “What’s been going on for the last two hours?”

  “We had to wait for the coroner to arrive. Nasty pileup in the tunnel. Couldn’t touch the body except to confirm that she was dead. The address was flagged; that’s how you were notified.” He handed Suzanne the victim’s wallet and badge, which were in an evidence bag. “I recognized her as soon as I arrived, but you were already on your way.”

  “Her gun?”

  “Not here.” He motioned for one of the uniforms to bring him over another evidence bag. “We found this phone. It’s been ringing, but we haven’t answered it.”

  Noah took the bag. The last missed call was from JT Caruso.

  “I think this belongs to Duke Rogan, Sean’s brother. He flew in this morning.”

  “We only have one body.” Tucker l
ooked from Noah to Suzanne. “Are you certain Sean Rogan didn’t return?”

  Noah wasn’t certain of anything. “I know he was in D.C. early this morning. I don’t know where he is right now.”

  “This was the fed who claimed he shot at her. Why would she come here without backup?”

  “Good question.” Noah had several more, including finding Sean, Duke, and Brighton’s gun.

  “Suzanne, call her partner; I need to talk to him ASAP. Get her address, I want to check out her apartment. Did she have a phone on her?” he asked Tucker.

  “Didn’t find one.”

  Noah said, “We’ll need all calls in the last twenty-four hours in and out of her FBI-issued phone and any personal phones she has in her name.”

  “I’m on it.” Suzanne stepped away.

  Tucker was listening to his earpiece, then said to Noah, “My boys said the security footage was jammed from ten twenty-five until ten forty-five. They might have something from the neighboring building and are looking at the tape now. They also got confirmation of a man slipping into the garage at ten-oh-eight a.m.”

  Noah would bet that was Duke. “I want a print, but I suspect it’s Sean’s brother.”

  Noah walked around Sean’s apartment. Like Noah, he hadn’t really personalized it, but there was a picture of Sean and Lucy on the desk. His laptop was gone, but that didn’t surprise Noah. Sean probably had it with him. There were holes in the wall that had been patched, but Noah didn’t remember those being there last time he was here.

  Duke had dropped his overnight bag in the entry; it had been kicked aside but left behind. Why did the killer take Duke instead of killing him? Why kill a federal agent?

  Noah motioned for Suzanne.

  She said without him asking, “I had a cop check out Deanna’s car; her phone wasn’t there.” She hesitated, then said, “Torres wants to see you in his office ASAP.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  “Make time. We have a dead federal agent in a civilian’s apartment, someone she claimed shot at her yesterday. He’s planning to put the APB back on Sean, and I held him off until you talked to him, but—”

  He put his hand up. “I understand. What about Gannon?”

  “He’s at headquarters.”

  “First, we stop at Brighton’s apartment.” Noah looked at her. “You do have her address, correct?”

  Suzanne nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  Noah called Rick Stockton on his way out and told him everything they knew. Rick said, “Shut it all down. Bring Sean in.”

  “I can’t reach him. He’s gone dark.”

  “If you have to go to Thayer’s house and arrest them all, do it. We need to consider that Duke has been kidnapped.”

  “I have another idea. I’d like to bring in Senator Paxton.”

  Rick didn’t say anything for a minute. “Are you sure? You only have one shot at him.”

  “I’m sure. But first, I want to follow up on a theory. If it pans out, I’m going to have the two agents tracking Paxton bring him to headquarters.”

  “I’ll tell the team to keep eyes on him.”

  “Any information about Kurt LeGrand?”

  “Not much, but we’re working on it. Check in every thirty minutes, Agent Armstrong. Find out what the hell is going on.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Lucy could find next to nothing on Kurt LeGrand, which was suspicious in itself. He seemed to have a clean slate, hardly what would be expected of someone involved with a hacktivist group like Colton Thayer’s.

  She put together a time line on the whiteboard because she was visual—she preferred to see everything at once.

  She found no connections whatsoever between Paxton and LeGrand. She had LeGrand’s work history, residence, and schooling—everything looked normal. The most interesting thing about him was that he’d worked for a financial services company that had been investigated for mortgage fraud. This wasn’t unusual, especially now. Many companies had shut down because they had been built on fraud or one of their employees had played fast and loose with the rules.

  Lucy didn’t know a lot about white-collar crime, so she carefully read over the FBI file on Avery & Block.

  The case was pretty standard for mortgage fraud. The company had padded mortgages with fees, kickbacks, and a private mortgage insurance scam that cost banks and homeowners millions of dollars—money that all went directly to the company owners. Two principals had gone to prison for the scheme, even though the bulk of the money hadn’t been recovered. The FBI found no evidence to support their suspicion that the funds had been sent to one or more offshore accounts.

  The file referred to a whistle-blower, but didn’t identify him by name. Lucy flipped through hundreds of documents before she found the whistle-blower’s identity:

  Kurt LeGrand

  She didn’t know how this information was important, but since he was somehow involved with Colton Thayer and possibly Senator Paxton, it was at least interesting.

  Lucy called the U.S. attorney who had prosecuted the case, but no one was available to talk to her. She left a message and looked at her time line for LeGrand.

  College, employment, residence.

  He’d graduated from Boston College sixteen years ago, at the age of twenty-two. He’d then worked as an accountant in a major firm in Boston for four years. But there was a two-year gap between when he left that company and when he moved to Manhattan, where he worked for the stock exchange for four years, before taking the position with Avery & Block.

  She circled the gap on the whiteboard.

  What did he do during those two years?

  She went back to her notes on Colton Thayer. There was no connection between Thayer and LeGrand other than the fact that they’d both been born in Boston. They were five years apart, never went to the same schools, the same college, or worked for the same employers. Thayer had never done freelance work for LeGrand or LeGrand’s employers, either. LeGrand moved to Manhattan the year Thayer graduated with his master’s from MIT and Sean graduated with his bachelor of science.

  Something tickled at the back of her memory. Something Sean had told her last night, or maybe it was something Noah had said when she talked to him. About why Sean left MIT.

  She left her cubicle and walked briskly down to Rick’s office. His secretary wasn’t out front, and Lucy hesitated. She didn’t want to bother him, but her gut told her there was something odd in LeGrand’s career path. She knocked on the door.

  “Come in!” Stockton called.

  Lucy stepped in and approached his desk. Though she had known the AD for a year and they had mutual friends, she was still a little intimidated. He exuded authority.

  He asked, “Find something?”

  “It might be nothing.”

  “You wouldn’t be in my office if it was nothing.”

  “It’s more what I didn’t find. There’s a two-year gap in LeGrand’s employment history. This might not be unusual, except that according to his credit reports, he maintained the same lifestyle he had during his four years working as an accountant. There’s no inheritance that I could find.

  “The other interesting thing that I found was that he was a whistle-blower for a case that was investigated by our Manhattan office. A mortgage fraud case. Two people were prosecuted and pled out. They’re in prison for ten-to-twenty years.”

  “And this guy”—Stockton tapped the photo—“turned them in?”

  “Yes. I wanted to talk to the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, but because it was in New York I didn’t think I should make the call. I left a message for the prosecutor on the case.”

  “What do you need?”

  “I’d like a list of employees with Avery and Block, plus they should have a background on LeGrand as part of the case file. Especially if he gave testimony and was vetted by counsel.”

  Rick nodded. “I’ll make a couple calls. What else?”

  “The FBI accountant
s indicate that there is anywhere from six to ten million still unaccounted for.”

  “And you think LeGrand has the money?”

  “If he does, he’s not spending it. He lives within his means. He was paid well by Avery, but wasn’t on the board and made no major decisions for the company.”

  “Dig as deep as you need. Use my name if you have to. Find out everything about this guy. Did you find any connection to Senator Paxton?”

  “None. I even searched Paxton’s campaign contributor reports. LeGrand has never donated to his campaign. He’s made no reportable political donations at all. I checked the files on Paxton’s favorite charities, including Women and Children First, and LeGrand isn’t a donor. I don’t think they know each other.”

  Lucy continued, “I’m running the people LeGrand could have met with at Thayer’s house—Hunter Nash, Skylar Jansen, Evan Weller, and Carol Hattori—to see if there’s a connection to any of them.”

  “Don’t forget Colton Thayer.”

  “I ran him first. Nothing. They’re both from Boston, but no overlap in any area.”

  “Dig into the others and call if you find anything—I’m leaving.”

  “Is it that late?” She looked at her watch. It was only three in the afternoon.

  “I’m going to New York.”

  “Sir, could I come with you?” she asked spontaneously.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You have to report back to Quantico tomorrow morning.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Lucy, sit down.”

  She swallowed uneasily and sat.

  “I know this is hard on you, with Sean undercover and not being able to get involved. That’s why I let you work here today. But I can’t give you another pass. Noah and Sean know what they’re doing. I’ll keep you informed. Stay with your brother tonight; I told Chief O’Neal you’d be back by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  Lucy knew she had asked for special treatment, something she’d never wanted to do. And only last month she’d had to face the Office of Professional Responsibility because she uncovered a drug operation while camping in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t finding the drug operation that put her on the hot seat—it was shooting a drug dealer. She was on thin ice, and it didn’t matter how high she was ranked within her class or how well she scored on her tests, there were too many people watching her, waiting for her to screw up so they could kick her out.