Someone had to protect his family when he couldn’t.
“We got the clearance, let’s go,” one of the Beaumont guards—Sheffield—said.
And with that, they led Sean into the bus and attached his handcuffs to the bar in front of him on the seat. The other prisoner was put across the narrow aisle from him, also cuffed to a bar. One guard drove, separated by a steel grate. The second guard sat on a jump seat sideways. There were six rows of benches in the small bus, but only Sean and this old guy were inside.
As soon as they were cleared, the garage door rolled up and the bus backed out.
Sean couldn’t shake the fear that he was being taken to his execution.
Chapter Twenty-four
VICTORVILLE, CALIFORNIA
Megan Elliott Kincaid had had enough of the runaround. Yesterday she’d talked to three people at Victorville, where Jimmy Hunt was incarcerated, and finally she got the assurance that she could interview him first thing this morning. She and SSA Blair Novak arrived at six in the morning and at first, everything went well. They were escorted to an interview room usually reserved for lawyers and their clients; fifteen minutes later, Megan walked out and asked the guard about the delay. “We called, we had this set up, Hunt should have been waiting for us.”
“I don’t know why there is a delay,” he said.
“Find out,” Megan snapped.
He bristled, and she realized she should have been more diplomatic. But she was as worried about her husband as she was about Sean and Lucy. Jack was somewhere in the middle of Mexico on a dangerous mission to find Kane and she’d only spoken to him briefly last night, just long enough to know that he was alive. She’d hardly slept and had to be up at three in the morning to drive down here. Dealing with bureaucracy was the last thing she wanted to do right now.
She returned to the interview room and told Blair the status. “We’ll give it five more minutes,” Blair said, “then I’ll call the warden. I know him pretty well.”
“You were involved in this case?”
“Not directly. It was a DEA case, we assisted.”
“Why is he in a state prison if it was a federal case?”
“The state prosecuted first. His federal case is pending. At first they were talking plea, but then he started playing legal games.”
“Why didn’t we get him first?”
“That’s way above my pay grade. But it had to do with the murder of an undercover LAPD cop. So he’s not getting out even if nothing happens with the federal case. My part of the investigation was documenting the search and seizure of property at the Hunt compound. When Margaret Hunt was killed, we went through everything. She’d destroyed much of the evidence, but we found enough that helped the state in their conviction, and some evidence of corruption in LAPD. I helped remove two bad cops from the line of duty. Not my favorite thing to do—but dammit, I hate when our job is tainted by these guys on the take.”
She glanced at her watch and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Before she could locate the warden’s number, a man walked into the room accompanied by a corrections officer.
“Agent Novak? Elliott? I’m Assistant Warden Josh Steiner.” He extended his hand, which they both shook. He motioned for them to sit and opened a file folder he was carrying. “I’m flummoxed about why this information wasn’t in our computer system, I could have saved you the trip. Jimmy Hunt was transferred two weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“Beaumont.”
“Texas?” Megan said. “Under what authority?”
He pushed the folder toward her. She looked at the paperwork, but it didn’t make a lot of sense to her. Steiner explained, “The DEA requested the transfer because Jimmy Hunt planned to turn state’s evidence on an active investigation.”
“He doesn’t need to be transferred for that,” Megan said.
“They needed him to testify in court.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
“It wasn’t in the computer—I mean, it is, but it wasn’t logged properly. He was transferred temporarily and will be returning here once he is done with his testimony. The AUSA who approved the transfer is there—you can contact him and find out what’s going on. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”
On the surface, it all looked legit. But the timing was more than a little suspicious.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“Logs,” she said. “I want to see everyone who visited Hunt, talked to him on the phone, sent