God, no. Tia.
Barry took command. He motioned for the guards to secure the area. Two cops shielded Tia and helped a nurse and orderly pull her in through the doors.
“Elise, are you hit?” Lucy asked, breathless. She still found it hard to catch her breath and her back hurt. She prayed she was just bruised.
Elise didn’t answer, but she was shaking, so that was a good sign, Lucy hoped.
Barry came over and said, “Holy shit, Kincaid. You’re hit.”
“No.”
He reached down and touched her back. “You’re wearing a vest. You were shot in the back. You would have been dead.”
“Good thing I put on my vest this morning.”
She didn’t normally wear a vest on the job, unless there was a specific reason to. But because of Kane’s visit last night and his warning to watch her back, she’d decided that for the time being, it would be a good idea.
“Did you get him?”
“There were two. I’m pretty sure I got one, but they were in a car and bolted. A drive-by. I have the make, model, and license, already put an APB out. Let’s get you checked out.”
“Elise,” Lucy said. “Let’s get up.”
Elise was sobbing uncontrollably. “I did everything they wanted! Why do they want me dead? Why?”
“Who, Elise?” Lucy asked.
“Rob Garza. He’s Adeline Reyes-Worthington’s campaign manager.” She took a deep breath through her sobs, then everything came out in a rush. “I—I came from Washington. Rob likes kinky stuff, that’s how we met. Then he said he had a job for me in San Antonio, and since I was tired of Washington, I agreed. He gave me a fucking lot of money. Twice as much as you found. He gave me the syringe. He told me if I got caught, that no one would do anything because I’m an underage whore and you’d all feel sorry for me. But I didn’t know what was in it! Everything else I said was true, I swear. I swear! I was just supposed to take pictures. That’s it. Don’t let him hurt me. Please, I’ll do anything you want, don’t let him hurt me.”
She clung to Lucy like a toddler.
“I won’t,” Lucy said, looking straight at Barry. “He won’t get to you again.”
*
Elise was back in her hospital bed. Her stitches had split open and she’d broken her wrist when the fed had pushed her to the ground. They’d patched her up and given her a pain pill and told her to rest.
She closed her eyes. Inside, she was smiling.
That bitch had believed every word.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sean sped through San Antonio toward the hospital as Kane’s cell phone went directly to voice mail.
“Call me now, dammit!” He hung up and threw his phone on the seat. That was the sixth message he’d left for his brother since talking to Mona Hill.
This whole situation was fucked. How the hell could Tobias be involved in Harper Worthington’s murder? What the hell was going on?
Flashes of hot and cold rushed through him. He couldn’t tell the FBI how he’d gotten the information. He couldn’t tell anyone, except Kane.
Calm down. Calm down. You know Lucy is okay.
It didn’t matter that her vest stopped the bullet. She’d been shot while transporting the prostitute. All the pieces were rapidly falling together.
Mona Hill. A head prostitute who had a skill with money laundering. Probably made her money blackmailing businessmen, as well as by providing underage girls to perverts. Some men paid big money to order the exact sex toy they wanted.
Elise, the young hooker. Hired to incapacitate, blackmail, or kill Harper Worthington. Through Mona? Possibly. Because Harper had figured out that his wife was using her position in Congress to not only line her own pockets, but to launder money for the cartels. It was all there, in the BLM audit, but Sean hadn’t known exactly what he was looking at until he’d seen the tablet files that Harper had left behind in Dallas. Good thing, too—without that list of numbers, Sean would never have been able to put it together.
Adeline Reyes-Worthington. The FBI knew she was corrupt, but how long had it taken them to figure it out? Lucy said that the agent had been working the case for over a year. While Sean understood that the FBI needed solid evidence, he’d seen them go after other people in the white-collar world with far less than they had on Adeline. They were likely trying to reel in an even bigger fish … other members of Congress? Businessmen? So they kept the sting going for months, hoping to catch more in the net.
There was no doubt in his mind that if the FBI had told Harper Worthington when he’d met with them last month that they already had an operation in place, or if they’d taken Adeline down months ago, that Harper Worthington would still be alive.