Breaking Point

by Allison Brennan

  “Neutral territory, I was told.”

  “Name a time and place.”

  “I have business in Austin tonight. I’ll text you the address. A public coffee shop. Nine p.m.”

  Mona hung up.

  Lucy ended the call and ignored Jason’s curious expression. She sent Sean a message that she’d heard from their “friend in Houston” then sent Nate a message asking if he was available this evening for a road trip. He responded immediately that he’d be at her place at six.

  Lucy finished her lunch and tossed her garbage in a receptacle. Jason followed her, then they went back to the car. “For what it’s worth,” he said when he turned on the ignition, “I told Rachel it was a bad idea to follow you.”

  “Oh, in that case, all is forgiven,” she said sarcastically. “Let’s just get this done, okay?”

  Jason started driving and Lucy typed the address of the next witness into her GPS. The eight-year-old case had been fairly straightforward, though it had never been solved. It was a felony hit and run, and the only reason that the FBI had been involved was because the victim had been a federal judge. The witness said that a large SUV—gold, late model, possibly a Cadillac Escalade or something that looked like it—had hit the judge’s car going at least forty miles an hour. The witness said the SUV was driving erratically, and the judge tried to get over but didn’t have time. At the last minute, the SUV swerved to try to avoid the car, but ended up sideswiping it and sent the car over the embankment. The judge later died of his injuries.

  The FBI took lead, and all the evidence from the scene supported the lone witness. But they were never able to find the drunk driver. They searched for the vehicle and came up dry.

  “Where are we going?” Jason prompted.

  “The address isn’t coming up. Hold on.”

  She flipped through her notes to see if she’d written the address down wrong. No, everything was correct. She called Zach Charles, the squad analyst, and asked him to check the original file. A minute later he said, “That’s the address the case agent had.”

  “Thanks, Zach. Maybe she transposed the numbers. Can you run this Theresa Clark? Her name and last known address and number are in that file. Maybe she moved or got married or is on record for something else.”

  “Will do.”

  She ended the call.

  “Back to the office?”

  “No, let’s see what’s on that block.”

  Jason shrugged, but drove the twenty minutes to the street the witness claimed she lived on. The address was on the 6400 block, but the street ended at the 5000 block.

  “What if it should be 4650 instead of 6450?” Lucy mused.

  Jason drove down to address number 4650. The address was a duplex—4650A and 4650B.

  “You want to talk to the people?”

  “We’re here,” Lucy said.

  The residents knew nothing about a Theresa Clark and none recalled the hit-and-run that ended the life of the federal judge. When they finally pulled themselves away, Lucy looked up the press articles about the case. There was very little. Judge Redmond had been a consistent and fair judge, no one had complaints about him, and there was no evidence that the hit and run had been intentional. All the markers pointed to drunk driver, though Lucy didn’t remember seeing any crime scene photos in the file. The written report confirmed that the tire marks supported the witness statement. There had been no follow-up with the witness because there had been no vehicle or suspect located.

  But no one really dug deep into the judge’s life to see if the hit-and-run wasn’t as it appeared on paper, and now that they knew the witness had lied about her address—unless there was an error in the original paperwork—Lucy was becoming suspicious.

  “What are you thinking?” Jason asked.

  “Unless the agent of record made a mistake when inputting this information into the database, the witness lied.”

  “That’s a leap, isn’t it?”

  “It’s easy to verify. We need to talk to the agent, look at her original notes, see if maybe the address was input wrong, verify the phone number. Check with Clark’s employer at the time—she worked for a real estate company. But there was no follow-up with her employer because there was no reason to contact her again. Now there is. And maybe Zach will be able to track her down, though with only her name, age and a fake address it might not be that easy. We should definitely review all the physical evidence again, talk to Judge Redmond’s family, his colleagues. Maybe they’ll have a recollection, though after eight years there probably wouldn’t be anything.”

  “We need to figure out what happened in the reports at a minimum,” Jason said, “but I don’t know what benefit there would be rehashing all this with the judge’s family.”

  “If there is a logical explanation, then no, of course not, but without an answer? There’s something … odd about all of this.”

  They arrived back at FBI headquarters late that afternoon. Lucy followed up with Zach—he had no updates, only confirmed that the information Lucy had was what was originally entered into the files, both digital and written. Lucy wrote up the report of the entire day and sent it to Rachel, along with a plan on the judge’s case.

  Not ten minutes later, Rachel called Lucy and Jason into her office. “Judge Redmond—what’s this about a missing witness?”

  Jason said, “The address in our records doesn’t exist. We checked on other addresses in case there was a transposed number, but dead end.”

  “That seems to be a waste of time,” Rachel said. “Did you call Zach?”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, “he was pulling the original files and notes to verify it had been input correctly. But we were already in the neighborhood.”

  Rachel flipped through papers. “This is a hit and run. Seems unrealistic that the witness was lying, but it makes sense to track her down and get the right information. Jason, locate the witness, get her current information. Contact the agent of record in her new office—she’s out of Louisiana now—get any recollections from her, look at her personal notes. Review the file in detail, see if there is something missing, send the forensics report to Quantico, make sure our people didn’t miss anything with the analysis. If necessary, look at the background on Judge Redmond, maybe something odd is there that the original agent missed. Use Kenzie on this,” Rachel said.

  Jason opened his mouth and then closed it. “Okay,” he mumbled.

  Lucy’s jaw tightened. Kenzie? Kenzie was a good agent, but this was Lucy’s case. She’d had nothing to work on for two months and she had already familiarized herself with this case, far more than Jason. This should have been hers.

  Rachel turned to Lucy. “Do you have a problem, Agent Kincaid?”

  She had a lot of problems, but anything she said would get her in bigger trouble.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Lucy walked out. She went to her desk. 5:10. She was out of here.

  Jason approached her. “Hey, I’m sorry about that.”

  Lucy ignored him. She shut down her computer.

  “Really, Lucy,” he said. “I would have been happy to work this case with you.”

  Lucy turned to face him. “You lied to me.”

  “No—I explained—”

  “At lunch you told me that you had my back.”

  “She should have given it to you. I agree. But—”

  She brushed past him and walked out of the office. She didn’t care that everyone was watching her. She didn’t care that Rachel knew that she’d gotten to Lucy. This should have been Lucy’s case. There was no reason to give it to anyone else. Their squad was overworked, everyone was putting in extra time to clear the backlog—except for her, because Rachel wasn’t allowing it. She had nothing. Nothing.

  So she’d focus on finding Bella Caruso.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It had taken them hours to track down a possible location for Hirsch and his people, but Sean was confident they’d fo
und it, based on information collected by JT, Jack, and Declan Cross over the course of the day—and Sean’s magic with computer databases. Sean was following Declan and Jack. They planned on approaching the house from the north and south, so needed two vehicles. Surveillance only at this point, but Declan wanted to extract Bella. He had no reason other than his gut instincts, but Sean trusted instincts as much as he trusted skills.

  They were in the middle of nowhere now, and cell reception was spotty. Sean had boosted the radios so he and Jack could stay in constant communication. Right now it was just the three of them, and an unknown number of potential hostiles and victims. JT and Kane were meeting with the SSA of El Paso DEA, Gianna Murphy, who was a friend of Donnelly’s. Donnelly vouched for her, but Sean hadn’t had time to do more than a cursory glance at her background. On the surface she seemed more than solid—former Army intelligence officer, ten-year veteran with the DEA, former instructor at the DEA training camp at Quantico before coming to El Paso three years ago. According to Donnelly, she’d been offered a major promotion to run the training program at Quantico—rare and prestigious for a young agent like herself, barely forty—but she declined because, according to Donnelly, she wanted to finish what she started.

  So while Sean didn’t think Murphy would betray them, he wanted to dig deeper. But he wasn’t going to let Jack go into this situation blind. JT trusted Declan Cross because they’d been in the Navy together, but he was still not one of them, as far as Sean was concerned, and Jack was family.

  “There’s nothing out here,” Jack said in his earpiece. “Cross, are you certain about this?”

  It was muffled, but Sean heard Declan answer in the affirmative, that his source was trustworthy.

  Sean typed one-handed on his tablet. It lagged a bit, but then popped up. “There are several parcels of privately owned land, mostly multi-acre spreads. To the east are a couple thousand acres owned by the federal government. Only three of the parcels to the west and north have structures. The road ends—though there’s definitely backroad activity. ATVs, most likely. We can get through that way, if necessary, and have sufficient cover.”

  “How can you tell that?”

  “I downloaded the most recent satellite data of the area.”

  Jack grunted—or laughed, Sean couldn’t tell.

  Sean clicked through. “The northern most property was foreclosed on a couple years back, no recent sales.”

  Jack repeated that information to Declan. Then said to Sean, “Okay, we’ll go in from the south, you pass us and go in from the north. Do not approach until I give the order.”

  “Roger that.”

  Sean passed the nearly invisible entrance to the Double Q Ranch and sped up. One of the benefits of desert driving, at least here, was the terrain—because they’d come off a wetter than average winter with no recent rain, the ground was packed, making it much easier to drive on. But there were cacti and rocks he needed to avoid, so he had to slow down.

  “Sean, we’re in position,” Jack said in his earpiece. “We’re one hundred yards south of the main structure. There are no vehicles in sight, but proceed with caution.”

  “I’m two minutes from position.” Sean sped up as much as he dared, turned onto a dry creek bed and followed it to a spot directly north of the house. Then he turned and slowly drove to a crumbling rail-fence that had seen better days long ago.

  He slipped on his backpack—Kane had laid down the law about being prepared when he first trained Sean, and he’d reiterated it this morning.

  “This is the desert. Water, ammo, knife, emergency kit at all times.”

  Sean looked around him. A large lizard scurried from rock to rock. Prickly pear cactus grew everywhere, and the purple Texas sage bloomed. He walked through a broken section of the fence and ran low toward the house until he had it in view.

  “I’m in position,” Sean told Jack. “I have a visual on the house.”

  “Activity?”

  “Negative.”

  Sean scanned for possible vantage points. A decrepit barn provided the best cover, though he’d have to run through an open area to reach it.

  “I’m heading to the barn,” Sean said.

  He made it without incident. He took a look inside—several of the panels were completely gone. A rusting tractor with weeds growing out of it, moldy hay, and stacks of rotting wood littered the place. Jars filled with dark liquid that Sean didn’t even want to go near lined one wall.

  He walked around the edge of the barn until he could see the house. “I’m in place,” he said over the com.

  “Hold your position, cover us.”

  As Sean watched, Jack and Declan came in low and fast from the south. They stopped up against the house. Sean didn’t see any activity on the perimeter. The house felt empty.

  “No movement,” Sean said.

  Declan and Jack took opposite sides of the house, then met at the door. “Clear,” Jack said.

  Sean came out of the barn and ran up to the door. “We need to search the place,” Jack said, “but my guess is they cleaned it out. If there’s no one here, they’re not coming back.”

  “Bella sent me two messages this morning,” Declan said. “First, that she wanted out and to wait for her signal. Then fifteen minutes later said plans had changed. It’s Simon fucking with her head.”

  “Why didn’t you tell JT earlier?” Jack said.

  “Because when it comes to Bella, JT doesn’t think clearly. I know he’s your partner—hell, we served together, I know him. He is one of the best soldiers I fought with, but Bella is his sister.”

  Everyone had a blind spot.

  “Why Simon?”

  “Because she called him. If she’d talked to me, I would have pulled her. But Simon has a way of convincing the smartest operatives to do dangerous things. And he knows exactly what strings to pull with Bella.”

  “Finding this girl, Hope,” Jack said.

  “Yes—that’s what he’s holding over her—but I think his game is far bigger. He’s not talking to me anymore. He might suspect I’m working with you. You cannot underestimate his reach or paranoia.”

  Sean was sick and tired of hearing about Simon Egan. The guy was brilliant, but as far as Sean was concerned, he’d lost his edge when he put people at risk. Even trained operatives who knew the score like Bella Caruso.

  “She’s not going to leave until she finds Hope,” Sean said.

  “Or gets herself killed,” Jack said.

  Declan rubbed both hands over his face. “If I found her before she talked to Simon, she’d be safe right now.”

  Jack glanced at Sean. “Search the house, see what you can learn.”

  Sean went inside while Jack and Declan kept watch outside.

  The place was a dive. Though it had been foreclosed on by the bank, it was clear it had been used on and off by any number of people. Faded, torn, mismatched couches lined the large living room. A lopsided dining table with a couple chairs was littered with cigarette butts, papers, and beer bottles. There was power to the house—whether the bank kept it on or someone spliced into the network, Sean wasn’t certain. He checked the refrigerator. A few water bottles, some beers, that was it. The garbage was fresh—and there was a bundle of bloody gauze near the top.

  Sean dumped the garbage in the sink, but there was nothing else of interest.

  A room off the kitchen was surprisingly clean compared to the rest of the house. Someone had been living in here, though it had once been a large pantry. There was room only for a bed, which had been made with linens that were relatively new. A few strands of blonde hair were on the pillow. Bella?

  He searched under the linens and mattress but didn’t find a note or any clue to her whereabouts. There were shelves that had once held canned and boxed goods, but they were mostly empty. A couple rolls of towels, cleaning supplies that were nearly empty.

  Bella had only had a general idea where she was and Declan’s contacts had narrowed it down to this ab
andoned property. If Bella had told Declan to extract her, why hadn’t she left him a message? Was she caught off guard? Why had she changed her mind in the first place? When did they leave? Sean had encountered no one on the road leading out here—fifteen minutes straight through the desert to this place, off the highway. They didn’t just miss them. They must have left at least an hour ago.

  Sean walked through the house. There were several mattresses on the floor of a large room downstairs, and several rooms upstairs. The bathrooms were functional but dirty. Odds and ends of clothing were tossed around, small containers of shampoo and conditioner, the sinks stained with make-up. He couldn’t tell how many people had been here recently, it could have been a few up to twenty. More if they were crammed in, which was certainly possible.

  There were no backpacks, luggage, anything to indicate that someone was returning.

  In the back bedroom he found a disgusting bowl of cigarette butts and ashes. Three matchbooks, all partly used, from an El Paso bar. He grabbed one.

  “Jack, all clear,” he said through the com. “No personal effects. No computers, phones, notes, weapons. Found matchbooks from an El Paso bar, however. Recent signs of smoking.”

  “Come on out.”

  Sean stepped out on the porch. “My sources are antsy about something going down tonight,” Declan said. “I need to make contact with Bella face-to-face and find out exactly what’s going on.”

  “We will make contact,” Jack said.

  “I know this business better than any of you. Look—I’ve already blown my job. Simon isn’t an idiot—he knows that while I may have been working with him, it was only because of Bella. And now that Bella is in trouble, he knows where my loyalties lie. But remember this: I’ve been working with Bella for three years, and Genesis Road years before, and understand the ins and outs of sex trafficking better than any of you.”

  “I agree,” Jack said, “but you were in Los Angeles and Phoenix, and if just one of Hirsch’s people saw you with Bella there, they’re going to peg you for a cop if they see you here. You need to keep a low profile.”

  “Then we’re at a standstill,” Declan said.