Eric Barrow, Siobhan’s reporter friend, lived outside Laredo in a dumpy apartment building. There were eight units—four up, four down—and he lived in the north upstairs corner.
Lucy researched Barrow during the drive and shared it with Noah. The reporter had sold a few stories to major papers—most of them with photos by Siobhan Walsh—but the overwhelming majority of his work was published for NAN, an Internet news feed that focused on the Southwest, Texas, and Mexico. She had no idea what the acronym stood for; it wasn’t on their masthead or website. Eric clearly had an agenda: He didn’t like law enforcement, he hated politicians, and he wasn’t fond of the military. He seemed to relish catching people of authority in compromising positions. In fact, the exposé he wrote on the brothel he’d alerted Siobhan about was a classic example: He outed a local elected official—who’d run on a pro-family, conservative platform—as a patron of hookers. He skewered the guy—Lucy felt he deserved it not only for his actions but also for his hypocrisy—and took down two other elected officials at the same time.
But once the story was over, he didn’t follow through on what happened to the women in the club, whether they’d been arrested or let go or given assistance. It made Lucy wonder if his concern was more about challenging authority than it was about helping the girls who suffered as a result of such corruption.
Barrow wasn’t a bad writer, but he had an edge that Lucy found unappealing. It was completely opposite from how she viewed Siobhan. She wondered if Barrow and Kane had had any run-ins. She thought about sending Kane a text message asking about Barrow, but then decided against it—not without running it by Noah. Though Noah’s problems with the Rogans and the way RCK operated had been mostly resolved over the nearly two years Lucy had known him, she didn’t want to create any new friction. She was about to ask him when they reached Barrow’s apartment and Noah cut off the ignition.
“The guy rubs me the wrong way and I haven’t even met him,” he said. “Cover the back. I’ll give you twenty seconds.”
Lucy hurried to the back of the building and identified Barrow’s apartment from the rear. He had a balcony and it would be very easy for him to run.
A group of kids, boys and girls all under ten, were playing in a makeshift playground on the edge of the parking lot. There was a plastic slide that had seen better days; a sandbox with gravel instead of sand; a box of broken sidewalk chalk that two young girls were using to draw some elaborate but unidentifiable landscape on the broken pavement. The kids all noticed Lucy and stared, but didn’t seem scared or nervous.
The sliding glass door above her slid open less than a minute after Lucy positioned herself. Noah had been right—the jerk was running. Lucy stayed in the shadow of the building until Barrow dangled from his balcony and dropped to the ground.
“Shit,” he muttered as he fell on his ass. By the time he got up, Lucy stood two feet in front of him.
“Mr. Barrow, I’m FBI Special Agent Lucy Kincaid. We need to talk.”
He stared at her, glanced behind him, took a step back. “I—uh—”
“Don’t,” she said. “I would hate to arrest you in front of those kids over there. But I will take you down if I have to.”
Barrow’s pale-green eyes darted right and left. He ran a hand through his shaggy sun-bleached hair as if wondering if he could outrun her or if she would shoot him in the back. Then he smiled, showing perfect teeth. “Hey, sugar, anything you want.”
“Sugar?” she said. “Really?”
Noah came around the back. He was irritated, and Lucy didn’t blame him. Barrow looked at Noah and the smile disappeared. “I didn’t know who you were,” he said.
Noah glared at the guy. “Let’s go.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to have a discussion here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Your apartment.”
“I don’t want you in my apartment.”
“Then let’s talk at the station,” Noah said. “Villines said we could use his interrogation room, right, Kincaid?”
“He did,” Lucy said.
“Okay, look, I don’t know what this is about, but—Kincaid? Kincaid … you’re not really feds, are you? Well shit, I can explain. I was on a story, a hot story, I didn’t mean to get your guys in trouble, I really didn’t know there was a situation … I mean, we’re talking two years ago, and no one got hurt, right?”
Lucy raised an eyebrow.
“Why am I not surprised,” Noah muttered. He pulled out his badge. “FBI Agent Noah Armstrong. FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid.”
Barrow was wholly confused. Lucy almost laughed. Small world, but Jack had spent nearly twenty years based out of Hidalgo, Texas. She wasn’t surprised that Barrow knew her brother.
“Your apartment or the sheriff’s department,” Noah said, “I don’t really care, but I’m not playing games.”
“Jack’s not around, is he?” Barrow asked Lucy.