Sean’s cell and the Houston computer system was hacked to put Sean on that specific bus.”
“Blair knows that Sean is the one who took the Hunt money two years ago, which tells me that Hunt wants it back. Kane was targeted as leverage or revenge. Where is everyone right this minute?”
“Lucy is here, with her lawyer. Patrick is in the lobby. I only got here ten minutes ago.”
“Nate?”
“I don’t know, specifically. He has a lead on the missing DEA agent.”
“Who’s with Jess?”
“I don’t remember his name. Lucy said he’s SWAT and she trusts him.”
“Leo Proctor,” Jack said.
“That’s it.”
“Keep your phone on. I’m going to get more information.”
He ended the call. Kane had listened, he didn’t say anything, but walked back into the house.
Jack followed.
Kane stood in front of Blair, who was a mess. “Where were you supposed to deliver me?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. I was waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Hunt to get out of jail and then he’d tell me.”
“On this phone?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll wait.”
He paused.
“Mexico, right?”
Blair nodded.
“And he planned to grab my brother on the way.”
“He … I…”
Kane took a step toward him and Blair cowered. “What are you hiding?”
“Your brother isn’t coming here. Hunt said someone else wants him. I don’t know! I swear! All I know is that Hunt said he’d be down here twenty-four hours after the breakout and that I had better have you tied up with a bow.”
Kane walked out. Jack followed. “We need him alive,” Jack said. “He can confirm Hunt’s escape plan and clear Sean.”
“Only the escape plan. No one knows what happened in that bus except Sean.”
“Sean would not kill a cop,” Jack said.
“Not all cops are good cops.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“There’s one survivor. He’s corrupt.”
“You don’t know that.”
Kane didn’t say anything.
“You’re thinking they needed someone on the inside.”
“More than one inside. And we sure as shit didn’t find all of Nicole Rollins’s contacts. But why grab Donnelly? Other than revenge.”
“If that’s the case, they already killed him.”
“They might need him.”
Jack wasn’t as confident as Kane that Brad Donnelly was alive. He hoped, but he didn’t think so.
“I think,” Jack said slowly, “that Brad was grabbed solely for revenge, as you said. He killed Nicole in the SWAT raid. That would be enough.”
“Then we would have already found his body,” Kane said. “Blair knows more.”
“Agreed.”
Kane went back inside.
Jack didn’t follow.
Sometimes, it was better not to know how his friend got the information he did.
Chapter Thirty-two
GULF OF MEXICO
Sean looked for every opportunity to escape, but he was tied up and at least two men watched him at all times.
He couldn’t see where they were going, but they’d turned left—south—about a quarter mile from the breakout site and had cruised steadily between fifty and sixty miles an hour. If they were heading south, they’d hit the Gulf pretty quickly.
He was right. He could smell the change in the air, and then the van veered to the right and the road became bumpy. The driver was forced to slow down, but Sean felt every pothole in the road.
He listened as best he could, but Jimmy Hunt wasn’t talking much. No one was talking much. The tension in the van was thick, and he wasn’t surprised. There would be a manhunt for them, and because a cop was dead, it would be put together fast. The guard Sheffield might be able to delay it, but not for long … as soon as they didn’t arrive at the prison, or didn’t check in on the radio, or if someone monitoring their GPS knew they had stopped, or if a driver on the highway saw the whole thing and called it in … law enforcement would be looking for them. They’d have access to helicopters, dogs, every state and federal agency.
Fifteen minutes tops, Sean figured, and they’d already been driving for thirty.
Hunt had changed in the van—he now wore military khakis and a black T-shirt. But Sean was clearly a prisoner, standing out in his bright orange jumpsuit with HDOC stenciled on the back.
Hunt and his people had a plan. Timing mattered because Hunt kept asking about their ETA. He was texting someone almost constantly. When Sean opened his mouth to ask a question—sort of akin to “are we there yet”—he couldn’t get more than a word out before one of Hunt’s goons backhanded him.
The van turned right again, then a sharp left, slogging through gravel, and then they traveled a deeply rutted dirt road. But not for long. A minute later, the van