Page 71 of Four Cards Exposed

It was now two p.m.

He looked over at Susan, who slumped in an uncomfortable-looking armchair. She looked exhausted.

The man in him wanted to push back the clock, go back to that moment when they’d first woken up in each other’s arms, and keep her in bed for as long as she needed, until the dark stains under her eyes disappeared. But the federal agent in him knew months of work—the entire case, in fact—depended on them doing the right thing now. On them being able to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s.

“We’ve been to both of your apartments already. Did you leave anything behind we should know about?”

“No,” Susan said, looking straight at the camera recording the debrief session. “Just my clothes—which weren’t even mine. The clothes for Milena. And her car, I guess. The keys must be somewhere inside the apartment.”

Lorraine made a quick note.

“You found the cash under the mattress, I assume?” James asked. “About one hundred thousand dollars, give or take a few thousand, from the fights.”

Lorraine whistled. “I guess bare-knuckle boxing pays better than the FBI.”

James smiled wryly at his partner.

Lorraine handed them copies of a report. She brought out a pair of reading glasses from her pocket and handed them over to James.

He smiled and put them all, glad as all hell to have them back.

Susan gasped, waving her own copy in the air.

“Two hundred pounds of cocaine?”

“Two hundred pounds of pure cocaine. Vacuum-sealed in one-pound packages. That’s what Mendoza unloaded onto the boat that evening.”

It was James’s turn to whistle. “That would have netted them a cool twenty million on the street.”

“There were also ninety-four pounds of fentanyl, which is a hundred times more potent than heroin.”

James thought of Dom, and of the other kids growing up in that neighborhood. A part of him wished Miguel Mendoza hadn’t been the brother to fall into the sea. He shook himself. It wasn’t his job to decide what Ernesto Mendoza deserved. The courts would take care of that.

Lorraine nodded. “We have enough to charge Ernesto Mendoza and Sean Moore with constructive possession but, with your testimony, we can charge them also with directing drug conspiracies.”

“Will Mexico want Mendoza back?” James said. Lorraine looked straight into his eyes. She understood what he was really asking.

Will the charges against Mendoza stick?

“We have him, we have Moore, and we have most of his men. We’re already in touch with the Mexican authorities. This is an election year for them, so they won’t want to make waves.” She paused for a second. “We never found Miguel Mendoza, though. The helicopter’s still out there, searching for his body.”

James thought of the polite, elegant man. “I wouldn’t worry too much about the younger Mendoza. I think Ernesto kept things close to his chest.”

“That was also my impression,” Susan said, her expression sad. “I think the poor man was always trying to impress his brother. ”

James pushed back his hair, which kept flopping onto his forehead. His first order of business when he got back home would be to get a haircut.

Home.

As much as he was looking forward to forgetting about Jay, the thought of going back to his empty apartment brought him no happiness.

Not when Susan would be heading back to Sharp’s Cove.

He sighed.

He hadn’t been brave enough to bring it up last night, and this morning hadn’t seemed like the right time either, but he had to speak with her before she left.

“Okay, I think we’re done here for now.” Lorraine got up and shook Susan’s hand, thanking her formally for her role in the operation, before turning the camera off. Susan smiled shyly, but she didn’t look in James’s direction.