you bat your eyes or flash your dimples. You’ll get yourself killed. I can’t let you do that.”
“Let me?” She laughed as she smoothly passed a minivan that was doing a turtle’s pace. Damn driver was going to get rear-ended one of these days.
“Those aren’t my drugs and I’m not going to prison over this. SAPD are just being assholes.”
“Technically, they’re doing their job.”
He growled.
“Look—we need to find these people not just to prove that the drugs were taken from them, but to find Brad.”
“Now you lost me.”
“The Merides brothers know who stole from them. They’re looking for Vasquez as well. Whoever stole the drugs are most likely the same group of people who grabbed Brad—because if this is all orchestrated by Elise Hunt, that means that her people stole the drugs, planted them on you to take you out of the picture while Sean Rogan is in prison. Maybe to get you fired or arrested or hell if I know. And Brad is high on their list because he killed Rollins. Revenge? Maybe all this was planned as revenge on everyone who messed with the Hunt family.”
“You are up to speed.”
“I told you.” She weaved in and out of traffic—she loved driving, but she hated slow drivers.
“Why not kill Brad?” he wondered out loud. “They could have easily assassinated him right there.”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I said as much to Lucy and she got all quiet, then mumbled, ‘There’s always a reason.’”
Nate didn’t comment.
She pulled off the freeway into Olmos Park, where Lucy and Sean lived.
“Why isn’t Lucy in Houston?” Nate asked.
“The lawyer said she can’t see Sean until tomorrow.” She glanced at him; Nate was thinking again. She said, “In addition to figuring out where the drugs came from, I’ve been looking at how they got in your truck. I drove by your apartment—”
“How do you know where I live?” Damn, he sounded suspicious.
“Brad told me.” Not exactly true, but she’d gotten the information from Brad’s office, and knew that he wouldn’t mind that she did. Nate lived simply. He had a one-bedroom apartment in a borderline sketchy area of San Antonio that was convenient to FBI headquarters. “I didn’t see any security cameras.”
“There aren’t any.”
“Which tells me they easily could have planted the drugs right there. I took some pictures of your carport, and there’s a couple of apartments that have a good visual of it.”
“I know when they did it.”
“How?”
“My truck has an alarm. No one could have planted the drugs at my apartment, not to mention they would have made noise and I’m not a heavy sleeper. The carport is right under my bedroom window.”
“So where?”
“Tuesday. Three days ago. I woke up and noticed a semi-flat tire and a nail in the tread. I took it to a tire place near my apartment, Lucy picked me up there because we had a case. They replaced all four tires because I was due anyway. I didn’t think anything of it, but I’d never been there before. Yet, they couldn’t have known that’s where I would take my truck.”
“They followed you.”
“I don’t get followed.”
“You said it was near your apartment. They wouldn’t have been on your tail long. They could have put in a tracker. And they probably put the nail in your tire.”
He didn’t say anything.
“After Lucy’s, we’ll go over there. And I have a couple ideas where Mitts might be hiding out.
“I’ll take care of this. You don’t need to be involved.”
Now she was getting angry. “I am involved. Brad tasked me with clearing your name, I’m not going to let him down. And by tracing these drugs, we’ll be on the path to find Brad.”
“And you want to look for the gangbanger? Don’t you think that the Merides brothers will know where to look for him as well?”
“No. Because I’m not going to the obvious places. His ex-wife, his ex-girlfriend, any of the former Saints. He’s going someplace where the Merides won’t even think of looking for him.”
Nate didn’t say anything.
“I know you don’t trust me yet, but you will.”
“Oh?”
She pulled up in front of Lucy’s place and didn’t respond.
He would. When she proved herself.
That shouldn’t take long.
“And where are you going to look for Vasquez?” he asked.
“Come with me, and I’ll tell you.”
“No way in hell am I letting an analyst go out into the field, not dealing with these people.”
“What the fuck makes you think I’m an analyst?” she snapped. Then inwardly winced. If she was swearing that meant he had