Far Gone (11 page)

Her whole body was vibrating. She wasn’t wearing a jacket, but he could tell it was from anger, not cold.

He felt the first stirrings of alarm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a woman so furious. Probably never.

“Andrea, calm down.”

“Calm down? You lied about some cold case to get me to open up to you!”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you
think
? Julia Kirby!
Senator
Kirby! The real reason you want to use my brother!”

He didn’t say anything. Heat flared in her eyes.

“I knew it!”

Shit.
He tipped his head back. “Andrea—”

“No! You’re done! I get to ask the questions now.”

He looked down at her and felt an odd mixture of dread and anticipation. She was irate, and with good reason.

He’d underestimated her.

Torres had warned him. He’d wanted to be straight up with her, see if she’d agree to help them. Jon had wanted to do things his way, and as the senior agent on the case, he’d won. Didn’t feel like a win right now.

“First question.” She turned away, as if just looking at him was unbearable. “True or false, and don’t you
dare
lie to me.” She turned around. She took a deep breath. “Do you believe Shay Hardin had something to do with that bombing in Philadelphia?”

He watched her. He didn’t say anything. As the seconds ticked by, all the color drained from her face.

“Oh, my God.” Her shoulders slumped. She sank onto the arm of his sofa and buried her head in her hands.

“Andrea, look at me.”

She didn’t move. Maybe she was thinking about her brother. Maybe she was thinking about the sixteen people who had died in that attack. The images on the news had been bad, but the raw police footage was far worse—severed limbs strewn across the sidewalk, victims shrieking, mutilated bodies. The carnage was shocking, even for seasoned investigators.

But Jon didn’t know what she was thinking about. She was so utterly still he couldn’t even tell if she was breathing.

“Look at me, Andrea.”

Nothing.

“
Look
at me, damn it, and I’ll answer your question.”

She lifted her head, and the bleak expression on her face made his gut tighten.

“Yes, all right? I think Hardin had something to do with it.” He paused. “But I’m on my own with that. Except for Torres, everyone else thinks I’m crazy.”

“What makes you think he did it?”

He paused.

“Tell me.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Tell me, God damn it!”

Jon was suddenly beat. His legs hurt. His head hurt. He had about a thousand cactus needles in his palms, and his hands were on fire.

He went to the fridge and pulled out a half-finished jug of Gatorade. He guzzled it down and tossed the container into the trash.

He sank onto the sagging armchair beside his weight bench and started untying his boots.

Andrea was still watching him with a look of despair.

“You know this investigation all started with a bank heist?”

She didn’t react.

“Six thousand dollars, back in September. This was in San Antonio.” He tossed his boot into the corner. The second one joined it with a thud. “Then, a month later, seven thousand. Both nothing amounts. Robber wasn’t armed. After Thanksgiving, another bank got hit for sixty-five hundred. It would never have gotten on our radar, except one of our eager-beaver new agents noticed some similarities, thought the cases might be part of a series.”

He stood up and loosened his vest. “Turns out this agent was right. We went back and looked at the tapes. Guy’s wearing shades and a baseball cap or a hoodie each time, but you can tell it’s the same perp.”

“Shay Hardin?”

He pulled off his vest and tossed it onto the sofa. Now he was down to a sweaty T-shirt and jeans. He unfastened his leg holster and put it on the table. “No,” he said.

She looked confused.

“Several aspects of the crimes pointed to an inside job. Someone who knew standard ops at these banks. Each hit, they took just under the amount that would attract the FBI’s attention.”

“Don’t all bank robberies attract attention?”

“We get hundreds a year in Texas alone. We prioritize cases, like everyone else.” He sat down and looked at her. “Besides the amounts, we also noticed the timing. First robbery happened while the bank manager was at lunch—but it was two in the afternoon, which was kind of an odd lunchtime. Also, the perp didn’t say anything, just presented the teller with a note. But the wording was interesting. He used jargon that made us think he had inside knowledge of the procedures at this bank.”

“So what did you do?”

Jon leaned back in his chair. “Checked out the bank employees, starting with the first hit, which we thought would be most revealing. Ran everyone’s close relatives and significant others to see if anyone had ever been arrested or in trouble with the law. Guess whose name came up?”

“Hardin’s.”

He nodded. “We found four bank employees with exes who had rap sheets, but Hardin was the only one of those who’d been investigated for killing a federal judge.”

She looked frustrated. And intense. And she had a little worry line between her brows that he hadn’t noticed before.

“So you’re saying Hardin’s suddenly robbing banks now? Why would he do that?”

“Because”—he smiled tiredly—“that’s where the money is.”

chapter nine

“YOU THINK THIS IS
funny
?” She looked as if she’d just found gum on the bottom of her shoe. “I’m being serious here!”

“So am I.”

He got up and went to the sink. He ran a dish towel under the faucet and wiped down his face, which was covered in grime. He could have used a shower and a pizza, but he wasn’t getting either until he got rid of Andrea. It was either get her out or get her in his bed, and she looked like she’d bust his jaw if he so much as touched her.

He leaned back against the sink. “I started poking around, looking into what Hardin’s been up to for the last six years. I didn’t like what I found. Two weeks later, I persuaded our SAC to let Torres and me come out here to do some more digging.”

“You had to convince him?”

“San Antonio’s a busy field office. Besides antiterrorism and everything else, we’ve got our hands full with drug cartels and human trafficking. Not a lot of people sitting around twiddling their thumbs.”

“And what’d you find?”

“I can’t tell you all of it. But none of it’s good.”

She thrust her chin forward in that stubborn look that got his blood going.

“That’s the way it is, Andrea. I can’t tell you everything about my case. I probably shouldn’t even be telling you this much, but for some reason I trust you.”

“That, and you want me to get my brother to help you.”

Again, he figured his silence was confirmation enough.

She walked into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, facing him. Some of her color had returned, but her expression still looked grim.

“So you came out here to dig, and now you have reason to think Hardin’s going around knocking off banks. Why don’t you arrest him?”

“There’s the little problem of evidence. We’ve got some, but it’s all circumstantial. Ditto the judge’s murder. We need something concrete on either case to get an arrest warrant or even a search warrant.”

He thought about the rumor Elizabeth LeBlanc had told him that Maxwell was ready to pull the plug. It wasn’t a rumor. Maxwell had told him point-blank that he was getting ready to shut down this op. Jon was running out of time, but he’d never felt so close to a break, and he needed Gavin Finch to get it.

Andrea was watching him with suspicion. She still looked confused, too, and he didn’t blame her. It was a complicated case, which was one reason he’d had a hard time selling his theory to his superiors. Much easier to believe a simple explanation—especially one supported by the evidence.

“But what does this have to do with Senator Kirby? And my brother?”

“I’m not sure. Could be Hardin is using stolen money to fund other illegal activities. When I investigate, I always follow the money.” He suspected she did, too. She’d been asking about how Hardin earned a living.

“But why the senator?” she asked. “I thought Hardin had a vendetta against the judge.”

“He did. But the judge is dead, and now he’s moved on to bigger targets. Kirby’s conveniently nearby, and he’s controversial. He’s been in the news a lot.”

“I don’t even keep up with politics, and I’ve heard all about him,” she said. “He’s ticked off a lot of people by putting his name on that gun law.”

“He’s trying to prove he’s tough on crime.”

“Well, it backfired. Now there’s no shortage of people who’d like to see him lose the next election.”

Jon nodded. “And a fraction of those who’d like to see him dead. Or hurt his family. Believe me, we know. Until this morning, we had a team of agents in Philly working ’round the clock on whether the university bombing was directed at the senator. They put together a list of groups that might be responsible, and you know what’s at the top of the list?” He stepped closer. “Militia groups, neo-Nazis, and antigovernment orgs. And you know what else? We have no surveillance footage of Hardin on his property at the time of the bombing. None. But Torres and I
did
find footage from the parking garage at the El Paso Airport three days before the attack. Looks like Hardin was catching a plane somewhere. Two days after the attack, he’s back on the ranch again.”

“You checked—”

“None of the airlines has him on a flight, so he must have been traveling under an alias, probably using a phony driver’s license.” There was a huge black market for fake IDs around here—no surprise to anyone working law enforcement in a border state.

“You said you had agents working ‘until this morning,’ ” she said. “What happened this morning?”

He stared down at her. Of course that detail had caught her attention. It was all over the news anyway, so he might as well tell her.

“Our forensic lab traced the vehicle used in the bombing to a cleric at a Philadelphia mosque. Now it’s looking like an Al Qaeda cell. Everyone’s efforts have been redirected.”

Her face brightened a fraction. “There goes your Shay Hardin theory.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe
what
? You’ve got the whole Bureau saying international terrorists. And you’re hung up on some yahoo out in West Texas?”

Jon tossed the towel away and folded his arms over his chest. “Okay, forget the university bombing for a minute. I
know
Shay Hardin has a deep-rooted hatred for the federal government. I
know
he’s capable of violence and that he killed a judge. I’m
almost
positive he’s masterminding a string of bank heists that may be funding his violent activities. What are the chances your brother’s living there and not involved?”

She fumed up at him. He could see the answer in her eyes. The chances were zero, but she refused to admit it. “You don’t know my brother. He’s never even had a traffic ticket. He would never get involved in any of this.”

“How sure are you?” Jon edged closer and watched her body stiffen. “Don’t tell me—just think about it. Because I’m offering Gavin a chance here.”

“Right. A chance to get thrown in jail for something he didn’t do. Or get his face on the evening news. Or get a target on his back. All because you can’t do your job and put together a case against the guy you’re really after.”

She strode over and yanked open the door, leaving just as hot as she’d arrived. He clamped his hand over hers on the knob. “Hardin’s going away, I promise you. Your brother’s better off helping us.”

She jerked her hand away and stepped outside. Loco was going crazy, barking and lunging at the fence, but Andrea didn’t even seem to notice.

“I’m serious, Andrea.”

She glared at him. “I’m serious, too. You think your case is so good? Go make it.”

♦

Andrea was too mad to sleep. She flipped onto her stomach and punched at the pillow, but there was no way to get comfortable. No way to relax and let go of the arguments volleying through her brain.

She flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Even in the faint glow of the bathroom light, she could still see the chipping paint.

She was sick of this motel. She was sick of this town. She was sick of this dry, dusty air that made her skin itch. She was sick of eating gas-station food and sitting on this bed, hunched over her laptop at night.

More than anything, she was sick of leaving Gavin message after message that he refused to return. He wanted her to butt out. He’d made that clear. And yet with every day that ticked by, she felt more and more pulled in.

What are the chances your brother’s living there and not involved?

She knew good and well that the chances were nonexistent. It wasn’t just her experience as a cop that told her so, but it was also her grasp of common sense, a trait she’d inherited from her grandfather.
You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Gavin had been spending way too much time with Hardin not to be involved on some level.

She squeezed her eyes shut as images of those smoldering ruins flooded her brain. The charred building looked like some huge monster had just taken a bite out of it. Sixteen people killed, most of them students. Dozens more injured, some who’d lost limbs or been permanently scarred by flying shrapnel. Who could do such a thing? Who could murder and maim a bunch of innocent people on the very threshold of life?

Plenty of people could. Andrea knew it. She’d seen enough slain gangbangers and branded hookers and abused children to know there was really no limit to human cruelty.

Wind howled against the building, rattling the windowpanes. A scratching noise sounded on the pavement outside. Andrea glanced at the door. The noise drew closer. She kicked off the covers, grabbed her gun, and parted the curtains to peer outside.