Free No Good Deed by Allison Brennan Page B

before she saw the pattern.
    Nicole had been recruited into the DEA right out of college, fifteen years ago. She’d been assigned to the Atlanta main office for her first year, then to the smaller Savannah resident office for the second year. After her two-year rookie probation she’d asked to be transferred to Mexico City, but had been denied because she didn’t speak Spanish well enough. She’d been transferred to the Chicago Division, where she took night classes to learn Spanish. Over the next ten years—between the end of her rookie years until she landed in San Antonio three years ago—she’d asked for a total of nine transfers. And while she was only granted two of them, she’d still been moved several times—no office assignment lasted longer than two years.
    Until San Antonio.
    It seemed odd to Lucy that Nicole had asked to transfer so many times. In both the DEA and the FBI, rookie agents had little to no influence over their initial two-year assignment. Prior to graduation at Quantico, Lucy was asked to list the three offices she wanted to be assigned to. Nothing guaranteed that she would be assigned to one of the three—it depended on many factors. She’d listed two offices in California—both her family and Sean’s family were in California (hers in the south, his in the north)—and Norfolk, because it was in Virginia and only a few hours from where her brothers Dillon and Patrick lived in DC.
    They’d given her San Antonio.
    It was relatively common that, after a two-year rookie period, federal agents were given the option to move to any available position in another regional office. When Sean bought the house, she’d told him she’d most likely be transferred after two years. He didn’t care, he wanted a place that was theirs, and she loved him for it. She loved their home, their neighborhood, and San Antonio had grown on her. She didn’t know if she would request a transfer, though she might not have a choice.
    Nicole Rollins had spent two years in the Los Angeles DEA office, and her final request was to be transferred to an opening in Houston. She was there for nine months before she was moved laterally into the San Antonio regional office, which was under the Houston umbrella.
    She hadn’t asked to be moved again since she landed here.
    Lucy made a list of Nicole’s employment history with the DEA, the names of her direct supervisors in each office, and whether she asked to be transferred to or from any office location. Nicole had never bought a house until arriving in San Antonio.
    Three years ago.
    Lucy stared at the timeline, her heart racing as she realized that Nicole hadn’t been assigned to San Antonio when she killed the drug dealer.
    When they DEA recovered the disk three months ago—thanks to Sean’s brother Kane—Nicole claimed that the cartel had used that disk as leverage over her for the last five years, implying that she’d been forced into working for them. Yet, it was clear, after this well-orchestrated prison break, that there was much more to the story. Nicole wasn’t a timid, fearful federal agent being blackmailed into subservience.
    Lucy had assumed the disk had been filmed in San Antonio—Ryan had known about the case—but Nicole was assigned to Los Angeles during that time. If she was in San Antonio five years ago, why? Was she on vacation? On assignment? Who was the man she killed and was there another reason for his murder other than taking his money and drugs?
    She closed her eyes and remembered the conversation she’d had with Ryan. It was the disk they’d uncovered that had proven Nicole was a corrupt DEA agent. Ryan said it was from a San Antonio case that was still on the books, unsolved. Nicole had gone into the small electronics repair shop, flashed her badge, and shot the unarmed owner in cold blood. The victim was a known criminal, the shop a link in the chain moving drugs up from Mexico and into the rest of the country.
    Lucy needed to see