“Wake up, Brad,” she continued. “The war on drugs? It’s over. They won. You either join them, or keep tilting at windmills until one of their bullets pierces your skull. Don’t you realize that our focus on stopping them raises the price of drugs and increases the violence? But they will continue to bring in heroin and cocaine and marijuana and pseudoephedrine, and for every shipment you stop, every gang you shut down, three more spring up. Grow the fuck up, Donnelly. Get out while you’re still breathing.”
Brad had to stop letting Nicole steer the conversation. “I suspect,” he said slowly, “that with Sanchez and Trejo dead, Tobias was attempting to solidify his organization. Because he was weakened, another player went after him. He’s done. Every one of Sanchez’s associates is dead or in prison.”
“You will never understand because you have no vision, Brad.”
“Then explain it to me, Nicole! What don’t I understand?”
She stared at him for a long minute. He was losing it. He’d planned on being completely calm, in complete control, but she’d goaded him, and he’d let her. He forced himself to breathe slowly to calm his pounding heart.
“Only because I actually feel sorry for you, I’m going to explain one thing. Tobias isn’t scared of you. If someone took out Sanchez’s people, Tobias let it happen. Two nights ago? If Tobias was at all angry about it, you would have already seen a bigger bloodbath.”
“Who is Tobias?”
She smiled. “So that’s what you really want. You want Tobias. I’m certainly not giving him up to you—even if I could.” From her tone, Brad realized she knew far more about Tobias and his operation than anyone else. She might imply she didn’t, but it was clear she enjoyed keeping the information to herself. “I’m not loyal to you or the fucking DEA. You go ahead and charge at those windmills, but watch your back while you’re sitting on your high horse. You fuck with Tobias, he’ll fuck you back twice as hard. You might want to tell that rookie you have the hots for to watch her back, because she pissed off the wrong person.”
For a minute, Brad didn’t know what Nicole was talking about.
“Lucy?” he asked.
“You want to screw her so badly.”
“You’re insane.”
“I know you, Brad. I know you better than you think I do. That rookie five years ago who Jamie Sanchez iced? Don’t think I don’t know that you were sleeping with her. That’s why you went all psycho anti-rookie. Guilt. Guilt is a powerful motivator, isn’t it?”
Brad didn’t say a word. The past haunted him, the mistakes he’d made, the people who had gotten hurt because of it.
How does she know about Rebecca? We weren’t even working in the same city.
But he didn’t ask. She knew a lot of things, and that made him wonder if she was corrupt long before Vasco Trejo caught her on camera killing a drug dealer and stealing his cash.
“And I’m pretty sure you’ll feel just as guilty if serious, sad, pretty little Lucy Kincaid gets whacked because of your obsession with going after a man who has more power behind him than you can possibly know. And that’s all you’re going to get, Brad.” She stared at him. “Of course, if you can convince the powers that be to put me into witness protection—on my terms—I’ll give you everything you want, and more. But Sam Archer put her foot down. She thinks I know nothing of value.” Nicole smiled widely. “She is so very wrong.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sean drove Lucy to work Tuesday morning. He hadn’t asked her to stay home, though she could see in his expression that he didn’t want her working after last night. And for about two minutes, she’d considered calling in sick. She had no energy and the makeup she’d layered on couldn’t completely hide the dark circles under her eyes.
But she’d made a promise to herself long ago that she’d never let what had happened to her—or the fallout—stop her from doing her job. Whether it was when she was in college or grad school or working for search and rescue or the morgue … and now the FBI … she couldn’t let her emotional turmoil keep her from her responsibilities.
Sean pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car. “Are you sure you don’t want to go back home? I can make double chocolate chip brownies and we can watch Guardians of the Galaxy for the hundredth time.”
She smiled, genuinely smiled. “You exaggerate. We’ve only seen it fifty-six times.”
Sean touched her face. “Be safe, Lucy. Call me if you need anything.”
“I will. Are you going to HWI?”
“At some point. I have a few things to check on, then I’ll give Gregor my report.”
Lucy wanted to tell him to forget last night, but of course Sean would never be able to, just like it would be burned in her memory forever. She didn’t know if telling Sean about her nightmare was going to help, and she certainly didn’t know if discussing the dreams would stop them, but it had been cathartic. Difficult beyond nearly anything she’d had to do, but when she was done, it was like every drop of blood had been drained from her body. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, and had allowed Sean to put her back to bed and hold her. Needed him to hold her. Neither of them had slept, but that was okay.
“I love you,” she said.
He kissed her. “Catch a bad guy today, princess.”
She waved good-bye and walked into FBI headquarters. She was late—she was never late—but fortunately, Juan wasn’t a stickler about tardiness. Most of them worked longer than the eight-to-five shift required of them.
She passed Ryan on her way to her desk. “You look like shit.”
“Now I know why you got divorced,” she snapped. She put her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“It wasn’t. Just unexpected.” He followed her to her cubicle. She sat down and booted up her computer. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
The response was automatic, and Ryan knew it was a lie.
“As long as you’re not sick. I don’t have any sick time left—took it when my boys had the chicken pox. One right after the other.”
“I’m just tired.” She hesitated, then added, “Insomnia. Some nights it’s worse than others.”
“If you need anything, let me know.”
“I talked to Brad last night about the gang shooting. Anything new?”
Ryan shook his head. “Not much. We haven’t found the van. Haven’t ID’d two of the victims, and no one’s talking. I had a message when I got in that SAPD talked to the kid’s family. The kid was there with his mother and aunt—we confirmed that the baby daddy was one of the gangbangers. They family was hysterical, but gave us nothing useful. Did Brad tell you he’s talking to Nicole Rollins today?”
She nodded. “He’s having a hard time with it, but he’s the only one she’ll talk to.”
“She said that?”
“No—it’s my gut feeling.”
Barry walked past the Violent Crimes Squad cubicles and spotted Lucy. “Good, you’re here.” He handed her a packet of paper. “The tech team finally extracted the data off Harper Worthington’s tablet. Unfortunately, it’s mostly raw numbers and spreadsheets with no key as to what it all means. I had them email the data to our cyber experts at Quantico.”
Lucy looked at the thin packet he’d handed her. “What’s this?”
“Other than the spreadsheets, he kept some notes. I printed them out, made a few copies.”
Ryan said, “I’ll let you two get to work.”
She turned back to Barry. He said, “The tablet has an automatic logging system, so we know that it was first used on May ninth.”
“Almost four weeks ago.”
“The same time his daughter, wife, and assistant thought he was acting preoccupied. And when he stopped using his office phone.”
“We need to retrace his steps leading up to the ninth.”
“Zach and the tech teams are working on it. HWI gave us his schedule for the last three months, so we can compare that with what we find and se
e if there are discrepancies.” Barry gestured to the thin packet of paper in Lucy’s hand. “Look at the first page.”
She looked down.
Meet G.A. @ 11—Camp Street #115
The White Knight Motel was on Camp Street. Worthington had died in room 115.
“That note was created Friday afternoon. Only minutes before he made his flight arrangements,” Barry said. “The notes are collated from most recent to oldest.”
“Does it correspond to an email or a phone call?”
“Yes. He received a call from a blocked number on his cell phone at the same time that he created the note. Juan is getting a warrant to get the number from the provider. We’ll have it before the end of the day, but my guess is it’ll be a burner phone.”
“It could match one of the other numbers we have. Like Elise or Mona Hill.”
“Could, but we’ll have to confirm that when we get it. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“I’m not, I’m theorizing. So basically, he set up a one-hour meeting with someone on a Friday night hours from where he was staying. That would suggest that he knew his attacker. And—again a theory—it suggests that whatever was on this tablet was somehow connected to this meeting.”
“Then why didn’t he bring it?”
“Maybe he was suspicious of the meeting. Or maybe it wasn’t about the information he had, but information he was going to add to it.”
She turned the page. A list of dates—with no context—that went back nearly eight years. None of them meant anything to Lucy, but she went through them a second time and frowned at the very first listing.
“Barry—isn’t this the day Adeline Reyes-Worthington was elected to office in the special election?”
He looked over her shoulder. “Yes. But none of these other dates relate to elections. It might mean nothing.”
“But this is the first date on this list.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know—just that Worthington thought this information was important enough to not only keep on a tablet that no one knew he had, but to put extra security on it and create unlabeled spreadsheets so no one would understand what the data meant.”
She turned the page. A list of numbers caught her eye. “What are these?” she asked Barry.
“I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I think they’re land parcel numbers. Zach is researching them.”
There were a couple dozen numbers, some in sequential order, some not.
“Do you think there’s a connection between these numbers and the BLM files that Harper was obsessed with at his office?”
“Yes. We’re working with HWI to give us access to those files. We could get a warrant, but because they’ve cooperated, we’re giving them time to work through some contractual issues of either giving us copies or letting us access them. Flip to the last page.”
Lucy did. There was one name.
G.A.—Roy Travertine.
“Is that important?” It sounded familiar, but she didn’t know why.
“That was the first note on the tablet. Roy Travertine was the congressman who died in office—the person who Adeline Reyes-Worthington replaced. According to both Adeline and Worthington’s daughter, Travertine and Worthington were longtime friends. I don’t know how that relates to what else is on the tablet, except that the initials ‘G.A.’ appear a couple of times.”
“We should show Adeline the dates and ask her if she knows what they mean.”
“I’ve been going back and forth about that. If it were any other case, I’d do it.”
“But she’s a federal official so you can’t?” Lucy was having a difficult time treating this case as different from any other case.
“It’s not that I can’t, it’s that we have an obligation not to do anything that could be seen as impacting an election. It’s sensitive.”
“Then we go to her house. It’s reasonable that we would want to talk to her about her husband’s murder.”
“We still haven’t had it confirmed.”
Zach stepped in. “Yes, you have. This just came over the fax machine.”
It was a preliminary coroner’s report. The cover memo was addressed to Agents Crawford and Kincaid, from Julie Peters.
Barry & Lucy ~ Attached is the preliminary coroner’s report. I’m still waiting on some test results, and I need to review this with my boss, but I’m confident that COD for Harper Worthington was an injection of curare, a poison. The lab eliminated commercial availability—meaning, this strain isn’t from a pharmaceutical drug that might have medicinal purposes. This is a plant-based, homemade version from plants found in Central and South America. I’ve called in an expert to narrow this down—he should not only be able to tell us what plant was used and where it’s most likely found, but also be able to isolate the genetic markers to see if there are any unsolved cases with this strain.
You should have the final report by the end of the day. But COD is asphyxiation due to poison injected into the bloodstream. I’m ruling his death a homicide.
“Lucy, call Julie and ask her if she can suppress this report for a day or two. I need to talk to Juan.”
Barry left the squad room and Lucy called Julie. She answered on the first ring, and said no problem, she could hold the report in house until Friday if they wanted.
Now that Lucy had something to focus on, she began to feel better. The coffee that Ryan kindly brought to her desk helped as well.
Lucy looked through the pages from the tablet again. Harper had typed data into a simple note application. Each note was only a few lines, if that, except for the list of numbers that Barry thought were land parcel numbers.
There were two other meetings with the unknown “G.A.” listed in the notes. One on May 11 and one on June 1, both Mondays. June 1 was five days before he was killed. Both meetings were at different locations with no street address, just a street name.
The June 1 meeting was at two thirty at St. P—Lucy didn’t know if that was a street name, a business, a church, or what. She looked at the corresponding day in his office calendar. There was nothing scheduled on the calendar.
The May 11 meeting was at one at N. Zarzamora.
The latter was definitely a street, but it was miles long.
She looked at the calendar again. That was the day he’d cancelled a meeting. His admin had remembered because it was out of character. And her husband had seen him.
She immediately called Debbie Alexander on her cell phone.
“Hello?” the admin answered.
“Debbie, this is Special Agent Lucy Kincaid. Do you know what bar your husband saw Harper leaving?”
“No, but I can ask him.”
“Would you? And call me right back.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just following up.” She hung up and circled the meeting. This was important, she could feel it.
Now if only they could find out what the initials G.A. stood for.
Barry hadn’t returned, so Lucy did an Internet search for Roy Travertine, congressman plus Harper Worthington to narrow the list to articles that referenced both of them.
Most of the information she read in Travertine’s obituary and an extensive article on Travertine after his death. Travertine and Worthington had known each other since childhood. Travertine was godfather to Jolene Hayden, and Harper was godfather to Travertine’s firstborn son. They had had completely different careers—Travertine was an architect. When he died, he left behind a wife and three children, the youngest of whom was now in college. After Travertine’s death, Harper had donated a large sum of money to renovate an old library in San Antonio and rename it the Roy H. Travertine Memorial Public Library.
Travertine himself had been in office for five years. He was only forty-eight when he died. He wasn’t a career politician and still kept his business. He ran for office primarily because of business issues, but had quickly adopted a tough-on-crime stance—particularly federal
drug crimes. His crowning achievement was to make it easier for federal, state, and local authorities to pool resources in border states to combat smuggling—drugs, weapons, humans.
Why was Worthington thinking about his old friend now? Did the information on the tablet have anything to do with Travertine?
Barry came back into the room. “Let’s go. Juan gave us the green light to talk to Adeline, give her the cause of death, ask her about the information on the tablet. First I want to talk to Jolene.”
“Did you look up Harper’s schedule the week he bought the tablet?”
Barry nodded. “His office has him marked down as being on vacation from May fourth through the ninth, but he changed it last minute to fly back on the eighth—to Dallas instead of San Antonio. He then spent a few days there before coming back to San Antonio the morning of the eleventh.”
“Was Adeline in D.C. with him?”
“It appears so—we’ll ask her about the trip. But what I really want to know is what happened on the seventh or eighth that prompted this change of schedule? We’ll ask Jolene and Harper’s admin.”
Lucy slid over her notes about the two other meetings with “G.A.”
“June first—that’s only days before he died. And the one on May eleventh? You said he returned to San Antonio that morning. That’s also the day his admin said he cancelled an important business meeting. I called and asked her to check with her husband, who saw Harper’s car in an unusual area, where he saw it. What if it was near North Zarzamora?”
Barry looked over Lucy’s notes and compared the days and times on the schedule, just as she had done. “It’s worth following up on,” he said.
It didn’t take long to drive to HWI since the morning rush was over. Jolene was in her office—a small, cluttered office with many homey touches, including a pillow-covered couch, a hand-knit afghan, and lots of pictures of her and her dad and husband, or her and a horse. She seemed less angry and more heartbroken this morning than she had yesterday. “I’m glad you’re here—I have some information for you.”
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