worried about Sean, she hadn’t heard from Patrick in hours. She’d told him about Paxton and he said he had an idea and would call later.
“Lucy?”
Lucy glanced at Megan. “Sorry. I hope he’ll reach out after he thinks about what I said.” She had given him her direct cell phone number, and Megan instructed the guards that if he wanted to make a call to let him—and to record it. He might not call Lucy, but he could call Paxton.
“You had me feeling sorry for him—you really understood him, showed him that.”
“I feel for him. He lost his daughter and went through a deep depression and paranoia. He didn’t get any help, or if he did, he didn’t stick with it. And sometimes, the guilt keeps eating at you. Paxton used that, turned him into a weapon. Thompson is a true believer in his mission and so I didn’t get through to him. For a minute I thought…” She shrugged. She couldn’t save Thompson. Maybe he was beyond saving.
Lucy continued. “We have to find Paxton. He could be anywhere by now—we don’t know what his plans are. Why does he want Sean? What did Sean do to him? I mean, more than what anyone else did who took him down. I know he always disliked Sean, and the feeling was mutual, but to frame him for murder?”
“Have you talked to Dillon?”
“No. He’s testifying in a major trial Monday morning, otherwise I’m sure he would be here.”
“I think you’re too close to this.”
“What? Because Sean is missing?”
“That, and because you have a long history with Senator Paxton,” Megan said. “Dillon might be able to look at the situation from a clinical distance.”
Megan was right.
“I should have called him earlier,” Lucy agreed.
“We didn’t have all the information we have now.”
Lucy glanced at her watch. It would be after midnight on the East Coast, but Dillon would take the call. “Okay, we’ll call him as soon as we get back.”
Ten minutes later, they walking into the hotel suite. Both Patrick and Kate were there, and both were on the phone. As soon as Lucy walked in, they ended their calls.
“We have news,” Patrick said.
Lucy felt the blood drain from her face. “Sean?” Her voice was a squeak.
“No word on Sean, but after you called me about Senator Paxton, I changed my focus. The dead guard, David Dobleman, and the other guard, Sheffield.”
Kate said, “After I had Erica Anderson’s statement, I talked to Sheffield. He was groggy after surgery, but clearly said that Sean shot him and the other guard, that he’d worked with the other prisoner to escape. I then told him Erica had confessed to her part in setting Sean up, and that I had evidence that he’d been the one who changed the transport orders. He then shut up and asked for a lawyer.”
Patrick said, “While I was skeptical about Paxton’s involvement initially, I now think you’re right, Lucy. At first, I had a hard time believing that a cop would lie to protect his partner’s killer. He could have said he didn’t see who shot Dobleman, but he specifically fingered Sean. The early forensics report shows that the gun was taped under a seat. But it wasn’t Sean’s prints that were found on the underside of the seat. They were Jimmy Hunt’s prints.”
“We just got that information,” Kate said, “and Houston PD isn’t being very friendly with us because they think we’re trying to fuck with their case against Sean, but we have enough friends here who listen. Now, the prints are not foolproof that it was Hunt who knew the gun was there, or that he was the one who shot the guard, but it’s one small piece of a bigger puzzle.”
“Kate and I were looking at Sheffield. The guy appears clean, and all we have is Erica Anderson’s statement. She’s the one with the hefty bank deposits, not Sheffield. And while Kate has video proof that he was at the terminal at the time of the transfer change, it’s still circumstantial.”
“So,” Kate said, “we began to think about how Paxton operates and who he targets, and wondered about the dead guard, Dobleman,” Kate said. “Sheffield put him on the schedule for today. Told him that another guy had called in sick, and that it was his turn to come in. Which was a lie—no one called in sick.”
“So Sheffield is corrupt,” Megan said. “Erica Anderson didn’t lie.”