Gone Too Far (Devlin & Falco #2) - Debra Webb Page 0,64
“But his aunt seems awfully certain he was squeaky clean.” Kerri was the one shrugging now. “Then again, sometimes family is the last to know.” On a purely personal level the idea scared the hell out of her.
Falco’s gaze narrowed, and his lips thinned. “But not Cross.” He moved his head side to side. “Cross is adamant about Walsh’s antidrug standing. The aunt might have missed the mark when reading her nephew, but Cross wouldn’t have. No way. He wouldn’t be able to fool her.”
“I have to agree with you there. I can’t see Sadie missing that about him.” Kerri drew in a deep breath, mostly to slow the pounding in her chest. She watched the anger dance across her partner’s face.
“They want us to believe Walsh was buying from Kurtz,” he said, the fury simmering in his voice.
Kerri could see the beauty in the plan. It flipped everything. “It was a simple drug deal gone wrong. Territory dispute or something like that.”
Falco braced his hands on his hips. “I saw this kind of cover-up all the time when I was undercover. This is the way you shift attention to make the potential witness or, in this case, the victim, look dirty. Walsh loses credibility, and the investigation turns in a whole different direction.”
“How do you suppose his father is going to react to this?”
“I was wondering the same thing.” Falco’s nostrils flared with a big breath. “Someone is working hard to change the direction of this investigation. Someone who was there the night Walsh and Kurtz died.”
“The shooter,” Kerri suggested, “or the one who gave the order.”
“Cross thinks McGill may have been the source Kurtz and Walsh were going to confront.”
Kerri considered the idea, then said, “What do you think?”
“I think she’s onto something. McGill had opportunity. She could be the link between the shop and the cartel’s local, low-level distributor. Cross thinks her motive is money. She’s doing some more digging.” He held Kerri’s gaze for a moment. “Whatever she finds, this is going to get ugly, Devlin.”
“This case isn’t the only one getting ugly.”
Falco cocked his head. “What’d you find out from your friend?”
“Sue says there was a girl—she wouldn’t ID the kid—who came to her about Alice Cortez’s bizarre behavior.” Kerri shrugged. “Rituals related to Santeria. Allegedly, Alice and the two girls who attempted suicide were practicing these bizarre rituals. Sue insisted on speaking to the girl before giving me her name. She’s supposed to call me as soon as she has talked to her.”
“There are extremists who do some weird shit in the name of Santeria,” Falco said. “Did you learn anything about the family who took in the Cortez girl?”
“That’s another strange aspect of all this. I can’t find anything on these people before August of last year. It’s like they appeared out of thin air to be available for Alice. Their Alabama driver’s licenses were issued in August of last year. They rented the house here in the same month. Bought the big Escalade they drive in August. The man, José Cortez, started his job at a warehouse over by the port in August. The woman has a nursing degree from UAB, yet I couldn’t find any record of her attending the University of Alabama here or anywhere else.”
“Sounds like someone set up new identities for these folks and planted them here.”
Kerri nodded. “Like a bought-and-paid-for, ready-made family.”
“Damn.” Falco shook his head. “What about Alice? Did you find anything on her?”
“Not one thing except that she supposedly lived in Mexico with her parents, who died in a car crash, and now she’s here. It’s all very vague. The dead father was supposedly the brother of the man, José Cortez, who took Alice in. It’s all too clean but at the same time very ambiguous.”
“Less information provides less to dissect,” Falco offered.
“Exactly.” Kerri frowned. “It’s hard to follow leads when there are none.”
“Maybe,” Falco said slowly as if he were still laying out the theory in his head, “these people are in witness protection?”
“I considered that possibility,” Kerri granted, “but I figured if it was the feds, they would have moved the family out of Alabama as soon as that first trouble happened at Walker Academy.”
“Yeah, yeah. They would have. Definitely.” Falco considered their limited information. “Unless no one informed the family’s contact. Alice’s name didn’t come up—publicly, anyway—in the Walker Academy incident. So far, no one’s fingered her in the Myers girl’s death. It’s possible there’s a lapse in communication. Whatever is going