No Good Deed

by Allison Brennan

  She frowned. She missed Jimmy. She had so much fun with him and he taught her the most important lesson ever: Never let anyone know your exit strategy.

  Ten minutes later they were at a small airstrip. But there wasn’t a plane in sight. Tobias said, “Wait here,” in his serious voice, the one he used when he really wanted Elise to do exactly what he said.

  Elise considered following him, but she wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

  Then she saw the bitch.

  “Well, shit,” she muttered. “Just when I thought it was going to be a good day.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Joseph drove Sean around for over two hours. Sean was numb by the time the truck stopped. He suspected the journey was the most roundabout way to get to where Nicole was holed up. And it worked—at first he tried to keep track of turns and changes in speed, the quality of the roads and the sounds of traffic, but with the dull roar of the undercarriage coupled with the bounce and being restrained, Sean couldn’t figure out where they might be.

  There was one interesting event—a phone call that seemed to anger Joseph. All Sean heard was a few words, but Joseph was furious, speeding up after he threw his phone on the dashboard. At least, that’s what it sounded like.

  But the last fifteen minutes were the bumpiest, and Sean knew they were on an unpaved road. As the truck slowed, Sean heard nothing but the truck and gravel.

  Joseph got out, leaving the truck idling. A minute later he got back in, rolled the truck forward a hundred feet, then got out. A gate. He wasn’t surprised. Texas was a huge state with large chunks of property, vast spaces, private roads.

  He wished he had his watch. It would be much easier if he didn’t have to write code on the fly. He could do it—but it would make the entire situation more difficult and he’d risk getting caught. Fortunately, Kate was monitoring the FBI’s asset forfeiture account. As soon as she saw him go in—as soon as he attempted to get in—she’d be all over it.

  It would almost be funny—if his life weren’t in danger. Ten years ago when he was hacking into a bank he did everything in his power not to be caught by the feds. Now he needed to make sure they could not only trace his computer, but do it in real time.

  They drove another five minutes—a long, gravel road that twisted around and slightly down. By the time the truck stopped and Joseph cut the ignition, Sean’s body was covered in bruises and he had a splitting headache.

  Joseph got out of the truck and spoke to someone. Sean couldn’t hear what they were saying, his ears were still ringing. A minute later, the door opened, the bench seat was pushed up, and two sets of hands reached in and pulled Sean out. His hands bent awkwardly and he grunted in pain.

  He was dropped to the rocky ground and someone cut the zip-ties.

  “Get up,” Joseph said.

  Sean reached up and took the bag off his head. His eyes slammed shut in the brightness. He had little feeling in his hands and feet. He tried to stand, staggered, and fell.

  Joseph swore under his breath and said, “Lyle, grab one arm, I’ll get the other.”

  They roughly dragged Sean across the gravel road. He tried to kick himself into a standing position, but his legs were like noodles, the pins and pricks burning inside. His arm that had been cut during Kane’s rescue throbbed and dripped blood as the remaining stitches tore.

  He cried out when a sharp rock hit the small of his back. “Stop!”

  They dropped him and Sean rolled over to his knees. He took a couple of deep breaths and saw a railing and porch stairs. He crawled to the stairs, pulled himself up, and used the railing as a crutch. His numb muscles slowly stretched as the blood circulated. He surveyed his surroundings. The terrain and hills told him he was west or northwest of San Antonio. Because they were in a valley, he couldn’t see much around him, but to the northwest there were scraggly peaks. He didn’t know the geography of Texas well enough to figure out exactly where he was, but he’d guess between fifty and eighty miles outside the city.

  He spotted two armed guards on the porch—they weren’t trying to stay hidden—but there were others moving just outside his vision. How many people did Rollins have working for her? Four who kidnapped him, Joseph, Lyle, who else? The two on the porch had the same look as the gangbangers at Vasco Trejo’s compound three months ago. Young men with angry, dead eyes.

  If this place was anything like Trejo’s compound, then there would be a minimum of eight roaming guards. Inside, it would only be the inner circle. The elite. Joseph Contreras. Nicole Rollins. Tobias.

  Joseph whispered something to Lyle, who ran over to the truck and drove off. Joseph pushed Sean into the house.

  Sean realized he was in over his head when he stepped inside the large, sparsely furnished house. It was a sprawling two-story cabin-like home with two staircases and large windows showcasing the vast, dry landscape. He wasn’t getting out of here without help.

  And he had no idea if he could clue Kate into where he was—or if he did, whether reinforcements would get here in time.

  Escape might be his only option to survive. And in this unknown terrain, escape wasn’t really an option.

  Nicole Rollins ran into the room. She stopped when she saw him.

  “Sean Rogan.” She smirked and looked him up and down. “Agent Kincaid did pretty good for herself, didn’t she?” She sauntered over to Joseph and gave him a kiss.

  Nicole looked different from her photos—her hair was shorter and she’d lost weight. But Sean would have recognized her though they’d never actually met.

  “You did it,” she said to Joseph with a smile. “We’re almost done.”

  He glanced at Sean, then pulled Nicole to the side. Sean couldn’t hear what he told her, but Sean suspected it was about the phone call he’d received.

  “We’ll be gone by sunset,” Nicole said.

  That meant she expected Sean would need about three hours. He could work with that. It was more time than he thought he would have.

  Nicole walked over to Sean and smiled, but her pale-blue eyes remained cold. “You have work to do,” she said, “and not a lot of time to do it. Follow me.”

  He did, because he didn’t have a choice. Joseph trailed behind, close enough that Sean could feel his breath on the back of his neck. Nicole led Sean to a great room, complete with a bar along one wall, a pool table to the side, and a desk with three state-of-the-art laptops open and waiting.

  “Sit,” she said.

  Sean complied.

  “Obedient, aren’t you?” she said. “And quiet. No wonder Lucy loves you so much.”

  Sean wanted to break her neck.

  While he and Kane had been running around trying to find Tobias, all along it was Nicole who was in charge. Lucy had started thinking about that possibility two weeks ago, but it wasn’t until the escape that it became clear. Tobias was part of this operation, no doubt, but Nicole Rollins was in charge and Sean would not forget it.

  She pulled up a chair and sat next to him. “Let me tell you how this is going to work. Adeline Worthington, may she burn in Hell, stole twenty-three million dollars from me. I don’t need to explain to you how she did it—you already know she was laundering money for my operation. But what you don’t know is why she stole from me.”

  He didn’t say a word.

  That seemed to irritate Nicole. “She stole it because of you. You and your fucking brother and your bleeding-heart girlfriend. Those guns Kane took from us? They were bought and paid for. And then they were gone. How do you think that made me look to my suppliers? To my people? Weak! But worse—I was arrested. I could have fixed it … I’m good at that … but not from behind bars.

  “James Everett, the prick, only got back three point three million. I want all my money.”

  Sean cleared his throat. His mouth was dry, but he said in a gruff voice, “There wasn’t twenty-million in those accounts.”

  “Because you interfered.”

  He finally looked her in the eye.
For a moment, she said nothing and he just stared. Then he said, “I was in the next room. I cloned Everett’s computer and siphoned off half the money. At most, there was nine, ten million. So either you’re lying to me and want me to steal more than you lost, or Everett cheated you. But either way, there’s only six million, take or leave, in the FBI asset forfeiture account that I slipped the money into.”

  She leaned forward. “You’re going to get me twenty million dollars before eight p.m. tonight, and I don’t give a fuck how you do it or who you steal it from. But if it’s not in my account, not only are you and Kane dead, but I’ll enjoy torturing your girlfriend and watching her beg for her life.”

  “If you think the Rogan family is ruthless, you have never met the Kincaids,” he said in a low voice.

  For a split second a glimmer of fear drifted in and out of Nicole’s expression. Then she said, “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Where exactly do you expect me to get twenty million dollars?”

  “You’re the hacker, Mr. Rogan. The FBI has multiple asset forfeiture accounts. I don’t care which ones you steal it from, I want twenty million, and you’d better get started.”

  He put his fingers on the keyboard of the largest laptop. “Wait,” Nicole said. She nodded to Joseph, who then left the room. “You didn’t think I trusted you, did you?” she said.

  A minute later Joseph walked back in with FBI Agent Barry Crawford.

  Barry looked like shit. He’d been severely beaten and Joseph had to hold him upright. One eye was completely swollen shut and the other was bloodshot. His clothes were filthy and torn, he stank of vomit and blood, and his right hand was bandaged but hanging limp at his side.

  Everyone thought he was dead. And he would be soon if he didn’t get medical attention.

  “Barry,” Sean said.

  Barry stared at him blankly. Had he been drugged? He gave no indication that he recognized Sean.

  Sean turned to Nicole. “Who was in Barry’s car?”

  “No one important to you,” she said. “Barry has been extremely helpful over the last few days. I knew he would be. Joseph didn’t believe him when he said he had no idea who stole our money, but once I got out of jail I explained to Joseph that Barry was too law-and-order. I knew immediately that this wasn’t a sanctioned operation—the FBI, no federal law enforcement agency moves that fast. But I didn’t realize it was you until we finally cracked open Agent Dunbar’s files. Then everything became clear.”

  She walked over to Barry. The fed straightened, then staggered as if he was in pain. Joseph let go of his arm and Barry sank to the floor. He was dying.

  “Poor Barry didn’t even know that his own partner was responsible for everything, including the pain and suffering he had to endure before we figured out he knew shit.” Nicole turned to Sean. “Make no mistake about it, your little fuck-buddy started all of this. If she hadn’t gotten her panties in a wad about Michael Rodriguez, if she hadn’t played the hero by going down to Mexico to save Brad, if she hadn’t seen my cousin and nearly blown everything … Barry would have made it to his high school reunion in Seattle. Lucy started it, and you, jackass, finished it. You stole my money with no sanction from the FBI. I don’t know who you know or what you have on them. But it’s clear you did whatever you damn well pleased and found someone in the FBI to cover for you.”

  Sean stared at her. He maintained complete control. He had to, or he might blow this whole operation. He said coolly, “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  She ignored his comment. “Here’s the deal. Barry isn’t going to last much longer. He knows nothing—obviously,” she said, waving a hand toward his swollen face, “so he’s not much use to me. I can, however, still make him suffer, so you fuck with me, I’ll fuck with him, and you’ll know it’s all your fault from beginning to end.” She grinned. “I’m a poet.”

  She sat down next to Sean. “I know a lot about computers,” she said, “and I’m watching.”

  Sean didn’t move.

  “Starting hacking, Rogan. Time is ticking.”

  He knew what to do, but to do it while Nicole was watching … he would have to be extremely careful. That meant hacking not only the FBI asset forfeiture account, but rewriting the computer’s code to send an electronic beacon to Kate so she could find him.

  And he would have to rewrite it so Nicole couldn’t tell that’s what he was doing.

  Sean’s headache grew worse.

  Ten minutes later a commotion in the front of the house startled Nicole and she jumped up. But she didn’t leave Sean’s side. “Joseph!” she said.

  He ran out and a minute later returned.

  “We have company,” he said flatly.

  Sean couldn’t read Joseph’s expression, but Nicole tensed. A minute later a skinny woman of sixty with a long dark-gray braid down her back walked in. Nicole was obviously surprised, but she ran over and gave the woman a hug. “I thought you were going to Mexico,” she said.

  “Change of plans,” the woman snapped. “When this much money is at stake, do you think I’m going to trust just anyone?”

  She walked over to Sean and stared at him. “So you’re Kane Rogan’s brother. Spitting image.” She slapped him so hard Sean almost fell from the chair because he wasn’t expecting it. It was all he could do not to grab the woman’s wrist and twist it.

  “We haven’t been formally introduced,” Sean said through clenched teeth.

  “Call me Maggie.”

  “Niki!” a voice cried out.

  As Sean watched, Elise Hansen—the teenage prostitute who had killed Harper Worthington—ran into the room and hugged Nicole. That was when he saw the resemblance. For a second he wondered if Elise was Nicole’s daughter … the thought sickened him, especially since he knew how Elise lived her life and what she’d done. What she did for fun as well as survival.

  Then an older man walked in. Nice looking—not too tall, a little big around the middle, and balding. Everyone’s-favorite-uncle type … except Sean realized that this was Tobias.

  The man for whom his brother had been searching for months.

  “So did he give us our money back?”

  “We’d just started when you came in,” Nicole said.

  “Seems like he’s still working without supervision,” Maggie said.

  Nicole strode back over to Sean and looked at his screen. “What are you doing?”

  “Breaking into a secure bank. Isn’t that what you wanted?” His heart was beating too fast. He prayed Nicole didn’t have any more computer skills than the average competent federal agent.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” she growled. Then she turned to the group. “I need to watch this bad boy to make sure we get all twenty million back into our account. Get changed, do whatever, but we leave tonight. The feds aren’t close, but they’re pushing, and I’m not going to wait around for them to find us.”

  Sean immediately thought: How the hell does she know what’s going on? Hans had told him the need-to-know list was small. Was it a guess on Nicole’s part or was there someone Sean trusted who had betrayed them?

  * * *

  Kenzie walked into her cozy house just after five Wednesday evening. She was exhausted and felt like shit.

  Everyone else was still working, but Abigail told her to go home. She had barely slept last night and she’d arrived at the morgue at six thirty this morning. Watching the autopsy—as much as she could stomach—had been harder than anything she’d done on this job. Or in the army.

  “Eric?” she called. His car was in the driveway. She’d been so relieved when she saw it, because she didn’t want to be alone. Not after today.

  She heard the shower running and considered jumping in with him, but truthfully, she wasn’t in the mood for fun and games. She just wanted to be hugged.

  Her house was small, a little two-bedroom two-bath in a borderline area, but not too far from headquarters. She owned it, the first time anyone in her family had ever o
wned a house. She’d also been the only one to go to college. Her mom had been a single mom, her dad an asshole who left when she was two. Her mom raised her on her own, no help from anyone else, and Kenzie never once doubted that she was loved. She almost called her mom, just to say hi, but decided her mom would worry too much. Kenzie had to get the grief out of her system or her mom would know that she was upset, and then her mom would worry. She never wanted her mom to worry.

  She sat down at her desk, in the dining room. She didn’t need a formal dining table, and the breakfast nook off the kitchen was large enough to seat six. The dining room had a lot of light and space, and better, she could watch football on Sundays while sitting at her computer writing reports.

  Kenzie pulled up her email and started skimming for anything that might be important, but she couldn’t get Barry out of her head.

  She and Emilio had searched Barry’s house. ERT had already gone through last night to process it for blood and trace evidence, but they’d come back with nothing. The house was clean. Kenzie and Emilio were searching for any clue, no matter how small, but also found nothing. They interviewed Barry’s neighbors, and his elderly next-door neighbor was the only one with information—Barry had talked to him Friday afternoon before he left on his long weekend to tell him he was going.

  The hardest part—after the autopsy itself—was going through Barry’s things. Pictures of him with his brother and brother’s family. Pictures of him coaching his nephew’s Little League team. Barry had played baseball in college, had been pretty good Kenzie heard, but she’d never once asked him why he hadn’t gone into the big leagues. Was it by choice? Had he always wanted to be a cop? Or had he wanted to do something else? He’d been a friend, a colleague, an all-around good guy—yet she didn’t know much about him. He didn’t share a lot of personal information because he believed work was for work. The few times they’d gone out for drinks with the squad Barry had loosened up a bit. She wished she’d had more opportunities like that.

  Dammit. She had tears in her eyes. Barry was a good agent. He didn’t deserve to be tortured and murdered and left to turn into soup in the trunk of his own car.