be an investigation. And second, I need everything we can get on the drugs themselves. Tests, exact quantity, packaging, I want to know where they came from. Photos—I know these people, and virtually every gang running around town has a signature. The fact that the sergeant on scene isn’t bringing in Jerry Fielding—who knows more in his little finger about the San Antonio drug trade than any other SAPD cop—tells me this is personal. Whether it’s personal against Nate, or it’s personal against the FBI because of the Butcher bust, I need to know.”
“I’m on it.”
“Keep this between you and me for now, okay? Just until I know what’s going on. And watch your back.”
“Sir?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Okay, can I speak my mind?”
That made him smile. “You always do.”
“So you basically told me that Sean is in jail for murder, Nate is being questioned in a major drug bust, and then to watch my back. What else is going on? You think this is all related, don’t you?”
“Could be.”
She snorted.
“Okay, yes. Something fucked is going on. I can’t wrap my head around what it is, though. Sean’s brother went missing in Mexico while tracking human traffickers. Is that also connected? Nicole Rollins is dead, and this isn’t her game play. She killed when you got in her way, but she wasn’t an idiot. She wouldn’t plan this elaborate takedown unless there was something much bigger on the table. Yet Nicole’s half sister, Elise Hunt, is crazy, smart, shrewd, and stupid all at the same time. You need to read her file, get up to speed. But she’s only eighteen. Could she pull something like this off? She’d need a lot of help. I don’t see it.”
“You don’t see it, but you hear the song.”
He had no idea what she meant.
“Your instincts, right? You don’t see her involvement, but you can’t shake the feeling that she’s behind this.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I have sources I can tap.”
“Look, boss, if you’re worried about me, I don’t even know these people. I wasn’t even here when this all went down. You should be worried about you. You’re the one who needs backup.”
“I’m coming into the office now. I’m fifteen minutes out because I forgot about the damn construction on the 410. See what you can learn before I get there.”
“I’m on it.”
* * *
Aggie Jensen immediately called Zach Charles on his cell phone. They’d become friendly because even though she was a sworn agent and Zach was an analyst, she’d taken on primarily an analyst role and they’d worked together multiple times. It didn’t bother Aggie, to be honest. She liked being in the field, but she loved working with data. Technology was her playground. And when she was in the field in the tactical truck, it was the best of both worlds—being in the middle of action while monitoring the command center.
She’d wanted to be in the Dallas resident office—also an offshoot of the Houston DEA division—because the only thing she didn’t like about San Antonio was that she was four hours from her family. But after eighteen months here, she realized that this was the best thing she could have done. For the first time she was truly on her own. She had a big family—big enough to populate a small town when she counted her aunts, uncles, and cousins—and she’d never been without friends and family to back her up. And while she missed her kin, she’d found a place here. She’d earned her stripes, so to speak. Everything she earned was because she did a damn good job. No one owed anything to her dad or brothers or her uncle, the congressman. Only Brad knew about her uncle Bill, and he agreed to keep it to himself.
Her war hero dad and his three brothers and two sisters, and the collective twenty-three kids they had between them, all with amazing jobs and many with clout, none of that mattered here in San Antonio. All that mattered was her own hard work and skill. That the boss trusted her so much and gave her so many opportunities to succeed meant everything to her. She would not let him down.
“Aggie?” Zach said. “I’m kind of in the middle of something, but is this important?”
“My boss wants to help Nate.”
“Hold on.”
She heard movement, then a door close. “What do you know?” Zach said, his voice quiet.
She told him the basics of what Brad had told her, then said, “He thinks he can trace the drugs,