Nick’s night had been rough, and it had started early in the evening.
Dunham didn’t want to leave Annika alone, and he also didn’t want Sin out following the Mechanic. Though the former agent was trained in shadowing people, chances were next to nothing that he matched Sin's skills.
Thank god his sister had left before Dunham suggested that they tail Sin. Nick immediately pointed out that would mean leaving Annika alone, which effectively shut down that bad idea.
Also, Dunham wanted to hear what Nick knew. He started with some old murders. "My uncles—"
He didn't get a third word out before Owen interrupted him, "Italian uncles, or real blood relatives."
"We're not Italian." Nick deadpanned, and was met with a dead-on you know what I mean look from the former agent. "Actual relatives, but not my grandfather's sons. Not in direct line. They are Bun's cousin's sons." Jesus. Clarifying relation in a Romanian family was like restoring a tangled spider web. But he tried. It was another almost ten minutes of family tree organization before Nick could tell Dunham that he knew where Uncle Stefan had hid the body.
"Bun?"
"Romanian for grandfather." Nick clarified. "Emilian Doru Vasilescu."
"So this Stefan was accused of the murder of his girlfriend, in what year?"
Nick hadn't realized the process would be so tedious. He thought he'd sit down, tell Owen some secrets, throw some of his group under the bus, where they needed to be, and head out. Instead, Dunham wanted a full accounting. He wanted to know exactly where to find the body.
"Are you going to dig it up?" Surely he just needed to be able to say where it was.
"Yes, not personally, but I'm going to hire someone and have it genetically tested."
"Holy shit. Isn't the information good enough?" He and Dana had discussed that he would go through a lengthy process of being detained and relaying info, before he would walk out a free man.
Owen put down the pen and stared at Nick long and hard. Nick could feel the look in his bones and suddenly he was glad that the agent wasn't after him. Though surely some were literally on his case.
"You ran an organized ring of drugs and guns in Atlanta. That's huge Nick."
But he was offering good intel.
Owen had other thoughts. "You want to walk free. Do you have any idea what it will take for you to walk away from this without the sum total of the FBI's resources following you for the rest of your life?"
Apparently, he really hadn't. Dana had suggested this, but maybe he had misunderstood the grandeur of his need. Maybe she hadn't known. Maybe Dunham was wrong.
Dunham wasn't wrong. He was too methodical, knew exactly what he was doing.
When Nick glanced at the other man's notes, he saw that coordinates had been written down, along with a few other jottings that weren't English. "What's that?"
"My own personal shorthand so that these notes can't be used against you in a court of law." His eyes were dead serious and Nick thought about what else he had to offer. But Dunham asked the next question. "Where can we pick up this Stefan?"
"You can't. He's dead."
"That's not much help."
"But Uncle Dorin is alive. Barely. He killed Stefan."
Clearly, it was a great effort for the FBI man to keep from smacking his hand flat to his face. Nick was pretty sure he mumbled, "Of course he did" before continuing with the questioning.
Nick handed over three meth houses that he knew of in the Atlanta area.
"These are your meth houses?" Owen was strained by the information.
"No. I don't run meth. It's horrible for communities."
The what the hell are you talking about? stare that Dunham gave him told Nick what he was up against.
He tried again. "I run—"
"Shut up!" Owen held his hand out even as he jerked his head back, as though he could move far enough to stop the sound from traveling to his ears. He didn't have to worry, Nick shut up.
"Only answer the questions. I don't want to know about the rest." He muttered something Nick couldn't understand, again. Then said, "Not now, maybe not ever."
So Nick picked up the first thread. "I don't run meth. The Kurevs tried to filter it into my town without my permission."
"Didn't hear that last part."
Jesus. Nick sighed like a teenager. He felt like one too. "Can I tell you that I shut down meth houses left and right? Did you know that Atlanta has one of the lowest meth addiction rates of any major city in the US?"
"So you're just a mafia don with a heart of gold?" The words were harsh, damning.
Nick wanted to retort, sharply, but there was something to it.
He'd always considered Atlanta his town. Well, it had been Bun's town, and it had been pretty bad then. But Nick had been running White Oak. He put guns in hands; the gangs were his gangs. They kept Kurev meth out of his town and ran cocaine, the most innocuous of big money drugs. But Owen had a point.
Nick now ran Atlanta his way.
He'd never been brought up on charges. In fact, most of the word was that his people ran the show. He’d kept it so no one could get anything on him. Working a full time job with the White Oak PD was about the best cover he could get. The only thing that connected him to Vasilescu were rumors.
And large off-shore bank accounts.
"Fine." He sat back and waited for the next question.
"So where is your grandfather's body—" Owen held up a hand before. "Don't say anything that tells me how you know where it is, just where it is."
"I don't know."
Owen blinked. "That's seriously the most useful piece of information. How do you not know?"
"You just told me not to—"
But again, Dunham interrupted him. "You didn't—" He waved his hand, apparently not wanting to say the word,— "him?"
"No! I didn't—" he gestured wildly "—him."
Owen frowned. "But you ousted him."
"Yes." Nick waited for the next cue.
"He left quietly?"
"No." He sighed, Dunham was never going to get to what he needed with this binary questioning. Not tonight anyway. "Look. I never killed anyone. I set things into motion. The table turned on Bun, plenty of people wanted me in and him out by the time it happened. It wasn't me. I don't know what happened to the body."
"You never killed anyone?"
"No. Well . . ." Shit. "Five times weapon drawn, three shots, one wounded, two killed as an officer. That's it. All three shots found 'righteous' by Internal Affairs."
"Which you had in your back pocket." It was just a statement, but Nick exploded.
"No!" He jumped up, nearly yelling. This was not going the way he planned. "Do you not trust anything I'm telling you?"
Dunham stayed seated, cool in the face of an outburst Nick was already not proud of. The man was steel in an interrogation. Nick wondered if he would have broken Sin had things gone another way back then.
Owen's voice was calm when he spoke, but he waited for Nick to sit down. The barely leashed frustration came through in his voice. "I'm trying to get you out. You said you wanted to get out. This is what it will take."
He took a deep breath through clenched teeth. "I do trust you. My pregnant wife is in the room across the hall. I'm here in Chicago on a dangerous mission to help a friend and I'm still here—" his voice started rising "—despite the fact that someone fired a long range rifle at me earlier today! So don't question my dedication to this shit-show!"
Nick nodded. Dunham was right on all counts. But before he could apologize, the man spoke again.
"Now do you want to get out or spend your life in prison?"
Nick thought there was a third option, which was just go on as he had been. No one had caught him yet. But he didn't think he'd last much longer that way. "I want out."
"How far out do you want to get?"
Nick didn't know there were variations on the theme. So he asked. And Owen Dunham shocked the crap out of him with his next offer.
Sin sat back in her car, not tired at all. The subtle red-brown of her wig startled her each time she caught a glimpse of it in the rearview mirror. Occasionally she cranked the engine and drove around the block, stopping in a new but equally shaded parking spot each time. The Mechanic surely was keen on people tailing him. She would have to stay smart if she wanted to stay alive.
The awful car served its purpose, staying unobtrusive and running well. The time it took to find it was well spent. Lee had given her the tools she needed to find him. The knowledge of cars—how to find out which ones were common, how to walk into a dealership and buy a car with cash and not be remembered. She was using all of it now as she watched Kelly Gilligan in his hotel room.
If The Mechanic realized he'd been followed he didn't show it. When he arrived at the small house, he looked around then pushed the lock on the silver-colored sedan that he drove. He, too, seemed to have a good grasp of being unobtrusive. Probably why the FBI could never quite find him.
The man had let himself into the Kurev-owned property at 5436 South Ridgewood Court with no pretense of subterfuge, before disappearing behind the deep green door that looked like any other door in the neighborhood. The curtains didn't even twitch. For all that she could tell, he had no idea she was here, watching. And, while Sin knew the time would be uninteresting, she was interested.
Around nine in the evening, she circled the block again. She traded cars for a second, simple sedan at a nearby parking lot. This time she parked just a few spots away from his car, as she expected the Mechanic to leave the house soon. Surely he hadn't turned in for the day at 5p.m.
Getting out of the car as though she were headed somewhere, she walked down the block and grabbed a soda from a nearby gas station. Though the weather was chilly, she wasn't the only one out on foot and she blended in nicely. Even if Gilligan was watching specifically for her, he should have a hard time recognizing her. On her return walk to the car, she positioned herself away from his windows, so he couldn't see her even if he looked, then—for the benefit of anyone else—she let her purse slide off her shoulder just beside his car. When she stooped to pick it up she stuck a cheap tracking device under the bumper.
She'd had good luck using one in the past, as long as they weren't found. She wondered if Gilligan would look. Though this one was cheap, it operated on cell signals, not radio, which he might not check for, even though he should be sweeping his car every time he got in.
She climbed back into her car and drove around the block again. This time parking on the side street, where she could only see the car through a slit between the massive trunks of several trees. Had the season been different she wouldn't have been able to see, but the trees were bare and left her with a view of the Mechanic's car. If he was smart enough to look for a bug, then he'd also be smart enough to pop it off and leave it in the street. That way, anyone who was just watching the bug would sit quietly, thinking the car hadn't moved, and only when they got suspicious would they discover they'd been tracking an empty parking space.
Sin wasn't going to be that person.
By sitting and watching the car, she didn't have to turn on the tracker until he was already in motion. That would make it even harder to find, forcing a physical examination of the car to locate the actual signaling device.
It was three hours later that Gilligan came out the front door. And he looked a hell of a lot more like The Mechanic this time. His hair was slicked back, his clothing dark. In the deep shadows surrounding him, only the streetlight caught him. If she hadn't been looking just then, she would have missed him. Probably the neighbors, if interviewed later, would never know that this man had left his home at 10p.m. dressed for a kill. He carried a duffel bag that Sin would have loved to get her hands on. Instead, she hoped he would lead her to Lee.
Dumping his bag into the passenger seat, he disappeared from view for a moment. Then reappeared on the other side of the car.
Now or never, Sin thought. He did sweep the car and she held her breath until he climbed in behind the wheel. As he started the car, her mood turned just a little lighter.
Still, when he pulled out and down the street, Sin didn't even start her car. She simply turned on the cell phone she'd linked the device to and waited for it to pick up the car.
A genuine smile bloomed on her face as the dot appeared on a map program and she pulled from her own spot, staying a good distance behind Gilligan. There were enough side streets and enough traffic crossing that she needed to keep reasonably close. That same problem luckily also afforded her cover. So she carefully balanced between too close and too far with the cars. There was always a danger of the Mechanic spotting her.
Turning on the audio switch on the tracking device, Sin listened as the car was filled with an obnoxious beep beep beep. The speed of the synthetic chirp was correspondent to the receiver's distance from the bug. Old school style, it got a little longer when the Mechanic made it through a stop light and Sin didn't, but the sounds came closer together as she got closer behind him. Using the map, she confidently pulled ahead of several other cars and caught up in time to see Gilligan take a turn and aim for the freeway on-ramp.
Sin simply followed.
In the past, she'd often followed people, often stayed awake and alert for days on end. But none of those times had the work been this important. She was alert, on task, and focused like never before. Lee's life depended on it.
Gilligan hit the gas and Sin hung back a little further, allowing the beeping of the bug to space out as he gained some distance. The freeway system here was rapidly changing and she didn't want to miss an interchange or an exit that Gilligan might take advantage of, so occasionally she got close enough to get a visual. She didn't want to have to turn around at the next exit and backtrack and play a bad game of 'hotter/colder' in busy city traffic.
Cars in between shielded her from his view, and then there was the forgettableness that she had worked so hard for that worked to his advantage as well. Just like Lee had taught her, she had on a non-descript baseball cap, and sat in the car in such a way that it was difficult to discern her gender. The Mechanic probably wouldn't recognize her even if she pulled up even with his car. But she didn't take that chance.
Twenty minutes and two interchanges later, she exited onto a cross road that was smaller and seemed to lead to better places, but it wasn't a stop, only a turn. A single gas station sat at the exit, and the building didn't look as though anyone of any class had graced it in a long while. This was exactly what she was hoping for. Something out of the way; someplace a person could stash a dangerous prisoner.
He took two corners onto smaller and smaller roads, forcing Sin to hang back to not be noticed.
Then the car stopped.
Sin hit the brakes, not wanting to pull up beside him, and she waited a beat or two. Let another car pass her and take the turn taking it past the point where the Mechanic had stopped. Then she drove past herself, looking straight ahead, not as though she were lost, but as though she were curious about the area.
The Mechanic's car was empty.
He'd simply parked it and walked away.
But to where?
Though there were buildings on all sides of her, these looked like small shops. He'd parked in a lot with a four-hour parking sign. Given the looks of the place, none of that seemed well-enforced.
Had she lost him?
She fought a bitter laugh as she tracked down the road. She'd been shaken off. And good.
Sure none of the shoppers had looked like the Mechanic, but she didn't expect them too. About to rail at the universe for its cruelty, she turned the car around and headed for home, wondering when she'd find him again and how.
As she pulled up to the light, several cars pulled up behind her.
Holy shit.
The Mechanic was in the car behind her.
What the hell. It wasn't like she could follow him from in front, especially without her tracker. The worst part was that she knew she was onto something. She believed she was being led to Lee. So she acted lost, carefully turned to the right, hoping that was the direction he was headed. She kept him stuck behind her, letting the Mechanic get antsy and pull around. Then she tailed him down the street. The car stopped less than two miles later, purging itself of a lone rider.
The Mechanic headed into a closed bar.
While she was thrilled that she'd made a good guess, Sin was also pretty certain that this little operation was over. He walked into the bar midday, blending right in with the local scenery. The kind of service was noted only by the faded sign hanging from the narrow porch. The windows were boarded up, the door bolted heavily. No one would notice him. But they would notice her.
Though she was dressed to blend in, she was dressed for the area where his house was, not here by the warehouses. And how would she get into the building without him seeing or hearing her?
Disgust filled her, to be so close, and yet be so thwarted. The Mechanic had disappeared, bag and all, into a locked building. If she went in, she had to be prepared for a fight. And she wasn't prepared. She had no clue what or who awaited her. What if Lee wasn't even in there but others on the Kurev payroll were? What if she got herself caught? No offense to her friends, but between Nick, Annika and Owen, it was a crapshoot between Annika and Nick who could take this guy, and Sin wouldn't honestly bet on either of them given what she'd read in Owen's files.
Unable to stay sitting in the car here at the curb, she had to go find a parking spot, then scope out what she could. Big mess.
She normally wouldn't have done it. But the decision was made simply because she didn't have anything better to do. She didn't have any other real leads on where Lee might be held. And Gilligan hadn't quite sloughed her off yet, though he sure was giving her a good rub.
Parking close to the building but around back from the entrance, she managed to get the scope of the place. Three stories, covered windows except for the top floor. The staircase leading up to the porch and the cinderblock that made up the base of the building suggested a partially sunk basement.
She had done her recon, and made it back into her car to sit and wait.
For fifteen minutes she tortured herself with the thought that Lee was in that building. That she was so close, but couldn't risk it.
As far as she could see, the only person in there was the Mechanic—no one else had gone in. She was watching from her driver’s seat, map ready at hand in case she needed to look lost. From a safe distance she watched as Kelly Gilligan headed back to his car. His bag was noticeably lighter.
He didn't seem to notice her car, though her job was now considerably more difficult without the tracer. She had to keep visual tabs on him and though she kept him in sight, she wasn't certain she'd done it without alerting him. There was every possibility by this point that he'd figured out the dark blue car was everywhere he was. Still, she had to stay on his tail.
He hit three more spots that night, each time taking the bag in with him. Each time he entered a door that was heavily locked. Each time he emerged the bag was lighter. The third place was the last. At least Sin thought that because the bag was wadded and tucked under his arm as he exited the building behind a nicer boat dock.
While she managed to walk the perimeter of the large building set a ways back from the dock, she wanted to case the place more thoroughly. As it was, she was out of the car when Kelly Gilligan returned to his own ride.
For a moment, she fought indecision. Should she stay? Go inside? It had all the same problems as the bar. And now there was a one-in-four chance that Lee was inside. Lower odds than were safe for a breach of that risk.
Barely making it back to the car, she managed to follow him back to the first sedan. At that point, she quit tailing him.
Better to not get caught. Better to get out while she might still be ahead. The tracker meant she could sit where she was and watch as he drove home, parking in front of the small house again.
She wanted to go back to each of the four places, but it was going on four a.m. Figuring Nick was in bed asleep by now, she called him anyway.