“Open your door.”
The call disconnected. Brad walked to his front door and looked through the security hole. Kane Rogan stood there, slightly to the side as if watching both the entrance and the street. Brad unbolted and opened the door. “How did you know where I live?”
Kane didn’t answer. He walked in and closed the door. “I heard you found one of the shooters. Dead.”
“How the hell did you hear that? We didn’t release the information.”
Kane gave him a half smile that didn’t reach his dark blue eyes. “Marquez? This isn’t Marquez’s style.”
“Then his gangbangers are going rogue.”
“Or someone else is giving them orders.”
“That sounds like bad news.”
“We need more information. The balance of power is shifting, and that’s bad for this city and for my unit. I have multiple ops in play right now, and if we don’t know who’s making a power play, my people will be in danger.”
“The weapons they used are M4s. The same type of weapon stolen from the Marines that you recovered. We verified the ammo was military issue.”
“We only recovered some of the guns. Two-thirds of them disappeared before I could make it back to Mexico after the rescue.”
“So who got the guns?”
“That’s the million-dollar question. From what I could piece together, Trejo is the one who sold them to Tobias. Except … I’ve gone over Lucy’s report multiple times, and there could be another scenario. Tobias could have funded the operation in the first place. He’s been this elusive ghost for years. He wasn’t on my radar because his name never came up in connection with one of my operations, and he isn’t involved in human trafficking. Yet … I’ve learned more during the last two months. I think he’s far more powerful than we gave him credit for.”
“With Trejo and Sanchez dead, Tobias was the only one in a position to take possession of the weapons.”
“That’s what my intel suggests.”
“Would he have sold them to Marquez?”
“Yes,” Kane said without hesitation. “But why would Marquez go after Tobias? Did Tobias do something to piss him off?”
“Based on the crime scene, I’d say yes.”
“Or those victims weren’t Tobias’s people at all and Marquez was taking care of loose ends.”
Kane normally didn’t talk much, but he was downright chatty tonight.
Without asking if he wanted a beer, Brad grabbed two bottles from the refrigerator and handed one to Kane. “I saw Nicole Rollins today.”
“Did you kill her?”
He asked the question seriously. That almost scared Brad.
“She says my house isn’t clean.”
“I’m sure it’s not.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you could find out.”
Kane drank half his beer, watching Brad, assessing. “You really want to know?”
“Yes. I can’t work there if I don’t trust my team.”
“If I hear anything, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Remember that.” Kane didn’t believe him. But Brad didn’t want another Nicole Rollins under his roof. “What else did Rollins say?”
“That Tobias wanted those men taken out. Either he planned it, or simply didn’t stop it. She said the same as you—that he’s more powerful than we thought.”
“I haven’t underestimated him. For a man like that not to be on my radar tells me he’s either not important or extremely important. I ruled out the former. We took his helicopter, blew up Trejo’s house, disabled the Jeeps, and retrieved part of the gun shipment—and still he had a backup escape plan. I haven’t been able to locate him. I had one possible sighting a few weeks ago, in San Antonio, but it was a bust. Either it wasn’t him or he moved fast.”
“So he’s in the States?”
“Honestly, I don’t know.” Kane drained his beer. “He’s everywhere, and nowhere.” He put the bottle down on the counter. “One more thing. I can’t find anyone—I mean no one—who has laid eyes on him.”
“That can’t be possible.”
“It tells me he has another name, or he rarely comes out to play.” Kane stared at him. “You need to watch yourself.”
“I didn’t see him.”
“But in your official report, you wrote that you did, and you included the description that Lucy gave.”
Brad realized the potential danger. “I’ll be careful.”
“Tobias doesn’t know that Lucy saw him, but he knows she was in Mexico,” Kane continued. “No one can know what Lucy saw and heard. It makes her extremely vulnerable. I tried to convince Sean to move—Nicole Rollins knows where they live, therefore anyone could know where they live—but my brother is a stubborn bastard.”
“We’ve done a good job keeping her name out of it. Her boss suspects, but we’ve never confirmed his suspicions. Ryan Quiroz—he suspects as well.”
“I’ve already done a thorough background check on Quiroz. He’s clean.”
Again, Brad wasn’t surprised.