“Why would we want to keep him free of it?”Demon asked, tilting his head to one side as he watched Gizmo.
“I thought you would want to kick him clear, if we can.”
Demon shook his head.
“The stupid fucker got himself in hot water, he can get himself out or he can cook.”That sounded callous and he knew it.He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking again.
“Look I’m not saying to just let him fry.We can look at offering some kind of deal, he testifies or something, I don’t know.But even though he’s blood, there’s only so far I’m willing to go.”He bit his lip and stared at the ceiling a moment as he tried to find the words for what he needed to say.“We all reach a point when someone has hit the limit of your tolerance.When they’ve gone too far and you can’t blindly support them anymore.I’m not saying that Jim Bob has reached that point with me,” Demon said holding up one hand to keep Gizmo from arguing, “only that he’s close.And if he’s done something or the people he’s associated with hurts my family, my grandmother, one more time, we may have reached that point.”He pushed his chair away from the table, but looked up and met the other man’s gaze.“You have anything else we need to discuss?”
Gizmo shook his head.“No, but you’ll need to let Tuck and Sadist know what’s brewing, and sooner rather than later.”
Demon nodded.He stood and put his chair back where it belonged before picking up his plate.
“Can I have twenty-four hours?”
Gizmo shrugged.“I don’t see why not.None of this is new and I don’t see any danger coming our way, just because we know about it now.But don’t wait too long.It won’t get easier with holding on to it.”
Demon nodded, went to the door, unlocked it and left, leaving it open behind him.
8
“Hey,Op,wherehaveyou been?”Ronnie picked up the purring cat as he threaded his way around her torso and under her arm in a bid for attention.She snuggled him close and kissed the top of his head before releasing him to go on about his business.Instead, he flopped on to the sofa cushion beside her and rolled against her leg for a couple of minutes.
“I still can’t believe you named your cat after a character on TV.”Gavin shook his head as he continued to read through the file in front of him.
Ronnie shrugged and let it go.Lots of people named their pets after TV characters.It was a conversation they’d had too many times to count, and she wasn’t in the mood to rehash it now.She had other things on her mind.
They’d taken the six skips she’d been assigned and eliminated two, at least she thought she had.It was possible that there was more to the two they’d dismissed, but she didn’t think so.Both were first-time offenders with fairly minor charges.
And while she knew anyone could be dangerous under the right circumstances, she didn’t think a thirty-two-year-old woman picked up for possession was who her father planned to use to scare her off.The same with the sixty-eight-year-old man picked up for indecent exposure.Ronnie wasn’t one-hundred percent convinced that that one didn’t have a touch of dementia, but she wasn’t a doctor to make that diagnosis.
“Ok, so now we’re down to four, how do we figure out which one it is?”She stared at the four folders spread out on her coffee table.She felt more than a little stupid and paranoid for doing this, but Gavin was right, the more they knew, the more prepared she could be.
“Now we look each of them up.”He pulled his laptop from the bag, set it on the table, and opened it.After giving him the password to get online, it took him a couple of minutes before speaking again.
“Give me the first name.”He typed as she read him the info he asked for, all the usual stuff, name, date of birth, etc.
“Ok, count how many charges you have on him in the file.”
She counted those to herself while he did something on the computer.While the number was close, it wasn’t the same, so they went through case by case and checked on each charge.It didn’t take them long to realize that all the most serious things were listed, and only petty crimes had been left off, at least from this one.They moved on to the next file and repeated the process.
It wasn’t until the third file that they found significant charges missing.
“What’ s not there is all the violent shit,” she said, leaning back against the rear cushion of the sofa.“Not that car jacking doesn’t have the potential to become violent, but it wasn’t this time and until the moment happens you never know, they could get cold feet at the last minute and back away from hurting someone.”She waved one hand toward the files still scattered across the table in front of them.“That’s how that makes him look.Like he’s not done anything violent yet, so whether or not he fights being taken in could go either way.”
“You’re right.This is probably the one, but I’m going to check the last file too, just in case.What if he gave you two dangerous skips and not just one.I’d hate for you to go in blind, thinking that because that one’s dangerous that this one’s safe.Or relatively.Gavin reached over and picked up the last file while Ronnie stared at the one they’d already uncovered to be falsified.
Of course it would be that one.And thinking of, she needed to check in with the cousin.He’d given her his number.There was no reason she couldn’t reach out to him.She wondered if he was any different from his cousin.
“That one looks good,” Gavin said, dropping the last file on top of the four they’d already looked up and dismissed.
“Can you look up another name for me?”
“Sure.What is it?”
“James Joseph Jennings.”
Gavin’s brows shot up, but he didn’t say anything as he typed the name in.She watched his face and saw as several emotions flashed across it, too fast for her to figure out what he was seeing, but she could tell he was surprised.
