Sting

“No, first one out of them. She’s too eager. She needs to learn subtlety. The idea is to make them try to impress her, not the other way around. If she doesn’t learn that, she’s gonna give herself away and die bloody. Find out which agency she works for and get word to them that I said so.”

Hickam and Wiley exchanged a look with eyebrows raised, but Hickam made a note of it on his iPad.

“I left the bodies where I knew they’d be found, along with a secret sign so our plant inside the state police would know it was me who took them out and would handle the mop-up, including all the paperwork required in Atlanta. I beat it across the border that night.”

“How’d you get across undetected?” Hickam asked.

“That’s classified.” Unfazed by the other agent’s resentful glower, Shaw continued, “I beat it here quick as I could. I’d waited months for a call from Mickey Bolden and didn’t want to keep him waiting.”

Wiley and Hickam continued to ask about his journey from Mexico to New Orleans. Most of their inquiries he answered with, “Classified.” And mainly, it was. But it was also a convenient dodge. He didn’t want to waste time on something irrelevant while Billy Panella and Josh Bennett were still at large.

Shaw tipped his head toward Jordie. “Do you have her cell phone?”

“In Wiley’s office,” Hickam said.

“Would you get it?” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Please?”

With a look, Hickam consulted Joe Wiley, who okayed him with a nod. Hickam left the room. The four of them sat in strained silence until he returned with Jordie’s bagged cell phone.

Shaw said, “When I came in, you were grilling her about who called her to the bar. Check her call history. Friday night, there are two incoming calls from an unknown number.”

“We’ve called it back several times,” Hickam said. “Never got an answer.”

“Call it again.”

Hickam removed the phone from the bag, went to the log and tapped the screen. A few seconds later the phone inside Shaw’s shirt pocket began to ring. He took it out and showed them Jordie’s cell number in the readout. “This is a burner I bought the day I arrived in New Orleans, just before I hooked up with Mickey Bolden.”

“Okay,” Wiley said. “Friday night. What really went down? Why you’d call Ms. Bennett to the bar?”

“I’m coming to that.” Suddenly struck with a wave of dizziness, he propped his elbow on the table and tunneled his fingers through his hair. He was tempted to rest his forehead in his palm and close his eyes. But, afraid he’d be unable to reopen them, he lowered his hand, ignored the throbbing in his side, and plowed on.

“When I talked to Mickey from Mexico and he told me that Josh Bennett was on the loose, I figured he was the target we’d been contracted to hit. Then I got here. Shocker. Bennett’s sister was the target. Killing a woman? Jesus.” He shook his head. “Underscored just what a cowardly scumbag Panella is.

“But I had to appear indifferent to Mickey so I could stay cheek by jowl with the asshole and learn what I could. Mickey and I spent all day Friday following Jordie around Tobias. She went home around six. We watched her house for a while. It looked like she was tucked in for the night.”

“We had a sheriff’s deputy surveilling her,” Wiley said.

Shaw scoffed. “And doing a piss-poor job of it. He’d just as well have had a Maglite on his head. I spotted him right away, and I couldn’t believe he didn’t mark Mickey and me.” Looking at Jordie, he said, “You knew he was there, didn’t you? You shook him on the way to the bar.”

“Go to hell.”

He ignored the putdown. “Doesn’t matter now, I guess.” Turning back to his FBI colleagues, he continued, “Mickey and I went to a diner for supper, and that’s when he laid out the plan.”

“Plan A?” Jordie said with insincere sweetness.

Shaw looked at her, but didn’t respond. Wiley asked, “What was plan A?”

Shaw went back to Wiley. “To hit her early the next morning at her house. Make it look like a burglary turned deadly. Dumbest idea I’d ever heard and told Mickey so. It was rushed, rash, and breaking into her house was an engraved invitation to leave evidence.

“But Mickey said that was the plan. End of discussion. That’s when I realized that I’d be left dead, too. He’d brought me in specifically to take the fall. The clock was ticking. I had to stop it.”

“By calling her?” Hickam asked. “Why didn’t you tip the sheriff’s office, or us?”

“I’ll get to that,” Shaw said, hedging. “I went along when Mickey suggested we grab a drink at that joint before checking into a motel. Before we went inside, I excused myself and followed the arrow pointing around back to the toilet.” He looked at Jordie. “That’s when I called you.”

“How’d you know how to reach her?” Wiley asked.

“Panella had given Mickey the skinny on her, everything, including her cell number. Mickey shared it all with me ’cause he thought I would be dead in a few hours, so what did it matter?”