Page 31 of Protecting Charity

“Morgan?”

“Yes, the Chief hasn’t told the press yet, but someone phoned in from a payphone about a dead body. Turns out it was Morgan’s. She had some damning evidence on her, but the lead agent doesn’t buy it. M.E. says she’s been dead a few days. I didn’t even know those things still existed. Did you?”

“Knew what existed?” He was all over the place, which made it difficult to follow his train of thought.

“Payphones.”

I shook my head, taking in the information. I didn’t care about the payphone, but more so about the evidence she left on Morgan’s body. Charity never mentioned what she did to get the police off her back other than killing Morgan and dumping her body in a place that apparently no one found while Luca kept her caged.

“What evidence?” He glanced around to make sure no one was close by and spoke real low. If we weren’t having a suspicious conversation before, we sure looked like it now—smooth, Patrick. “Relax. We are just two colleagues having a conversation.”

He nodded. “Do you recall the Macaney murder investigation?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Morgan had his number written on the motel paper in her wallet, the same motel Macaney was murdered. She was wearing the same type of clothing as well. The M.E. said Morgan died from a lethal dose of cocaine, but she also had marijuana mixed in her system. It’s a fairly common way to smoke your cocaine. The strange thing is she also had track marks on her arms, all fresh. This could be why they are questioning an accidental death.”

Cazzo, Charity.That was laying it out to be blatantly obvious.

“How is it being ruled?”

“Homicide as of now. They think it somehow involves the ICF. Maybe, Morgan had Tom do away with her sister, and then she had a falling out because of her involvement with the cartel, or she changed her mind. This girl wrapped herself up in a wild ride between two international gangs, and it appears to have caught up with her.”

“Who is the FBI lead agent?”

“Owen Harding. He’s young but wicked smart. The department already has a hard-on for him. Like I said, he isn’t falling for the evidence like the department is. He believes there is more to it.”

I ran a hand down my face and ground my teeth until my jaw throbbed. She didn’t take care of the problem; she made it inherently worse. There is no way the FBI will go away now, knowing two homicides may be connected to this case. It went from a simple missing person case where the prime suspect was an unstable whacked-out sister that took her resentment out on her sibling because Mommy and Daddy weren’t paying enough attention to her, to now a double homicide with crime families involved.

“Why do they think she is involved with the cartel?”

“That crack house that went up in flames earlier in the week… she was there when the fire trucks arrived. Once the police got there, she tried to hide, but eventually, they found her and released her with no charges. They found the owner mutilated and burned to barely recognizable except the carvings in his chest. I’m telling you, she was so tangled up in hellfire there was no way she was going to end up coming out of it unscathed.”

“I want everything you have on Agent Harding.” There wasn’t a chance in hell that this would go away on its own, and if that was the case, we needed to find a vulnerability with Harding and exploit it. He needed to go, and the issue needed to be closed, and quickly, before any more digging was done.

“He’s squeaky clean, but I’ll see what I can find.”

“Thanks, Patrick. I’ll be in touch.”

I shook his sweaty palm and immediately lamented. I wiped my hand on my expensive suit and sat in my car as he walked away.

Luca would not like hearing any of this, but that seemed to be the norm lately. He was already pissed with her, and this was just going to add to the list of reasons he wanted to put her on the sidelines. The pressure of it all weighed heavily on my shoulders, pushing me down until I drowned under the expectations. It was barely afternoon; I think I still had enough time to get visitation in.

Driving the thirty-minute long route gave me plenty of time to stew in my thoughts and cause the worry to run rampant throughout. Right now, they didn’t even come close to suspecting Charity, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t, eventually.

They were already looking for outside involvement from others. Her kills were good. I wasn’t concerned about evidence; I was worried that if her name popped up for one reason or another, it would ruin her and could irreparably damage the relationship she had with her father. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I knew what it was like to have a strenuous relationship with my father, and I wouldn’t want that for her, given how close they were, which was terribly ironic.

∞∞∞

The large, imposing prison was an open building with walls that held in enough sorrow and anger to fuel a warlord for a hundred years. I nodded to the guard, dropped my keys and phone into the plastic bin, walked through the metal detector, and then picked them up on the other side. I hated coming here. You couldn’t help but walk out of here with feelings of anxiety. Cleaning products and testosterone filled the air and stung my nose as I sat in the waiting room, waiting to be called. When they finally called my name, I stood and followed the guard through the heavy metal door and into a private room where lawyers and their clients could converse in private.

I sat in the uncomfortable metal chair and placed my hands on the bolted-down table, and waited. Unexpected visits can take a while for the client to be located, depending on the time of day. Rec time or chow was when it took the longest. I could sit here for an hour before those doors opened, but not today. Loud bolts disengaged from the door, and it swung open. Arturo Moreno walked in, his hands and feet chained together, with a bright smile on his face. For how much he was aging, he still had a full head of thick black hair. If genetics had anything to do with it, I’d be okay with that. Thanking the guard, he bolted the door behind him, leaving us in the cement room with absolute privacy.

“Hi, Pops.”

“Nico. How have you been?”

I wrapped my arms around him, and he gave me one of his signature family hugs: a hard pat on the back. Typical meetings didn’t permit contact, but we weren’t being observed. It was the benefits of being a lawyer when visiting Pops.

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