Hunt has Sean, Jesse is in trouble, Lucy is vulnerable. And we’re down here sitting on our asses!”
Kane opened his eyes, looked at Jack. “Hunt is communicating with Blair.”
Jack had seen the messages. Kane had figured out the code that Blair and Hunt were using, and so far it was working, Kane pretending to be Blair.
“I don’t care, Kane. At this point, we’re more valuable in Texas.”
“Hunt will be here. As soon as we have the location, we’ll meet him. It’s only a matter of time.”
“Time that Sean may not have.” Why was Kane being so stubborn about this? “Are you not telling me something?”
“Sean makes RCK a lot of money.”
“So?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out why Sean. Revenge—yes, but that’s why Blair was tasked to grab me. I killed Hunt’s son. But why Sean? Money is the only explanation that makes sense.”
“Sean’s not that liquid right now. He spent a small fortune on that panic room, which I think is overkill, and he hasn’t been taking jobs out of town.” Jack understood Sean’s paranoia. His house had been breached last summer by an elite para-military team. Jesse’s mother had been killed. Sean wanted his house to be a fortress, but sometimes you had to accept certain risks.
“Hunt knows Sean’s skill set. I need Blair to get the information out of Hunt—the exact information about what’s going on in Texas—without making Hunt suspicious.”
It took Jack a minute to follow Kane’s train of thought. “You think Hunt wants Sean to steal something for him.”
“Not exactly. This operation cost a shitload of money. Blair isn’t cheap—Hunt’s been paying him for the last two years. Where’d he get the money? We wiped out his operation, the FBI seized his bank accounts, he has nothing. Someone is funding him. Blair thinks so too, but swears he doesn’t know who.”
“You believe him.”
“Yep.”
“And you want to use him to get the information.”
“We can’t help Sean or anyone until we know who’s funding Jimmy Hunt.” He looked down at Blair’s phone, which was attached to a portable charger. “He’s supposed to make contact within the next hour. I made a deal with Blair. He gets the information, he walks. He fucks us over, he’s dead.”
“You’re going to let him walk?”
“We just took out his core operation. No one else is going to work for him, especially when I start the whisper campaign.”
Jack would have laughed, if he wasn’t so tense.
Kane was going to destroy Peter Blair by spreading a rumor that he was working both sides. It would probably get Blair killed. But at a minimum, it would stop Blair from sex trafficking. Jack would rather see him in prison, but they hadn’t taken the time to build a case against him, and without evidence, he would walk.
Better Kane’s way. This time.
Kane stared at the phone, as if willing a message to come through, and that was when Jack realized he was more than a little concerned about Sean. He just didn’t know how to show it.
Chapter Thirty-seven
COMAL COUNTY, TEXAS
Elise did not like Bitch Clara. That was how she thought of her in her head—and a couple of times the nickname slipped out, but who cared? Elise was in charge. That Bitch Clara thought she was in charge was laughable. Only because Clara been living in her house for the last year. That she’d visited her father in prison. That she was older and all that fucking nonsense.
Age had nothing on brains, and Elise had brains in spades.
“Jimmy wants him dead and you’re fucking playing games!” Bitch Clara said.
Elise put up her hand and moved her fingers in the blah-blah-blah motion while she mocked her. “‘Jimmy wants him dead.’”
“You’re fucking insane.”
She laughed. “I’m just having fun. Really, we have nothing else to do here until tomorrow so lighten up.”
“You were supposed to fuck him up and dump him with a bullet in his head.”
“I will. And he is fucked up. Did you see what I carved in his back? He’ll be fucked up plenty, then we’ll dump him tomorrow morning when we head south.”
Elise was really going to miss seeing Lucy in court on Monday when she had to defend herself against the restraining order, but by then her daddy said she had to be in Mexico at the safe house because someone might have figured out she killed Mona.
Lucy already knew because she was a psychic, but no one would believe her because she’d attacked Elise at the gas station.