“Of course,” she said. “No one is making any decisions about anything tonight.”
“I need you safe, Jesse. It could have been so much worse.”
“I don’t want to go back to Sacramento. I want to stay here. With you. And Lucy. Please. You talked to Mom, didn’t you? What did she say? She can’t make me leave, can she?”
“I need to talk to the doctor,” Sean said suddenly and left.
Jesse looked stricken.
Lucy took Jesse’s hands. “Honey, he’s worried about you. About this situation.”
“I don’t want to ever go home.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes I do! Why doesn’t he want me?”
She didn’t know if the trauma of the night was making Jesse more emotional, or if this was a deeper-seated fear. For twelve years Jesse believed that his father didn’t want anything to do with him because that’s what his mother had told him. Sean explained that wasn’t true, that he hadn’t known about Madison’s pregnancy or Jesse’s birth, but sometimes, fears didn’t easily disappear—especially when you’d believed something your entire life that turned out to be a lie.
She sat next to him on the hospital bed and took his hand. “Jesse, Sean loves you so much. He wants you, never think that he doesn’t. Having you here this summer has made him so happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen him. That doesn’t change the fact that he’s worried about your safety. We don’t know what’s going on, but we will find out. Between me, Sean, Kane—we have a lot of resources and people to help. None of us are going to stop until we learn the truth.”
“I don’t want to stay if he doesn’t want me.”
Had Jesse completely missed what she said? “He wants you, Jesse. More than anything.”
“Then why does he want me to go back to Sacramento?”
“Why would you think that?” Sean didn’t want Jesse to go to Sacramento ever, but it wasn’t his choice. “He wants to spend every minute of the time you have left. He just said what he did because he called your mom and she’s worried.”
“I told him not to. I knew she would do this.”
“She needed to know what happened.”
“I knew she’d freak.”
“She loves you. We’ll go home and figure this out. That I can promise.”
Jesse didn’t look convinced.
Lucy didn’t know what else to say to get through to him. Then she realized she couldn’t say anything—Sean was the only one who could. And Sean was so racked with guilt that he wasn’t thinking straight.
* * *
By the time they were back home, it was after midnight and everyone was exhausted. Jesse wasn’t talking, and he went straight to bed. Lucy told him that she and Sean would be checking on him every couple of hours.
“Sean, you need to talk to Jesse,” Lucy said. “He thinks you don’t want him around.”
“He knows that’s not true. I’ve told him every day I’m glad he’s here.”
“You told him tonight that you want to send him home.”
“Because it’s not safe for him! I can’t keep him safe.”
“If someone is after Carson Spade, Jesse is much safer here than anywhere else. You know that.”
“What about this case you’re working?”
Lucy had to shift gears. “It’s pretty straightforward.” It wasn’t, not anymore with evidence missing, but there was no reason anyone would come after her.
“Sean,” Lucy said, “this guy Domingo followed you and Jesse, then someone else followed me and Jesse. Jesse is the only common factor.”
They had to figure out how they’d been tracked.
“What did you learn from Domingo?” she asked.
Sean stared at her for a second. “What?”
“Domingo. You followed him to a bar. He was killed. But he told you something.”
“He mentioned a local PI, Bart Vasquez. I’ve never heard of him. Nate had the wherewithal to get a partial plate and description, but that’s all we have. And as far as anyone is concerned, I wasn’t there. Kane and Nate handled it.”
“Nate.”
Sean’s face fell. “I didn’t think. He’s on leave.”
“It’ll be okay.” She wasn’t positive. But Nate hadn’t shot anyone.
There was a knock on the door and Sean looked at the security pad. “It’s Kane,” he said, sounding hugely relieved.
He let in his brother. “Are you okay?” Kane immediately said to Lucy. “Jesse?”
“Yes.”
Sean locked up and they sat in the living room.
“What happened at the bar?” Sean asked.
Kane hesitated a second, unusual for him, as he looked Lucy over.
“I’m okay,” Lucy said. “Jesse’s sleeping. Broken nose. He’s fine.”
Kane nodded, marginally relaxed, and said, “Nate knew the responding officer, we gave our statements and he let us go. We kept as close to the truth as possible—Domingo was spotted following my brother and nephew, so we just wanted to have a chat. He’d told us that a private investigator hired him, and as we were trying to convince him to tell us who, he was shot and killed. The partial matches a truck that was stolen only hours before the shooting, they’ll probably find it dumped.”
“So we’re back at square one,” Lucy said.
“Not exactly,” Sean said. “Domingo did name the PI who hired him.”
“Nate and I did a little recon. Vasquez has an office not far from the bar, and a house in the Dominion.”
“Nice neighborhood for a two-bit PI.”
“Not two-bit. Former cop, suspected of being dirty, never proven. Retired after twenty years, with pension, became a PI. Works mostly for defense lawyers and makes a small fortune digging up dirt to discredit witnesses. We’ll talk to him tomorrow. I told Nate he’s out. He called his boss from the scene and she wasn’t happy about him being in the middle of an RCK operation, especially when he’s on mandatory leave. So Jack’s on his way, catching the first flight out of Sac in the morning.” Kane glanced at Lucy, then looked straight at Sean. “This is your kid—you decide who’s doing babysitting duty. You or Jack. No offense, Lucy, but you’re going to be feeling like shit tomorrow. You already look stiff and sore.”
“No offense taken. I am stiff and sore. Sean, I think you stay with Jesse. You need to talk to him, he’s upset.”
“I have talked to him. And I’m going to lose him. I know it.”
“We will let nothing happen to that kid,” Kane said.
“You don’t get it. He was in a major accident. Went to the hospital. Madison is worried and angry and I don’t blame her. She wants him home, and I have no legal authority to stop her.”
“If Carson Spade is behind any of this, no one is going to send Jesse back.”
“We can’t prove it!”
“You can’t. But Dean Hooper can.”
“Dean?”
“Sean, for a smart guy, you’re being a fucking idiot.”
“Screw you.” Sean ran his hands through his hair.
“You called Hooper to push him on Spade—Hooper can’t tell you shit, and you should know it. But Rick? Hooper can share anything with Rick since they’re both high-ranking feds. Rick will talk to him first thing in the morning and see exactly what Carson Spade has shared and how helpful he’s being. He’s also going to tail Spade and do a deeper run on known associates, outside of the Flores cartel. Spade gave up his rights per the plea deal, so his life is an open book as far as the feds are concerned. Trust them to do their job, Sean. You might not get the answers, but they’ll do whatever it takes to protect Jesse.”
Sean didn’t say anything. Lucy didn’t know how to make him feel better. The only thing would be if he found out exactly what was going on.
“Kane’s right,” Lucy said. “Let’s get some sleep.”
“How did they find us? Both on Wednesday and tonight?” Sean asked. “I’ve been beating my head about it and I can’t figure it ou
t. Jesse doesn’t have social media because of WITSEC—they scared him silly about how easy it is to track people through those apps. I know the cars are clean—I checked them both Wednesday night. And our phones.”
“Jesse is the commonality,” Lucy said.
“Oh shit.” Sean jumped up. He strode down the hall and a minute later came back with Jesse’s phone. It was cracked from the accident, but otherwise operable.
He unlocked the phone, searched something in the settings, moving quickly, and Lucy wasn’t certain what he was doing. Then she saw it.
“Parental tracking,” Sean said. “Dammit! I would never have allowed this.”
“You think someone hacked it?”
“Carson Spade doesn’t need to. It’s hooked up to Madison’s phone. She knows where Jesse is at all times through this app.”
“But someone could have hacked it,” Lucy pushed. “Don’t accuse Carson without knowing for certain.”
“I’ll find out,” Sean said. “It’ll take me some time, but I’ll find out if anyone hacked this app. So help me, I will kill that bastard if he put you and Jesse in danger.”
“And this is why you have to stay far away from Spade,” Kane said.
Sean glared at his brother, then turned and walked down the hall. He slammed his office door closed behind him.
“What the fuck, Lucy?” Kane asked. “He’s unfocused. Hell, even when you were lost in Mexico and I had to shake sense into him, he wasn’t this stupid.”
“He’s afraid that Madison is going to take Jesse away. Working on the problem will help. His mind will settle down.”
“What happened out there? I couldn’t get details from Sean.”
Lucy told Kane everything, including her conversation with Jesse about the boys. “That kid has been through a lot in the last year. He went from being a sheltered, normal, upper-middle-class kid to being thrown into the middle of a cartel war. To learning that his mother lied to him, that his stepfather is a criminal, and that his dad didn’t abandon him. He’s processing a lot and I think knowing what happened to Michael and the others affected him deep down. He feels like the blind man in the Bible—he was blind and now he can see, but what he’s seeing is disturbing. He doesn’t know how to work through this onslaught of information.”
“You think Sean should have held back?”
“No—I think Sean should have taken him to visit Michael and the boys earlier. Sean has made it his life’s mission to make sure those boys have a chance at a future, and Jesse knows it, and somehow has worked himself up that he’s selfish or demanding or that Sean didn’t think he was mature enough to handle the situation—well, I’m not quite sure.” Lucy had some ideas, but she really wanted Jesse and Sean to talk things out. They’d had a great few weeks, but it was all fun. There was no pressure—and both of them had put pressure on themselves but hid it from the other. “Jesse wants to stay. He has some major trust issues right now, and I don’t know how it’s going to play out. He’s only thirteen, but this last year he’s been forced to grow up. Jesse wants Sean to fight for him, and he thinks Sean won’t.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“He’s barely a teenager.”
“Sean would do anything to make that kid happy.”
“Sean doesn’t have the confidence in himself to think that he’d make a good father. He’s become Jesse’s friend—which is great—but Sean needs to be his father first. And that’s not easy coming into fatherhood late in the game.”
“I think you’re overthinking this.”
Kane was very black-and-white in his way of thinking. He could analyze any situation and know tactically what to do, but when it came to interpersonal relationships, he didn’t understand the nuances.
“I’m really not,” Lucy said. “I’m going to check on Jesse, then get a couple hours of sleep.”
“Are you working tomorrow?”
“Most likely.”
“Be careful. Just in case it wasn’t Jesse they were after.”
She appreciated his concern. “I told Sean, and I’ll tell you—they didn’t want us dead. They had plenty of time to come back and kill us. The whole thing was an exercise in fear. I don’t scare easily.”
“Who’s your partner on this case?”
Sometimes getting through to Kane was impossible.
“Proctor.”
“Head of SWAT?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“And if it wasn’t someone you approved of?”
Kane just smiled and walked toward the kitchen.
Lucy checked on Jesse. She woke him up, talked to him for a minute, and made sure he drank water. She then went to Sean’s den. He was focused on his computer.
“Sean.”
He looked at her. “Hey. I thought you went to bed.”
“I’m going. I just checked on Jesse, he’s good. Are you going to be up for a while?”
“Yes.”
“Set an alarm for two hours and go check on him.”
Sean picked up his phone and scheduled it.
Lucy wanted to share everything she and Jesse had talked about, but now wasn’t the time. Sean was tense and worried and he wouldn’t take the information the way she intended. She walked over and wrapped her arms around him. “I love you.”
“Love you too. Sleep. I’ll be up in a couple hours.”
* * *
Two hours later, Sean had nothing. Well, not nothing. He was confident that Jesse’s phone hadn’t been hacked, but he had to spend a lot of time studying how the parental tracking program worked so that he could figure out if the program itself had been hacked externally. It would be much easier if he had Madison’s phone. When he figured out the back end, he’d call her and walk her through how to check to see if the app was compromised. She’d damn well better cooperate.
His alarm beeped, and he got up and stretched. The house was quiet. He went upstairs. The master suite was upstairs, a small den, and a bedroom with its own bath. Jesse had moved into the second upstairs suite, and as far as Sean was concerned, it was now Jesse’s room. They had two other bedrooms downstairs, but Jesse needed his own space for whenever he came to visit.
If Madison ever let him visit again.
Stop. Stop thinking that way.
Sean opened Jesse’s door. Bandit was on the end of his bed. As soon as he saw Sean, he sleepily got off and curled up in the dog bed Sean had put in the room. No one followed Sean’s rule that Bandit wasn’t allowed on furniture or beds, except Bandit—when he saw Sean.
Sean scratched the dog behind his ears and sat on the edge of Jesse’s bed.
“Jess, it’s Sean.”
Jess rolled over, opened one eye. “I’m fine.”
“Okay. Do you need anything?”
“No.” He closed his eye again.
Sean sat in the chair in the corner and watched Jesse sleep. If he was sleeping. Sean wanted to talk to him, to explain his reaction at the hospital, but didn’t know what to say. He kept replaying the scene at the embankment over and over in his head, a waking nightmare, but instead of finding Lucy and Jesse safe, he saw them dead in the mangled car.
He rubbed his eyes. The fear of losing the two people he loved more than anything terrified him, and he didn’t know how to make it go away.
“I’m sorry, Jess,” Sean whispered.
I love you, Jesse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sean didn’t come up to bed. Lucy woke at four, thinking he might have fallen asleep in his office. She found him instead sleeping in the chair next to Jesse’s bed. They were both out. She went back to bed for a couple of hours, but didn’t sleep well. When she rose at seven, she checked on them again and they were still sleeping. She woke Jesse up, he said he was fine and then fell right back to sleep.
She left Sean where he was. If she woke him, he wouldn’t go back to sleep, though he certainly didn’t look comfortable in the chair.
Lucy didn’t want to work over the we
ekend, but she had a job to do and Sean and Jesse were going to have to work things out. She believed that they would. Still, sometimes even the smartest people had a blind spot.
Kane was already up and had coffee made—strong, as she liked it. Kane winced when she added cream and sugar.
She popped a bagel in the toaster and sipped her coffee. “What do you know?”
“Nothing that I didn’t share last night.”
“What do you think?”
He considered. “I think you might be right—that whoever is keeping an eye on you three wants to shake you up.”
“It worked, at least with Sean. Please keep an eye on him today.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“He’s worried that he’s going to blow it with Jesse. He has to know he won’t, if he’s just himself and honest. He usually listens to me, but on this, his fears are getting the better of him.”
“I’ll knock sense into him.”
“I know you will.” She grabbed her bagel out of the toaster, spread on cream cheese, put it on a paper plate. She poured more coffee in a go-mug and said, “Depending on what we learn, it shouldn’t be a full day—I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Lucy grabbed the keys to her car, scratched Bandit on the head, and left. She had taken to driving Sean’s Mustang when he bought the Jeep; now she dreaded her old, practical Nissan. Sure, it was a reliable car that was only a few years old, but it wasn’t half as fun as the Mustang.
She knew the car was totaled. She felt bad about it because Sean had loved that car, but at the same time the solid frame had helped protect them from the impact of the larger truck.
There was little traffic on the weekend, and she made good time. Lucy was surprised to find her boss, Rachel Vaughn, in the office. She’d sent her an email about the accident because Lucy had to file a police report, but she’d kept it brief by necessity.
“I’m surprised to see you,” Rachel said.
“Leo and I are following a lead on the Paul Grey case.”
“I thought that was ruled suicide.”
“It is, but there are other factors—such as who moved his body.”
“I assumed it was McMahon.”
“It may have been, but we haven’t found any evidence to support or contradict that. Didn’t Leo copy you into the memo he sent to the task force?”
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