And as he watched, he kept praying that his phone wouldn’t ring.
The two men left the house, which meant the two women were alone inside. But, of course, one was armed.
The Wolf had been making mistakes recently. Until recently he’d been in control, never setting a foot wrong. But every order he’d given lately had only made things worse. Machete could have handled it all so much better. He wouldn’t have made a commotion everywhere. He would have taken care of the undercover agent in a very different way.
Instead, the Wolf had caused a mess.
He was losing control.
Machete took out his phone, which seemed to burn in his hands. He knew he should call the Wolf. He should tell him that the women were alone.
Machete had been contemplating his situation for a while now. He’d forced himself to admit he was obsessed with Hannah O’Brien. He warned himself that, if it came to his life versus hers, he didn’t want to die.
But he was worried. He didn’t want to end up like the man who had died on the bridge last night. It used to be that people only died if they were disloyal or if they failed.
Now...
Now they were all disposable. Send them out, let them die. None of it touched the Wolf.
The Wolf was out of control.
But...
His phone continued to burn in his hands. Call the Wolf?
Or just keep watching—and wait for the Wolf to call him?
*
There were at least forty officers gathered in the conference room at the station. Dallas spoke first, telling everyone how long the FBI had been tracking the Wolf and Los Lobos and how hard it had been to even know when a case involved them.
Katie had come in early with Liam and her husband to work with a police artist and they’d created a new image of the man she was nearly certain she had seen at the bar on the night of Jose’s death and again on the ghost tour last night. Copies of the image were passed around, along with the FBI file on the case.
When Dallas had finished presenting all the information he had, Liam stood to give his report on what the police had discovered in the wake of Yerby’s death. Every person on every dive boat that had been out at the time had been questioned. None of them had seen anything. The dive captains and the fishing charter captains had all been questioned, as well, but none of them had seen anything unusual, such as an unfamiliar craft or a dive boat anchored without a flag. Liam looked over at Dallas when he finished. “In short, everyone out there was accounted for, and none of them are our killer or killers.”
Dallas thanked him and turned to the assembled officers again. “Someone may still know something they don’t realize they know. Use the fact that we’re a small community. Use all your relationships. Engage with both tourists and locals whenever you can. Remember, most members of Los Lobos are isolated. They communicate with the Wolf by cell phone, using a number that changes constantly, but if we can get just one person’s phone, we’ll be a few steps closer.”
One of the officers cleared his throat, “Dave Levin, police diver,” he said. “I have a boat at the wharf—I’m berthed next to the boat our victim went out on. I also interviewed the married couple Yerby was partnered with, since she was alone on the dive. They swear she was with them when they went by the Jefferson, then, when they turned around, she was gone.”
“And they didn’t go back for her?”
“They didn’t realize she was missing ’til they were back on the boat. They’re pretty devastated. I told them that they’d be questioned again and they’re more than willing to help.”
Dallas thanked him.
A beat cop explained that, as yet, the knife Jose Rodriguez had wielded against his attacker hadn’t been found, but they were still searching the area, going through trash and brush and everything else.
Another officer stood next to tell them he’d investigated Robert Brown, the man who’d been shot down on the bridge. Amazingly, that had turned out to be his real name. He had a record for petty theft; he’d served time but been out for over ten years. He worked occasionally on construction. His apartment, however, was on Fort Lauderdale Beach—about a hundred and fifty miles north of the scene of the accident—and cost several thousand a month. He’d been living far beyond his apparent means but wasn’t carrying any debt. Not married, no children, and—according to his neighbors—he kept to himself.
No phone had been found on him.
“He was probably ordered to ditch it right before the accident,” Liam noted. “And that’s one of the most important things. If you apprehend anyone suspected of being a member of Los Lobos, do anything you can to get hold of his phone.”
“We’re sure they’re buying prepaid burner phones,” Dallas said. “But our tech experts can learn a lot from them anyway, so let’s get what we can.”
As soon as he finished, Logan motioned to him from the rear of the room. Dallas thanked the attendees and walked over to join him.