“As the plot thickened and others became suspicious”—Victor stared straight at Lucky—“the stakes of the game grew higher.”
O’Donoghue sat his coffee cup down and read from a list. “Extortion, fraud, conspiracy to commit murder, kidnapping, attempted murder.”
The door opened and one of Cruz’s associates from the night before entered. Instead of sitting, he leaned against the wall behind Victor’s back and dimmed the lights.
O’Donoghue closed his eyes, forced out a breath, and reopened his eyes, resolve firmly in place. He swiveled his chair toward the wall, as did Walter and Victor. Video played on the dropdown screen. Lucky entering Walter’s office, Walter’s collapse, the splice hiding the removal of the coffee cup and folder.
All things Lucky knew, no additional information.
“Now,” O’Donoghue said, “because the perpetrators intended to use me to achieve their goals, they never realized I was on to them. I’m sure it’s clear to everyone here that the footage you’ve just seen had been altered.” He clicked a remote and the video started again.
A man in a dark hoodie entered the office, face hidden by the camera angle. He placed a coffee cup on Walter’s desk with gloved hands.
“They’d smeared something on the cup,” Lucky growled.
“Right you are, Agent Harrison,” O’Donoghue said. “Keep watching.”
Walter’s collapse stole Lucky’s breath, Bo holding his hand beneath the table helped. The gurney left.
They watched a few more minutes until…
The same hooded man came in again, grabbed the file and the cup, hands protected by gloves. The video stopped and zoomed in. What? The man wasn’t tall and had hair the same color as Lucky’s.
Well, it sure the hellwasn’tLucky.
Damned sure looked a bit like him.
For a moment, a brief second in time, the camera caught the guy’s face.
Next to Lucky, Johnson gasped.
Phillip Eustace.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lucky used every tool at his disposal, but couldn’t seem to find the three missing men. What happened to the trackers on their cars? “Anything?” he asked Keith over the phone.
“Rogers’ car was found in at a Walmart in Valdosta, but nothing else.”
“Keep looking.” Slamming the phone down didn’t offer the same satisfaction it usually did.
How could three dumbasses evade the professionals? Not even a single credit card receipt. Then again, they’d been trained by the same people who’d trained Lucky. Maybe they’d paid attention.
He scrubbed his hand though his hair and hefted his coffee cup. One lone drop rolled out onto his tongue. Damn it!
Oh well, going to the break room gave him an excuse to stroll past the closed conference room door, as slowly as possible without a full stop. What the hell could Victor and Bo possibly be talking about?
All Lucky’s deepest, darkest secrets.
Acid pooled in Lucky’s stomach. He’d never been a saint, never pretended to be, and he’d always been open and honest with anything Bo wanted to know about his life.
Still, some of the things in Lucky’s past didn’t bear repeating. Heat flared up his neck to his face and ears. The things he’d done. The times he’d bragged about stealing a truckload of drugs right out from under the nose of some pharma company.
Or how he’d taken some of those drugs himself, on occasion.
The expensive clothes and jewelry he’d worn as a drug lord’s plaything. Back then he’d been proud of himself, thought he’d risen above his redneck upbringing.
Yet his redneck upbringing saved his life time and again.
