Page 78 of Justice for Francesca

“He’s hanging in there. Still refusing to talk to the lawyer Tripoli hired for him. Lawyer’s working his ass off to help Michael, but there’s no way the judge is going to set bail for the man, given the circumstances.”

Francesca played with her dessert fork, pushing the last crumbs of the banana cake around on her plate. “He didn’t do it,” she murmured. Sneaking a look at Cruz, she saw only a blank expression. A sigh escaped her. “Sorry. I don’t mean to put you in this position. I broke a single rule, and now it seems like I can’t stop breaking them.”

“Freeing, isn’t it?” He chuckled. “C’mon, you don’t think I would have thought of this situation before coming over here tonight?” Cruz looked behind him to where Mickie and Tripoli were, working together to rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. “Why do you think Tripoli let Mickie in the kitchen to help? He knew you’d ask questions. He knew I’d answer them. Plausible deniability for them.”

“You still think this is the work of my brothers? It just seems so far-fetched.”

“Well, we still haven’t pinpointed where they are, which is highly suspect, wouldn’t you say? All three McCabe brothers out of the precinct at the same time? No other suspects match. With the exception of Michael, who has no alibi for the times of any of the murders, and Triumph, who has no alibi for Tilly’s murder and Tilly as his alibi for the first two, none of our searches are coming up with suspects.”

“It’s just…” She shook her head, eyes wide. “It’s difficult to believe that my family would do this.”

“So… the odd searches traced to your computer and the file saved to the hard drive labeled ‘The Four Horseman’ is nothing they would be concerned about?”

Through her eyelashes, Francesca stared at him. Fuck. They knew. Of course they knew. They were the FBI. “Am I under investigation?”

Smiling apologetically, he folded his napkin and laid it on the table. “I was dropping off your suitcase in the bedroom, and the search running caught my eye. Sorry. Nosey. FBI.” He shrugged. “Could all of this be happening because you’ve been looking into something that your family is mixed up in, and now they feel threatened?”

“I’ve been very careful.”

“Maybe not careful enough. Earlier this afternoon, I asked Triumph to do some hunting for me.”

“Not the FBI techs?”

“You want me to turn the FBI loose on this? You won’t just be off the case; you’ll be suspended at the very least.”

“For looking into cold cases? We’re allowed to do that.”

“Not shit that involves your own family.”

“If the FBI doesn’t know I’m looking into them, how would they?”

“Because criminals are paranoid, and the FBI is overworked. Unless someone tells a tech to look into something, they’re focused on whatever emergency is on top of the pile.” Cruz glanced over his shoulder at the kitchen to make sure Mickie and Tripoli were still busy. Confident they wouldn’t be returning to the table in the next few minutes, he continued, “As I was saying, I had Triumph do some digging to trace your family’s movements. While you were undercover in the mafia case in Dallas? Your father was in the same fucking city. The day you made contact with the Sequeira don? He had your brothers gearing up, and then over the next six days, one brother left the city every other day. No one has heard so much as a sniffle out of any of them since.”

Arms crossed in front of him, he leaned onto the table’s surface. “When did you learn your father was working for Sequeira?” he whispered.

Sucking on her lower lip, Francesca considered her options. “I was just gathering information. I wasn’t doing anything with what I found, so I really didn’t think it was anything all that dangerous. Then, one night, I’m getting ready to go out and make first contact with Santiago, and who the hell is sitting across from the man in the restaurant? My fucking father and some big bodyguard type in a suit. I’ve just been poking around to see what the exact connection is.”

“Yeah, well, it looks like your poking around woke a sleeping dragon. Did he see you?”

“At the time, I didn’t think so. I nixed my plan for the night. Dad wasn’t with him any of the other times he’d been in the restaurant, so I was caught by surprise. Nothing in our workups suggested that the two men knew each other. That’s why I was digging.”

Francesca groaned. The searches really had been cursory. Her undercover assignment had her posing as a restaurateur who needed backing for a location in Dallas. It had taken months to establish her cover and make surface-level contact, then slowly gain more than just “Good evening” and “How’s your food?” and other superfluous chitchat as she circulated tables. Two months before the operation eventually ended, she’d seen her father and begun her searches. She’d had to wait a week to make sure her father was back home and then try again to get an audience with Sequeira. It had taken two additional weeks, but she finally got a series of sit-down dinner meetings with the don to discuss business and financial backing and another month of proving herself before they were able to rope him in.

“So what’s the connection?”

“As far as I can tell, it has something to do with the purchase and sale of artwork. Seems awfully high society for my father, but he always did have aspirations of moving up in the New York social world. Not himself, per se. Just within his territory so that he could make more money. He was pissed when I became a cop because he couldn’t shop me out to single men in the political world of the city as a bargaining chip for a foot in the door.”

“Aren’t arranged marriages out the door in this day and age?”

“No, unfortunately. However, he really didn’t have much hope of it working. I’m strong-willed, but there’s only one thing I might have caved in over.”

Cruz stared intently. “Michael.”

“Exactly. Because we were so close in age, though, Michael wasn’t vulnerable long enough for my father to make his plan stick.”

“So how does all of this connect to the Sequeiras?”

“You told me yourself that there is a Sequeira brother in New York City who launders money for the family through a gallery there. It’s the only connection I could find, but my father’s name is never mentioned in connection with anyone from the Sequeiras, the gallery employees, or the gallery itself. That’s why I’ve been running these computer searches.”

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