Dead Heat (17 page)

“No. He was a friend of Michael’s from his old life, came here with Michael a few times. A year or two younger. I haven’t seen him since Michael disappeared. Richard may have been upset that I told the police about him, I don’t know.”

“Father, I respect the confessional. But Michael is alive and he is in danger. Help me.”

He wrestled with his conscience; she could see the debate. He wrestled with his vows. The vows won.

“I can tell you only what Michael and I discussed outside the confessional. I shouldn’t even do that, but it was in my role as a teacher, not a priest. Michael wrestled with anger over what his father did, and a deep shame over his father’s life, as well as a belief that he was somehow to blame for what happened to his mother.”

“They were both abused, mother and son.”

Father Flannigan nodded. “And do you think that reason always wins over emotion?”

He was right, of course. “Michael was six when his mother died. There was no proof Vince Rodriguez killed her, but it was a suspicion.”

“Michael doesn’t trust the police.” He looked at her. “He trusts me.”

“Have you seen him since he disappeared?”

He didn’t say anything for a long minute. “No, but I heard him.”

And it became clear to her he was talking about the boy coming in for confession.

“When was the last time you heard him?” she asked quietly.

“Late Saturday afternoon.” He hesitated and looked out into the garden. “You were right in that Michael wasn’t himself before he disappeared. You said it yourself when we first sat down. A name. An old family associate. Michael saw him before he left fourteen months ago and it changed him. Then he was gone.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police? Give them something, even if you couldn’t give them everything?”

“Agent Kincaid,” he said as if he were reprimanding a child. “The police didn’t care when he disappeared fourteen months ago. Why would they care now, when I can’t even tell them where he is or what he is planning to do?”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, just looked beyond Lucy into the rose garden. Then he reached around his neck and removed a chain with the medal of St. Jude. He handed it to her.

“If you find him, give him this. He’ll know it’s from me. It may help you earn his trust.”

She slipped it over her neck. “Thank you.”

“I’m scared for him, Agent Kincaid. What I told the police then was that they should look in his old neighborhood. Two days before he disappeared, he went to his old apartment building.”

“How do you know?”

“I can’t say.”

“Is there anyone else who Michael might have confided in? A friend?”

The priest shook his head. “Only that boy, Richard Diaz. But I don’t know where he lives, and I haven’t seen him since Michael disappeared.”

He stood up, signaling the conversation was over. “I’ll call you if I hear anything else, Agent Kincaid.”

“Thank you. And, please, call me Lucy.” She stood and gave him her card. “If he comes back, if he calls, let me know. I will do everything in my power to protect him.”

“I believe that, Lucy. But you may not be able to protect him from himself.”

*   *   *

Lucy was practically jumping with anticipation as she left St. Catherine’s. She called Zach as she drove and asked for more information about where Michael and his father lived prior to Vince Rodriguez’s arrest. That was the key. Vince Rodriguez was connected to Jaime Sanchez, and now she had proof. Not proof for court, but proof enough for her to follow the lead.

While waiting for Zach, she drove toward the closest Starbucks, needing a jolt of caffeine. And a muffin. She’d become spoiled with Sean making her breakfast in the morning, and had skipped it because he’d left so early.

A tingling on the back of her neck made the hair on her arms rise.

She didn’t believe in psychics or anything that couldn’t be explained scientifically, but she did believe that the human senses were more advanced and sensitive than most people understood. It was well known and scientifically proven that those who lost one sense—like eyesight—had better-developed remaining senses.

When she’d been held captive eight years ago, she’d developed an intense fear of being watched. Now it was like a sixth sense to her; when eyes were on her back, she just
knew.
At first, when she was still prone to panic attacks, it could be anyone. But over time—with a lot of training and self-discipline—she’d been able to distinguish between people simply glancing at her and people actually watching her.

Her heart started thumping loudly in her ears as she looked in all her mirrors. She was on a busy street, mid-morning traffic still thick. She couldn’t distinguish any vehicles, nothing looked familiar, she saw no one giving her undue attention. She took deep breaths to force her heart rate to slow. It worked. Two years ago, she might have had a full panic attack, but it hadn’t happened in a long time, and she wouldn’t let it happen now.

The car directly behind her was a gold minivan with a female at the wheel and a teenage boy in the front seat. There were other kids in the rear. Behind the minivan was a shiny dark-blue foreign sedan. She couldn’t make out the driver. In the lane to the right was a white cargo van with a Hispanic driver wearing a work cap with the same logo as the van. A plumbing company.

Starbucks was two blocks up on the left. She’d planned on going through the drive-through, but that would trap her. She considered going straight to FBI headquarters, but if someone was following her, they wouldn’t put themselves at risk. She wanted a glimpse, an idea of who was behind her. She decided to circle the block a few times and park on the street outside the coffee shop.

She pulled into the left-hand turn lane and waited for the light. The white van passed, as well as the foreign sedan. It was a new Honda with tinted rear windows. The driver was female, but her head was turned as if she was playing with the radio. All Lucy could get was that she was Caucasian or light-skinned Hispanic. There was no license plate on the back, simply the advertisement for the dealership where the car had been bought.

The minivan was behind her, and another sedan behind the van. The mother honked and Lucy realized the light had turned green. She turned, drove past the corner Starbucks, and went down two blocks. The minivan turned into the Starbucks drive-through. The second sedan—a dark-green American model—followed Lucy.

She turned left again. So did the green car. She turned right. So did the green car.

She was in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Modest, middle-class homes, some in bad need of repair, lined the narrow street. She turned right at the stop sign and found herself on a dead-end road. Damn, damn, damn. She didn’t know San Antonio well enough yet.

But the green car didn’t turn right. It turned left, went down the street, then pulled into a driveway.

Lucy slowly turned around at the end of the dead-end road and drove past the green sedan. An older man, in his sixties, was walking up the broken front walk carrying a small suitcase. A little boy ran out the door, no older than four, and greeted the grandfather with a hug around the legs. His mother stood in the doorway while the boy half carried, half dragged the suitcase inside.

“You’re paranoid,” Lucy told herself as she made her way back to Starbucks.

She parked on the street nonetheless. She might be cautious, but she wasn’t paranoid. Someone had been following her. Not anymore—she didn’t have the same creepy feeling on her skin, but someone had been staring while she’d been driving from St. Catherine’s.

Who else knew about Michael’s relationship with Father Flannigan? Had Jaime Sanchez or one of his people staked out the place, hoping to catch the boy there? Had someone recognized her from the sweep? Her visit to St. Catherine’s had been spontaneous. Her office and Donnelly knew she was going to visit the Popes, but she’d only had the strange feeling after leaving St. Catherine’s.

She walked inside, looking at every car on the street and in the lot. Nothing jumped out as familiar. The minivan pulled out of the drive-through and back onto the street. She went inside and ordered, then stood against the wall and looked at the people sitting and waiting. No one looked familiar. No one was giving her undue attention.

She took her drink and muffin and returned to her car. She headed back the way she’d come, toward St. Catherine’s. If someone was staking out the place, they may have returned.

But before she arrived at the church, her phone rang.

It was Donnelly. “Where the hell are you?”

She bristled at his tone. “I have a lead,” she began, but he cut her off.

“Jaime Sanchez kidnapped Isabella Borez. Kidnapping trumps your lead.”

CHAPTER 13

Because the interagency sweep was technically over, operations had moved from SAPD to the San Antonio DEA regional office. Brad Donnelly was in his element, and everyone seemed to get out of his way as he ushered Lucy through the bureaucracy of getting temporary credentials and setting her up in the conference room he’d taken over to hunt for Sanchez.

Ryan was there and gave Lucy an odd look—if he was going to say anything, Donnelly didn’t give him a chance.

“At two this morning, Bella’s sister CeCe got her out of bed. The foster parents heard the girls arguing downstairs, then Bella cried out. Karl Grove told his wife to call nine-one-one while he came downstairs in time to see Jaime Sanchez running through the back gate carrying Bella over his shoulder. CeCe was trying to keep up. Grove caught up with her, but Jaime disappeared in an old Ford sedan, partial license plate S-one-seven-W. He thinks the last two letters were the same, an L or T or F.”

“How did—” Lucy began, but Donnelly cut her off.

“CeCe had a hidden burner phone, police found it under her mattress. We have no idea how she got it, who gave it to her, if she had it with her things and it was missed in the search, or what. There was a deleted message our tech people pulled out, sent from an untraceable burner phone at midnight.” He handed Lucy a printout from the message, which had been in Spanish and also translated.

Turn off outside lights. Unlock back door. Be downstairs with B at 2.

“Let me talk to her,” Lucy said.

“Can’t. She has a court-appointed advocate. She’s in juvenile detention right now, she’s already been interviewed and isn’t saying anything. In addition to the phone, she had a homemade shiv she’d made out of a toothbrush—just like they do in prison.” He shook his head, as if to say he was both stunned and not surprised at the same time. “She attempted to stab Mr. Grove when he caught up with her on the street, but he caught her wrist in time and sustained only minor injuries.

“Based on his statement, Bella didn’t want to go with Sanchez.” He pounded his fist on the table. “Dammit, I should have put them in protective custody.”

There was a knock on the door and Donnelly barked out, “What?”

The door opened and an agent escorted Jennifer Mendez in. “This is CPS Officer Mendez,” the agent said, then stepped out.

“Great,” Donnelly muttered.

“I need to know what’s going on,” Jennifer said. “I haven’t gotten a straight answer from anyone.”

“The FBI is handling the kidnapping,” Donnelly said. “That’s not DEA’s purview.”

“That’s bullshit,” Jennifer said. “A seven-year-old was kidnapped by a violent criminal and you’re passing the buck?”

“Maybe you can answer how CeCe Borez got a burner phone? Aren’t you supposed to search your wards?”

Jennifer bristled but didn’t back down. “They were searched according to procedure, but we don’t strip-search minors who aren’t in detention. You should have had an officer on the house if you even suspected that your drug dealer was going after his nieces.”

The veins in Donnelly’s neck throbbed but he didn’t comment. Lucy felt for him. He was beating himself up, and now Jennifer was adding to it.

Lucy said, “We increased patrols in the neighborhood, but Sanchez must have been watching. He saw a window of opportunity and took it.”

“How do I know you didn’t lead him there?” Jennifer turned to Lucy.

“What?” Lucy had no idea what Jennifer was talking about.

“The Groves operate a safe house. We’ve never had problems. You walk in Sunday morning and Sunday night one of their charges is kidnapped. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

Ryan slowly leaned forward. “You’ll need to watch your next words very carefully, Ms. Mendez.”

Jennifer seemed to realize what she’d implied, and backtracked. “What I meant was—”

“I know what you meant,” Lucy said, “and I can assure you I wasn’t followed to the Groves’s house.”

“How can you be so sure?”

It wasn’t easy explaining to someone about Lucy’s intense awareness of her surroundings, so she didn’t. “I am. We don’t know that anyone was followed. We
do
know that CeCe had a burner phone, and she alerted Sanchez. She may have told him.”

Donnelly frowned. “There were no incoming or outgoing calls on the burner phone. Only the messages to CeCe.”

“GPS on the phone?”

“No.”

Jennifer said, “Who knew where they were?”

Ryan interjected, “We should be asking you the same thing.”

“If you’re implying—”

“I’m not implying,” Ryan said.

Lucy put her hands up before this got out of control. “We have to assume that there’s someone with access who gave Sanchez the information. Either at CPS or at a law enforcement agency.”

Donnelly shook his head. “Only a handful of people knew on my end, but we can’t assume that it was an inside leak. I know how CPS operates. Everything is in their database. It wouldn’t take much to hack into the system.”

Jennifer opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’ll talk to my boss and see if the IT people can trace any unauthorized access to the files. But I think you’re grasping at straws.”

“We’re
all
on edge,” Lucy said.

Ryan said, “We have a debriefing at FBI headquarters in less than thirty minutes.”

“I’d like to be there,” Jennifer said. “Is that going to be a problem?”