Best Laid Plans

by Allison Brennan

  “Go ahead—I’ll be here until eight, but I’ve also put in twenty-four-hour security on your recommendation. An employee, not a service, as you suggested.”

  “Good. Loyalty decreases the chances of infiltration.”

  Sean left Gregor’s office and went down the hall to Harper’s suite, then through to his colleague’s office where all the BLM files were. He didn’t need the physical files, because Harper had already created a spreadsheet. Sean hadn’t realized the importance of the spreadsheet until he saw the tablet files. Now it all made sense, but he had to merge the two data sets and then convince the FBI that they would match with Adeline’s financials—without hacking further into Adeline’s banking records to compare.

  And, Sean thought as he quickly entered the data, if Adeline were smart, she’d do exactly what Mona Hill had done—create layers of shell companies to make finding the true source of the cash next to impossible. Maybe she had done it, but someone like Harper Worthington would be able to see the financial house of cards more easily than anyone else. Just like Sean.

  Where did Tobias fit in?

  Sean pushed that thought aside as he entered the data then created a calendar with the important dates—and realized that he needed names to go with each of these transactions. Fortunately, most counties had a database where you could look up basic property records if you had the parcel number. Sean plugged in the information. It was a painstaking process because he had to run each parcel number separately. But once he was done, he realized that each of the transactions was purchased by a variety of individuals all under the umbrella of a single entity. It didn’t take him long to trace the entity to James Everett.

  At least on paper.

  The group, Texas Land Holding, was simply a pass-through account. Everett would buy and sell land, but the money involved didn’t stay with TLH. It was moved immediately out—and tracking that would be impossible without banking records.

  He’d already crossed into too many gray areas, but hacking into a financial institution would be clearly illegal, so he backed off.

  Sean looked at the calendar. The last week of March stood out. Nine weeks ago. That was the week of Operation Heatwave, when Brad and Lucy had taken down the Trejo/Sanchez cartel and put themselves on Tobias’s radar.

  A whole bunch of transactions had occurred that week and the following week … and then nothing. Millions of dollars in land transactions, all with government land being bought or sold, occurred during a ten-day period, when during the previous seven years there were no more than two regional transactions a quarter.

  Hadn’t Lucy mentioned that James Everett had had a falling out with Adeline two months ago? Everett was working with the FBI, but there had been nothing in Agent Dunbar’s statements that said they were investigating Adeline for money laundering.

  Except they were investigating her for graft and corruption. They had sensed there was something else, which was why they hadn’t indicted her for the shit she’d already done.

  Had they only listened to Harper Worthington when he went to their office last month, he would be alive and the FBI would have had all this information. Some of the smartest financial wizards worked for the FBI—people even better with numbers than Sean, though he wouldn’t admit it. They would have put this together if they only had the right information. But the process of pulling together disparate and seemingly unconnected data—that was not intuitive.

  Harper had figured it out because he lived with Adeline and he was a brilliant accountant who specialized in government audits.

  Maybe Gary Ackerman, who had some wild conspiracy theories, had told Harper a theory that made sense. Who had reached out to whom?

  And, dammit, where did Tobias fit in? The timing of the sales was immediately after Operation Heatwave ended, but what did it mean? How did Adeline connect to Tobias?

  Sean saved all the information he had to a flash drive, sent another copy to himself, then sent a copy of the data to a friend of his who happened to be an ASAC in Sacramento. Dean Hooper had once run the white-collar crimes division out of national FBI headquarters. Normally, he’d be the last person Sean would trust, considering Sean’s past criminal activities that might fall under the purview of Hooper, but considering Kane had once saved the life of Dean’s wife, the Rogans had a clean slate with the fed.

  Dean—One of my security cases has intersected with one of the FBI’s active investigations. I can’t legally dig any deeper, so I’m sending you what I have. I have clearance from HWI to send all pertinent data to the FBI that will help in the ongoing investigation (I’ll attach it so you have documentation). I don’t know the agent working on your end—Logan Dunbar out of D.C.—and you know how I feel about feds I don’t know.

  Look at this—Money Laundering 101? If you need an official report, contact RCK and jump through the hoops.

  Best to Sonia.

  Sean

  He shut everything down. It was after eight, but Gregor Smith was still there. Sean bid him good-bye and walked out. He was about to get into his car when he heard his name.

  Sean had his hand on his gun before he recognized Kane’s voice.

  “Kane?”

  “I would have been here sooner—I heard about the shooting. Why aren’t you sitting on her?”

  “Because she’s a trained agent.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit.”

  “Juan put Donnelly on her. Get in.” Sean took the driver’s seat and Kane slid in next to him. Sean pulled out.

  “Where is she now?” Kane asked.

  “She texted me that she was leaving the Worthington house. It’s about twenty minutes outside the city. Why? Is she in immediate danger?”

  “I need her to look at the security tapes from the Dallas airport.”

  “How did you get them?”

  He didn’t answer. Of course he wouldn’t answer.

  Sean sent Lucy a message.

  When are you coming home?

  He said to Kane, “It’s Tobias, isn’t it.”

  “He’s good, Sean. He’s damn good. I followed a trail down to McAllen today and it was a fucking dead end. He knows I’m following him, and tricked me.”

  “You’re not easily tricked.”

  “I’m never tricked.” He paused. “Rarely. I was real close yesterday before I saw you. He was here, in San Antonio, and my contact had verifiable intel. But when I got to McAllen, it was a trap. Now my contact is dead. They set him up. Tobias knows everything; he has people everywhere. I went through the black box that Trejo kept—there are files missing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Tobias must have pulled them before the kid stole the box.”

  “Which means he intentionally left some of the files, like the file on Nicole Rollins.”

  “Don’t trust anyone, Sean. The DEA is not clean. There are at least two corrupt cops in SAPD. And I’m beginning to suspect someone in the FBI.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not telling you until I get something actionable.”

  “That’s fucking bullshit, Lucy is there.”

  “Suck it up, little brother. If I’m wrong, and you slip up, you can kiss RCK’s relationship with federal law enforcement good-bye, and that includes all the cover we’ve had for gray ops. I’m not putting us at risk because you want to play cave man.”

  “Fuck you.” Sean remembered why he hated working with Kane. Until he’d moved to San Antonio, he’d only worked with him once in a blue moon. Now, it seemed they were working everything together.

  “I’ll tell you this—it’s not Nate Dunning. He knows there’s someone inside, and he’s going to be my eyes and ears until we figure it out.”

  Sean’s phone vibrated. He answered.

  “Lucy.”

  “I’m heading to the hospital.”

  “Is Tia okay?”

  “She’s out of surgery and critical. That’s all I know. I’m going to re-interview Elise Hansen.”

  “Why?”

  “Some new
information has come up.”

  “What?”

  “Sean—I can’t really talk about it.”

  “I don’t care that Barry is in the car with you. Kane is with me. Something bigger is going on, and you’re in the middle of it. I’m going to send you a security video that Kane found. Call me right back.”

  Sean hung up. “Give it to me.”

  Kane shook his head. “This is why I never fell in love.” He pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons.

  “Your loss.”

  “I sent it to Lucy.”

  Less than thirty seconds later, Lucy called him back.

  “I showed the picture to Brad,” she said. Her voice was edgy, nervous. “It’s Tobias. Did he kill Garza? Elise said that Garza is the one who shot her the other night, that he’s the one who hired her in the first place.”

  “That may be the truth, but if it is, that means Garza was working for Tobias, and we know that Tobias likes to kill loose ends. You found the Garza connection, and Tobias figured he’d flip. He must have known something that Tobias didn’t want made public. I found a connection between James Everett and Adeline Reyes-Worthington that implicates both of them in illegal land deals. I sent everything to Dean Hooper.”

  “Sean—”

  “I didn’t break any laws. But I don’t know Dunbar from Adam, and I trust Hooper. If anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with Hooper. You need to watch yourself, Lucy.”

  “Go to the hospital,” Kane told him.

  Sean made an illegal U-turn and headed to the hospital.

  Sean said to Lucy, “Kane has information that Mona Hill was working with Tobias as well, through an intermediary. This bastard has his fingers in everything. Trust no one.”

  “If Mona Hill was working for Tobias, and Garza was working for Tobias … Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “Elise. She’s lied to us about a few things, but they didn’t seem to be relevant lies. Now they are. She told us she took sexually explicit photos of her and Worthington for blackmail, but one of the photos she took was of him dead. And Tobias is the one who sent it to Adeline Reyes-Worthington, claiming that Adeline had his money.”

  “Where’s Adeline now?”

  “Home. We left about thirty minutes ago. We have agents on her house making sure she doesn’t get the same idea that Garza had and try to leave.”

  Kane shook his head. “She’s already dead.”

  Lucy said, “What did you say?”

  “Kane thinks she’s dead.”

  “We left her with her personal assistant and two agents.”

  “Call the agents, have them put eyes on her immediately,” Sean said. “Tell them to bring her into protective custody. And tell them to be on high alert.”

  * * *

  Joseph Contreras brought Adeline tea as soon as the three feds left.

  He’d been itching to kill them, but the presence of Brad Donnelly threw a wrench in the mix. Donnelly knew who he was—not by this name, but he would certainly recognize him if he saw him. So Joseph stayed in his office and monitored the security cameras, watching Donnelly walk the grounds.

  It had been far too close. If Donnelly had come to the door, Joseph wouldn’t have been able to disappear.

  “I don’t want tea!” Adeline exclaimed.

  “It will help you sleep. You’ve been through hell this week, Adeline.”

  Drink the damn tea, bitch.

  “I don’t want to sleep. We’re leaving. Tonight.”

  “There are two federal agents in the driveway.”

  “Which is why I had you move Harper’s car to the barn. We’ll go out the back road. We’ll be at the plane in less than an hour. It’s very handy that you’re a pilot, one of the many reasons I hired you. I’m already packed. I just need to get the cash from the safe, and my insurance package.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe you should cooperate with the FBI. They can protect you.”

  “Hardly. I’m not going to jail, Joseph! But Tobias will pay for this. He threatened me, recruited Garza, then probably killed him because that’s what Tobias does, isn’t it? He’ll pay. I will use every dime to track him down and make him suffer. He created this problem in the first place—and I’m damn well not going to go to prison or die because of it.”

  She walked upstairs.

  She certainly had bravado when no one else was around, Joseph thought.

  He followed her up the stairs. If she wouldn’t drink the tea, which would have been a far more peaceful death, he’d be perfectly content to make her suffer.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to prolong it. He suspected that Kincaid and Crawford would realize that they’d been manipulated.

  Adeline started to type in the code to the safe. This was the one thing he needed her to do, because she was paranoid and changed the code every week. He needed the banking information.

  “Why aren’t you packing?” Adeline said before hitting the last two numbers.

  “I’m packed.”

  The bell rang.

  “Dammit! See who that is.” The safe default beeped. “Now I have to wait five minutes.”

  He glanced at his phone and pulled up the security feed. Two federal agents, the two who had been in the car. Their guns were out. One moved around to the rear entrance.

  How had the feds figured it out so soon? Were there only two agents?

  He could handle two agents.

  But he couldn’t wait five minutes.

  He reached out and grabbed Adeline.

  “Joseph? What?”

  He scowled. “You pathetic, greedy little bitch. I wish I had time to make you suffer—because I certainly know how.”

  Before she could respond, he jerked her body one way and her head the other. Her neck snapped.

  “I never worked for you,” he said.

  The bell rang again.

  Joseph ran down the stairs, then down into the basement. Behind the wine rack was a hidden door. Harper had closed it off because he was worried about home security when his daughter was little, but the door still worked—Joseph had made sure of it long ago. He grabbed his stash of guns next to the exit, slipped out into the side yard, and used the darkness to run to the barn. He picked up a secondary bag of supplies in one of the stalls, and tossed everything behind the seat of his truck, which he’d hidden in the barn instead of Adeline’s Cadillac.

  He sat behind the wheel and called Tobias.

  “I couldn’t get the codes from the safe. We’ll need to use Everett.”

  “I’ve already put the plan in motion.”

  Through clenched teeth, Joseph said, “I told you to wait.”

  “You’re not in charge. And obviously, I was right—Adeline wouldn’t open the safe for you.”

  “The feds were knocking on the door. I had to break her neck.”

  “Finally. Damn, I hate that bitch.”

  Joseph wanted to break Tobias’s neck. If he hadn’t fucked up to begin with, they wouldn’t have been in this mess. Though if Tobias hadn’t fucked up two months ago, they might never have learned about the FBI sting. One silver lining in a cesspool of disasters.

  “I’m going to base, you’d better not screw this up. We need that money if we’re going to rebuild.”

  “I’m taking care of it.”

  “If anything happens to Elise, I’ll kill you myself.”

  He hung up. Joseph had never wanted Elise and Tobias to work together. They were both dangerous on their own, but together they were reckless. It was like they fueled each other, each trying to outdo the other. But he’d promised that he would protect both of them, no matter what.

  Thank God they weren’t his family.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  “Who is Mona Hill and what information do I have about her?” Kane asked Sean after he hung up with Lucy.

  Sean told him the truth. He told Kane everything, including that Hill had Lucy’s rape tape.

  “You should hav
e killed her,” Kane said. “She now knows where you’re vulnerable. Another reason why I have no attachments.”

  Sean had thought the same thing—not that he shouldn’t love Lucy, but that he should have killed Mona Hill. But he wasn’t Kane, and killing someone was always the last choice on his list. He was hedging his bets that Mona’s affection for her sister would keep her far away from him and Lucy. “I know where she’s vulnerable.”

  “The difference is she’s ruthless and will take out innocents. You won’t. She’ll figure that out eventually.”

  Sean ignored the comment.

  “It makes sense now,” Sean said. “Adeline has been laundering money for Tobias, and two months ago—when we raided Trejo’s compound—something changed in their relationship and she backed off. There was a shitload of transactions right before and after we found the guns, and nothing for the last two months. James Everett was talking to the feds, Harper Worthington started investigating his wife, and Garza came up with the plan to use his pet hooker to kill Worthington.”

  “Garza was a pawn,” Kane said. “It was all Tobias. And if James Everett was talking to the feds, I’m betting he’s dead, too.”

  “They need Everett,” Sean said. “The escrow accounts are controlled by Adeline and Everett. The Texas Land Holding group.”

  “So he might not be dead now,” Kane said dryly. “Give Tobias a few minutes to torture the money out of him.”

  Kane was certainly in a shitty mood, but it probably had something to do with his informant being killed.

  Sean’s phone rang. “It’s Hooper,” he told Kane, then answered on speaker. “Dean, it’s Sean—Kane’s with me. You got the files?”

  “Explain.”

  “Exactly what I said—I was hired to do a forensic audit on a government contractor who’d been murdered, and my case collided with Lucy’s investigation, which collided with an undercover political corruption case. I can’t legally access those accounts, but my gut tells me Adeline Reyes-Worthington was laundering money by overpaying for properties she or her landholding group owned. Basically, buying from herself, but it doesn’t look that way on paper.”