Jax jerked up his chin. “That makes sense. It seems those two have been working together for a long time. But we would’ve never found that bar or made the connection without you two. Kevin Samson has no ties to it—not on paper anyway. Once I had that information, I called a meeting with the director, told him what we had so far, and explained that we were sending in Nick as your backup.”
“That doesn’t explain how you all ended up here.” Ethan expressed exactly what I was thinking.
Brody gestured toward Striker. “Striker pointed out we were still missing a lot of shit, and I agreed. We met and decided while Samson was at the bar, we’d go to his house to see what we could find.”
I smirked. “The FBI know you did that?”
Brody returned my smirk. “They don’t need to know everything. What they did need to know was if it was worth getting a warrant.”
My eyebrows rose. “Was it?”
“We found the box.” Striker spoke for the first time since we walked into the room.
“The box Max Skinner was talking about before he shot you?” When he jerked up his chin, I continued. “Was there money in it?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “It was better than money.”
“What does that mean?”
“Apparently, that box was where Daniel Sullivan kept all his business information,” Jax said. “He had a couple of notebooks filled with client names, types of girls they prefer, ages, all the information that would make a normal person sick to read.”
“Oh my god.” My eyes widened. “That could be bad for a lot of people.”
“It’s going to be,” Jax confirmed. “The FBI secured the warrant right before you came out of the building, so this case is officially in their custody. We left the box where they could easily find it when they search the house.”
“How did you find it in his house?”
“Striker’s like a fucking bloodhound.” Kyle laughed. “He found it almost immediately.”
“What was their probable cause for the warrant?” I asked, knowing the FBI couldn’t enter his property without it.
Jax leaned his ass against the dresser and continued. “We couldn’t legally take anything from inside the house. If we did it could create a legal loophole and everything the FBI obtains would be thrown out so Striker camped outside his house the past few nights, waiting for him to put out some garbage. Once he did, he searched the bag, found a few disposable coffee cups, and took them to the local FBI headquarters. They were in touch with the director, who ordered them to test the cups for prints.”
“Why?” Ethan asked.
“We were hoping Samson’s prints would match the print from the pizza box. If the print matched, we could get a warrant based on the arsenic poisoning.”
“Was it a match?” I asked.
Jax shook his head. “No, but interestingly enough there were two different sets of prints on the cups. When they ran the second set, they belonged to a man who has several FBI warrants out for his arrest.”
“I don’t understand.” Ethan looked between Jax and Striker.
“Samson has a friend who’s hiding from the feds.” Striker replied, his voice low.
“We watched Samson’s house for almost a week,” Ethan motioned between the two us. “We never saw anyone else.”
“I never saw him either.” Striker admitted. “And I searched the house, but it doesn't matter to the feds. At one point, he was in the house, probably brought Samson a coffee and they had a meeting, but that’s all it takes for Samson to be harboring a fugitive.”
“That gave the FBI probable cause for a warrant to enter and search the house. Plus, it gave them more ammunition for the case they were building against Samson.”
“This is crazy.” I said, a little surprised by how much was going on without Ethan or I knowing about it. I shifted my stare to Striker. “You’ve been in town for days?”
“Yep.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
He shrugged his massive shoulder. “Didn’t need to. Just needed to get his DNA.”