Dead Heat (25 page)

“You know this mark.”

“I do.”

He didn’t say anything more, so Lucy pushed. “Who did this?”

“Why do you need to know? You can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m working a case. I am doing something.”

With a shrug in his voice, Kane said flatly, “The mark is the brand of Vasco Trejo, an American expatriate living in Mexico. A self-appointed general of a drug army that has slowly been taking over smaller operations to merge with his. He’s about a year away from becoming a major player and on the US radar.”

“Why doesn’t the DEA know about the mark?”

Kane didn’t answer her question. “Until last year, Trejo was nothing. He’s had several key victories. American authorities will know of him soon enough, after much bloodshed.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“There’s no reason for you to know. You can’t touch him. He’s on my side of the border.”

Lucy’s slow-rising temper started to churn. “This dead boy is Richard Diaz whose only crime is that his mother’s a junkie and his father’s in prison. Richie isn’t the only one he’s branded. There’s another American, Michael Rodriguez, who was forced to work for Jaime Sanchez. He was kept imprisoned for fourteen months. He also had this mark.”

“Fourteen months before he was killed? Strong boy. Most don’t last six months. And it’s not Sanchez these boys work for. It’s Trejo, the general. Never forget that.”

Kane knew exactly who she was talking about—and he knew Jaime Sanchez. “Michael isn’t dead. I need to find him.”

“He escaped?”

“Yes. He was held by Sanchez in the basement of their house and escaped early Saturday morning. He was spotted outside the home of his former foster parents, and at his church, and at a Greyhound station, but I suspect he’s on his way to McAllen or he’s already there.” She hadn’t thought about it until she said it, but it made sense. Michael might know where Sanchez was hiding out, especially if he’d been working for him for the last fourteen months. But why would he go back?

She continued. “Michael and Richie were friends before they both disappeared. According to a witness, Sanchez is desperate to find him, but we don’t know why. I suspect he has information about—”

“It’s common,” Kane interrupted.

“What?”

“Forcing boys to be couriers. Forcing them to fight in wars. Turning them into killers. This Michael cannot be trusted. Fourteen months? He’s already lost.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t care what you believe. Kidnapping orphans and throwaway kids to fight, steal, transport drugs, send on a suicide mission. Take children no one wants and condition them.”

“These aren’t unwanted children. Michael’s foster parents planned to adopt him. They—”

Kane cut her off. “It doesn’t matter, the system doesn’t care. Fourteen months is plenty of time to condition a twelve-year-old. Most break in days.”

“I care.” She spoke louder than she intended, but Kane had made her angry. The de facto
This is the problem, there’s nothing we can do
irritated her. “Brad Donnelly, DEA, has intel on Sanchez’s girlfriend in McAllen. His team is watching her. They’re still in the United States for now and we’re working on a plan to take him out, but my responsibility is to find the hostage—the seven-year-old niece he kidnapped—and Michael. Anything you can tell me about this mark and this Trejo will help me save them.”

“Tell me about this op.”

She hesitated, then told Kane about the ex-girlfriend and the warehouse, because she wanted information from him, and she wanted him to trust her. But she knew that trust would be rare from Kane.

“I don’t have specific details yet,” she said, then told him what she did know. “By the time I get down there, we’ll know more.”

“It’s a trap,” Kane said simply. “One or both of them.”

“How do you know?”

He grunted. “It’s a diversion. These people aren’t that stupid. I’ll get back to you.” He hung up.

She stared at her dead phone.
That
could become extremely annoying.

*   *   *

Vasco Trejo, who preferred to be called the General, loved all things Mexican. He loved the country. He loved the women. He loved that life was cheap and people lived with fear. Understanding that fear, using that fear, helped him build a small empire in the seven years he’d been living on this mountain.

He’d perfected creating fear and using it for his greater plan. A greater good, he thought, for those who were on his side.

In Texas, where he’d been born and raised, people didn’t fear. They had food to eat and television to watch and video games to play. They were lazy and bold and too independent. They weren’t easily controlled because they had too many ways out. They could run. They could go to the police. They could hide behind their job or their family. They didn’t have enough fear of him, or anyone, to do what they were told.

Until they lost everything. Until they were part of the system, in prison, bent to the will of whoever had the most power inside the bars.

The general recognized that his power was precarious. Too many people were involved, too many thought they could play games with him for information or money. He had an endgame, as soon as the Vallerjos were destroyed. Once he took out the gang considered bigger and better than his, all their routes and suppliers would be his, and he would have the alliance with the Texas Mexican Mafia that was necessary to take him to the next level. They would be equals. TMM would
need
Vasco because Vasco would then control more than half the smuggling routes into Texas.

To think it had almost been destroyed because of one boy, one
gringo
child who couldn’t be broken. The general should have killed him when he saw his eyes, but he craved breaking him. Needed to break him, as he once had been broken.

And the boy pretended. He lied. And he stole.

He would make Michael Rodriguez suffer. He would wish he were dead. But the general had no plans to kill the boy anytime soon.

He would know fear. He would know pain. He would beg to die, but death would not come. Not until the boy knew what real suffering was.

His secure phone line rang, the one only he answered.

“What?”

“The bait has been dangled.”

“And he will bite?”

“Most certainly.”

“My men will be ready.”

CHAPTER 20

Her conversation with Kane kept Lucy up well past midnight. She curled in a chair in the small den off the master bedroom with a large mug of hot chocolate, her comfort food. It was one of her favorite rooms, and the place she liked best when Sean was out of town. It was small, cozy, and filled with her books—her fun books, not her work books. She’d hoped immersing herself in high fantasy would make her drowsy, but the story was about family betrayal, at its core, and all Lucy could think about was who had betrayed all those boys. Was it their parents, incarcerated and unable to continue their illegal activities, who’d turned their sons over to the business? Did their children think that was the only option they had? And what evil would subject young kids to a life of violent crime? The drug trade never ended well, especially for those on the streets. They died young, and they died hopeless.

Lucy yawned. She needed a couple of hours’ sleep before travelling to McAllen. Could Kane be right and this entire excursion be a setup? How? Mirabelle gave them a name, but she had no way of communicating that she had shared the information. She could alert Sanchez tomorrow when she was released, but would she?

Lucy suspected that she might call him just to find out about her daughter, talk to Bella. She sent Brad a text message.

You may have already thought of this, but is it possible to tap Mirabelle’s phones in case she calls Sanchez when she’s released?

Less than thirty seconds later he replied.

Already have the warrant.

She smiled. Mirabelle might be too smart for it, but there was genuine fear for her daughter, and she would want to talk to her, make sure she was okay.

How could Kane possibly know that the operation was a setup or diversion based on the very little information she had told him? If Sean didn’t trust Kane, she wouldn’t. It also helped that Kane and her brother Jack were tight. They had worked together, Jack trusted him. And Jack’s instincts were always dead-on. Lucy wanted to trust Kane the same way … but he wasn’t her brother. She hadn’t worked in the trenches with him. She didn’t
know
him like Sean and Jack did.

Finally she put down her book and stretched. She wasn’t getting anything done except giving herself a headache. She kept the bathroom light on. It was childish, she knew, and she didn’t need it when Sean was here, but when she was alone, she didn’t like sleeping in the dark. Sean had put in floor lighting under the stairs on the main staircase, and they kept the light above the stove on as well. And even though her mind was mulling over everything that had happened that day, she felt herself drift off.

A loud triple beep woke her. She sat up and reached for the gun on her nightstand. Her heart pounded, and the triple beep sounded again. Someone was on her property.

She walked over to the tablet that Sean had hooked up to monitor house security. Most people thought Sean’s security was overkill, but considering they’d both come up against people who would do almost anything to kill them, Lucy was glad for the added safety measures.
Especially
when she was alone.

She brought up the camera feeds and saw there were two men, in masks, in the backyard. One was trying to pick the lock on the door that led into the breakfast nook; the other pushed him aside and used a hammer to break the glass.

The alarm changed from the three warning beeps to a long, high-pitched wail that the intruders heard. They argued, and one bolted. Lucy pressed the panic button that would immediately call the police. If she waited, they would be called if the alarm wasn’t turned off in sixty seconds, but she didn’t want to wait that extra minute. People could die faster.

She swiped the pad to bring up the household controls. She turned on all the lights in the house simultaneously. Then she went back to the video feed. The intruder was standing in her entryway, staring at the camera mounted in the corner. He hadn’t noticed the cameras outside—they were very well hidden—but the ones in the house were in corners. He pointed to the camera, then made a slicing motion across his throat with the knife he held in his hand.

Did he really think that he could find her, disarm her, and kill her before the police got here?

She was both scared and angry. Furious that someone had broken into her house and threatened her. She was also torn—between confronting him (she had a gun, after all, which would trump his knife) and staying in her room to wait for the police.

She rubbed her shoulder where a tranquilizer dart had incapacitated her only a few months ago. She’d been kidnapped before, overpowered. She would kill to defend herself and others, but she didn’t go looking for trouble. And the police would be here any minute. She could hold anyone off for a few minutes, right?

Her phone rang. She almost didn’t hear it over the alarm. She grabbed the phone. It was Sean. He had the security synced to his phone. If the alarm went off, he was notified.

“Lucy? Why is the alarm going off?”

“There’s an intruder.” She watched on the tablet as the guy ran back the way he came. Then she heard distant sirens. “They’re gone now. The alarms scared them off. The police are almost here.” She hoped.

“I’m coming home.”

“You don’t—”

“Don’t say it. I need to.” He hung up.

She put her phone down and after checking all camera angles to make sure that the intruders really had left the house, she turned off the alarm. Her ears were still ringing when the doorbell rang, followed by knocking.

“San Antonio Police Department! Answer the door or we will come in.”

The entry camera showed two uniformed officers. She ran down the stairs and opened the door. “The intruders left,” she said. “The first about six minutes ago, the second one about three minutes ago.”

“Keep your gun down,” one of the officers said. “Did you discharge your weapon?”

She almost forgot she still had her gun in hand. She shook her head. “I’m a federal agent. FBI.”

“Stay here, we’ll search the place,” he said.

“We have cameras everywhere. They were recorded, but wore masks.”

“We’ll search the grounds,” he repeated. He told her to stay in the living room and they searched the entire house, then the grounds. By the time they were done, another patrol had arrived. And Nate Dunning. The police asked to see his identification, even after Lucy said he was a friend and FBI agent. He came over to her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes—why are you here?”

“You’re shaking.”

She looked down at her hands. Damn, she
was
shaking. “I’m okay.”

“Sean called me,” Nate said.

“He shouldn’t have woken you up.”

“He didn’t.”

“It’s two in the morning.”

“I have insomnia.”

She didn’t know whether to believe Nate or not, but she was glad to see a friendly face.

Nate had hard ridges like her brother Jack—former military, Special Forces. Though Nate was more happy-go-lucky than Jack, and quicker to laugh, he still had the edge, the tension, that told Lucy he was always hyperaware of his surroundings.

She squeezed his hand. “Thank you for coming.”

One of the officers approached. “Agent Kincaid? I’m Sergeant Morales.” He glanced at Nate.

“This is FBI Special Agent Nate Dunning, a friend.”

Morales nodded. “The house and grounds are clear, and you know about the window in the back door.”

“Yes. I watched through our security system as they broke in—that’s when I hit the panic button. I can make you a copy. They might not have had their masks on the entire time they were outside, maybe you’ll get something off it.”

“Thank you. Do you know if they took anything?”

“When he saw the camera in the entry, that’s when he left, back out the way he came.