Page 138 of Deep Tide

“You still the lead on the Albright case?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He handed her the folder, which was presumably intended for Brady.

Nicole stepped over to the reception desk and set down her car keys. Then she opened the folder and found a stack of printouts. Each page contained a color photograph.

“What are these?” she asked.

“Amelia’s pictures.”

She stared down at a photo of Amelia wearing a white bikini aboard a boat. She and another woman were mugging for the camera with a pair of pink umbrella drinks in their hands.

“We recovered these from her iPad,” Sean said. “She took them with her phone, then emailed them to herself.”

“Why would she—” Nicole stopped as she came to a photo of Luc Gagnon. He sat on the deck of what appeared to be a luxury yacht, smoking cigars with a couple of men in sunglasses. Nicole held up the photo. “Who are they?”

“The one on the left is one of Saledo’s top lieutenants. This one here”—he tapped the man beside Gagnon—“is Ricardo Ariza. He’s wanted by the FBI for narcotics trafficking and racketeering. Keep going.”

Nicole flipped to the next picture. It was a close-up shot of a black duffel. The unzipped bag was stuffed with stacks of cash.

“Holy crap.” She looked at Sean. “Amelia took these with her phone?”

“We think so, yeah. She emailed these shots to herself about three weeks ago.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know. But it seems clear she’d figured out her boyfriend and his associates were into something illegal. Could be she was planning to ask him for hush money, or maybe report him to the feds. We may never know.”

Nicole flipped to another picture showing a close-up of the cash. “This is our motive right here,” she said. “This is why he killed her.”

“He didn’t kill her. He was in San Jose at the time.”

“Yeah, but he hired someone to do it. And now we can prove motive,” she said. “Sean, this is great. This is practically a smoking gun!”

He just looked at her.

Nicole’s stomach sank. “Shit, don’t tell me. You guys cut him a deal, didn’t you?”

The look on his face answered her question.

“Shit!” She slapped the folder shut.

“I didn’t cut a deal with him.”

Nicole’s chest tightened with anger. “But your boss did? And you’re okay with this?”

“No, I’m not. But people higher up the chain have decided he’s more useful working for us, not against us.”

“So... let me guess. You guys seized his phones, and now you’re going to eavesdrop on his whole damn network. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” She glared at him, but he didn’t respond. “Oh, right, I forgot. You can’t tell me because I don’t have a federal badge. So, what, now Gagnon’s just going to walk after hiring a hit on an innocent young woman? And what about what he did to Leyla? He was obviously planning to kill her, too!”

Sean’s jaw tightened, and she could feel the tension coming off him in waves.

Nicole shook her head. “This is crap, Sean.”

“I agree.”

She watched him, noting the slight twitch of his eye. He was obviously stressed to the limit. And no doubt completely drained after tonight’s water rescue thirty miles offshore.

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