Too Far Gone

by Allison Brennan

  But there was no way he was going to lose Jesse.

  In the back of his mind, he wondered who he’d pissed off recently. He and Lucy had helped take down a human trafficking organization three months ago. If there was fallout from that, JT Caruso—the head of RCK—would be on top of it and give Sean a heads-up. Sean had taken a couple of security jobs, but they were all tech-related—increasing corporate security to prevent espionage. Nothing investigative. And he’d only taken one job—which he could do from home—since Jesse arrived three weeks ago.

  There was also the issue that he looked like a younger version of his brother Kane, and Kane was always making the wrong people mad. Since Sean had been helping him out more, Kane had practically beat into him that he was at risk just because he was Kane’s brother.

  “Some idiots may think you’re me, so always watch your back, kid.”

  But Kane had been keeping a low profile for the last year. He was living in a border town with his girlfriend—wow, that was something Sean hadn’t thought would ever happen, since Kane was the epitome of the lone wolf—and was avoiding cartel entanglements. In fact, since Sean’s wedding, he knew that Kane had only worked south of the border twice, both times to rescue ransomed tourists. Neither trip had been eventful.

  The more Sean thought about it, the more he thought the tail was related to Jesse. But he wouldn’t know for certain until he talked to the marshals.

  “Dad?” Jesse sounded worried.

  Sean glanced at him. “It’s okay, we lost them.”

  “You look mad.”

  Sean tried to relax. “Just a little concerned. But you know that I would never let anything happen to you, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So we’re taking the scenic route back home.” He was trying to make light of the tense situation, but he certainly wasn’t taking it lightly.

  He wouldn’t, until he knew that his son wasn’t in any danger.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Diane Grey wasn’t home. Leo phoned her from outside the house, and she said she’d meet them in an hour, so Leo and Lucy drove to the McMahon house, which was less than a mile away.

  The planned community meandered through the hills with two-story houses on large lots, though they seemed to repeat each other in style. An upscale division, Lucy guessed, and most of the homes were well maintained and on quiet streets. Definitely the suburbs, and seemed a good place to raise kids. Now that it was after six and the worst of the heat had passed, kids were playing in their yards, and the pools that they could see from the street were filled.

  The McMahon house was on a cul-de-sac with several large trees helping shade the picture windows. The lawn had been mowed and hedges trimmed, but that was the extent of the work. “Did McMahon take care of his yard or did they have a service?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t know. Would it matter?”

  “If he was taking care of the house, his behavior would be even more odd. His wife said she came over a couple of times and the place was a mess, and she had to start paying the bills because he’d let them lapse. Mowing the lawn wouldn’t fit with that behavior.”

  “I see your point.”

  Lisa McMahon had given them a key to the house and her permission to enter and search. They could have gotten a warrant just to cover themselves, but it wasn’t necessary.

  They first walked around the exterior, checking doors and windows for explosives or other booby traps. All the blinds were closed—not uncommon in Texas especially in the hot summer months when residents wanted to keep the house as cool as possible during the day.

  There was no car in the garage—McMahon’s vehicle, a Ford F-150, had been found parked at a meter two blocks from the coffeehouse. The McMahons also owned a Ford Explorer, which Lisa drove.

  The house had an empty feel—no noise at all, no radios or air-conditioning unit or television running.

  Leo said, “Proceed with caution, Kincaid. We clear the house room by room before we search.”

  She followed the SWAT leader’s direction. He had her unlock the front door, and he kept his focus on any movement in the house. Nothing.

  But as soon as she opened the door, she smelled death. She immediately drew her gun.

  They cleared the living and dining room, then the kitchen and family room. It was in the den they found the body.

  “Well, shit,” Leo said. “It’s Paul Grey.”

  Paul Grey was long dead. He was on his back on the floor in the middle of the den that was clearly Charlie’s home office—books on science, memory, Alzheimer’s, textbooks, and more. Fiction ran to Michael Crichton and westerns. And Charlie’s best friend, Paul Grey, was in front of his desk, as if they had been having a conversation and Charlie had shot him.

  The house was hot, leaving him bloated. Though Lucy would have to inspect him to be certain—which she couldn’t do before the crime scene team came in to process the house—she thought he was past rigor mortis, meaning he had likely been dead for longer than twenty-four hours.

  She put on gloves, though had no intention of touching anything. She used a pencil to flip on the light switch, then visually inspected his body. Dried blood on his right temple and a larger, messier exit wound on his left indicated that he had been shot. But the blood on both sides appeared dry, and she looked all around the room. There was no blood spatter, and only a small amount on the floor beneath him.

  “He wasn’t killed here,” she said. “At least, not in this room. There’s hardly any blood.”

  “We need to clear the house and call it in,” Leo said. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  * * *

  The FBI’s Evidence Response Team arrived on scene. They were in the county, not the city of San Antonio, otherwise they would have had SAPD process the scene. But Leo didn’t want yet a third jurisdiction—the sheriff’s—in the middle of the investigation, so it was better to keep the evidence in house and share with SAPD.

  Paul Grey hadn’t been killed in the McMahon house. There was no visible blood in any other room or on the grounds, but no indication of how he’d been brought inside. Agents canvassed the neighborhood, and no neighbor claimed to have seen anything suspicious.

  Lucy spoke to the next-door neighbor, a young stay-at-home mother of three children under six named Annie Greene.

  “I’m shocked,” Annie said. “Until Charlie lost his job, he was wonderful. He was out in the cul-de-sac every weekend with half a dozen kids playing baseball. Throwing with his son. For the Fourth of July every year we had a street party and Charlie is the one you always want around. He had a kind word to say about everyone, and he was funny. Kids especially loved him. This year we didn’t even have a party because Charlie and Lisa always organized it.”

  “And after he lost his job?”

  “When Lisa left he fell apart. Maybe before he wasn’t himself—didn’t say hi when he saw me, for example. Kind of in his own world, as if deep in thought. But when Lisa left—most of the time I didn’t even see him.”

  Lucy didn’t comment that Lisa left before Charlie lost his job. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Weeks. Mid-June maybe? Austin—my son—finished kindergarten on June fifteenth, and it was a couple of days before then.”

  That surprised Lucy on the one hand—although, on the other, the house had an un-lived-in feeling. They’d found stale Chinese takeout in the refrigerator, and a receipt in the bag indicating it had been bought on June 12—four weeks ago. Had he not been here for four weeks? Where had he been living? Could the witness who thought he was homeless have been right? Maybe he was living out of his vehicle.

  Lucy asked, “In the last two or three days, have you seen anyone at the house? A car in the driveway?”

  She shook her head. “I’m here most of the time, I try to keep an eye on the street. We don’t get a lot of traffic here. But I go to bed early—the kids wear me out. My husband doesn’t get home until seven on most nights, so I get the kids to bed
by eight and we have some quiet time, but I’m usually asleep before ten.”

  “Is your husband home?”

  “No—he’s out of town this week. Japan. He works for an oil company and travels a lot.”

  “When did he leave?”

  “Sunday morning. He’ll be back Saturday.”

  He wouldn’t have been here when Paul Grey’s body was dumped. They needed a better time line of Grey’s day on Monday, but the likelihood was that he was killed after four thirty when he left work, but before Tuesday morning. But why would Charlie McMahon kill him—and then bring his body to his house? Maybe Charlie really did have a psychotic break.

  Lucy thanked Annie for her time, then regrouped with Leo. “No one has seen him since a few days before June fifteenth, the witness isn’t sure of the exact day.”

  Leo concurred. “The mail goes to a PO box and I talked to Lisa—she had it forwarded to a PO box in San Marcos in May when she learned Charlie had stopped paying bills. She also said that he hadn’t accessed their joint bank account but has been living off his credit card—which she’s paid off every month. She’s going to bring the statements to headquarters tomorrow morning. It’ll help us retrace his steps.”

  “And hopefully find out where he’s been living. Because it certainly isn’t here.”

  “Proctor!” Mike Jackson, the head of their Evidence Response Team, motioned for them to come over. Mike was tall and lean with dark skin and unusually attractive green eyes. He’d been in the San Antonio office for ten years, and had run the ERT for the last five. “I found out how the body came in. Oh, and while you were talking to the neighbors, the coroner arrived. You’re right, Kincaid, he wasn’t killed here—not enough blood. So I processed the garage—someone drove into the garage and brought the body in through the door that goes into the laundry room. There was some trace evidence on the doorframe and floor. The body had to have been partially carried and partially dragged—at least, that’s my best guess based on the evidence we have.”

  “Carried? Or could one person have done the job?” Leo asked.

  “I can’t say. Grey was on the shorter side, but slightly heavy. One large person could carry him, I suppose, but he’d have been a deadweight. I’m leaning to two people, but I can’t swear to that. He might have been dragged, but we’ll have to wait for the autopsy. We’ll print, of course, and finish processing, but I don’t know what we’re going to get. No smoking gun, that’s for certain. But did you notice there’s no computer?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “It wasn’t taken recently—my guess is that it’s been gone for weeks. There’s dust on the desk. But there was no dust on the drawer handles. Someone went through them in the last couple of days.”

  “That’s good, Mike,” Proctor said. “Whatever you can get, let me know ASAP. And plan on being at the debriefing tomorrow at SAPD at oh-eight-hundred.”

  “So much for my beauty sleep,” he said and went back inside.

  “We need to tell Mrs. Grey,” Leo said to Lucy.

  She nodded. As they drove over, she asked, “Where’s his car?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Carson Spade hadn’t actually lied to his wife Madison; at least he convinced himself it wasn’t a lie. He was going to meet their mutual friend Jeremy Robertson for drinks. He just didn’t tell her why. And it wasn’t a complete lie that Jeremy was helping Carson find gainful employment. He wasn’t allowed to work as an accountant or in any financial institution per the terms of his plea agreement with the Department of Justice. He’d also been disbarred and couldn’t practice law. But he could work for a business as a consultant, as long as he didn’t control any funds or have access to banking accounts, and Carson was smart. He and Jeremy had been talking for six weeks, ever since Carson left WITSEC and relocated to Sacramento.

  Sacramento! Who on the planet wanted to live here? Not to mention there were Rogans and Rogan associates everywhere. But that was another term of his probation—that he had to work for free for the FBI analyzing money-laundering schemes and helping them do their job.

  To say Carson was unhappy with the arrangement was an understatement. All because of that bastard Sean Rogan.

  What Madison didn’t know was that Jeremy Robertson had some friends who were less than squeaky-clean. And while Carson had lost nearly all his money when the FBI seized his bank accounts and assets, he had a few accounts here and there that they had never uncovered. True, if they found them his agreement would be null and void and he’d have to stand trial for his alleged crimes, but he wasn’t overly worried about that. Because he was good at what he used to do for the drug cartel, and he’d used those skills to benefit himself.

  He’d turned over one of his hidden accounts to Jeremy to help him with his Rogan problem.

  And Jeremy was late. Which pissed Carson off. He was taking a risk meeting with Jeremy. What if the FBI was following him? They’d only been out of WITSEC for six weeks. What if they knew about the other accounts?

  They don’t. Not even Madison knows about most of the other accounts.

  It burned him that he was living off Madison’s money. He was supposed to provide for her and Jesse. He was supposed to be the man of the house. And he’d provided very well for years. Madison never complained, never asked where the money came from. Never concerned herself. And even when she found out, she wasn’t overly interested … until Sean Rogan came back into her life.

  You did it. You’re the one who brought Jesse down to Mexico. Madison only went to her ex because she was worried about her son.

  But dammit, shouldn’t she have been worried about him? Jesse wasn’t in any real danger until Rogan and his people got involved.

  What really bothered Carson, more than anything, was the disdain Jesse showed him. He’d raised the boy as his own, and now Jesse thought he was a pariah. And that feeling of Jesse’s was rubbing off on Madison. When was the last time they’d had sex? A couple weeks ago? And Madison was barely into it, as if she was just going through the motions. She used to initiate sex, she used to have fun in bed with him. He remembered mornings when she’d roll over and take him in hand, get him horny, then do things he had only dreamed about before he met her. Now he had to suggest the idea and she seemed … resigned to accommodate him.

  He wanted things back to the way they were before Sean Rogan ruined everything. And if he could get Rogan out of the picture, he could fix his marriage. They had a vacation house in Hawaii. One of the smartest things Carson had done was put most of their property in Madison’s name only. The FBI couldn’t touch them. Carson had a plan to convince the FBI that he and his family needed a new start, and they would relocate to Hawaii. He’d return once a month to assist per his probation, but why should he be at their beck and call? Hawaii was exactly what he needed, and if the only good job he could find was there, so what? The FBI couldn’t prevent him from making a living.

  That’s where Jeremy came into the picture. He had businesses all over the world, and one of his headquarters was in Honolulu.

  Jeremy finally arrived and slid into the booth across from him. The waitress came over and Jeremy ordered a Scotch; Carson ordered his second.

  “Rogan made my guys,” Jeremy said once the waitress delivered their drinks.

  Carson scowled. “Then your guys aren’t any good.”

  “It’s difficult tracking someone trained in security. And someone like Sean Rogan is always on edge. But there is another option.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Grab Jesse. Just for a day or two, let him escape.”

  Carson shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

  “Look, Carson, no one will hurt him. But your plan has holes. I went along with it to prove to you it’s not going to work. Rogan isn’t going to send Jesse back to Sacramento just because he thinks there’s a threat. I’ve researched the guy. He’ll keep the kid closer if he thinks there’s a problem. Bring in his bro
ther, the mercenary, which means two security-trained Rogans.”

  Carson hated Kane Rogan almost as much as Sean.

  “The threat can’t be to Jesse. I told you from the beginning, if Madison thinks that Jesse’s in danger because of Rogan’s job, then she’ll bring him home and we’ll be a family again. As it is, she’s moping around the house completely miserable. And she blames me!” He took a deep breath. He couldn’t lose his cool, not with Jeremy. If Carson showed weakness, Jeremy might exploit it. They were friends, but Carson was aware that even friendship had limits.

  “It’s not my fault this happened,” Carson said, his voice calm. “She should never have gone to Rogan in the first place. Telling Rogan that Jesse was his kid? The worst of all worlds. Jesse has developed a mouth on him—he’s been talking back to me, he doesn’t do what I tell him, he ignores me half the time. And Madison won’t lay down the law because she’s afraid Jesse will like Rogan more than her. The kid is running the house and Madison is feeling guilty and just lets him.”

  “But if there’s a threat to you or your family, they’ll put you in WITSEC again. I could set it up—”

  “I don’t want to go back. I want my life. Freedom. Opportunity. The fucking American dream. And I’ll have everything in three years when I’m done with this ridiculous probation.” They’d originally wanted seven years. The one good thing Carson’s lawyer did was get it down to three, even though that was three years too many. It wasn’t like he was buying and selling drugs, and he never killed anyone. “What about Hawaii? I talked to you about it, can you make it happen? Or were you just blowing smoke up my ass?”

  Jeremy waited until the waitress arrived with their refills and left before he leaned forward and said, “I’m working on it.”

  “I’ve paid you a lot of money, Jeremy. You know there’s more.”

  “There might be another option.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Rogan’s wife.”

  Carson hadn’t quite figured out where Rogan’s wife fit in. All he knew was what he’d heard from his lawyer—that she was one of the federal agents who’d investigated his employer and uncovered the shell corporations Carson had set up. But she wasn’t a financial whiz or anything like that. She had been investigating human trafficking and stumbled upon the Flores operation.