“All of them leave gifts, and there’s some variation but there are a few things that seem to always be the same.”
“And I can’t wait for you to tell me what those are.”
“Almost all of them leave tequila. Seems strange to me, but all of it seems strange so why not tequila, right?”
He glanced at the altar.
“Sometimes the whole bottle is included. Sometimes not. But always, if there’s tequila at all, there’s some poured into a glass or several glasses.”
“That’s so very interesting, O’Dell, that you’re putting me to sleep while I’m standing up.”
But she didn’t think he looked bored. For the first time since he entered the house, Agent McCoy looked a bit uncomfortable.
“I’ve checked with some experts.”
“There are experts?”
“Oh yeah, it’s crazy, isn’t it? They all say the tequila is poured and ready or it’s not an official offering. Sometimes people will refresh what’s in the glass, but never will they leave a glass empty. That would be disrespectful. Actually, an insult.”
She waited for his eyes to check out the glass, even though he certainly already knew it was empty. The glass was the only thing set off to the side. She hadn’t allowed the forensic team to touch anything else.
“Your prints are on the empty glass, Agent McCoy.” She said it bluntly, as a matter of fact. “I’m just wondering how that is possible when you’ve never set foot in this house. No wait, you haven’t even been in the state of Alabama.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull. I pissed you off, so this is your way of getting back at me.” He shook his head as if he were disgusted by her. “You’re a sorry piece of work, O’Dell.”
“You’ve gotten away with it for so long that you got a bit cocky. You didn’t think anyone would notice. Especially if you had your own team in here cleaning up after you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a ghost, right? No one knows what you look like. You’ve been able to arrest or kill anyone who might.”
His eyes flashed at her. Blue eyes. Ice blue.
“But your apprentice knows.”
“My apprentice? What the hell are you talking about?”
She pulled out her cell phone and hit SEND on the text that she had drafted, letting her team know it was time to come on up.
“What are you doing? What did you just do?”
“You and George Ramos have been friends for a long, long time.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“All the way back to the days when you were a simple immigration officer working for ICE. You helped him come to the States. When you got promoted and went to the DEA, you even tried to bust his old partner in the Gulf drug cartel.”
He shook his head again, but he didn’t stop her. She wondered if he was trying to figure out how she knew this or if he was plotting what to do with her.
“Howard Johnson went straight. And no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t bust him. But your buddy George got involved in a new cartel, Choque Azul. Somehow he convinced you to come along for the ride.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“You’re right about that. There are a whole lot of holes I haven’t filled and dots I can’t connect. But I’ve seen the way you look at Senator Ellie Delanor. Did you come in second to George with her, too?”
“Shut up, O’Dell. You really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“When I ended up busting George on his houseboat, he put his son Leandro in charge. You thought it should have been you, right? After all, weren’t you the one that came up with the new idea of trafficking kids?”
“That was Leandro, not me.”
She kept quiet, staring at him and waiting for him to realize his slip. When he finally did, she saw the anger before he tucked it away and replaced it with a smile.
“You can’t prove any of it.” He pointed at her chest. “What, are you wearing a wire? Thinking I might confess to your crazy-ass theory?”
“What about the fingerprints?”
“You planted those.”
“Then what about the one man who can identify you as the Iceman?”
“What are you talking about?”
McCoy’s back was to the open door when the two FBI agents brought in the young man named Falco. McCoy turned, and she watched his face fall, along with all his carefully maintained composure. From what she knew about the Iceman, he had taken great pains to put away, destroy, or kill anyone who had ever seen his face, and he had been able to do that all the way back to the days when he was an ICE agent. But McCoy didn’t know that Falco had been captured last night, so how could he get to him?
“Sorry, boss,” the young man told him. “They tricked me, too.”
Three Days Later
70
Creed grabbed the last box from Jason’s car. It was heavy, and he wondered how the kid had intended to move it on his own. Everything else he owned he’d packed into black garbage bags — the kind with the drawstring handle that could easily be carried with one hand or tucked under the arm. Sadly, there weren’t that many bags.
After talking to Hannah, they decided to offer Jason a trailer they kept on their property. It had been empty for only a few months, after Felix, one of their dog handlers, took a job on the West Coast to be closer to the new love of his life. Coincidentally, Hannah had already reserved Jason’s room at Segway House, because an available room there, no matter how small, was a commodity.
As soon as they had moved Hannah from ICU to a regular room, she insisted on being taken to Amanda’s bedside. Maggie had replaced McCoy’s DEA agent, who had been waiting to interrogate the girl, with an FBI agent to stand guard and protect her.
Creed could only imagine Hannah’s conversation with Amanda. It wasn’t often she misjudged people, and she would make sure that she made it right. He knew that she had promised Jason’s room at Segway House to Amanda, and Amanda had accepted. It was a start. She’d be safe there and well taken care of by not only Hannah, but the entire staff.
The trailer wasn’t luxurious, but Creed figured it was a considerable step up from a room at a rehab center. Jason seemed genuinely speechless at the gesture. But as Creed watched him place a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs in the refrigerator, he thought he saw a hint of a smile.
“What do you have, a load of bricks in this one?” Creed asked as he hauled the box into the living room.
“No bricks. Books. Put it down anywhere.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a reader.”
“It was my secret escape when I was in Afghanistan.”
Creed nodded. He slipped his hands in his pockets and stood in the middle of the double-wide. He remembered when they first met. The kid had a chip on his shoulder as big as Texas. Hannah kept saying Jason reminded her of him, and he didn’t see it. Refused to see it. But now he did. They had both been damaged in ways that would take a lifetime to heal.
“I can’t thank you enough for this,” Jason said.
“You might not be so thankful when it’s two o’clock in the morning and I’m pounding on the door to have you help me with a sick dog.”
“I don’t sleep that much, so that’ll be okay.”
And yet another thing they had in common.
“You saved Grace’s life,” Creed said. “Probably mine, too. I wish there was more I could do to repay you.”
“You already have.”
“A job, a place to sleep…” Creed shrugged, as if it weren’t enough. Certainly not comparable to saving two lives.
“No, you gave me a whole lot more.” Jason’s eyes got serious, and it looked like he needed to swallow hard to get the next part out. “You gave me a purpose.”