Page 37 of Toy

8

Mason

“I don’t knowwhat you said or did to Lauren Pedretti to get this information, and I’m not going to ask, but she was telling the truth.” Beck heaved a stack of files and paperwork onto the desk in front of me. “The cultists are somewhere in Costa Rica.”

I rubbed my left brow. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Jesus, Mason. Have a coffee or something. You look terrible.”

“I haven’t slept in three days.”

She sighed. “Understandable.” She pushed her coffee mug over to me and opened one of the files. “Anyway, are you up to hearing all this? Or are you too tired?”

“I doubt I could sleep even if I tried.”

“Okay. Remember how I said I’d put some feelers out about the whole mafia connection?”

“Yeah.”

“I did that. None of our undercover guys have heard anything about a girl being kidnapped by any of the major crews. But…” Beck held up both hands for dramatic effect. “I couldn’t drop it. You know what I’m like when I think I’m onto something.”

I groaned. “Only too well. You’re like a dog with a bone.”

She picked up a pen and twirled it in one hand. “I couldn’t stop thinking there had to be some sort of mafia connection somewhere, because you said you remembered Tom Anderson directly telling you that Jacob Chastain hired some of them to kill your family, and you said he was also known to be quite well-connected with basically anyone who has any power in this state. Right?”

I nodded.

“Well, I figured if his mafia friends were happy to carry out hits for him—not to mention the fake terrorist attack back in ‘99—I’m sure they were happy to help with other stuff too. Like escaping the country, for instance.” She picked off the top file from the stack and opened it in front of me. “See this?”

I leaned forward and peered at the paperwork. It was a flight log and passenger manifest for a private jet owned by Frank Braga, dated February 3rd, 2011. “What exactly is this?” I asked, furrowing my brows.

“Braga is the head of one of the major southern mafia families. That’s his jet. On the same day the cult’s jet went down in the Sabine River in Texas, Braga’s jet flew out of a private airfield. Also in Texas. It landed in… guess where?”

“Costa Rica?”

“Bingo. Private airfield outside San José.” She smiled. “I thought that was a hell of a coincidence, so I dug deeper. See the passenger manifest? There’s over a hundred names there. None from the cult. Just guys Braga knows, I suppose.”

“Right.” I pored over the list of passengers. Beck was right. None of the names were familiar to me.

“Anyway, I started checking each one. For example, the top guy—Jared Rinaldi. Even though he’s on the manifest, his passport wasn’t used on that date. He definitely didn’t fly to Costa Rica that day. In fact, he’s never been there. I went through and checked every name on the list. None of them were actually there.”

“So Braga helped Chastain and the rest of the cult guys escape the country on his jet? Using fake passports, I presume.”

“Looks that way.”

I leaned back and rubbed my chin. “So they sacrificed a few guys for the Sabine plane, and the rest got away on a second plane. I never even considered something like that.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t think anyone did, to be honest.”

“I always thought the Sabine River plane crash was a decoy to make it look like the men were trying to flee the country, in order to mask the fact that they were actually right here in the States. Guess I couldn’t have been more wrong.” My lips tightened into a thin line.

Beck shook her head. “No, you were half-right. The Sabine plane was a decoy. Just not in the way we originally thought.”

“I suppose so.” I yawned and rubbed my eyes.

“There’s more.”

I lifted my brows and looked back up at her. “Yeah?”

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