Cold as Ice

by Allison Brennan

  The guard forcibly turned him around. Sean pushed back, startled.

  The guard took out his billy club and hit him hard on the back of his thighs. That brought him immediately to his knees. “Do not move.” To the desk guard, Porter said, “Who’s running the bus?”

  “Beaumont. They’re here to pick up a prisoner who had a late court date yesterday. They can take one more. But if anyone else is going, we’ll have to send one of our people with them.”

  “This is the only one,” Porter said. “Get up, Rogan. Slowly.”

  Sean complied. He didn’t have a choice. He knew this was wrong, but the more he argued with the guard, the worse off he’d be.

  Porter and the desk guard put shackles on his ankles and a belt around his waist, they cuffed his hands to a short chain.

  Then to the desk guard, Porter said, “I have to get the prisoner’s belongings, can you watch him for five?”

  The desk guard motioned for Sean to sit on a bench. “Don’t move,” he said, then went back to his desk.

  Porter left.

  “Sir,” Sean said.

  “Don’t talk, either,” he said and went back to reading a file on his desk.

  “There’s something wrong with this transfer. I’m being arraigned on Monday. I can’t go to Beaumont.”

  “The paperwork says you can.”

  “I can’t. My wife is a cop.”

  That had the guy looking at him. “Here?”

  “San Antonio.” He didn’t say FBI. Some local cops didn’t like the FBI.

  “I’m sure no one here knows you’re married to one of us. So don’t go flapping your mouth to the inmates.” He looked back down.

  “Sir, she’s going to be here for visiting hours. Can we postpone this? Until I talk to my lawyer and get this straightened out? Call the Houston police chief. She worked with the FBI to get me here, rather than county lock up, because there’s some people inside who would like to see me dead.”

  “You’re full of stories, aren’t you?” he said with a half smile, not looking at Sean.

  “Please, just call someone and verify the transfer.”

  Sean must have sounded scared or serious or sincere, because finally the guard looked at him again, then typed on his computer. “The transfer was authorized by the warden, with a return Monday morning.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Now he’d lost the guard. The guy went back to his work and said, “Zip it, Rogan. You’re not the first prisoner who thinks the system is fucked, you won’t be the last.”

  Porter returned. “Is the prisoner giving you a bad time, Joe?”

  “Just chatty.”

  Porter shook his head at Sean. “I see from your file you have no record, you’re going to have to learn real quick how to survive in here.”

  Sean didn’t say a word.

  Porter shook his head. “Get up.”

  Sean complied. Arguing wasn’t going to do anything except piss off the guards.

  They walked down two secured corridors to the garage. Two corrections officers with the Beaumont prison logo on their sleeves were drinking coffee and talking with the desk guard there, who was behind bulletproof shielding in a control room. A small bus labeled TEXAS PRISON AUTHORITY was parked in the wide space. Another prisoner—in his sixties with short, thick gray hair, shackled like Sean—sat on a bench against the wall.

  Porter handed the paperwork and Sean’s belongings to one of the guards. He looked it over, signed something, and handed it back to Porter.

  No one questioned the paperwork. Why would they? Transfers from the administrative jail happened all the time.

  Don’t panic. Remain calm.

  Sean didn’t do well in cuffs or behind bars. When Lucy got here, she’d figure it out. She’d talk to his lawyer; Felicity knew what she was doing. She would get him back here today. There had to be a mistake.

  He had to believe it.

  Forty-eight hours. You’ll be out of this mess in forty-eight hours.

  Unless he wasn’t granted bail.

  Unless he couldn’t prove he hadn’t killed Mona Hill. He didn’t have the same faith in the system that Lucy had. He knew that circumstantial evidence could sometimes convict innocent people. But this was worse—someone was framing him. The gun they found in his plane … it might as well have been smoking. Someone had planned this. And the only person could be Elise Hunt.

  An eighteen-year-old psycho planned this?

  No … there were others involved. Who had taken over for the Hunt family after their network was destroyed? Was Elise working with them? Why come after Sean and his friends? That said revenge.

  But this was a lot of work for revenge when he would have been easy enough to kill. He took a lot of precautions with his security, but nothing was foolproof.

  They don’t want you dead. If they did, you’d be dead.

  They had a bigger plan. In the end it might mean killing him, but until then … what?

  Lucy was in danger. His son. Who was with them? Who was protecting them? Nate? Who else, with Jack and Kane stuck south of the border? Would Duke come? JT? Kate? Patrick?

  Someone had to protect his family when he couldn’t.

  “We got the clearance, let’s go,” one of the Beaumont guards—Sheffield—said.

  And with that, they led Sean into the bus and attached his handcuffs to the bar in front of him on the seat. The other prisoner was put across the narrow aisle from him, also cuffed to a bar. One guard drove, separated by a steel grate. The second guard sat on a jump seat sideways. There were six rows of benches in the small bus, but only Sean and this old guy were inside.

  As soon as they were cleared, the garage door rolled up and the bus backed out.

  Sean couldn’t shake the fear that he was being taken to his execution.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  VICTORVILLE, CALIFORNIA

  Megan Elliott Kincaid had had enough of the runaround. Yesterday she’d talked to three people at Victorville, where Jimmy Hunt was incarcerated, and finally she got the assurance that she could interview him first thing this morning. She and SSA Blair Novak arrived at six in the morning and at first, everything went well. They were escorted to an interview room usually reserved for lawyers and their clients; fifteen minutes later, Megan walked out and asked the guard about the delay. “We called, we had this set up, Hunt should have been waiting for us.”

  “I don’t know why there is a delay,” he said.

  “Find out,” Megan snapped.

  He bristled, and she realized she should have been more diplomatic. But she was as worried about her husband as she was about Sean and Lucy. Jack was somewhere in the middle of Mexico on a dangerous mission to find Kane and she’d only spoken to him briefly last night, just long enough to know that he was alive. She’d hardly slept and had to be up at three in the morning to drive down here. Dealing with bureaucracy was the last thing she wanted to do right now.

  She returned to the interview room and told Blair the status. “We’ll give it five more minutes,” Blair said, “then I’ll call the warden. I know him pretty well.”

  “You were involved in this case?”

  “Not directly. It was a DEA case, we assisted.”

  “Why is he in a state prison if it was a federal case?”

  “The state prosecuted first. His federal case is pending. At first they were talking plea, but then he started playing legal games.”

  “Why didn’t we get him first?”

  “That’s way above my pay grade. But it had to do with the murder of an undercover LAPD cop. So he’s not getting out even if nothing happens with the federal case. My part of the investigation was documenting the search and seizure of property at the Hunt compound. When Margaret Hunt was killed, we went through everything. She’d destroyed much of the evidence, but we found enough that helped the state in their conviction, and some evidence of corruption in LAPD. I helped remove two bad cops from the line of duty. Not my favorite thing to
do—but dammit, I hate when our job is tainted by these guys on the take.”

  She glanced at her watch and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Before she could locate the warden’s number, a man walked into the room accompanied by a corrections officer.

  “Agent Novak? Elliott? I’m Assistant Warden Josh Steiner.” He extended his hand, which they both shook. He motioned for them to sit and opened a file folder he was carrying. “I’m flummoxed about why this information wasn’t in our computer system, I could have saved you the trip. Jimmy Hunt was transferred two weeks ago.”

  “Where?”

  “Beaumont.”

  “Texas?” Megan said. “Under what authority?”

  He pushed the folder toward her. She looked at the paperwork, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to her. Steiner explained, “The DEA requested the transfer because Jimmy Hunt planned to turn state’s evidence on an active investigation.”

  “He doesn’t need to be transferred for that,” Megan said.

  “They needed him to testify in court.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

  “It wasn’t in the computer—I mean, it is, but it wasn’t logged properly. He was transferred temporarily and will be returning here once he is done with his testimony. The AUSA who approved the transfer is there—you can contact him and find out what’s going on. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

  On the surface, it all looked legit. But the timing was more than a little suspicious.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Logs,” she said. “I want to see everyone who visited Hunt, talked to him on the phone, sent him mail. Every. Single. Contact.”

  While they were waiting, she sent a message to Rick Stockton.

  Hunt transferred to Beaumont two weeks ago per AUSA Neil Barnes to testify in a DEA trial. I requested all logs. Please advise.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  OUTSIDE CUIDAD VICTORIA, MEXICO

  Jack stayed hidden in an abandoned barn that looked ready to fall at the slightest breeze while Ranger confirmed that the trucks they’d seen two hours earlier were at the compound in the center of town. Town being relative, as there were few structures, no maintained roads, and they hadn’t seen anyone other than Blair and his men.

  There was no reason that Kane couldn’t have alerted them that he was safe. Jack had been thinking about it for the last twenty-four hours, and if Kane had told Ranger that he’d escaped, Jack wouldn’t have had to come down here. Instead they learned through Kane’s actions—he’d left them a path to follow, but Jack was certain Ranger could have tracked Kane on his own.

  But it was always safer in numbers.

  Jack was worried about Lucy. He considered Sean as close as any of his brothers. He wanted to be there not just to support them, but to protect his family. That he couldn’t be was troublesome on multiple levels.

  And he really didn’t like not knowing what was going on.

  Ranger returned after forty minutes.

  “There’s a meeting. Two other vehicles came while I was observing. I didn’t recognize any of the players, but they look mid-level cartel. Village is abandoned, but looks like a regular meeting spot.”

  “Kane?”

  Ranger shook his head. “If he doesn’t want to be found he won’t be.”

  “Damn straight.”

  Jack and Ranger both had their guns out at the sound of footsteps, but didn’t fire. Kane walked into the barn.

  Ranger breathed an audible sigh of relief, but Jack was irritated. “You fucking broke protocol, Rogan,” Jack said.

  “It couldn’t be avoided. I knew Ranger would learn I escaped—Peter Blair and his people are used to keeping young girls in line, not trained soldiers.”

  “Sean’s in trouble.”

  “I know.”

  “Know? How do you know? He was just arrested yesterday.”

  Kane looked surprised. “Arrested?”

  “What kind of trouble are you talking about?”

  “It’s why I went after Blair. When they had me in the root cellar, they were chatty. Sound carries. Blair told his people that Sean would be under their thumb soon, that everything was on schedule. I sent Sean a message as soon as I could to give him the heads-up, but I needed more information. There’s no reason that Sean should be on their radar. Maybe to leverage me, but that didn’t seem to be the context of the conversation.”

  Kane looked from Ranger to Jack. “Why was Sean arrested?”

  “Killing Mona Hill.”

  “I don’t know who the fuck that is.”

  Jack reminded him of Mona Hill and her connection to the Hunt family and their drug cartel. “Sean’s in jail in Houston until he can be arraigned on Monday. Donnelly was grabbed outside DEA headquarters and is currently MIA, and Dunning’s been suspended after SAPD found sixteen kilos of coke in his truck. Sean had Nico Villanueva down in L.A. investigating Elise Hunt, but didn’t tell anyone. We only found out after he was arrested.”

  Kane didn’t say anything. He walked out of the barn.

  Jack didn’t follow. He knew his friend well enough to know that Kane needed a minute to process the new information. Kane Rogan had an uncanny way of seeing the bigger picture. Not to mention he usually had more information than anyone else.

  It didn’t take him long to return. “Peter Blair was in the States three weeks ago. Wasn’t that the same time that Elise Hunt was released from prison?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is a setup, but I don’t know who the primary target is—me or Sean.”

  “We need to go back.”

  “First we get Blair.”

  Jack disagreed. “Lucy is in trouble, Rogan! Sean, Nate, Brad—they’ve all been taken off the field. That leaves Lucy and Jesse vulnerable.”

  “Nate’s not in prison, is he?”

  “No.”

  “He’ll stay with Jess. But Blair knows the bigger plan. He will talk. Why would Sean be under their thumb? Blair’s a freelancer. He could be working for anyone. He can go in and out of the country with ease, he has people all over the fucking place. He’s worked for the Hunts in the past, before the shit went down. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jimmy Hunt was running his operation from prison. Hell, they could have built an alliance that we don’t know about yet, people we didn’t shut down two years ago. Blair knows details. We make him talk. We need his information or we can’t do shit to help Sean or find Donnelly.”

  Jack hoped that Kane was right. He trusted him, even though he thought this was a fifty-fifty proposition.

  Kane looked at Ranger. “What do we have?”

  “Us, a bag of weapons, standard equipment. There’s at least a dozen men at the compound.”

  “Seventeen. Four factions trying to come to terms on territory. Blair is leading it, and he’ll get what he wants. He didn’t tell anyone that we rescued the girls, nor did he tell anyone about me—just his core group. Which tells me my capture was a separate job from this excursion. I’ve been tracking him since I slipped out. I heard him tell someone that the girls were en route to El Paso as planned.”

  Ranger shook his head. “I’ve been in contact with the Sisters. They’ve already moved the girls to a safe haven in Monterrey, and they’ll be reunited with their families as soon as possible—Siobhan and Dyson are leading the effort.”

  “His lie tells me that he either doesn’t care or is buying time. But we need more information about Sean’s situation; Blair has it.”

  “And you expected to do it alone?” Jack said.

  “If I had to, but I trusted Ranger would find me. You’re a bonus, which puts us in the driver’s seat.”

  “Three against seventeen,” Jack muttered. Sometimes, Kane’s idea that they had the upper hand made Jack nervous.

  “I have a plan.”

  Jack didn’t doubt it, but he was getting too old for this shit. So was Kane, but he’d never admit it.

  “So all your talk
about retirement was just bullshit,” Jack said.

  “Not at the time,” Kane said with surprising seriousness. “I get it. You and JT think I need to walk away. And I thought I could. But when the Sisters called Siobhan about the girls, I realized there was no one else they could call. There’s others that do what we do, but not many and not in the same way. They rescue these girls after they’ve already been abused. There’s not enough of us, and there’s too many of them, and damn if I’m going to let these girls be repeatedly raped and drugged until they die before they hit twenty-five. I’m in the unique position to act quickly to certain situations. I’m not going to say no when I can say yes.”

  Jack used to be the same way. What changed?

  Family. Commitments. Age.

  Kane was going to have to come to the same realization himself, though Jack accepted that Kane might never get there. Maybe because Siobhan had a big heart, maybe because Kane didn’t know any other way to live.

  Jack couldn’t fault him for it. Hell, he admired him even more. How did Kane turn it around? Jack had been ready to throttle him for chasing after Peter Blair and breaking all RCK protocols, yet was now ready to join his dangerous crusade?

  “You have a plan?” Jack said. “Hope it’s a good one.”

  One side of his mouth twitched up. His blue eyes practically sparkled. “It is.”

  Kane went over the plan and Jack thought it was fucking crazy.

  But it was so crazy and so smart that Jack thought that it just might work.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

  Lucy woke up Jesse before sunrise to say good-bye. She didn’t want to keep him out of the loop. Nate and Aggie were there, and if they had to leave, Leo Proctor would fill in.

  Jesse understood. But he’d grown up far too fast in the last twenty-four hours. Why did he have to go through this? His stepfather had worked for the cartels, his mother was murdered last year, now his father is in jail? The kid wasn’t even fourteen yet. She wished she could give him a real childhood filled with soccer and friends and simple pleasures. Instead, his life had been defined by danger and risk and worry. She didn’t want that for her son.