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“You’re thinking this is about revenge?”
“Hannah turned the leader’s girl.”
“Good point.”
“They could have killed Hannah in Baltimore easy enough,” Eva said.
“You know better than that. They didn’t kill her when they had the chance. With her witness taken like that, you know they assigned her a protective detail and had a surveillance team watching her.” Ross scrubbed a hand across his short cropped hair. “How could they have known she’d go to the truck stop?”
“All it would take is an anonymous tip that something’s going down at the truck stop,” Rick reminded them. “The cartel just has to plant the seed. Take out a key employee and the roots sink deeper. Bart’s ‘woman’ won’t sit by and watch him take the fall. It gives them a shot to clear out Bart and Hannah with one strike.”
“But how did they know she’s with Bart?” Eva changed up the display on one of the monitors, bringing up the records for Hannah’s cover story in Baltimore. “The relationship wasn’t exactly public.”
“Her witness was the leader’s woman,” Ross muttered. “Do you think it’s an eye for an eye thing going on?”
“One of many women probably,” Eva grumbled.
“Then the idea that Hannah would naturally help Bart came from someone else,” Ross said, returning to Rick’s two-for-one theory. “Pull up details on those lieutenants. They died too close to the same time as the girlfriend.”
Eva’s fingers flew over her keyboard. Names and records started to fill the monitors. “This will take some time to backtrack their last days.”
“Focus on their last forty-eight hours,” Ross said. “Target the nail salon and activity around the house.”
“You got it.”
“Did you email me those aerial shots?”
Eva paused. “They went through. You have the links.”
“Great, thanks. Rick, you’re with me.” Ross turned for the door. “Keep us in the loop.”
“Always.”
Ross hesitated. “Bart too.”
“I beg your pardon?” Eva’s brows arched high over her eyes. “His lines are tapped.”
“And we need to figure out why. Let him know we have a theory and we’re watching his back.”
Her expression sobered instantly. “You are not going hunting without me.”
Rick smothered a laugh. Ross smiled at her. “Wouldn’t think of it. Put the intel together and follow us. Rick and I are off to round up the rest of our impromptu task force.”
Ross laughed when Eva shooed them out of her office, her eyes already back on her computer monitors.
Chapter 12
The office door openedand Hannah sat up quickly when Bart walked in, his face gray. “Email from Eva.” He held up his phone. “Mary Lou’s body was found in a ditch about fifty miles north. Her rig is missing.”
Hannah dropped her head into her hands. So much for breaking Tim’s code and getting a lead on the mobile meth lab. She didn’t know what to do now, only that she wanted to break something, starting with Gonzales.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“I heard the page. Who called?”
“My boss. It’s nothing serious.”
