Best Laid Plans (40 page)

He parted his windbreaker and revealed a gun in a holster.

“You’re not a cop.”

“No, I’m not. But I have a deal to make.”

She tilted her chin up defiantly. “I don’t work with partners.”

“And I have no intention of being your partner. But you’ll want to listen.”

She rose from the table. “There are two federal agents outside. All I need to do is scream.” Mona had been more than a little pissed off that Agents Crawford and Kincaid had sent two agents to watch her 24/7, but now she realized they might come in handy.

“I know. And I’ll leave the way I came—through your basement.”

How did this bastard know about her basement? It wasn’t on the original plans for the building.

“If you alert them,” the stranger continued, “I’ll tell Darlene everything I know about you.”

The blood drained from Mona’s face and she sat heavily on the chair. The room was spinning. This was
not
happening. No one knew about Darlene.
No one.

Sean watched as Mona began to panic. He picked up the small fire extinguisher he’d brought with him and put out the mini fire that the melted backup drive had started. He put the container down out of Mona’s reach, and said, “Tell me everything about the people who want that video.”

She was confused. “You want it, too? I’ll sell to the highest bidder.”

He itched to hit the woman, but he needed to control his temper. Beating up his punching bag had left his fists sore, and if she baited him he would misstep. He had to keep his emotions on complete lockdown. He put himself in Kane’s shoes. He had to be as cold, as calculating, as shrewd as his brother.

“Let me explain something, Ms. Hill.” He waited until she focused on him. “I know everything about you. I know you planted a fake death certificate at the Los Angeles County Registrar so that your sister would think you were dead and not be suspicious that a trust was set up to take care of her and her fatherless son. I know your mother was a drug addict and a prostitute who pimped you out, and would have pimped Darlene out if you hadn’t intervened. I know that you are extremely smart and could have made your money legitimately—after tracking all your shell companies and bank accounts, even I was impressed. But instead, you choose to stay in the sex trade. To each his own, I suppose.

“But you crossed a line, and you do not want me as your enemy. I already destroyed your computers. And the archives in your basement?” Her eyes widened. “Gone.” He snapped his fingers.

“How dare you involve yourself in my business,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I don’t give a shit about your business. I want the man who was going to buy that video.”

She shook her head. “What’s in it for me?”

He held up one of the photos that Renee had taken of Darlene and her son, just that morning. Mona couldn’t prevent the full range of emotions that crossed her face, from rage to love to worry.

“I will take you down and then who will support your sister? Especially when she has to deal with the fallout of your criminal enterprise. Because not only have I traced your money, but I’ve traced every dime that’s gone to your sister. The government will want it back. She’ll lose her house. She’ll lose the trust fund. She’ll lose little Bobby’s college fund. And she’ll know that you supported her off the backs of women just like your pathetic mother.”

He hadn’t traced her money—he hadn’t had time. He knew that he
could
do it, just like he’d tracked the businesses, but money and banking issues would take far more time to dig into.

But Sean was a very good liar.

“I will kill you,” Mona whispered.

“Then my partner will go to the FBI with the evidence I’ve accumulated. And my partner will also go directly to Darlene with proof of everything you’ve done.”

Her chin trembled but she didn’t say anything.

“Who wants the video?”

She didn’t say anything for a long minute. Sean saw the inner debate.

“You’ll never survive,” she finally said. “He’s powerful. He’ll beat you to a pulp and have his gangbangers cut off your dick and shove it down your throat.”

“Who?”

“If I tell you, I’ll have to run. He’ll
know.
He knows everything.”

Sean slammed his fist on the table. She jumped. “Name!”

“Promise me you won’t go after my sister. She doesn’t know anything.”

“If you lie to me, I’ll tell her everything. If you tell me the truth, I’ll lose her file.”

Through clenched teeth, Mona hissed, “Tobias.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Lucy decided that the best thing to do was to ignore her previous conversation with Barry about Rick Stockton and Matt Slater. She wished it had never happened. Fortunately, Barry seemed to agree because he didn’t bring it up, either.

It was twelve thirty, and Tia had just sent them a message that the doctor was currently checking on Elise Hansen, but she should be released within an hour.

“Elise didn’t tell us she’d recorded Everett,” Lucy said, focusing on the case. That was where she and Barry worked best. She could never be friends with him, not anymore. That saddened her.

Never say never.

It wasn’t likely.

“I noticed,” Barry said.

“It’s something I can push her on. She implied she took photos, but didn’t say it outright. Not about Everett.”

“If you’re ready to go after her.”

“I’m ready.” She sounded defensive, which was the last thing she wanted. “Elise knew that Worthington was dead when she left the motel. She staged the scene to make it look like he’d received oral sex, but we know that he wasn’t sexually aroused. Yet, less than an hour later, what did she sound like to you on the tape?”

“Like she was playing a part. Having fun.”

“There are cruel people in this world,” Lucy said. “But it takes an especially cold person to leave one man dead and then play sex games with another. To create an audio recording and, presumably, take pictures. But I’m wondering if those pictures even exist. Elise was vague, upset, and calculating all at the same time. Everett would have noticed being photographed, wouldn’t he?” She didn’t wait for an answer, and continued. “She didn’t drug him—we saw him leave the hotel looking fine only hours after they had sex.”

“She lied to us. Repeatedly.”

“Whether out of fear of someone else, or fear that she was going to be caught, I’m not sure yet.”

“Still, someone shot her.”

“What is that expression? No honor among thieves? Maybe she actually told the truth, that she took Worthington’s phone and they were angry about it. Or maybe she made a mistake we have yet to uncover. Maybe she wanted more money. Maybe whoever hired her didn’t want a witness.”

“I’m going with the latter. She’s the only connection between Worthington and Everett. Someone gave her the curare to inject into Worthington. That’s not a poison you can buy on the street.”

“Mona Hill knows,” Lucy said. “If we can’t break Elise Hansen, we have to go back to Mona.”

“We should be able to break her,” Barry said. “Are you
really
up for this?”

Lucy had gone into this investigation thinking that Elise was the victim. That she’d been used and abused for years, ending up in a life of prostitution because that was all she knew. And maybe that was how it started. But turning to blackmail and murder? That she hadn’t been disturbed about Harper Worthington dying haunted Lucy. Elise was concerned about her own freedom and culpability—and freely admitted that she thought she was giving him a knockout drug—but showed no remorse that he ended up dying from her actions.

Lucy had let her sympathy for victims of the sex trade overshadow her years of training in criminal psychology. She should have seen Elise Hansen for who she was at the beginning. She might not have known that the drug was lethal, but Elise was calculating and would say or do anything to get out of the mess she found herself in.

“I am definitely up for it.”

*   *   *

Tia Mancini met Lucy and Barry at the hospital. “We’re good to go,” Tia said. “We can bring her to the station, interrogate her, then admit her into juvenile detention pending charges. We’re going to put her in the medical wing because of her injuries, as well as for her own safety.”

“I’d like five minutes alone with her,” Lucy said.

Tia was suspicious. “Why?”

“I need her to know that
I
know she’s a liar. I don’t want to do it on the record. You can listen in.”

Tia frowned. “I think I missed something.”

Barry said, “We have a recording of her and James Everett, the john she was with after Worthington, and her tone and demeanor suggest that was having fun.”

Tia grew angry. “Prostitutes are great actresses.”

“What he means,” Lucy said, “is that less than an hour after she left Harper Worthington dead—and forensics prove that he was dead before she left the room—she was cheerful and almost giddy while playing sex games with another john. And she had the wherewithal to record it. There’s something going on with her, and I want her to think about it on the drive over to detention. There’s more to it than her being afraid of whoever hired her.”

“When I wanted you to play bad cop, Lucy, I wasn’t expecting you to be such a hard-ass.”

Lucy tried to ignore the comment, but it bothered her. “A man was murdered, humiliated in his death, and she won’t tell us who hired her—even when we gave her all the ways she could play the victim card. She needs to understand that we are serious. She tells us the truth, or she goes to jail.”

Tia frowned and looked like she wanted to argue, then her phone rang. “It’s the lab. I have to take it.” She stepped away.

“I guess you really are ready,” Barry said.

“I know how to do the job,” she said coolly.

“Lucy, I didn’t mean anything by the conversation earlier—”

She looked him in the eye. “Yes, you did. You don’t trust me and you called a friend to check me out. And then, you wanted to make sure I knew about it. That’s manipulative. I think you’re a good cop, Barry. A really good cop and I’ve learned a lot working with you this past week. And I’m sincerely sorry that my diligence wasn’t good enough for you.”

He wanted to respond, but couldn’t because Tia came back almost immediately. “That was Stu at the crime lab,” she said. “The paper in Elise’s pocket, the one with the instructions on where to meet, is special order.” She looked from Barry to Lucy. “It’s ordered in bulk by the House of Representatives for all district and capitol offices.”

“Adeline Reyes-Worthington,” Lucy said.

“One sheet of paper? Anyone could have taken it from her office. A staff member. A constituent. Or it was scrapped. There could be a half dozen explanations. There was no letterhead on it, no other identifying marks to say it came from
her
office. Which her attorney will shove down our throat. We need more.”

“Her husband is dead. That should be enough to
talk
to the woman.”

“Get Elise to tell us who hired her, and we go from there,” Barry said. He ran his hand through his perfect hair, and it fell right back into place. “While you interview her, I’ll call Juan. He needs to know about Everett, and about the paper.”

Lucy and Tia went upstairs to Elise’s room. She was sitting on the edge of her bed in clothes that weren’t hers. She had on no makeup, and her bleached blond hair was brushed and pulled back with a rubber band, making her mousy brown roots stand out. She looked very young and very innocent. And sad. Lucy wondered if she was wrong about Elise. Maybe she’d been so victimized that she didn’t even understand the seriousness of what she now faced.

Tia said, “Elise, we’ll be bringing you down to SAPD headquarters for a formal questioning process, then you’ll be transported to juvenile detention.”

Elise frowned, her posture both defensive and defiant. “Why?”

“To keep you safe.”

“They’ll get to me anywhere.” She sounded forlorn.

Tia said, “I’m going to wait downstairs for the van. I’ll call you when it’s here, Lucy, and you can escort Elise down.” She caught Lucy’s eye, almost as if to say,
Go easy
. But she’d tacitly agreed with Lucy’s plan. Tia trusted her, and Lucy wasn’t going to blow this opportunity.

Lucy closed the door. “Elise, I heard the sex tape you made with James Everett. It was sent to him as a precursor to blackmail. That makes you an accessory to blackmail. A very serious charge.”

Elise tilted her chin up. “I didn’t send it to him.”

“But you recorded him without his consent. That tape was made an hour after you killed Harper Worthington.”

“I
told
you, I didn’t kill him. I didn’t
mean
to kill him. It was an accident!”

“I don’t know what to believe, Elise. I have a hard time reconciling what happened that night. I know how curare kills. He would have been alive, but completely immobile, for ten to thirty minutes. Yet, while he was suffering—or already dead—you pulled down his pants and sucked his penis.”