they’d talk. The goal was to identify who else was with Mitts Vasquez when he stole the drugs. Nate was skeptical that they’d tell cops anything, but so far Aggie’s instincts had been solid.
He cleared his mind. He went back to his core training. He couldn’t think about the people he cared about; he had to focus on the potential threats. Protect his partner, gain intelligence. That was the goal.
It was still early; before nine. The property was ten acres, an old farmhouse barely standing up in the middle of a wide-open pasture. Nate was surprised it had withstood the storm last year. Perhaps some of the older homes were so well built they could survive anything, even if they looked like crap.
“I don’t like this,” Nate said. They had no cover.
“We approach this the way we discussed,” Aggie said.
“We need backup,” he mumbled.
“That’ll take hours to put together, and I don’t think Salter will go for it. I can’t always explain exactly how I reach my conclusions. People don’t see the same things I do in the data. But it’s there. Brad trusted my instincts, but it took me a while to prove myself.”
“Clearly not that long. You’ve only been on staff for eighteen months.”
She smiled and her light green eyes sparkled. “Being right is the best persuasion.”
“We do it your way—again,” Nate said. “And again—if I take over, don’t argue.”
“Never,” she said.
He grunted.
She’d been right yesterday. Vasquez had shown up where she thought he’d show, based solely on her analysis of data that everyone else had access to, but didn’t interpret in the same way. That made Aggie Jensen very valuable to any agency she worked for.
But cockiness was dangerous.
They drove up the long, bumpy road to the house. It was a permanent trailer, raised several feet off the ground, which had probably saved it from the flood last year. The roof was patched in multiple places, and junk filled the carport—an old doorless refrigerator, three couches that should be burned, dead plants, a multitude of car parts. Five—no, seven—cars and trucks were in various states of disrepair in the open space next to the house. Two dogs barked and ran at them from behind the house. Aggie froze. Nate stepped in front of her. The dogs looked vicious, but they stopped several feet back, baring teeth. They didn’t attack.
Yet.
Nate kept his hand on the butt of his gun.
The dogs alerted the residents of their arrival. A small, skinny woman of indeterminate age—anywhere between forty and sixty—opened the screen. Her skin was tanned and weathered, making her appear like she’d seen everything and didn’t give a shit about anyone.
“Brutus! Carter! Quiet!”
The dogs growled, but surprisingly stopped barking.
“What do the cops want with me today?” the woman said.
“Rosa Merides?” Aggie said with an odd smile, unable to tear her eyes from the canines.
No answer. Of course not. She wouldn’t admit who she was even if there was a warrant—which there wasn’t; Aggie had checked. And she wouldn’t talk if Aggie didn’t get her bearings and forget about the mutts.
There was a warrant for one of her sons, but it was a failure to appear on a DUI, and Nate wasn’t going to ring the guy up for that—not if they shared the information they needed.
The dogs seemed to intimidate Aggie, and she wasn’t acting as confident as she normally did. Nate decided to run with her plan, but he took over the questioning.
“Mrs. Merides, I’m FBI Agent Nate Dunning, this is my partner. We’re not here to jam up you or your sons. We just need some information, then we’ll be out of your hair.”
She stared at them from the doorway. She didn’t come down to them; Nate didn’t make a move to approach her.
“Have a warrant?”
“No, we just have questions. We’re not here to arrest or detain you.”
She made a point to look around the land. “I can see that, it’s just the two of you.”
“Do you know Mitts Vasquez?”
She scowled, her face darkening. “So what?”
“We know he stole something from you. Two weeks ago. In San Marcos.”
She just glared at them.
“Who was he working for?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“Mitts and his team came in and stole sixteen kilos of coke right out from under your nose. By the looks of things, just delivered, uncut. Probably cost you a ton of money. I don’t give a shit about the drugs. Gunfire was exchanged. Mitts was shot in the leg, needed medical attention, disappeared before the