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She smiled slyly, drank, said, “We made out for show, but that’s as far as we took it. Jamal was a good guy, under his bravado and bullshit. One of his friends got him hooked up with the gig after he lost his job as a bartender, then things spiraled from there. He knew it was dangerous—he was working for some serious bad guys with ties to a Mexican cartel. He also knew if he didn’t get out, he’d be dead or in jail.
“Long story short, the night the shipment came in, I was there with Jamal. I’d already gone on a few jobs with him, to show I could be trusted, but this was the big one. Everything had to go right—the Coast Guard had to nab the boat as it left, LBPD had to nab the dockworker who’d been paid off, and I had to stick with Jamal through to the delivery at the distributor. Unfortunately, he wasn’t alone. The thugs that brokered the deal insisted on coming with us, so we couldn’t risk having LBPD follow. Even Jamal didn’t know where he was going until we picked up the junk. But I had a tracker in my bra—couldn’t risk a phone or any visible electronics—and LBPD would be at the house within minutes. My job, once there, was to get Jamal to safety and let LBPD get the bust.
“It didn’t get that far.”
Matt could almost see it before she said it.
“There was a federal investigation,” she continued. “And the fucking feds didn’t clue in the local police department until minutes before the raid—and they called the desk sergeant, not the chief, who knew exactly what we were doing. By the time the chief was told, it was too late to shut anything down. We were in the truck, we had the drugs in the back, I’d activated the tracker, and FBI SWAT moved in under the direction of guess who?”
He didn’t have to guess, so he said nothing.
“I’m damn lucky the two assholes in the back didn’t jump out guns blazing, because Jamal and I would be dead. After a few tense minutes, they got out and we all complied with the orders. I was livid. We had a good plan, and the fucking FBI blew it. They separated all of us and lucky me, I got the car with Bryce Thornton. Newly promoted to SSA, this was his first big operation. He was in charge. I immediately told him who I was, out of earshot from the goons. In the back of my mind I was hoping there was some way to salvage the op. He looked me up and down—remember, I dressed the part. Torn jeans, skimpy tank top, dyed my hair black and wore more makeup than I do in a month. He said, ‘I already told you, you have the right to remain silent, so shut the fuck up.’
“At this point, I was worried about Jamal—I didn’t want him to do or say anything around the thugs he planned to betray. I had promised him after tonight he would be free. Thornton got on his radio, barking orders, and I turned to the SWAT guy who was guarding me as we stood next to the SUV. I identified myself, gave my badge number, the name of my supervisor, and told him to take the cuffs off. To his credit, he looked at Thornton and said, ‘Maybe we should confirm.’ Thornton shut him down. I’ll never forget what he said. ‘She’s been fucking Jamal Warner for the last three weeks. She’s been with him on his last two jobs. No way she’s a cop.’ Then he looked at me and said, ‘If you are a cop, you won’t be after tonight.’”
Kara drank heavily, said, “I may have said some things that riled him up at that point.”
“We’re trained not to react to verbal attacks,” Matt said.
“You’ve never been verbally attacked by me,” she said, not smiling. “He was angry, and by the time my boss arrived, Thornton wanted to arrest me for assaulting a federal officer. I may have made a comment that it’s not a crime to describe his tiny dick in microscopic detail. They’d already taken Jamal and the others away, and I needed to get Jamal out of this. I had promised.”
Matt knew that Kara internalized all her cases, and her word meant everything to her.
“My boss convinced SWAT to remove the cuffs and ordered me to walk away. I had enough sense to do just that but I didn’t get far. Thornton wasn’t going to honor our deal with Jamal—he was getting charged with a whole series of crimes that we had told him would go away for his cooperation. We had the DA’s office behind us. Thornton said he didn’t have to honor it, and would also be filing a report against me, against Long Beach Police Department, yada, yada. My boss, who was cool as a cucumber until then, told him to go to hell, completely reamed him. I enjoyed watching the tongue-lashing. Probably was smirking. Thornton stormed off and passed me. He said, ‘I will have your badge, and your fuck buddy Jamal Warner will not see the outside of a cage for the next twenty years.’ And then I hit him.”
Matt didn’t say anything for a minute.
Kara finally said, “You think I was wrong.”
“No. I mean, you probably should have restrained yourself, but he clearly had it coming. What happened to Jamal?”
“I almost lost him. Thornton did not back down. I was suspended for three days, told to stay far away from the case or lose my badge. I was young and stupid and thought I couldn’t trust anyone. Long Beach proved me wrong. The chief of police went to bat for Jamal, went all the way to the top, shared intel with the FBI about their operation and recordings Jamal had made, and in the end, if Jamal agreed to testify, they’d put him in WITSEC and he’d have a new life. It wasn’t exactly what we had promised—he had wanted to go home, where he was raised in Houston. But he was alive, and he was free, and ultimately, we put the bad guys in prison. Well, the feds got credit. As a condition of letting Jamal off the hook, the feds took our case. The only consolation was that Bryce Thornton was pulled.”
“And he’s held a grudge ever since.”
“He’s tried to bring me up on charges multiple times over the years. Lex always handled it. It seemed every time I turned around, he had a complaint about me. But I’m serious, Matt. If he had anything to do with outing Colton, I want him for murder.”
“So do I,” Matt said.
She looked surprised when he said it, then she smiled. Put her beer down and crossed over to where he sat on the opposite side of the hot tub. Standing, her breasts were inches from his face. She leaned over, kissed him as she straddled him. He clutched her.
“We should go inside,” he said.
“In a minute or two...” she murmured against his ear. She reached down, felt how hard he was and bit his earlobe. He grabbed her waist and brought her down on him.
Then he was lost inside her.
5
Matt sat in the conference room on one side of the table. Rebecca Chavez was at the head, a small stack of files in front of her. Chandler, Thornton and Agent Tom Schroder were across from him. Opposite from Chavez was Special Agent Sloane Wagner, designated secretary for the meeting.
The setup was needlessly adversarial, but if that was the way they wanted to play it, so be it.
ASAC Rebecca Chavez had insisted on the meeting, claimed she wanted to “mend fences” with the national office over what she called “a misunderstanding.” Matt had asked that Brian Granderson be present, but Chavez said it wasn’t necessary to bring in her boss, that she was confident they could resolve any problems themselves.
Chavez was in her forties and appeared the consummate professional. Short, neatly styled dark hair, intelligent eyes, impeccable suit, classy jewelry. She’d been with the Bureau for as long as Matt—nearly sixteen years. Her first career had been as an accountant for a major Wall Street firm. Her specialty was white-collar crimes, and she had a solid but unremarkable career. She was known to be meticulous and didn’t make waves.
George Chandler was young for an assistant US attorney, hired two years ago right out of law school. He hadn’t prosecuted any high-profile cases and had been handed the Chen investigation likely because his bosses didn’t see it going anywhere.
