Hidden Agenda (9 page)

“Promise what?” She set her coffee on the hearth beside him, then reached out and took his hand. “I need you to tell me what you know about my father, Felipe. Please. Michael told me that he's suspected of being involved in the cartel. That his ‘business' is really a front for laundering money, and there's a chance that he's La Sombra, the leader of the Cártel de Rey. Please tell me none of that is true.”

“Those are a lot of heavy accusations.”

“Yes, they are.”

“What do you think?” he asked.

She let go of his hand and sat back, still unsure what was true
and what was a lie. “That my parents tried to shelter Ivan and me from the truth, and might have been successful, if it hadn't been for what Ivan saw today.”

Felipe sighed. “Your father's made a lot of money over the years, Olivia, but most—if not all of it—was made through illegal ventures.”

Any seeds of hope that had lingered vanished completely. “So what Michael said is true. My father isn't just a businessman?”

“Antonio is your father, and I've always respected that fact. I respected your mother's wishes that you and Ivan never find out the truth, because I knew she loved him. But now . . . after tonight . . . after what Ivan saw, everything has changed.”

She'd already faced a number of unpleasant truths over the past few hours, but from the look on Felipe's face, she was pretty sure she'd just uncovered another.

“You were in love with her, weren't you? My mother.”

Felipe rubbed his day-old beard, clearly hesitant at giving her the answers she needed.

“Felipe, please. I need to know the truth.”

“Yes, I was in love with her, but it's much more complicated than that.”

“Complicated how?”

“Your mother belonged to Antonio, and no one messed with what belonged to him. Men have died for less than that.”

“And did she love you as well?”

“She thought it best that you didn't know the truth about our relationship.”

Olivia swallowed hard. “And my father, is he La Sombra?”

“There are some who believe he is. There are others who say La Sombra doesn't exist. That his brutal image was created to keep people in line.”

“And you? What do you say?”

Felipe pressed his palms against his knees. “There are things
you don't know, Olivia. Things I promised your mother I'd go to my grave never telling anyone. Not you, not Ivan . . . no one. I promised your mother I'd look after you and Ivan. I only wanted to protect you and make sure you were safe.”

Olivia felt anger take the place of the fear. “My mother's dead, which means that any secrets you're still keeping are only hurting me and Ivan. Tell me, Felipe. I'm tired of all the secrets.”

“Olivia, the three of you were the only family I had after leaving Mexico,” he said. “Which is why your protection has always been important to me. As for the secrets, if your father had ever found out my feelings toward your mother—and her feelings toward me—he would have killed us both.”

She should have seen this coming. Should have realized that Felipe had been more than just a surrogate father taking the place of an absent one. Should have realized that he'd been more than a family friend to her mother.

He took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, Olivia. I never meant to deceive you or hurt you, you have to understand that. Things were so complicated, the stakes so high. Your mother did what she believed best in order to keep you safe.”

“Including lying to me?” Olivia's mind reeled with the information he'd just handed her. “I should check on Michael.”

“You really think you can trust him?”

“You're asking me about trust?” Olivia bit back more angry words. Fighting with Felipe wasn't going to change anything, but that didn't erase the pain gnawing at her. “There's another problem I haven't told you about yet. Michael got that gunshot wound from stopping a convenience store robbery just a few hours ago. We got away before the police came, but there were security cameras.”

“Which means your photos are about to be plastered all over the news.” Felipe quickly put two and two together. “And when your father sees the photos, he'll figure out who Michael really
is, and know that you're involved. Olivia, what were you thinking, risking your life for a stranger?”

“That a man was about to be murdered.” She turned and headed for the bedroom to check on Michael, leaving Felipe alone to deal with the sins of his past.

A
very North sat at her desk at the precinct and pressed redial on her phone, trying for the third time in fifteen minutes to get ahold of her daughter. She glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall, her fingers drumming against the desk in sync with her tapping foot. She shouldn't worry. Tess had probably left her phone in her backpack again while she hung out at her best friend Sabrina's house. But she couldn't convince herself of that, and concern nagged in the pit of her stomach.

Maybe she was overreacting, but life as she knew it had forever changed nine days ago when the safe world she'd tried to create for her daughter had been shattered.

She hung up the unanswered call, then dropped the phone onto her desk. She might have made the conscious choice to face the ugly realities of this world every day, but that decision had not included Tess. The realization that she wasn't in total control of her daughter's life had struck hard, and the aftermath of the ordeal had been just as traumatic as the ransom and kidnapping.

She shifted in her chair, the gunshot wound in her leg still aching. Both she and Tess had been left with emotional as well as physical scars. Healing would come, but the fact that her
daughter had been forced to deal with issues no thirteen-year-old should have to face had added another layer of guilt to what she already carried as a single mom. Guilt that highlighted her own weaknesses and fears, pushing her to the place where the only way she could hang on some days was to rely solely on God's strength.

Avery fiddled with her engagement ring while staring at the stack of paperwork she needed to tackle. Moving up her wedding to Valentine's Day had sent Mama into a tizzy, but while Mama might believe that the words “simple” and “southern” couldn't be uttered in the same sentence, this was her wedding. She and Jackson had cut the guest list to a minimum, settled on a quiet, cozy setting, and started writing their own vows.

She picked up the family photo sitting on the edge of her desk and ran her finger across the glass frame. They needed to take a new one to include Jackson, but a photo without Michael would make his death seem all the more final. She still missed him. Still thought about him every day. Knew that her mother was still grappling with losing her only son.

Mason knocked on the open door of her office, wearing his typical jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket. She motioned him in. Not too long ago, she would have objected to the undercover cop's presence in her office, but that was before he'd helped save Tess's life and stolen the heart of her sister, Emily. Today, he was once again a part of the Hunt family.

She studied his sullen expression as he moved in front of her desk, his laptop under his arm. “You don't look happy. What's wrong?”

Before she could answer, the captain stepped into her office behind Mason and shut the door.

Avery pushed her chair back and stood up. “Captain Peterson.”

“I need you to watch something.”

The familiar feeling of unease welled up inside her. Emotionally,
she'd barely made it through the past couple of weeks. She wasn't ready for another bombshell to hit.

Mason flipped open his laptop while she sat down again, and set it on the desk facing her. Seconds later, video footage began playing on the screen. The black-and-white recording of the inside of a convenience store captured the cashier and a woman paying for her purchases.

She watched as a man wearing a beanie came up from behind and pressed a gun against the woman and started shouting at the cashier.

Avery looked up at Mason. “Why are you showing me this?”

Mason glanced at the captain, then back at Avery. “I'm not sure how to ease into a conversation like this.” He paused, adding to the unspoken tension in the room. “We believe Michael is on this video.”

“Michael?”

Mason froze the footage as a second man moved into view on the left of the screen. “Right there.”

Avery blinked, trying to process the information. She'd seen the rubble of the warehouse where Michael had been killed in the explosion. She'd read the medical examiner's report and watched them carry his empty casket out of the chapel. There might not have been enough left of Michael to identify, but she'd never doubted that her brother was dead.

She braced her hands on the desk, her fingers gripping its edge, while an eerie numbness spread through her. “You know that's not possible. The ME was able to positively identify his remains. We buried him eight months ago. Both of you were there.” Avery leaned closer to study the picture. “I'll admit it looks like him, but Michael's dead. This doesn't even make sense.”

“We found his prints. The captain called in a few favors so I could personally hand the prints over to the lab for a rush job.
They confirmed that the prints were Michael's, based on ones we have on file.”

Avery shook her head, still not buying it. Someone could have tampered with the evidence. Tampered with the fingerprints on file . . .

“Where did you find his prints?” she asked.

“On the fifty-dollar bill he handed the cashier.”

She drew in a slow breath, feeling as if she'd just stepped into a nightmare. But for now, all she could do was keep asking questions. The more she knew, the faster she could find a way to untangle this mess.

“Where did this footage come from?”

“A local gas station and convenience store about thirty minutes from here.”

“Play it again.”

Avery watched as the video played a second time. Moments after Michael—or whoever the man was—appeared on the screen, the other man shot at him. Michael shot back, and the man dropped to the ground. Michael put a bill on the counter, then grabbed the girl. A second later he was gone.

“What about the man he shot?”

“He's a local drug dealer. He should make it, but he's not talking yet.”

Avery stopped the footage and sat down in her chair, refusing to believe what she'd just seen. Michael was not alive. He hadn't just shot someone. Hadn't just grabbed some girl in the middle of the robbery and dragged her out of the store. It couldn't be Michael. Because Michael would never betray his family and cause them such heartache.

“This is crazy. It can't possibly be Michael.”

She'd worked for months to clear her brother's name and ensure that the rumors of him betraying the department were laid to rest. Michael had been working undercover before
his death, assigned to infiltrate a group of suspected drug and arms dealers. He'd been killed in a bomb explosion, but instead of hailing him as a hero, the department had criminalized him, accusing him of selling sensitive information to the dealers.

Not once had she believed the unsubstantiated reports to be true. And with Charlie's death, the true identity of the informant had been revealed, which only cemented in her mind that her brother was innocent. She wasn't going to let them drag his reputation through the mud again.

“Avery?”

She glanced up at Mason and caught the concern in his voice. Mason and Michael might have been best friends for years, but even he couldn't fully understand what her family had gone through because of the accusations marring her brother's name.

Mason sat down on the edge of the desk. “The higher-ups believe he's been working for the cartel, and that he shot and killed a rival. I don't believe any of it, but—”

“You can't be serious.” Avery shoved her chair back and stood up, ready for a fight. “Before Michael died, he was trying to take down the cartel, not work with them. And he certainly wasn't a dirty cop.”

“I'm doing everything I can to keep this quiet,” the captain said, “but there's a reporter barking up this tree, which means the video is eventually going to hit the news.”

Avery's temples pulsed as her mind scrambled for an explanation that would counter the accusations against her brother. “Who's the woman in the video?”

“We've identified her as Olivia Hamilton. Her father's name is Antonio Valez. He's a real estate broker with rumored ties to the cartel Michael was investigating. There are even rumors that his role goes beyond possible money laundering and that he actually is the notorious La Sombra. But even with half a
dozen federal agencies breathing down his neck, he's managed so far to avoid any kind of conviction.”

“So, back up. You're actually telling me that my brother somehow faked his own death and has spent the last eight months working for Antonio Valez, aka La Sombra?”

“Until we speak to Michael,” the captain said, “we can try to interpret the video however we want, but that's what it looks like to me, and I'm not the only one. Unfortunately, you and I both know that this isn't the only evidence we have against your brother.”

Avery's anger dug into her at the captain's clipped words. She'd seen the “evidence” they'd used to identify the mole. Michael had been involved in several key operations that had allowed him access to sensitive information. After his death, the police had discovered this information on a laptop hidden in his apartment.

“The only evidence found against my brother was circumstantial and you know it. Planted, most likely, by Charlie Bains, who is now dead. That case is closed.”

“What if it's not?” Mason asked.

“You were his best friend,” Avery shot back. “You know as well as I do that Michael wasn't capable of this. He loved his job. Loved his family. Loved his country, and he would never betray any of them. In fact, if you want my opinion, if that really is Michael, it looks like a robbery to me, and he just saved a woman.”

“I agree that Michael wasn't capable of doing anything criminal,” Mason said, “but I also know he was working undercover and none of us know at this point exactly what he was involved in.”

“There are those who are going to say that your brother killed a member of the cartel, then grabbed Valez's daughter to use her as leverage,” the captain said.

“And they'd be wrong,” Avery said.

The captain cleared his throat. “Avery, I know your family is close, and I know that Michael always had a pristine record, but money can change people. The cartel's gross profit easily exceeds DuPont and Coca-Cola. How hard would it have been for him to say yes to an offer that would bring in ten times what he made in a year?”

She would never believe that. “Not Michael.”

“Listen,” the captain continued, “I wanted to come to you personally, before all this hits full force, because you're going to be caught in the middle. You're going to be asked if you've heard from your brother. If you've seen him. If he's really dead.”

“I've told you the truth this entire time.” Avery clenched her fists, ready to strike the next person who tried to convince her that her brother was guilty. “We buried my brother eight months ago. As far as I know, he's dead.”

“Just know that I'll continue to back you up, but if I find out you're lying—or protecting a fugitive—you're going to have a hard time saving your career.”

The captain's comment stung, making her feel as if she were boxing in the dark, with no way to see who she was fighting against.

Avery skirted around her desk and faced the captain. “You're saying that Michael walked away from his home, his family, and his career all for a paycheck, but I don't buy that. Michael loved what he did. He believed in what he did, and nothing you can tell me—no video or any piece of so-called evidence—can convince me otherwise. If this is true . . . there has to be a logical explanation to what he's been doing these past eight months.”

The captain took a step toward the door, then paused. “Here's the bottom line. We've been looking for a way to bring down the cartel working in this area for a long time, and innocent or not, I believe your brother is the key. We need to bring him in,
and I need you to help me, because while he wasn't worth much to us dead, he's worth everything to us if he's alive. He could mean access into the cartel.”

Avery started to speak, but the captain wasn't finished.

“We also think Michael was shot, which means he's going to need medical attention. And if I'm right, he might be contacting you soon. So while I'm putting you in charge of this investigation, it's not because I think it's the wisest thing to do, but because you know this case inside and out. And just so we're clear, I expect to be kept in the loop. Because whatever the truth ends up being, your brother's in way over his head.”

Mason broke his silence as soon as the captain left the room. “I'm sorry. If I could have warned you—”

“This wasn't your fault.” She looked up at him, wondering if any of her arguments were worth anything. “It's just that I spent months trying to prove his innocence, and I meant what I said. No matter what kind of evidence they have, no matter what kind of proof, nothing will convince me that he sold us out.”