“No. Macintosh just liked to have a dossier on everyone in his life, something to keep them in line if he needed to. I don’t think he even thought it was weird.”
“Was she cheating on him?”
Sean turned around. “I never told him,” he said. “If he found it, it wasn’t from me. It wasn’t my fault.”
“Who?”
Javi was pretty sure he already knew the answer. It occurred to him that morning when Cloister talked about how few parents would actually go this far for their children. The number of practically grown half siblings who’d do the same had to be fewer and farther between. Even if Andrew Macintosh Junior was willing to give up everything—his college spot, his dad’s money, contact with his own mother—why would Jessie have risked his involvement? A single second thought and he’d have ruined everything. Unless she loved him too.
“Andrew Junior.” Sean confirmed what Javi had already, more or less, been convinced of. “It wasn’t new, not from the way they acted with each other, but they said they were going to stop.”
“You talked to them?”
Sean shrugged and rubbed his jaw. “I got careless or cocky… or both. They were at this restaurant—out of town, along the coast road—and when Junior got up to go and piss, I tried to get closer for a better picture of Jessie. Turned out there was a line at the gents, and he was happy to piss outside like a man.”
They both grimaced at the same time. Most law-enforcement officials had some story about how they got made on a stakeout by some random number-generated twist of fate.
“So they paid you off?”
“No,” Sean said as he gave Javi a sour look. “Junior smashed my camera and beat the shit out of me. The restaurant called the cops on us. Jessie, the wife, begged me not to press charges. She said that Macintosh would kill them or have them killed, and she promised that this was the last time.”
“Did you believe her?”
“That he’d kill her? No. Not then,” Sean said. “But he’d have never let them go either. He’d have held it over their heads for the rest of their lives. Like I said, he was an asshole. So I didn’t press charges, and I didn’t tell him anything. Not that it made any difference. After what happened I guess someone spilled the beans to him. Hope they could live with themselves afterward. I know I had trouble. What does it matter now, though?”
“I don’t know yet,” Javi said. “If it turns out to be useful, I’ll let you know.”
Sean made a sour face and drained the rest of his coffee. “Good of you,” he said. “Look, you have to tell Witte about this?”
Javi lifted an eyebrow. “Should I be the one getting jealous?” He was a little surprised to find that it was only mostly a joke, a possessive bristle hidden under his smirk.
Sean chuckled. “You’re more my type,” he said, his dark eyes appreciative as he gave Javi a once-over. “I like a guy who puts in the effort to look good. Witte’s just… the sort of cop I wish I’d been.”
He ended on an awkward shrug, but he didn’t need to put it into words. Javi got it. It was why he didn’t want to tell Cloister about Phoenix. When there was no way you were going to live up to someone’s example, the best you could do was hope they didn’t find out.
“If I don’t have to, I won’t,” he said. “I can’t promise, though.”
Sean looked resigned. “I suppose I wouldn’t either.” He sat down behind his desk and sat back. The chair under him creaked as it reclined a few inches. “Anything else?”
The coffee was bitter and lukewarm at that point. Javi took a fortifying drink anyway.
“What if I were your client,” he said. “Could I get a promise of confidentiality out of you then?”
Sean lifted his eyebrows in surprise as he sat straight up again. “You want to hire me?”
“I’m considering it,” Javi said. “I need to find out some information on someone, and I need it done efficiently and discreetly.”
“My middle names,” Sean said. The surprise had faded, and he looked cocky again as he grabbed a notebook and pulled it over the desk toward him. He flicked open the cover and grabbed a pen. “Is it Witte? He says he doesn’t have any secrets, but trust me, he does.”
Javi set down the coffee on the envelope coaster.
“Timothy Kincaid,” he said. “SSA Kincaid of the FBI’s LA office.”
Sean had written half of that down before the pen trailed to a stop on the page. He stared at Javi with suspiciously narrowed eyes.
“Are you fucking with me?” he asked. “You want me to investigate an FBI agent?”
“You can say no.”
