The Gatekeeper by Michelle Gagnon Read Free Book Online

who was avidly anti-immigration and was raising a lot of fuss in the media about closing the borders. That wouldn’t be good for their business, if I’m not mistaken.” Kelly knew that the gangs’ lifeblood was the stream of guns and drugs from the south. More stringent legislation might have made smuggling trickier.
    The lawyer shrugged again. “Hey, I’d be skeptical, too. But I gotta say, I know these guys.” He leaned closer, and Kelly smelled onion and something spicy on his breath. “They’ll go to the mats if they think another gang is infringing on their territory, but getting political? They’re not big CNN fans, you know? I bet half of them couldn’t name the president, never mind some senator.”
    “Maybe they were under orders from someone else. MS-13 is a national organization, right?”
    The lawyer shifted his briefcase to the other hand. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he said carefully. “But if it was, most groups would probably be individual cells. Kind of like al Qaeda. Crediting them with a national mission statement, something on this organizational level…” He flicked his eyes down the hall as a sheriff approached, then back to Kelly. “Let’s just say if that’s the case, what you’re dealing with is something entirely new.” He lowered his voice and said, “And I haven’t heard anything about it. Trust me, I would have.” He flashed a smile and shook her hand. “Adios, Agent Jones. Hopefully next time we meet under cheerier circumstances.”
    Kelly watched him stroll away before turning back tothe interrogation room. Through the small window she watched Guzman carve his name on the underside of the table with a ballpoint pen. The lawyer was right; “Psycho” didn’t appear to be a criminal mastermind. Which didn’t eliminate the possibility that someone else was pulling the strings.
    She headed back to the squad room. On the way Kelly wondered who might have gotten an MS-13 “cell” involved in a killing like this, and what they hoped to accomplish. If anything, this worked against their goals. In the wake of Morris’s death, anti-immigration groups were organizing rallies and right-wing talk show hosts were treating it like Christmas and the Rapture all tied up in one. If someone had done this to shut Duke Morris up, they’d made a terrible error. Dead, his voice was carrying louder than ever.

JUNE 29

Six
    R andall Grant hunched over the steering wheel, drawing deep breaths to steady himself. These past few days had been hell, starting with the frantic, incoherent phone call from Audrey, drunk as usual. He could hear Bree yelling in the background and assumed it was one of their usual fights, that he was being called in to arbitrate. But when he’d finally puzzled out what she meant, her broken voice wailing, “She’s gone!” over and over, a cold ball settled in his stomach. They’d carried through on their threat, snatching the most vulnerable member of his family.
    The impotence was the worst part. After hanging up he’d stormed around the apartment in a rage, fantasizing about bursting into rooms and mowing down the people who took his little girl. By midnight he’d come to his senses and sat down to weigh his options. His division answered directly to the Department of Homeland Security, one call to them and the full resources of the U.S. government would have been mustered. The problem was, in that scenario he’d be placed on full lockdown. Every conversation would be monitored, and no movement would go unnoticed. In the grand schemeof things, it was in the DHS’s best interest to protect what he knew. The loss of a teenage girl would be tragic, but not their first priority. He’d be hauled off to a safe location while Madison had a gun to her head. With Syd, at least they had a shot at recovering her, before…
    Randall stopped himself from picturing her broken and dead and God knows what else. And it would be his fault, her blood on his hands