After we arrangedfor the plane ticket to Vail for Esme, and Rhett’s brother Rock agreed to pick her up and keep her safe, we had Carver call in two security guys to watch over my dad at the rehab center.We weren’t taking any risks with the people weloved.
Rock knew there was a threat, and he promised he would take good care of Esme and Mrs.Hennessy.
Between Rhett and me, we called Heath six times.Each time, his voice mailpickedup.
Rhett ended the last call and turned to me, his expression serious.“I didn’t want to believe it.Fuck, I still don’twantto.”
In this moment, I had some idea of how Rhett felt when faced with first, the possibility of his brother being a dirty cop, and thenhisdad.
The choking disbelief.The visceral denial.The fear that it could be true.The last shred of hope I held on to that we could have gotten it allwrong.
I walked back to the printouts of the IA reports on the table and picked up the papers, hating that my brother’s initials were oneachone.
“He had to have a reason, right?He wouldn’t do this without a reason.”My logical, rational mind was fracturing under the weight ofemotion.
Rhett turned, his lips pressed into a flat line.“We need to talk to him.That’s the only way we’re going to getanswers.”
I heard what he wasn’t saying—the kind of answers I never got frommydad.
I took a deep breath and pushed the emotion out of the picture in favor of cold, impersonal logic.“Why would a cartel care about someone in IA?Does that even make sense?Wouldn’t they want someone in anotherdepartment?”
“IA has total oversight over the department.They police thepolice.”
“If I were cartel, total oversight soundsattractivethen.”
Rhett nodded.“It makes a sick sort of sense.In his position, Heath can get into everything happening in the department.Very little information would be off-limits if he had even a shred of a reason to need toknowit.”
If I were brutal and cunning, it sounded exactly like where I’dstrike.
“I hate this.I hate it so much.What if ...What if he didn’t have anything to do with it, and we’re condemning him because he’s not here to defendhimself?”
“Ari,Iknow—”
I cut him off.“We have tofindhim!”
“Track his cell.Find out where he is, and we’ll go pick him up if he won’t answer the damnthing.”
If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have already come to that conclusion myself.I rushed to my laptop.“Onit.”
57
Rhett
Ari couldn’t geta lock on Heath’s location, and my guess was his phone was off.I grabbed the stack of call records and scanned the list.Plenty of numbers I didn’t recognize.Burner phones.Throwaways.The kind that CIs would most likely use ...or possibly cartelconnections.
“Can you get any info on these two numbers he calledregularly?”
Ari’s fingers flew over the keys.“Icantry.”
Within minutes, she’d identified the point of purchase of the burner phones as a small town on the Texas-Mexicoborder.
Her jaw clenched.“I really don’t like this.Notatall.”
I leaned over her and rested my chin on her head.“I don’t either, Ari.But he wouldn’t be the first cop to make a bad decision and have it go a lot further than hethought.”
We both knew I was talking about my dad.Even now, I wondered what the hell he had to dowiththis.
Why would Heath drag out the investigation?There was one otherpossibility...