Best Laid Plans (47 page)

“Are you sure? Maybe you should cooperate with the FBI. They can protect you.”

“Hardly. I’m not going to jail, Joseph! But Tobias will pay for this. He threatened me, recruited Garza, then probably killed him because that’s what Tobias does, isn’t it? He’ll pay. I will use every dime to track him down and make him suffer. He created this problem in the first place—and I’m damn well not going to go to prison or die because of it.”

She walked upstairs.

She certainly had bravado when no one else was around, Joseph thought.

He followed her up the stairs. If she wouldn’t drink the tea, which would have been a far more peaceful death, he’d be perfectly content to make her suffer.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have the time to prolong it. He suspected that Kincaid and Crawford would realize that they’d been manipulated.

Adeline started to type in the code to the safe. This was the one thing he needed her to do, because she was paranoid and changed the code every week. He needed the banking information.

“Why aren’t you packing?” Adeline said before hitting the last two numbers.

“I’m packed.”

The bell rang.

“Dammit! See who that is.” The safe default beeped. “Now I have to wait five minutes.”

He glanced at his phone and pulled up the security feed. Two federal agents, the two who had been in the car. Their guns were out. One moved around to the rear entrance.

How had the feds figured it out so soon? Were there only two agents?

He could handle two agents.

But he couldn’t wait five minutes.

He reached out and grabbed Adeline.

“Joseph? What?”

He scowled. “You pathetic, greedy little bitch. I wish I had time to make you suffer—because I certainly know how.”

Before she could respond, he jerked her body one way and her head the other. Her neck snapped.

“I never worked for you,” he said.

The bell rang again.

Joseph ran down the stairs, then down into the basement. Behind the wine rack was a hidden door. Harper had closed it off because he was worried about home security when his daughter was little, but the door still worked—Joseph had made sure of it long ago. He grabbed his stash of guns next to the exit, slipped out into the side yard, and used the darkness to run to the barn. He picked up a secondary bag of supplies in one of the stalls, and tossed everything behind the seat of his truck, which he’d hidden in the barn instead of Adeline’s Cadillac.

He sat behind the wheel and called Tobias.

“I couldn’t get the codes from the safe. We’ll need to use Everett.”

“I’ve already put the plan in motion.”

Through clenched teeth, Joseph said, “I told you to wait.”

“You’re not in charge. And obviously, I was right—Adeline wouldn’t open the safe for you.”

“The feds were knocking on the door. I had to break her neck.”

“Finally. Damn, I hate that bitch.”

Joseph wanted to break Tobias’s neck. If he hadn’t fucked up to begin with, they wouldn’t have been in this mess. Though if Tobias hadn’t fucked up two months ago, they might never have learned about the FBI sting. One silver lining in a cesspool of disasters.

“I’m going to base, you’d better not screw this up. We need that money if we’re going to rebuild.”

“I’m taking care of it.”

“If anything happens to Elise, I’ll kill you myself.”

He hung up. Joseph had never wanted Elise and Tobias to work together. They were both dangerous on their own, but together they were reckless. It was like they fueled each other, each trying to outdo the other. But he’d promised that he would protect both of them, no matter what.

Thank God they weren’t
his
family.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“Who is Mona Hill and what information do I have about her?” Kane asked Sean after he hung up with Lucy.

Sean told him the truth. He told Kane everything, including that Hill had Lucy’s rape tape.

“You should have killed her,” Kane said. “She now knows where you’re vulnerable. Another reason why I have no attachments.”

Sean had thought the same thing—not that he shouldn’t love Lucy, but that he should have killed Mona Hill. But he wasn’t Kane, and killing someone was always the last choice on his list. He was hedging his bets that Mona’s affection for her sister would keep her far away from him and Lucy. “I know where she’s vulnerable.”

“The difference is she’s ruthless and will take out innocents. You won’t. She’ll figure that out eventually.”

Sean ignored the comment.

“It makes sense now,” Sean said. “Adeline has been laundering money for Tobias, and two months ago—when we raided Trejo’s compound—something changed in their relationship and she backed off. There was a shitload of transactions right before and after we found the guns, and nothing for the last two months. James Everett was talking to the feds, Harper Worthington started investigating his wife, and Garza came up with the plan to use his pet hooker to kill Worthington.”

“Garza was a pawn,” Kane said. “It was all Tobias. And if James Everett was talking to the feds, I’m betting he’s dead, too.”

“They need Everett,” Sean said. “The escrow accounts are controlled by Adeline and Everett. The Texas Land Holding group.”

“So he might not be dead now,” Kane said dryly. “Give Tobias a few minutes to torture the money out of him.”

Kane was certainly in a shitty mood, but it probably had something to do with his informant being killed.

Sean’s phone rang. “It’s Hooper,” he told Kane, then answered on speaker. “Dean, it’s Sean—Kane’s with me. You got the files?”

“Explain.”

“Exactly what I said—I was hired to do a forensic audit on a government contractor who’d been murdered, and my case collided with Lucy’s investigation, which collided with an undercover political corruption case. I can’t legally access those accounts, but my gut tells me Adeline Reyes-Worthington was laundering money by overpaying for properties she or her landholding group owned. Basically, buying from herself, but it doesn’t look that way on paper.”

“You’re right, but there’s more here than that. It’s going to take me a while to sift through the scam—this account is flagged, and it’s active right now.”

“You mean someone’s moving money?”

“Yes.”

“Let me have access, Dean. I need to find out where that person is physically located.”

Hooper hesitated.

“We don’t have time to go through channels,” Sean said. “I’m not bullshitting you, lives are at stake.”

Kane spoke. “Hooper, it’s Kane. This is connected to Tobias.”

“Are you positive?”

“Yes. They took out one of my informants today and set a trap for me, but I got out.”

“You always do.” Dean paused a moment, typing on his computer. “Okay, Sean, you’re on, but you have to understand—once the money is gone, it’s going to be ten times harder to trace.”

“I don’t want to fund that bastard any more than you do.”

Sean pulled over and told Kane to drive. He ran around to the passenger side, pulled out his small laptop, and started a trace on one of the accounts. “The bastard already has over a million dollars. I can slow down his network, but I need to be on site to redirect the money without tipping anyone off.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m setting up another escrow account and when I get access to his actual network, I can make it look like he’s transferring money to the offshore account that I’m assuming Tobias controls, but it’ll actually be going to an escrow account that Dean Hooper controls.”

“How much is there total?” Kane asked.

“Twenty, give or take.”

“
Twenty million
?”

Sean nodded, typing rapidly. “I got him. Everett’s office.” Sean typed the address into his modified GPS system. “Floor it. I’ve slowed him down, but it’s not going to take him long. If it was me, I would already have all the money.”

*   *   *

Lucy was furious, and in a rare burst of anger she took it out on the cop who was supposed to be guarding Elise Hansen. “How did she just
walk out
?”

“I’m sorry, Agent Kincaid. She complained of chest pains and the doctor thought she might have internal injuries from the fall. He took her to get an MRI. I waited outside the room, and only just learned that no doctor had ordered an MRI.”

“Did you check his badge? Check his ID?”

“Lucy,” Brad said, and put his hand on her.

She brushed it off. “I should have figured it out earlier.”

“How?” Brad said. “We had no reason to think—”

Lucy cut him off. “It was that damn photo Tobias gave to Adeline. It wasn’t a sex shot—it was proof of the kill.” She involuntarily shivered, then locked down her emotions. She was too angry and too upset to be any good to anyone. She had to think like Elise.

“She’s cold, calculating. She’s a sixteen-year-old sociopath.”

“Okay, but—”

She barely heard Brad. “She’s so methodical that she lured in a grown man in physically good condition, killed him with a poison. Not just any poison, but one that would cause him intense pain as he died. She watched him die.”

“You don’t know that,” Brad said.

“She did. I’m certain of it. Then she took off his pants and made it appear as if they’d had oral sex.”

“You’re grossing me out, Lucy, and I don’t get easily grossed out.”

“She may have spit on him. It doesn’t matter. But she
wanted
her DNA on him.” Lucy paced. “Either she doesn’t understand forensics or she didn’t care what the final report would show, only that the initial report supported the scene she was setting. She left her DNA … Why?”

“She wanted to be found,” Brad suggested.

“Her prints weren’t in the system, the chances that her DNA would be are next to nothing.”

“I don’t know, but—”

Lucy snapped her fingers and stopped walking. “She wanted us to be looking for her. As soon as we started asking the right questions—when we found the phone and linked Everett to Mona Hill, she gave us Garza on a platter.”

“You mean she shot herself?”

“No—she must have a partner. Whoever drove her from the motel to the hotel. I thought it was Mona Hill. Maybe it is … It’s ballsy, because gunshots are unpredictable. The individual would have to be an outstanding sharpshooter. But I’ll bet she was standing still when she was shot—less chance of killing her accidentally.”

Lucy continued. “But Tobias killed Garza, and Tobias sent the photo of Harper to Adeline and said he wanted his money. Why frame either of them?”

“Maybe he killed Harper Worthington as a threat. The letter gave her forty-eight hours.”

“And she didn’t pay, so Elise was the sacrifice. Maybe. To give us a witness to point to Garza. Because Garza and Elise had a connection in D.C. It’s convoluted, but it holds together.” Lucy frowned. “Then why kill Garza?”

“Because he knew something?”

“Or maybe because he was working with Adeline and Tobias makes a point to take out everyone in an organization. We have to find Elise.” She looked around. “Where’s Barry? How long does it take to get security tapes?”

As if on cue, Barry stepped off the elevator and strode down the hall. He showed Lucy footage of Elise in her hospital gown being wheeled into an MRI room by a man in a white coat. They couldn’t see his face well, but he wasn’t old—maybe twenty-five. Young to be a doctor. “We found her gown and IV drip in the MRI room, and then, about ten minutes before we arrived, this was captured at the main entrance.”

Elise was walking out arm in arm with the same man. Lucy could tell based on his height and gait.

“We know him,” Lucy said. “That’s the witness who said she’d run to his car while being shot at.”

“Peter Rabb,” Barry said. “I’ve already sent SAPD to his address and put a BOLO out on his car.” Barry looked at his watch. “They have a twenty-two-minute head start.”

Lucy’s phone rang. It was Juan. “Hello, sir,” she said, surprised he’d called her and not Barry.

“The two agents we had sitting on Adeline’s house said that you’d called and ordered them to check on her.”

“Yes, sir, I did. I’m sorry, I should have gone through Barry, but he was on the phone and—”

“Adeline Reyes-Worthington is dead. Joseph Contreras is gone. There was a door in the basement that went into a side garden, and they believe he used that to escape.”

“He’d worked for her for years. Are you certain he killed her?”

“I sent an ERT unit to process the entire house. Her neck was broken, there was no struggle. The agents searched the house, but there’s no sign of Contreras.”

“Adeline was our only lead—no, James Everett. Adeline and Everett were in business together, he was being blackmailed by Elise. With Adeline gone, Everett is the only one who knows where the money is. We need to find Everett immediately—he’s the next target. And considering he’s been giving information to the FBI—”