No Good Deed (6 page)

“Then his father…” Stop. Slow down. Not all at once.

Elise stared at her hands.

“And his father what?”

“He—he told me he knew I’d been arrested for prostitution. And he gave me twenty dollars to suck him off.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.”

Elise made sure she didn’t look at the doc, but she heard the slight intake of breath, subtle, and she knew she had her.

Hook.

Line.

Sinker, sucker.

“And you told Tobias.”

Elise shook her head. “I—I didn’t want to lose this family. I’d been in six foster homes in two years, I just wanted … I don’t know.”

“Stability. Normalcy.”

“I don’t know,” she repeated. “I guess. Just … a place to stay. My own room.”

“How did Tobias find out?”

She bit her lip. “His dad stopped paying me, but expected … more. And I gave it to him. I mean, it’s not a big deal, it’s fast, it doesn’t hurt, just get it over with and everyone’s happy. So I did it. But one day—his wife walked in and she called me a whore. Well, I guess she was right, because it wasn’t like I said no or anything. But then she kicked me out, not him, and I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to leave the family. I-I-I broke things. I just wanted to stay, why couldn’t she see that? I would have done anything she wanted. I didn’t want to be on the streets, I didn’t want to screw strangers again. And, and…”

She started crying. She let the doc soothe her until she “pulled” herself together. A minute of blubbering was long enough.

Elise blew her nose and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Elise. You have nothing to apologize for.”

Elise nodded.

“What happened after you broke things? Did your foster mother call child services? The police?”

Elise shrugged. “I-I don’t know. I ran out of the house and called Tobias. He saved me then and has always protected me.”

“But he also had you do things for him, didn’t he?”

“It was just sex. It didn’t mean anything.”

“You had sex with him?”

Confusion in the doc’s voice, and Elise realized she’d gone too far ahead. “No, never! He loves me, like a sister. He just … sometimes … well, with other men, to, you know, so he could get information or whatever. I don’t know, I just did what he told me, and he gave me a place to live, and clothes, and food—”

“He was your pimp.”

“No way. He didn’t take
any
money. I got to keep it all. And he bought me everything I wanted. He took care of me. He loves me. Like his little sister. He always said he wanted a sister, and now he has m-m-me.”

“He used you, Elise.”

“No. No, no, you got it wrong.” She squeezed out more tears, then wiped her face with the back of her hand. Barb handed her another tissue. Tears always worked with idiots like Barb, but too much and Elise would lose the edge.

“Elise, Tobias gave you a syringe and told you to kill a man.”

“No! He said it was drugs, to make him want to fuck me so that we could get pictures and blackmail him. That man wasn’t supposed to die. I didn’t know, I didn’t know and I wish I could go back, I—I—I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared and Tobias—” She stopped.

“Tobias what?”

“I didn’t want to make him mad. He was counting on me, and I thought I’d screwed up. And I just want to make him happy, because—”

“Because?”

“Nothing.”

“Elise, tell me the truth.”

“I—I know what happens to people who don’t make Tobias happy.”

“What happens to those people?”

Quietly. “They die.”

That, at least, was the truth.

*   *   *

Before sitting down to talk to Michael, Sean checked the perimeter of the boys’ home, the fences and gates and the alarm system. He’d installed it himself, and it was nearly as elaborate as the security he had installed in his and Lucy’s house. Everything checked.

He’d tried calling Kane, but as usual was forced to leave a message. Sean didn’t doubt his brother would return the call quickly—Kane had become more than a little obsessed with tracking down Tobias. He’d even made the unprecedented move of calling his old friend Rick Stockton, assistant director of the FBI, for information.

“Michael,” Sean said, “was there any other reason you called? Did you see or hear something?”

“No,” the thirteen-year-old boy said. “But Sister Ruth told us what happened, and where Father Mateo went.”

Sister Ruth was a fifty-year-old nun who’d been brought to St. Catherine’s to help set up the boys’ home. She had extensive experience in the administration of such group homes, and state law required that a licensed adult be on the premises at all times. She ran the house—and the nine boys—like a well-oiled machine. Truth be told, Sean was a little afraid of her.

“Lucy’s there, too,” Sean said. “None of the kids on the bus was hurt.”

“That’s what Sister Ruth said.”

“Call me anytime, day or night. No matter how silly you think it is. You have good instincts, Michael. I trust them.”

Sister Ruth walked into the kitchen where Sean and Michael were talking. “Mr. Rogan—I’m so sorry. He shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“I don’t mind,” Sean said. He didn’t. He came by the house several times a week. The house was large, but old and in need of repair. It got hot in Texas, so Sean commissioned a pool. The boys had been through hell and then some; he wanted to give them peace. “I’m going to stay for a while, if that’s okay.”

She frowned. Sean wasn’t sure that she liked him, or the arrangement he’d made with Father Mateo over the boys’ home. But it was his deal, and he didn’t care if the nun approved or not. Sean would do anything in his power to make sure these boys had a sense of normalcy.

“Do you think that’s necessary?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sean said. “These people are ruthless. I don’t think they’ll go after the boys, but I’d rather be cautious. I asked Lucy to look into a protection detail on the house, at least for a few days.”

“They’ve been through so much,” she said, then seemed to notice that Michael was still in the room. “Michael, would you please help the others with their math homework?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Michael said. He nodded to Sean. No smiles. The boy still didn’t smile much, if at all. “Thank you, Sean.”

Sean squeezed his shoulder, then watched him leave.

“He puts the weight of the world on his back,” Sister Ruth said quietly. “I want to help ease his burden, but I can’t seem to break through to him. Unlike you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sean said. “He’s slow to trust. But you’re good for him.”

“I’m trying. I don’t know if living here is the right thing for him.”

“It’s the only right thing,” Sean said, tensing. “Michael needs to know that the sacrifices he made, the decisions he made, led to something good. This is good. He needs to see it come to fruition.”

“He’s a thirteen-year-old boy and acts twice his age.”

“You can’t force him to be a child, Ruth.” Lucy and Mateo called Ruth “Sister” but it didn’t roll off of Sean’s tongue smoothly. He hadn’t been raised in any religion, and he wasn’t Catholic. “He needs these boys as much as they need him.”

“I hope you’re right, because my heart aches for him. He’s seen so much violence.” She paused, then said in an even lower voice, “I did missionary work in Guatemala, many years ago, when I was much younger. It was both rewarding and extremely heartbreaking. I saw—” She hesitated, then sighed. “I don’t need to share the details. But sometimes Michael looks like the boy soldiers who came through the village on occasion. Old. Defeated. Empty.”

Sean knew everything about Ruth Baxter because he’d done an extensive background check on her before he allowed her to come to the house, even though Jack Kincaid’s old army buddy Padre heartily recommended her. She’d seen a lot more in her missionary work than boy soldiers walking through her village. She’d seen much, much worse. It was because of her empathy and experiences that he, Mateo, and Lucy thought she’d be good for the boys. If it worked, she’d be here a lot longer than the six months the diocese originally had agreed to loan her to Father Mateo.

“Michael is none of that,” Sean said. “But he has his own demons to fight, and that’s why we’re here—why we opened this house. Why you’re here helping them. Michael, all of them, are survivors, and we’ll make sure they have a future. But to ensure the future, we need to be diligent.”

“I understand, Mr. Rogan.”

“And please, Ruth—stop calling me that. I’m Sean.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Brad and Lucy arrived at FBI headquarters a few minutes after the debriefing started. Every seat in the large conference room was occupied, so they stood in the back of the room while US Marshal Stan Dalton finished his report. Five dead cops—three from the detention center and two from the DEA. The two marshals were both awake but had concussions. They’d given near-identical statements—they’d driven through the intersection on a green light, which immediately changed to red. The transport van couldn’t follow because the school bus rolled into the intersection and stopped. They attempted to call in the threat, but their radios were jammed. Their first thought was that the prisoner was in jeopardy since she was turning state’s evidence against high-ranking cartel members. Though they were on alert with weapons drawn, they were immediately jumped and incapacitated by two men who seemed to have come out of nowhere.

That meant there were more than three individuals involved. Two or three came off the bus, according to Officer Isaac Harris’s statement. Two incapacitated the marshals. That left one or two bad guys who shot and killed the DEA agents. A minimum of five operatives to pull off the escape—and most likely six, counting the getaway driver. The scenario made Lucy wonder if Nicole deliberately spared the marshals while killing DEA agents. If that was true, Nicole had a twisted psychological reason for that decision.

She’s at war with the DEA. They turned on her, investigated her, arrested her.

So did the FBI.

But she worked for the DEA.

“We’re at three hours, forty minutes since the escape,” Dalton said. “Every law enforcement agency has been alerted. We’ve beefed up security at the border—the marshals’ office and the DEA field offices in McAllen and El Paso are heading up the border watch. Where we don’t have a station, we’ve tripled our air patrol and will keep it high for the next seven days at least.”

“She’ll know that,” Brad mumbled. “She’ll wait until we pull people back.”

Either that or she’s already gone, Lucy thought.

Dalton said, “The FBI tech team put together a video of surveillance cameras that has helped us track exactly what happened. If you can, stay after the briefing to watch it. It shows better than I can tell you how violent these bastards are. Here’s what we know: two masked and armed men boarded the bus on South Brazos Street where the driver was scheduled to pick up two brothers. The driver was killed immediately. No child was able to give a description of the shooters but all agreed there were two men. This happened only twelve minutes before the attack on the transport van. The timing was impeccable.”

Dalton looked around the room, his expression grim but fierce.

“It’s clear, based on what Officer Harris had witnessed,” Dalton continued, “that these men will kill without hesitation. Harris was told that if he put down his gun, he would be spared. His partner fought back and was shot and killed. When Harris put down his gun, Rollins told him that there was a bomb on the bus that would explode in five minutes. He risked his life to bring all the children to safety. Not one child died today. We had losses in our ranks, but no child died and dammit, I will take that victory.”

He took a long drink from a water bottle. No one spoke.

“We believe that the explosion had a dual purpose—to give first responders or survivors a distraction, such as the ultimatum given to Officer Harris, and to signal the escape helicopter,” Dalton said. “The helicopter was mocked up to look like a media chopper, but we have located it ninety miles east, approximately halfway to Houston. We have people processing the chopper now. Based on where it landed, we don’t believe that they could have reached the border yet. However, we can’t discount that the location east is a diversion, hoping we’ll move our resources toward Houston so they can escape using another route. Every federal and local agency in Houston is going to work the area from the landing site toward their city, while we’ll focus west of the landing site.”

Lucy was relieved. Nicole would have considered law enforcement protocols and how they would allocate resources, and if she really was heading east she would have landed in a less conspicuous location.

Dalton added, “The Texas Rangers are assisting, their focus in the rural areas. They know back roads and potential hideouts better than anyone. Every law enforcement branch is fully engaged. We will find them. But we all need to keep in mind that they are ruthless and dangerous. They killed five cops today. Every one of you needs to be on full alert at all times. Wear your vests. Go nowhere alone. That is an order, or I will have you removed from this investigation. I want no more dead on my watch.”

Samantha Archer stepped forward. “Thank you, Marshal Dalton. I know you all want to get to work. To that end, the FBI and DEA will be working closely with all other agencies. My office has already identified every known associate of Nicole Rollins and is tracking them down. It is clear that Rollins was involved in the planning. She knew about the bomb even though she has been in solitary for nearly three months. She still had access to an attorney, and had been transported twice this past week to the courthouse. She has used moles in the past, and she very well could have one or more now.”

Surprised murmurs spread through the group of collected agents, but it didn’t surprise either Lucy or Brad.

Archer said, “Agent Donnelly has a report from the field.”

Brad spoke from where he stood and heads shifted toward the back of the room. He told the group about the Garcia brothers and what he and Lucy had learned from their grandmother about the father in prison and the unknown man who picked up the boys.