San Antonio was caught with Rohypnol and Ecstasy. Two date rape drugs. Evidence gathered after his murder indicates that he sold these drugs primarily to high school students. His school had a thirty percent higher incident of reported rape and sexual assault than any other high school in Bexar County. Did he contribute to that? Very possibly. We would have to dig deeper there. Every single one of these victims was suspected of sex crimes. I don’t have evidence on each and every one, but Jonathan wouldn’t care about evidence, if he believed they were guilty. I could go case by case, but we’re on the clock here—I need you to trust me on this.”
“I believe you,” Kate said over the speaker, her voice odd. Lucy knew this case would be difficult for her. Her partner had been a victim to the same killer who killed Paxton’s daughter, Monique. She felt a kinship with Paxton on the one hand, and a hatred of him on the other because of how he’d used Lucy to justify his killing spree.
Rick said, “Send me everything you have. I’ll look at it immediately.”
Having Rick and Kate on her side was huge, but she still feared for Sean. Because she didn’t know why Paxton would want to frame Sean and then break him out of prison. Or why Paxton would use a convicted drug runner like Jimmy Hunt to do it.
“I’ll have a team in New York pay him a visit,” Rick said.
“He’s still living at his house?”
Rick hesitated. “He was after we reached the plea deal.”
“I need to talk to him,” Lucy said.
“We need to establish that he’s behind this first. While I see what you’re saying, I don’t see how he knows Hunt. Like you said, Hunt’s not the type of criminal he’d work with. And why would he go to these extreme lengths to get Sean?” Rick asked. “I’m playing devil’s advocate, because there are easier ways.”
“Yes, maybe, but this way puts a target on Sean’s back. He’s considered a killer. He then escapes and the surviving guard states that Sean killed his partner in cold blood. It would damage his reputation, even if proven innocent, and it hurts RCK and their business. Sean has the computer skills to facilitate the transfer in the first place, so on the surface it seems logical that he would do something like this.”
Kate interrupted. “I have news about how the transfer was done. The phone found in Sean’s cell didn’t have his prints on it, and it wasn’t used to hack into the system—though there was code in there that clearly was created to look like Sean had hacked in.”
“Explain,” Rick said.
“The code is a backdoor to get into the core system—so on the surface, it looks like Sean did it because the information was found in his cell. But when I reversed the trace, it was clear that the hack came from the Beaumont prison. I have it traced to the exact terminal and am waiting for security tapes to show who was at that terminal at the time the transfer was set. And it wasn’t hacked—the phone makes it appear that the system was hacked, and the code could have hacked the system if plugged directly into any computer connected to the network, but it didn’t. It was done in-house. But the key problem we have is that it could have been external, so we need to shut down that security risk ASAP.”
“What you’re saying,” Rick said, “is that someone with the brains to hack into the prison system put the code on the phone to make it appear Sean did it, but they didn’t actually break into the system to change the transfer orders.”
“Exactly. If anyone else analyzed the phone, they would believe it. Because it’s that good.”
“Is this something Sean is capable of doing?”
No one said anything.
“So yes,” Rick said.
“Sean didn’t,” Kate said.
“But the prosecutors will say he could have,” Rick said.
“My analysis is impeccable, Rick.”
“We need more.”
“Let me interrogate Officer Sheffield.”
“He just got out of surgery.”
“He’s lying,” Kate said. “Sean would never kill a cop in cold blood. In the back of the head? That’s not him.”
“I believe you. I’ve known Sean since he was a kid, I love him like a brother.”
For the first time, Lucy heard emotion in Rick’s voice. She’d been so angry earlier that he thought Sean could have killed Mona Hill, that she lost sight of the fact that Rick cared.
“But,” Rick said, “we have