been told to steer clear of Sean and Lucy, but given no orders related to Nate, so they were playing the “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” approach. He sent her photos the crime scene investigators had taken of the drugs on site. Nate’s vehicle had been impounded and the drugs were at the crime lab pending verification.
Most work sent to the lab on a Friday wouldn’t be dealt with until next week, if then. The Bexar County crime lab handled multiple different law enforcement jurisdictions and was one of the best in the state, but like any lab, they were backlogged. Nate was going to be without his truck for at least three days, if not longer.
It was after four that afternoon when Nate emerged from the facility. Aggie watched in her mirror as Nate listened to Rachel Vaughn, his direct supervisor. Nate wasn’t speaking. Rachel was clearly emphatic about something, but Aggie couldn’t read lips. A minute later, Nate turned and walked directly toward her small truck. He looked angry. Aggie froze as Rachel watched him approach her pickup. Had he told her that Aggie was picking him up? Did Rachel remember who she was? Would she think it was weird? Aggie had only met her twice, but she didn’t want her to call Martin and rat her out.
Nate opened the passenger door and got in. “Thanks,” he mumbled. When she didn’t immediately drive, he said, “Go. Now.”
She turned the ignition and sped off. She always drove too fast, but she’d been taught by her oldest brother, the cop, and she had to keep up with her siblings. She, at least, had only gotten one ticket—each of her brothers had more than three before they were twenty-one. She certainly wasn’t the one who forced their parents’ auto insurance rates to go up.
Truth be told, she had talked her way out of many more tickets. Was it her fault she was young, cute, and sassy?
“What do you know about Donnelly?” he asked. “Zach told me he was grabbed outside DEA headquarters four hours ago. I’ve been fucking fighting with SAPD all day to let me leave.”
“What do I need to know?”
He glared at her, then looked back out the window.
“You don’t know me well, but Brad asked me to help him with your case. No one else. Brad trusts me, you need to trust me.”
He turned to her and almost looked … amused. “Need?” Maybe if he hadn’t just spent most of the day being interviewed by SAPD he would have laughed.
“How about, you should trust me. I’ve been talking to Lucy—she’s the toughest person I know. Considering what she’s dealing with right now, she had a lot of great information.”
“Like?”
She realized Nate wasn’t going to trust her until she proved herself to him. So she told him what Lucy said about Elise Hunt, what Brad had wanted her to do, and that Zach was helping on the q.t.
He was thinking. He had a blank face, but he looked just like her brother Dave—who was career military—when he was deep in thought.
“Did you get the security footage outside DEA?”
“We looked at everything on our cameras, but Brad was grabbed out of range. We’re tracking down private security now. If Salter calls, I’m going to have to hightail it back to the office. But so far, nada.” She glanced at him, told him the rest. About the Merides brothers and the Saints and the shooting. “Mitts Vasquez had been a member of the Saints before it collapsed.” She explained why that was important, and that the Saints had worked for Nicole Rollins when she was still DEA. That it could be the connection to Elise Hunt that they needed.
“You have proof?”
“I have a theory based on the evidence. I see connections where other people don’t. I look at all the data and things just move into place. And my gut tells me the drugs stolen ten days ago are the same drugs that were found in your truck.”
“And you want to track down Vasquez.”
“Yes, but I really want to track down the Merides brothers because they have a greater incentive to talk.”
“Why the Merides?”
“They lost sixteen kilos of coke, and looking at the pictures from SAPD it hasn’t been cut yet—which means it’s probably worth a helluva lot more than a quarter mil.”
“They’re not going to talk to a couple of feds.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“You’re not going to waltz in and have them eating out of your hand because