“So you do think it’s the same kid?” Ryan said.
She nodded. “Too much of a coincidence not to be. I’m going to show Bella his picture tomorrow. We need the confirmation.”
“Why didn’t he go inside? Talk to the foster parents?” Sean asked. “Were they abusive?”
“I read their file,” Lucy said. “And the note. He’s scared of something, but it’s not the Pope family.”
Ryan said, “I dealt with a lot of street kids in Houston, and most are working their way up the wrong side of the law. Sounds like this kid is doing the same. Can’t say that I don’t understand how—his mom’s dead, his dad’s in prison, it’s what he knows.”
Lucy shook her head. “Sometimes, not always. And he was locked up for four weeks. Maybe longer. That makes this different.”
“I gather your prisoners aren’t talking about Michael,” Sean said.
“Sanchez will, I’m pretty sure, but Donnelly is focused on working out the deal with the AUSA. Donnelly wants Jaime Sanchez bad. His sheet is long and violent, so I’m not surprised, but I think there’s more.”
“What’s with that guy?” Ryan said. Sean slid him over another beer, opened one for himself. Lucy shook her head, and Sean gave her water and a kiss. “What was going on this morning?”
“I explained that,” Lucy said.
“Explain to me,” Sean said. “Since I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s nothing—it was an interview tactic to get the brother to talk.”
“Donnelly stepped over the line,” Ryan said.
“I agreed to it,” Lucy said.
“Agreed to what?” Sean asked.
“Good cop, bad cop,” Lucy said. “I was the good cop, the bleeding heart, challenging the big, bad angry Donnelly. It worked. We got what we wanted.”
Ryan snorted. “He yelled at you, threatened you, and attempted to humiliate you.”
“It was an act,” she said again. “Ryan, I appreciate your chivalry, but I was cool with it.” She glanced at Sean. “It was fine.”
She didn’t like the look on Sean’s face. It was subtle—Ryan might not even notice—but Sean was protective of her. She understood it, and loved him for it, but at the same time, he sometimes said or did things that could get him into trouble.
“You got what you needed?” Sean confirmed.
“Yes. It was a good day. Now we just need to find Michael, track down Jaime Sanchez, and decode the ledger we found.”
“Ledger?” His ears perked up.
“It’s in the hands of the DEA,” Lucy said. “I couldn’t show you if I wanted to.”
“Hmm. Maybe I need to point out to the local feds here that I have security clearance to consult.”
“You’re impossible,” she said with a smile.
She started to clear the plates, but Sean took them from her. “You worked all day. Nearly fifteen hours by my count. Sit.”
“You’re spoiling me.”
“You’ll make it up to me later.”
She laughed. Her phone vibrated on the counter and she picked it up.
“It’s Donnelly,” she said and answered. “This is Lucy.”
“It’s Brad Donnelly. George Sanchez was murdered. I need you and Quiroz at SAPD immediately.”
CHAPTER 6
Lucy walked into the main San Antonio Police Station flanked by Ryan and Sean. They each signed in and were assigned visitor badges, then ushered into the briefing room. Donnelly was there with several other cops, both uniformed and plainclothes. From the heated conversation, Donnelly was demanding to know how George Sanchez had died. He wanted logs, cameras, interviews. His partner, Nicole Rollins, stood to the side, taking notes.
Lucy stood on the periphery, and after a couple of cops left to get information Donnelly wanted, she said, “You don’t know what happened?”
“Poison,” Donnelly said.
Rollins said, “We don’t know.”
“What else could it be?” Donnelly snapped. “He was served a late dinner at eight fifteen because the AUSA and I were with him before that, and twenty minutes later he’s dead? No blood, no visible trauma, he’s found on the floor of his cell? I’ll bet my pension he was poisoned.”
“Do you have his medicals?” Lucy asked. “Was he allergic to anything?”
“An allergy that kills someone in twenty minutes?”
“Severe enough allergies—some people with peanut or seafood allergies in particular, if they don’t get immediate treatment, can die because their airways constrict. They suffocate.”
“His skin was reddish,” Donnelly said, considering. He nodded to Rollins, who went over to a computer and started typing.
“Possibly hives,” Lucy said. “A skin reaction is common.”
“It can’t have been a fucking accident,” Donnelly said. “Not when we just cut a deal. I don’t believe this!” He stared at Sean. “Who are you?”
“Sean Rogan,” Sean said.
“He’s with me,” Lucy said.
“Rogan?” Donnelly tilted his head and stared. “Any relation to Kane Rogan?”
“My brother.”
Recognition and surprise crossed Donnelly’s eyes. Sean had seen it before. His brother was rather infamous, especially with federal law enforcement who worked the border or drugs. Some loved him, some hated him, most respected him. Sean couldn’t tell which side of the line Donnelly was on, but he hoped it wouldn’t be a problem for Lucy.
Donnelly said to Lucy, “Why didn’t you tell me your brother-in-law was Kane Rogan?”
“He’s not my brother-in-law,” Lucy said.
Yet, Sean thought.
“And I haven’t even met him,” Lucy added. “Why?”
“Nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing. “How do you know Kane?” Sean asked.
“An op I was on a few years ago.” Donnelly didn’t elaborate, nor did he ban Sean from the briefing room. He said, “We’re waiting on the ME. No way it can be done tonight, but he’s expediting first thing in the morning.”
“No cameras?” Lucy asked.
Ryan shook his head. “Not in the holding cells for arraignment. There’re cameras on the corridors and common areas, but not individual cells.”
“What about his lawyer?”
“He didn’t ask for one until tonight, to go over the papers the AUSA drew up. A public defender. So far clean, only met briefly.”
Nicole approached. “Sanchez’s meds indicate he has a severe shellfish allergy. He was served hamburger, an apple, and milk.”
“Do you have the food?” Lucy asked.
“What was left has been bagged,” Donnelly said. “This isn’t my first rodeo.” He took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“We’re all frustrated,” Nicole said.
Donnelly continued. “We kept him isolated because we knew he’d be in danger as soon as word leaked he was turning state’s evidence—but there should have been no way that anyone could have known he was helping us yet. The public defender is clean, though we’re going to look deeper.”
Ryan said, “The raid tipped them.”
“No one knew Sanchez gave us that information.”
“It’s deductive reasoning,” Ryan said. “Maybe not many people knew about the hardware storefront. They could have learned real quick that Sanchez is in custody. We snatched him before eight this morning. If he was poisoned he could have been poisoned anytime today.”
“Not if it was anaphylaxis,” Lucy said. “A severe allergic reaction is going to show up within minutes. Thirty, tops.”
“We don’t know if that’s what it was,” Donnelly said.
“He would have felt something, known he was having a reaction,” Lucy said. “None of the guards noticed anything? Heard anything?”
“Maybe,” Sean suggested, “it wasn’t a food allergy, but a more deadly poison.”
“We have everything bagged and tagged and I’ll flag the allergy for the ME,” Donnelly said. Whet
her he was irritated with Sean for his comments, or just frustrated with the situation, Sean couldn’t tell. “I have my team running deep backgrounds on every guard on duty tonight, everyone who had access to his meal. Because it was after hours, the food was brought in, not made on-site.” He rubbed his face. “Dammit. He was cooperating!”
“Maybe it was natural,” Rollins suggested.
“Twenty-nine-year-old healthy adult male dying spontaneously of natural causes on the eve of turning state’s evidence against a notorious criminal?” Donnelly pointed to Lucy and Ryan. “I need a complete time line from the minute we took custody of Sanchez until he died. You weren’t alone with Sanchez, Quiroz, but Kincaid was. I need to know who talked to him, who was in the room, anyone who might have had an opportunity to slip him something. We cover all the bases here. It may have been in his food, it may have happened earlier. I’m not ruling out suicide, either.”
“Guilt,” Lucy said. “He might have had second thoughts about turning on his brother. Realized he’d dug a hole and thought killing himself was the only way he wouldn’t talk.”
“I’m getting a lot of heat over this, as should be expected. If it was someone else losing a key witness, I’d be giving them shit, too.”
“You need to put a guard on Mirabelle Borez,” Ryan said. “If Sanchez was targeted because of the threat of him spilling his guts, then she may be in danger.”
Donnelly pointed at Nicole, and she left the room. “Done.” He handed Lucy a file. “This is everything on Sanchez from the sweep this morning until his death. I need you to double-check my facts and the time line, and include your own. I want every minute of his day documented.” He glanced from Lucy to Sean. “Sorry to ruin your date night.”
“Every night is date night,” Sean said.
Donnelly nodded. The subtle exchange was between him and Sean. Lucy didn’t see it, but Brad got it. Lucy was off-limits.
How Lucy could be so clueless that men found her attractive, Sean would never understand.
“I’ll bring in the coffee,” Sean said.
“There’s coffee here,” Donnelly said.
“I’m sure it’s not edible,” Sean said. “There’s a Starbucks down the street. My treat.”
Lucy smiled at him. That was all the thanks he needed.
* * *
It was well after midnight when Jaime got word that his brother was dead.
He sat in the back of a bar off an alley with no name, a place he’d hidden before when the heat got too hot. It was a place where people killed and people died, but no cops ever walked through the door. The bodies were moved and dumped, far away, so this place became a sanctuary, of sorts. Unless you were one of the dead.
But Pablo, the owner, was getting jumpy. Because the 39th Street store had been taken down by the feds. The feds had arrested Pablo’s brother-in-law. He was afraid they could track Pablo down here, and Pablo didn’t want the cops anywhere near him. George and Mirabelle were in prison.
Correction: Mirabelle was in prison. George was at the morgue.
Jaime drained another shot of cheap tequila. Damn George. He should have come with him to look for the kid. Jaime was pissed; he thought George didn’t lock the rat up proper. He’d warned him, time and again, that the kid couldn’t be trusted, but George had a soft spot.
He poured another shot and raised his glass. “To George!”
“To George!” tired, drunk voices repeated.
He drained the shot, no longer feeling the fire in his belly after so many. He needed to be thinking clearly. But how could he think about anything when his big brother was dead.
The man slipped onto the stool next to him, nodded toward the bottle.
“You heard.”
“I loved my brother.”
“Blame the feds. They worked him over.”
George was weak. Jaime knew he’d cave under pressure. But he’d held up so well last time, Jaime thought—hell, he didn’t know what to think anymore. “He was my brother.” He glanced at the older man. “Who’s in charge?”
“Donnelly.”
Jaime scowled. That fed had been a fucking problem from day one. Putting his fat, self-righteous nose into every damn business Jaime had. “He killed George?”
“Might as well have.”
“Who else? I want all their names.”
“Slow down, amigo. Vengeance must wait. There is too much at stake to go after a federal agent right now.”
“Donnelly, maybe.” He was high-profile. Taking him out now would bring in far too much attention. “Someday I’ll have his head.”
“I’m working on that. It’ll take a while, but he’ll be at the wrong place at the wrong time.” He shrugged. “Right place, right time, depending on how you look at it, and who ends up dead.”
“Is there someone else? Someone who would hurt the bastard?”
“There’s a new Latina working with Donnelly. Pretty. Smart. He thinks highly of her, what I’ve heard.”
“New? Rookie new?”
“Seems that way. She might be the weak link.”
“They doing the dirty?”
The man shrugged. “Won’t matter. Not with Donnelly’s past.”
Jaime agreed. Young, female, rookie. Definitely the weakest. And it would get under Donnelly’s skin. Jaime had done it before. Well, not him, personally, but his people had taken out one of Donnelly’s rookies and watched the results. Donnelly made mistakes, lost his focus. Grief and anger clouded the fed’s judgment. Back then, it gave them time to regroup, reorganize, solidify their operation.
It could work again.
“I know what you’re thinking. Stop.”
“Someone has to pay for my brother’s death.” It wasn’t George’s fault that he was manipulated; he’d always been trusting. And dumb. But he was Jaime’s brother, he was blood, and Jaime promised his mother on her deathbed that he would always take care of the family.
His partner said, “Wait, Jaime. We need a backup plan. They have the ledger.”
Jaime barely resisted the urge to throw the half-empty tequila bottle across the room. “Fuck. Stupid idiots.”
“No one is talking. They know better.”
George should have known better. “Maybe we don’t kill her. Just scare her.”
“I don’t know if she’ll scare easily.”
“Then don’t try for easy.”
“First things—the girls know too much. You have to bring them back into the fold. Especially Bella. The general will not be pleased if we lose her.”
“I don’t know where they are.” He fidgeted. He knew he had to turn Bella over, but he didn’t have to like it. Mirabelle wouldn’t forgive him. But dammit, it was Mirabelle’s fault that they were aligned with the general in the first place! She should have some humility over her part in this clusterfuck. If she lost her kid, so what? She made her bed, she damn well needed to lie in it.
“Leave that to me. Just be ready when I call. We can’t afford any more screwups, or the general will have our heads, too. And I’m not ready to die.”
* * *
Because the bar was a haven for criminals, crime lords, drug dealers, and other scum, no one paid attention to the janitor with the jagged scar marring his old, weathered face. He’d been working here longer than many of them had been alive, and most thought he was mute.
He was neither mute, nor deaf.
CHAPTER 7
Lucy stretched in bed early Sunday morning, dawn cutting through the windows of the master bedroom she shared with Sean.
“Good morning, princess,” Sean said and kissed her neck.
She snuggled into him. Sean’s nearly naked body generated intense heat. How did he do that? She could wear flannel pajamas and be freezing. The best thing about living in San Antonio was the weather. It would be too hot in the summer but she’d take the heat of Texas over the cold of DC any day.
“I have to go into the office this morning.”
“Not for a couple
hours. It’s only six.”
She groaned. “Why is it that no matter how late I’ve been up I can’t sleep past six?”
He pulled her to him and grinned. “We don’t have to get up.” He nuzzled her neck, planting light kisses over the sensitive skin behind her ear, down her neck, until his mouth reached her breast and she sighed.
“I feel decadent,” she whispered.
“You feel perfect.”
Lucy closed her eyes as Sean woke up her body. Slow, easy morning sex was exactly what she needed to feel alive.
But it was more than the comfortable merging of her body with Sean’s; it was him, the man who’d seen her at her best and her worst, the man who loved her unconditionally. Who had moved cross-country for her, who had captured her heart when she didn’t even know she had a heart to give. One look, she melted. One touch, she sighed.
“Sean,” she murmured, her breath catching, as their rhythm, so perfect, so in tune, brought them both up and over the edge.
He held her close to him, his hard body wrapping her tight. “I could go back to sleep about now,” he whispered.
“Me, too,” she said. “Don’t let me.”
She held him as he held her, and she savored the few moments of peace they had before the day officially began.
Her stomach growled.
“Lucia Kincaid!” Sean exclaimed.
She buried her face in his chest, halfway between laughter and mortification. “I can’t believe you heard that.”
“The neighbors could hear that grumble.” He rolled her on top of him and kissed her. “Go, shower, I’ll make breakfast.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she began.
He lightly slapped her naked bottom. “It’s an order.”
“Bossy now, aren’t we?”
He kissed her again, longer, teasing. “Go, before I keep you in bed all morning.”
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