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“He knows about the wiretap, right?”
She nodded. Eager to change the subject, she showed him what she’d found. “The cartel was using Mary Lou’s rig and another fleet vehicle Tim was tracking. But I think Krystal was the cartel’s way to make a point in the loudest way possible with me personally.”
“Revenge.”
“Looks that way.”
“She must have talked about you, maybe encouraged her man to leave the gang with her.”
“No. She knew Gonzales wouldn’t walk away from the power.” Hannah rubbed at her temples, gave a frustrated growl. “Hell, I didn’t think she would walk away. I’m the worst.”
“You didn’t kidnap and torture her.”
“No, I just showed her a different life, gave her a fantasyland of options.” She drilled a finger into her chest, the guilt gripping her heart. “I just told her she could start over in a safe place if she turned on the father of her child and all of it would have been an illusion.”
“That’s crap. If you’d managed to get her out, she would have had real opportunities.”
Hannah shook her head. “I used to have your confidence.” The short term goal had slipped so far out of her control she wasn’t sure she remembered the initial long term objective.
“Talk to me, Hannah.”
Oh sure. Just as soon as I find the words. She hated how her work and her botched operation had involved Bart’s truck stop and gotten an innocent man killed. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Bull. Where you are now isn’t the point.” Bart pushed back from the computer. “You’re after a cartel operating up and down this interstate.”
She shook her head. “It’s my fault Krystal died. My connection to you is why they did that to Tim. Now Mary Lou…”
“No.” He gave her a gentle shake. “They used you to justify their horrific actions against that girl. It’s a twisted, selfish perspective they used, killing her on the assumption she told you something valuable. You know better.”
She used to think so. “But how? How could they know so much about me personally that they’d predict my run down here?”
“My opinion?”
She nodded.
“Based on Tim’s notes, and the other stuff,” he tapped his ear. “I think they’ve had someone watching this place for months. Tracking the comings and goings of all of the DEA agents who visit my place.”
“Maybe.”
“Look back at the first entry in that book.”
She flipped to the page. “It’s the weekend we met in Vegas.”
“My point exactly,” he said. “They gathered intel, made a plan, and put it in motion when I left.”
“Thinking no one else would notice. It makes sense and explains a few of the changes in Tim’s shorthand.”
Bart nodded. “Unless you acted too quickly on intel you inferred during your visits to that nail salon.”
“Right.” She wanted to scream, to rail against the futility of it all. “Of course that happened,” she snapped. “I had my mani-pedi, chatted with Krystal and then dashed right out to break up a dealer’s payday.”
“Hannah, I’m not blaming you.”
His acceptance and his sympathy only infuriated her more. She didn’t want to feel this need for his support, but it was there and it wasn’t going away. “You should. Tim is dead and it’s likely because the minute I heard the name of your truck stop, I nosed around for more details and I pushed too hard.”
“That is not true.” His big hands landed on her shoulders again, his grip firm and steady. “The cartel is evil and devious and well-funded. That’s the nature of it. Simple fact. They have a longer reach than we thought, so we adapt. Your witness wanted out to protect her baby. They would have stopped her eventually, whether she tried to leave with your help or with someone else.”
He was right. She knew that, believed it on a logical level, but it didn’t lift the stain on her soul. The stain that started withKrystal and seeped deeper with the deaths of Tim and Mary Lou… and now Bart was in the crosshairs. She rubbed at the goosebumps on her arms. Nothing less than vindication could make her feel clean again.
