Best Laid Plans (46 page)

“Anything you need if it’s going to help clear Harper’s name.”

“He’s already cleared.”

“The press leaked that he was with a prostitute.”

“The FBI will issue a statement. It’s clear that he was expecting to meet someone else, not a hooker.”

Which was one thing that was bothering Sean, and if Lucy thought about it for one second she’d realize it, too. How did Garza find out about Harper’s meetings with Gary Ackerman and why was he worried? How did he set up the meeting with Harper the night he was killed? Harper had thought he was meeting with Ackerman. It was an anomaly, and Sean didn’t like it.

“They followed him,” Sean said suddenly.

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, I’m just working through something in my head. I think Harper was being followed. It’s the only way his killer could have known he was meeting with the person who gave him information about the illegal land transactions.”

“You’ve lost me. Are you talking about the BLM audit? Or something else?”

“Both. I can’t explain right now, but if I can have access to Harper’s office tonight, I’ll tell you when I put it all together. Right now it’s just a mess of numbers in my head.”

“Go ahead—I’ll be here until eight, but I’ve also put in twenty-four-hour security on your recommendation. An employee, not a service, as you suggested.”

“Good. Loyalty decreases the chances of infiltration.”

Sean left Gregor’s office and went down the hall to Harper’s suite, then through to his colleague’s office where all the BLM files were. He didn’t need the physical files, because Harper had already created a spreadsheet. Sean hadn’t realized the importance of the spreadsheet until he saw the tablet files. Now it all made sense, but he had to merge the two data sets and then convince the FBI that they would match with Adeline’s financials—without hacking further into Adeline’s banking records to compare.

And, Sean thought as he quickly entered the data, if Adeline were smart, she’d do exactly what Mona Hill had done—create layers of shell companies to make finding the true source of the cash next to impossible. Maybe she
had
done it, but someone like Harper Worthington would be able to see the financial house of cards more easily than anyone else. Just like Sean.

Where did Tobias fit in?

Sean pushed that thought aside as he entered the data then created a calendar with the important dates—and realized that he needed names to go with each of these transactions. Fortunately, most counties had a database where you could look up basic property records if you had the parcel number. Sean plugged in the information. It was a painstaking process because he had to run each parcel number separately. But once he was done, he realized that each of the transactions was purchased by a variety of individuals all under the umbrella of a single entity. It didn’t take him long to trace the entity to James Everett.

At least on paper.

The group, Texas Land Holding, was simply a pass-through account. Everett would buy and sell land, but the money involved didn’t stay with TLH. It was moved immediately out—and tracking
that
would be impossible without banking records.

He’d already crossed into too many gray areas, but hacking into a financial institution would be clearly illegal, so he backed off.

Sean looked at the calendar. The last week of March stood out. Nine weeks ago. That was the week of Operation Heatwave, when Brad and Lucy had taken down the Trejo/Sanchez cartel and put themselves on Tobias’s radar.

A whole bunch of transactions had occurred that week and the following week … and then nothing. Millions of dollars in land transactions, all with government land being bought or sold, occurred during a ten-day period, when during the previous seven years there were no more than two regional transactions a quarter.

Hadn’t Lucy mentioned that James Everett had had a falling out with Adeline two months ago? Everett was working with the FBI, but there had been nothing in Agent Dunbar’s statements that said they were investigating Adeline for money laundering.

Except they
were
investigating her for graft and corruption. They had sensed there was something else, which was why they hadn’t indicted her for the shit she’d already done.

Had they only listened to Harper Worthington when he went to their office last month, he would be alive and the FBI would have had all this information. Some of the smartest financial wizards worked for the FBI—people even better with numbers than Sean, though he wouldn’t admit it. They would have put this together if they only had the right information. But the process of pulling together disparate and seemingly unconnected data—that was not intuitive.

Harper had figured it out because he lived with Adeline and he was a brilliant accountant who specialized in government audits.

Maybe Gary Ackerman, who had some wild conspiracy theories, had told Harper a theory that made sense. Who had reached out to whom?

And, dammit, where did Tobias fit in? The timing of the sales was immediately after Operation Heatwave ended, but what did it mean? How did Adeline connect to Tobias?

Sean saved all the information he had to a flash drive, sent another copy to himself, then sent a copy of the data to a friend of his who happened to be an ASAC in Sacramento. Dean Hooper had once run the white-collar crimes division out of national FBI headquarters. Normally, he’d be the last person Sean would trust, considering Sean’s past criminal activities that
might
fall under the purview of Hooper, but considering Kane had once saved the life of Dean’s wife, the Rogans had a clean slate with the fed.

Dean—One of my security cases has intersected with one of the FBI’s active investigations. I can’t legally dig any deeper, so I’m sending you what I have. I have clearance from HWI to send all pertinent data to the FBI that will help in the ongoing investigation (I’ll attach it so you have documentation). I don’t know the agent working on your end—Logan Dunbar out of D.C.—and you know how I feel about feds I don’t know.

Look at this—Money Laundering 101? If you need an official report, contact RCK and jump through the hoops.

Best to Sonia.

Sean

He shut everything down. It was after eight, but Gregor Smith was still there. Sean bid him good-bye and walked out. He was about to get into his car when he heard his name.

Sean had his hand on his gun before he recognized Kane’s voice.

“Kane?”

“I would have been here sooner—I heard about the shooting. Why aren’t you sitting on her?”

“Because she’s a trained agent.”

“Bull-fucking-shit.”

“Juan put Donnelly on her. Get in.” Sean took the driver’s seat and Kane slid in next to him. Sean pulled out.

“Where is she now?” Kane asked.

“She texted me that she was leaving the Worthington house. It’s about twenty minutes outside the city. Why? Is she in immediate danger?”

“I need her to look at the security tapes from the Dallas airport.”

“How did you get them?”

He didn’t answer. Of course he wouldn’t answer.

Sean sent Lucy a message.

When are you coming home?

He said to Kane, “It’s Tobias, isn’t it.”

“He’s good, Sean. He’s damn good. I followed a trail down to McAllen today and it was a fucking dead end. He knows I’m following him, and tricked me.”

“You’re not easily tricked.”

“I’m never tricked.” He paused. “Rarely. I was real close yesterday before I saw you. He was here, in San Antonio, and my contact had verifiable intel. But when I got to McAllen, it was a trap. Now my contact is dead. They set him up. Tobias knows everything; he has people everywhere. I went through the black box that Trejo kept—there are files missing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Tobias must have pulled them before the kid stole the box.”

“Which means he intentionally left some of the files, like the file on Nicole Rollins.”

“Don’t trust anyone, Sean. The DEA is not clean. There are at least two corrupt cops in SAPD. And I’m beginning to suspect someone in the FBI.”

“Who?”

“I’m not telling you until I get something actionable.”

“That’s fucking bullshit, Lucy is there.”

“Suck it up, little brother. If I’m wrong, and you slip up, you can kiss RCK’s relationship with federal law enforcement good-bye, and that includes all the cover we’ve had for gray ops. I’m not putting us at risk because you want to play cave man.”

“Fuck you.” Sean remembered why he hated working with Kane. Until he’d moved to San Antonio, he’d only worked with him once in a blue moon. Now, it seemed they were working everything together.

“I’ll tell you this—it’s not Nate Dunning. He knows there’s someone inside, and he’s going to be my eyes and ears until we figure it out.”

Sean’s phone vibrated. He answered.

“Lucy.”

“I’m heading to the hospital.”

“Is Tia okay?”

“She’s out of surgery and critical. That’s all I know. I’m going to re-interview Elise Hansen.”

“Why?”

“Some new information has come up.”

“What?”

“Sean—I can’t really talk about it.”

“I don’t care that Barry is in the car with you. Kane is with me. Something bigger is going on, and you’re in the middle of it. I’m going to send you a security video that Kane found. Call me right back.”

Sean hung up. “Give it to me.”

Kane shook his head. “This is why I never fell in love.” He pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons.

“Your loss.”

“I sent it to Lucy.”

Less than thirty seconds later, Lucy called him back.

“I showed the picture to Brad,” she said. Her voice was edgy, nervous. “It’s Tobias. Did he kill Garza? Elise said that Garza is the one who shot her the other night, that he’s the one who hired her in the first place.”

“That may be the truth, but if it is, that means Garza was working for Tobias, and we know that Tobias likes to kill loose ends. You found the Garza connection, and Tobias figured he’d flip. He must have known something that Tobias didn’t want made public. I found a connection between James Everett and Adeline Reyes-Worthington that implicates both of them in illegal land deals. I sent everything to Dean Hooper.”

“Sean—”

“I didn’t break any laws. But I don’t know Dunbar from Adam, and I trust Hooper. If anyone has a problem with it, they can take it up with Hooper. You need to watch yourself, Lucy.”

“Go to the hospital,” Kane told him.

Sean made an illegal U-turn and headed to the hospital.

Sean said to Lucy, “Kane has information that Mona Hill was working with Tobias as well, through an intermediary. This bastard has his fingers in everything. Trust no one.”

“If Mona Hill was working for Tobias, and Garza was working for Tobias … Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Elise. She’s lied to us about a few things, but they didn’t seem to be relevant lies. Now they are. She told us she took sexually explicit photos of her and Worthington for blackmail, but one of the photos she took was of him dead. And Tobias is the one who sent it to Adeline Reyes-Worthington, claiming that Adeline had his money.”

“Where’s Adeline now?”

“Home. We left about thirty minutes ago. We have agents on her house making sure she doesn’t get the same idea that Garza had and try to leave.”

Kane shook his head. “She’s already dead.”

Lucy said, “What did you say?”

“Kane thinks she’s dead.”

“We left her with her personal assistant and two agents.”

“Call the agents, have them put eyes on her immediately,” Sean said. “Tell them to bring her into protective custody. And tell them to be on high alert.”

*   *   *

Joseph Contreras brought Adeline tea as soon as the three feds left.

He’d been itching to kill them, but the presence of Brad Donnelly threw a wrench in the mix. Donnelly knew who he was—not by this name, but he would certainly recognize him if he saw him. So Joseph stayed in his office and monitored the security cameras, watching Donnelly walk the grounds.

It had been far too close. If Donnelly had come to the door, Joseph wouldn’t have been able to disappear.

“I don’t want tea!” Adeline exclaimed.

“It will help you sleep. You’ve been through hell this week, Adeline.”

Drink the damn tea, bitch.

“I don’t want to sleep. We’re leaving. Tonight.”

“There are two federal agents in the driveway.”

“Which is why I had you move Harper’s car to the barn. We’ll go out the back road. We’ll be at the plane in less than an hour. It’s very handy that you’re a pilot, one of the many reasons I hired you. I’m already packed. I just need to get the cash from the safe, and my insurance package.”