Page 19 of East

“Are you fucking with me right now?” growled East.

“Nope. I am not.”

CHAPTER TEN

“Did you find anything?” asked Brooke, staring at her father.

“Plenty,” he said in exasperation. They were sitting at a Mexican restaurant, the men all drinking beers, while Brooke sipped a virgin margarita. Plates of tamales, tacos, enchiladas, and chips with salsa and guacamole filled the table.

“Care to enlighten us?” frowned East.

“He owns them all,” said Liffey. “The mayor, the sheriff, the city police, the inspectors, everyone. Luke and Cam have an old SEAL teammate who is now with the feds down here. When I mentioned Sutton’s name, he told me to go home.”

“What the fuck? Is he taking from Sutton?” asked Eazee.

“He’s looking the other way. Not because he wants to but because his section chief has ordered him to stand down on the case against Sutton. When we bring Sutton down, the entire fucking city will be without authority or law enforcement. We need to make the governor aware that the National Guard may have to come in and take over at some point.”

“We have to get inside that mansion,” said Tanner.

“Well, we damn sure know that we can,” said Mo. “There are plenty of cameras, alarms, all the usual bullshit, but we’ve got our equipment. We should be able to disrupt the signals long enough to get inside and see what’s what.”

“And when we find it?” asked Brooke. “What then? Do you blow it up and kill everyone within a thousand miles? Do you say, ‘hey, we just broke into this mansion, and guess what we found’? We can’t just break in, find something, and not tell the world what’s there.”

“Sure, we can,” smirked her father. “We do it all the time. Sometimes, leaving the public ignorant to what’s in their backyard is a good thing, Brooke. We’re very good at doing that. I think we take a team tonight and get into the mansion. You and East stay here with Matt. That way if Sutton or one of his men come, you’ll be here, but so will backup. Make it look like Matt was joining the party.”

“Ew,” frowned Brooke.

“Gee, thanks,” laughed Matt.

“No. I didn’t mean it like that,” she blushed.

“I know, honey. But he’s right. Your dad is pretty fucking good at breaking into shit. With Tanner, Bogey, Mo, Eazee, and Cowboy, they’ll know how to get past all the bells and whistles of the mansion. Once inside, we can use our lidar to search below the mansion and find a fucking way inside.”

“And what if they’re wrong? What if Sutton’s wife moved everything to another location, and it’s just a big empty house?”

“I don’t know what then, but at least we’ll know. This will help us to get where we want to be.”

Shortly after midnight, they pulled into the Franklin Mountain Reserve. It wasn’t gated or guarded, but there was only one residence on the entire damn property. Sutton’s. Or at least his wife’s.

“Sensors are going off like crazy,” said Tanner. “They’ve got the entire area wired.”

“Can you disrupt everything?” asked Mo.

“Doing it now. Sensors are disrupted, cameras are frozen on a loop, and the gate is opening up ahead to the house.”

They rounded the bend, seeing the massive three-story Victorian mansion. It was woefully out of place with the rest of El Paso. Whoever built it planned on staying for a while and claiming the area as their own. Just being able to build on the mountain meant that someone had a helluva lot of money to throw at officials.

The front door had multiple alarms and locks. While Tanner worked on the alarms, Liffey worked his magic with the locks. When he turned, opening the door, the others just grinned.

“Interesting skills to have,” smirked Eazee.

“Be nice and I’ll teach you,” said Liffey. Inside the mansion, they found it exactly as the agent had described. Completely empty.

“Well, this isn’t creepy at all, is it?” frowned Cowboy.

“What’s creepier is that there isn’t one speck of dust,” said Tanner, running a hand along the stair railing. He held up his hand, frowning.

“No dust? Someone is coming up here and cleaning this place,” frowned Mo.

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