Cut and Run (Lucy Kincaid #16) - Allison Brennan Page 0,103
never learn to be at peace with what happened to your family if you don’t go back and face your fears. Face the people who did this. JJ will protect you. The FBI agent, Nate Dunning, he will protect you. You can trust him.”
“How do you know? You just met him.”
“Because sometimes you know what is right and who you can trust. It’s a little faith and a lot of experience. JJ would never have brought him here if he didn’t trust him.”
“I want to stay here.”
“If you want to come back, after you give your grandparents a real chance to love you and care for you, you know how to reach me.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You will do the right thing because you are a good soul. Sometimes, we have to do what is right even if it’s not what we want. Even when it’s hard.”
He got up and walked out.
Ricky stared after him. He didn’t want to leave.
But it was the right thing to do.
Chapter Twenty-five
THURSDAY AFTERNOON
Lucy had left two messages for Detective Reed. The first in the morning and the second while she was driving back to San Antonio. She still hadn’t called her back, and it was already after twelve.
Lucy headed over to the crime lab to talk to Ash Dominguez about the Victoria Mills murder. It might get her in trouble, but Ash was a friend as well as a colleague and he’d understand her need for confidentiality. Still, she wanted to give Reed a chance, so tried her a third time. Again, she left a message.
She’d just pulled up to the lab when her phone rang, and she hoped it was Reed, as the number was unfamiliar. She answered, but before she could get out hello she was treated to a verbal assault.
“You executed a search warrant on Southwest Bank and Frank Pollero? Without even a courtesy phone call?”
“Who is this?” Lucy demanded.
“Detective Garrett Douglas. You read me the riot act the other day for not jumping through your hoops when you want to talk, then you come to my county tossing around search warrants, interviewing old women, issuing BOLOs, without so much as a text message. And you wonder why everyone hates the fucking FBI? It’s bullshit like this.”
“Detective Douglas,” she said, working hard not to yell back or hang up, “I was under no obligation to report the warrant to you. It’s a federal investigation as you told me several times during our conversation on Tuesday.”
“Do you know what it’s like to be a cop in a small town? When you can’t fucking tell people what’s going on, they think you’re an idiot or out of the loop. The sheriff is pissed off, and your boss will be hearing from him!”
“That is your prerogative. If that’s all, Detective, I have—”
“And I was willing to help you, I just didn’t like you and your tough-guy partner coming in here and demanding shit on a three-year-old case.”
“You have a complaint, file it.” Lucy was shaking, she was so angry. “We set a meeting on Monday that you couldn’t be bothered to show up at, then you give us ten minutes on Tuesday and say that you already turned everything over to the FBI. It didn’t sound like you wanted to be involved at all, so we’re moving forward.”
“Three years later. We had every reason to believe that the Albrights had left the country. I’m sorry they were killed, had I known I would have done everything in my power to find their killer. And you’re running all over my town interviewing my citizens without the common courtesy of letting me know.”
If she’d told him, would he have warned Frank? As it was, Frank must have been suspicious.
“We first went to the bank. Pollero called in sick. So we went to his home because we had more questions. He wasn’t there. He lied to me yesterday, and he lied to you three years ago.”
“I know Frank. He’s a good man. Knew his wife, too.” His voice lost some of its angry edge, so Lucy continued.
“He still lied. Denise Albright didn’t go to the bank that Friday. The photo he provided wasn’t her. It could have been, just like the border security photo could have been Glen Albright. But he wasn’t convincing, and today we identified the person as Kitty Fitzpatrick. We came back with a warrant for all of Albright’s records and now our financial experts are going through them and comparing signatures from