He hauled her out of the car and Eve wished she still had her shoes. Somewhere along the way she’d lost them. The concrete was still hot from the day and up ahead she could see that the trail became rocky.
She forced herself to focus. A large metal building stood in front of her. In the distance, she could see another structure. This one seemed to be a large screened in area of some sort, perhaps attached to a resort or the back of a large family home. There might be people who could help her there.
A sign to her left welcomed her to Bartwell Farms and offered daily tours.
She needed to get to that farm. And that meant she needed to distract Warren.
“Was it because of Carmen?”
He stopped. “How do you know?”
“You erased her file because you can’t stand to look at it. You have to know that someone will figure it out.”
“I don’t see why. I’m the SAC and I say the case is cold so no one needs to look at it.” He pulled her along. “I really didn’t want to drag you into this again, Eve. It’s Alex’s fault. He couldn’t let go.”
“Was she your lover?” She needed to keep him talking.
A little laugh huffed out of Warren’s mouth as he moved along, forcing them both toward the building. “No. No. She wasn’t my lover. She was a goddamn twenty-something kid. No. That’s not my vice.”
Realization hit. She remembered how flirty Warren’s brother had always been. “But young women are Eddie’s vice, aren’t they?”
Edward Petty, senator from the great state of Oklahoma, the pride of his family, with a bright political future ahead of him. As long as no one discovered that he’d knocked up an intern.
“He can be a stupid fuck. She wasn’t his first, but we managed to pay off the rest or scare the fuck out of them.”
“But Carmen was pregnant.”
Warren’s face screwed up into a mask of distaste. “And the dumb bitch wouldn’t get an abortion. I tried buying her off, but she actually had some family money behind her. The only thing that stopped her from talking right off was the fact that she didn’t want to disappoint Daddy. Eddie had to convince her that he was going to divorce his wife and marry her. We had to buy some time.”
But that would have ruined the senator’s political chances. “Did you send her to that clinic?”
A horrible suspicion crept across her mind.
“It was out of the way.”
Just how much was he guilty of? “It was exactly the kind of clinic Evans loved to hit. Tell me something, Warren, did you know he was going to hit there? Or did you suggest it?”
A flush stole across his face, and his hands tightened on her arm. “He’s my brother. I couldn’t let some stupid piece of ass come between him and the presidency. He’s going to run next year. He’ll run and he’ll win.”
Eve stopped, forcing him to as well. She hoped that someone, anyone, would walk by, but the place seemed deserted. “I deserve to know. I get the feeling I was used as payment.”
Warren turned to her, exasperation plain on his face. “Fine. You want to know the whole truth? I sought him out. I made a fucking appointment with the man. I took a couple of my men. He brought a couple of his, and we made a deal. I would get Alex off his ass for a while in exchange for doing this little job for me. It had to be big. I couldn’t just have her killed.”
Because the media scrutiny on the death of an intern would likely have turned up the relationship with Edward Petty. The victim would have been the story. But by masking her death with others, she’d faded to the background, just another of Michael Evans’s victims. “And he agreed to this?”
“Alex was close to figuring out his hiding place and the fact that he had some very important connections in the drug trade. I made sure Alex wasn’t on top of his game. I wanted to get him thrown off the case, but Evans had another plan.”
She knew exactly what that plan had been. “Evans wanted me.”
“Evie, you have to know I hated it.”
“Why? It was convenient. Tommy and Leon were the men you took with you, weren’t they?” And they had known far too much. Warren had seen an easy way to get rid of them and to give Evans what he wanted.
So much betrayal.
“I didn’t want to kill them,” Petty said.
“So you found a way to let Evans do your killing again. Was he mad when Alex kept coming after him?” Alex hadn’t done what Evans and Petty had expected of him. He hadn’t retreated to take care of his wife. He’d rededicated himself to bringing in Evans.
“You have no idea. I’ve been dangling on his fucking strings for years now. When Alex called and started asking about him again, I knew I had to work fast. Alex is fucking everything up again. I had to get rid of a valuable asset, damn it.”
She let logic lead her where it could. Alex really had upset Warren’s carefully laid plans. Why else hire someone like Jesse for this job? He’d wanted to be free of Evans and he couldn’t risk bringing him in. “Jesse was supposed to assassinate Evans for you.”