Page 91 of Justice for Francesca

Cruz shook his head. “Only the one brother’s operation. Anyway, from what they can gather, just after she was promoted to SAIC, Ortiz’s husband got into some money trouble. Rather than fess up to the wife, he decided to borrow from the wrong people. When he couldn’t pay, they started to put pressure on him to spy on his wife for information on the FBI and their work on cartel cases. He fed them information for a while, but eventually, he couldn’t provide what they wanted, so he took his own life, hoping that would get them to drop their pursuit.”

“Good luck with that. Built-in FBI connection? They’re not going to let that slide.”

“Exactly. Since they were still owed money, they began to squeeze her. And when she couldn’t pay back the money and wouldn’t pay them in information, they took her son.”

She cursed softly. “That never goes well.”

“Analysts found some videos of him attached to demands.”

“Still doesn’t explain my father’s involvement.”

“The Sequeira don. They were using the Colonel Cartel to supply their drugs; Oisin was the New York broker for protection to get the product past the ‘red tape,’ and when those two forces aligned with Ortiz as your boss? Match made in hell. They were still sending her videos of her son along with threats they would kill him if she turned herself in, so Oisin piggybacked on that. Swore he’d get her son back and wipe her debt clean if she helped him with his little family problem.”

“The boy was already dead, wasn’t he?”

Cruz nodded dejectedly. “Didn’t take long to discover that the videos were faked through AI. On the sly, Lobo’s friend Steel has some contacts down there looking into it, but… it’s not looking good. The kid was probably killed almost immediately, so it’s doubtful we’ll ever find a body.” He took another sip of his coffee. “Anything you’d like to share with the class, Ms. McCabe?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He gave her a look as if to say, “Really?”

Her gaze dropped to the blanket lying over her, and she picked at a loose thread. “Michael came to see me.”

“How did that go?”

“Awkward. He filled in some blanks, confirmed some other theories. Basically, Dad began to rope the triplets into his mess early in life. Rory, Mannix, and Fionn used themselves as a shield to protect Michael and me, but the only way to eliminate him as a threat to us in those early days was to join him. They spent their young lives basically torturing us so that we’d be ableto stand up to him. Then when our dumb asses joined the police force in some sort of attempt to right the sinking McCabe ship, they did the only thing they could do, which was drive us away by ruining our reputations.

“It was working until I saw Dad with the Sequeira don. He spotted me, and itmighthave ended there, except then I doubled down and started poking my nose into things I shouldn’t have. As you guessed, he got wind of it and lost his ever-loving mind.” She dared a look at Cruz. “Mila. Jessa. Tilly. Why them? How?”

Cruz set his coffee down and scrubbed his face. “Opportunity. Mila’s involvement was the key.”

“Sequeira heir. Easy to get information on her based on his employer.”

“Correct. We talked further to the uncle in Chicago. Since they specialize in realty law, Oisin posed as a client looking to buy property in the area of Elysium. She sold him a warehouse about a quarter of a mile away, which is currently crawling with FBI agents. The night of the murder, he takes care of her, then bides his time until after the club closes. Using an ID with some sort of kill switch in it, he enters the building with Ortiz. While he sets the scene, she handles the tech end. Apparently, she began at the bureau straight out of college as a computer analyst. When they leave, they swipe the card again, and the kill switch is activated, erasing any sign of the original entry.”

“Wow. I assume our computer techs are geeking out over that.”

“Like toddlers on Christmas morning with a pony,” he replied.

“What about Jessa?”

He shifted uncomfortably. After taking another fortifying sip of his coffee, he sat back against the chair. “Oisin got Ortiz to hack into the system and get him a fake ID and a guest pass. Heused those to scope out the club several times, two weeks before the murders.”

A look of understanding passed over Francesca’s face. “Standard operating procedure. We go back one week in time when we investigate. Eventually, we may go back more, but only if we need to. Ortiz would have told him that, which is why we never saw him on camera. Not that the techs would have known to look for him at that time.”

“Yep. While he was hanging around, he chatted up some of the staff. Somehow, he learned about Jessa’s sideline, so he finagled his way into an appointment with her, and that was all she wrote.”

“That old-man Irish charm gets ’em every time,” Francesca confirmed. “Women loved him, which is ironic because he hated women. Even my mother, although if someone disrespected her, watch out.”

“Well, that would have been seen as disrespecting him,” Cruz continued. “With Tilly, once we knew who to look for, Triumph found all sorts of video of her chatting to him in corners at the club. We’re guessing she fed him all kinds of information without even being aware she was doing it. Then she got into a disagreement with Triumph, and she went to Michael for help. He had other issues going on, so he wasn’t paying the best of attention. When he had to leave with his mystery crate, she called her new friend, Oisin, for advice. He came to the apartment building, picked her up at the side entrance, and that was the last anyone saw of her.” His face scrunched up. “Did Michael ever tell you what was in that crate?”

A short burst of laughter came from Francesca. “Mannix. After dear old Dad put a knife to me, Dad forced him off the property. When he discovered I was still alive and that I hadn’t turned Michael in, he planned to come after me at Ethan’s.Michael was forced to smuggle Mannix inside the building so he could kill the power as soon as they entered the building.”

“But your brothers were performing a double cross.”

“Right. Still trying to protect us, only now they were forced to come out to Michael so that he could help.”

“And then they had to come out to you when they failed to keep Oisin from taking you.”

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