Nate didn’t want to leave Aggie alone, but he also couldn’t leave the witness. A minute later, he heard sirens. Aggie called him. “Mitts is dead. SAPD is on their way. Nate, you can’t be around here.”
“Like hell.”
“You don’t have a badge right now. You’re suspended.”
“I’ll deal with it. I have a witness; I’ve talked to her. I have another driver approaching me now, he saw what happened. I’ll get his statement, send an officer here to make it official. And no way in hell am I leaving you here in the middle of this.”
She didn’t say anything.
It wasn’t that he disagreed with her, and if he didn’t have this woman who had seen him, who he’d talked to, he might slip away undetected. He didn’t want to talk to anyone at SAPD, and he didn’t know how his working with Aggie was going to impact his situation—or her job. But dammit, he didn’t run from trouble. He never had, he never would.
Aggie was talking.
“What?” he said.
“Will you follow my lead this time?”
“What?”
“I asked you to help me. You were just on a ride-along. This is my case, assigned by my boss Brad Donnelly. Understand?”
“Understood.”
“They were waiting for him,” she said. “They knew he would come here. Rita set him up.”
“So she’s working with the Merides brothers?”
“I don’t know.”
“If someone stole sixteen kilos of coke from me, I wouldn’t kill them until after I got my drugs back.”
“What do you think?”
“Whoever hired Mitts Vasquez to steal the drugs in the first place didn’t want him fingering them to the cops.”
Aggie concurred. “I think you might be right.”
“I know I am.”
Chapter Nineteen
HOUSTON, TEXAS
By the time Sean was transferred to the administrative jail Friday night, it was late. All prisoners were in their cells. He had been taken to the jail alone in a police van, in cuffs.
He’d gone through the booking process at Houston PD—turning over all his personal items, mug shot, prints, orange jumpsuit. He complied without mouthing off or disrupting the process. He was so weary … so frustrated … so humiliated.
His attorney told him to keep his head down and she would do everything in her power to get him out on Monday. He knew that creating problems wasn’t going to help him and he would try to keep a low profile, while still being on high alert all night, all weekend.
There are a lot easier ways to kill you than to set you up to go to prison.
In reality, the frame job was solid, but the police shouldn’t be able to prove he killed Mona because he hadn’t. He’d been there, he’d argued with her, but he hadn’t killed her. They had to prove he did it—he didn’t have to prove he didn’t. At least, that was how the system was supposed to work.
Whoever killed her knew you were there—and when.
Someone had been watching Mona, knew when Sean arrived, knew when he left, killed her. She’d been expecting her bodyguard … just how clean was he? Had he killed her?
That doesn’t explain the pizza guy getting no answer at Mona’s door.
He had to take that testimony at face value at this point. He could have been bribed, but that would likely not hold up in court, especially since there were security cameras that could confirm the time line.
So the killer either avoided the cameras, hacked into the cameras, or had a legitimate reason for being in the building. Sean trusted Lucy to work the case, but she was out of her jurisdiction and wouldn’t have access to all the information Houston PD had. If it were him, he would want to interview the pizza delivery guy. Maybe he had been bribed—maybe he had gang affiliations—maybe he’d been threatened. Or maybe he’d seen something and didn’t realize the import.
The corrections officer was silent as he led Sean to his cell. Most of the men didn’t pay any attention to Sean; everyone was already locked in. It was after hours in a medium security facility, and most of the men here were waiting for court dates. They hadn’t been convicted. Most were guilty. Some weren’t.
Like Sean.
“At oh-six-hundred, the doors will automatically unlock, but wait in your cell until the announcement before you step out and line up for breakfast.”
“When are visiting hours?”
“Ten A.M.”
“Thank you.”
He wanted to stay on the good side of the guards. If something happened in here, he wanted them to help him. If he caused problems, they might not be as inclined