Aggie. She rolled down the passenger window and aimed her gun at them. She fired without hesitation.
Nate had Aggie on the ground immediately as he fired at the van.
Elise shot more rounds as she sped off. They went wild, one shattering a tile on the garage roof.
“Are you hit?” he demanded.
“No. I could have had her.”
“You were completely exposed!”
“Dammit! She’s gone, we can’t catch up to her.”
Nate was livid. Aggie needed more training or she was going to get herself killed. “Follow me,” he ordered. “I have to clear the house.”
They went into the garage. Nate opened the door to where Brad was being held. Aggie gasped.
“Stay with him,” Nate said. “Call an ambulance.”
He went into the house. Elise had left alone, but there could be someone hiding in here or leaving on foot.
He searched room by room. He found one body, female, deceased, in the living room. By the distinctive tattoo on her arm he determined she was Clara Valeria. He found the second body, male, breathing, gut shot, in the kitchen. He searched the man, who was barely conscious, and pulled two guns and a knife off his body. He cuffed him and then searched the rest of the house. No other victims or threats.
Nate pulled blankets off one of the beds and returned to Aggie and Brad. Aggie had taken off her jacket and put it around Brad’s shoulders. By that time, he heard sirens in the distance.
“I don’t have a key to get him out of these things,” Aggie said.
Nate walked over to Donny Valeria and searched his pockets. He had been coming in to take Brad somewhere, so it reasoned that he had the keys to the shackles.
He did.
Nate unlocked them and Brad sagged to the floor.
“I was a dead man,” he said in a raspy whisper.
Nate put the blankets on him. He saw that Elise had tortured him, cutting deep into his back. A big “H” followed by a message:
Elise was here.
“You’re going to make it.”
“Hunt.”
“Don’t talk,” Aggie said. “Help is coming.”
Brad shook his head and coughed. “Elise. Her father.”
“Jimmy Hunt escaped from prison this morning,” Nate said. “He took Sean with him. They’re at large.”
“He’s still in Texas. Called her, told her. Don’t know where.”
“He called her?” She would have taken her cell phone with her.
Brad struggled to speak, but he clearly wanted to give them information. “He was hired,” Brad said. He took a deep breath, then continued. “To get Sean. Someone with lots of money. She’s supposed to meet Hunt in Mexico at a safe house. I have no idea where. Clara knows.”
“Clara is dead.”
“They hated each other,” Brad said.
“Pablo Barrios is alive. I cuffed him inside.”
“He’s hired. Muscle only.”
Brad was shivering uncontrollably.
The ambulance was closer. “Go meet them, get them here,” Nate told Aggie.
She frowned, but did it.
Nate would apologize later. Maybe. He was still angry that she had put herself in the line of fire outside.
He squatted next to Brad. “What?”
“She said something I don’t understand,” Brad whispered, still struggling to breathe. “She’s not allowed to kill Lucy. Someone paid them to frame Sean, and this patron broke Hunt and Sean out of prison. His partner. But I don’t think Hunt’s calling the shots. Elise is going to Mexico. A safehouse.”
“Jack found Kane, they’re in Mexico right now. They might know where the safehouse is.”
“Can you reach them?”
Nate nodded.
“I owe you,” Brad said.
“Never.”
“Yes. They were going to take me to Lucy’s house and kill me on her lawn to mess with her. That’s all Elise could talk about, tormenting Lucy. She’s not happy that she can’t kill her, and I don’t trust her not to.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
HOUSTON, TEXAS
LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON
Lucy was more than a little relieved that Brad was alive and would make it. He had been tortured and may never make a full recovery, but he was alive and getting the medical care he needed.
That gave her hope that they’d find Sean. The Hunts’ plans were falling apart, Elise was on the run, and Brad could identify her. She wasn’t getting out of this mess now. Pablo Barrios was going into surgery, but authorities would be talking to him soon.
So now she waited. Waited for news on Sean, information about where he was, what was happening in the search. Brad had made a statement about Hunt’s plan to break out and force Sean to go with him. The police had to believe that Sean was a victim in all this, and not a killer.