Someone who realized that another discredited officer, a female, as seen on the bank security cameras—say, Tessa Leoni—would make the perfect sacrificial lamb. Plus, her husband had a known gambling problem, making her an even better candidate.

Brian died because his out-of-control habit made him a threat to everyone. And Tessa was packaged up with a bow and handed over to the powers that be as their own get-out-of-jail-free card. We’ll say she stole the money, her husband gambled it away, and all will be accounted for. Investigation will be closed and we can ride off into the sunset, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars richer and no one the wiser.

Brian dead, Tessa behind bars, and Sophie …

Bobby wasn’t ready to think about that. Sophie was a liability. Maybe kept alive in the short term, in case Tessa didn’t go along with the plan. But in the long term …

Tessa was right to be on the warpath. She’d already lost one day to planning, one day to hospitalization, and one day to incarceration. Meaning this was it. She was running out of time. In the next few hours, she’d find her daughter, or die trying.

A lone trooper, going up against mobsters who thought nothing of breaking into police officers’ homes and shooting their spouses.

Who would have the balls to do such a thing? And the access?

Russian mafia had sunk huge tentacles into the Boston area. They were widely acknowledged to be six times more ruthless than their Italian counterparts, and were swiftly becoming the lead players in all things corrupt, drug-fueled, and money-laundered. But a quarter mil defrauded from the state troopers’ union sounded too small time in Bobby’s mind.

The Russians preferred high risk, high payoff. Quarter mil was a rounding error in most of their undertakings. Plus, to steal from the state police, to actively summon the wrath of a powerful law enforcement agency upon your head …

It sounded more personal to Bobby. Mobsters wouldn’t seek to embezzle from a troopers’ union. They might, however, apply pressure to an insider who then determined that was the best way to produce the necessary funds. An insider with access to the money, but also with the knowledge and foresight to cover his own trail …

All of a sudden, Bobby knew. It horrified him. Chilled him to the bone. And made complete sense.

He raised his elbow and drove it through the passenger-side window of the parked car. Window shattered. Car alarm sounded. Bobby ignored both sounds. He reached inside, popped the glove compartment, and helped himself to the vehicle registration info, which included record of the license plate now adorning Tessa Leoni’s truck.

Then he trotted back to D.D. and the garage, armed with new information as well as their final target.

Chapter 40

40

People were brought down here to die.