“Feel free to question Jessica, but I wouldn’t. Woman did me a favor by pushing this through so quickly.”
My head started to spin. Julian Griggs had been high on coke when he attacked Sunny—and who was once known as the biggest coke dealer in the area? Kenzo Rees. There was my connection. Loose, but it was there. Rees got out f prison, immediately reconnected with this drug-dealing buddies, and somewhere along the line, Julian Griggs had crossed paths with Rees. I just had to figure out a way to confirm this connection, and more importantly, why Griggs attacked Rees’s ex-girlfriend.
“What did the Pastor have to say about it?”
“Shocked. Fell to his knees and began praying.”
“So he was surprised? There were no signs of drug abuse or violent behavior before this?”
Colson shook his head. “Not that he was ready to admit, anyway.”
“You know The Collars are notorious coke dealers.” I opted to leave Kenzo Rees’s name out specifically to avoid another Sunny showdown with the Lieutenant.
Colson nodded. “Checking into them is on my to-do list today. The gang is notoriously tight lipped, though. Hell, the only reason I know what I know about them is because I arrested a new recruit a few years ago. Kid has just been released from prison, broke into someone’s house without realizing the house belonged to a retired colonel in the army. Kid walked right into the barrel of a shotgun where he pissed himself and obediently waited until the cops showed up. He had a new tattoo on his arm, still red around the edges. The symbol for The Collars.”
“What did you get out of him?”
“Not much. I was able to put together that new Collar members go through an initiation phase, kinda like a fraternity. Somehow, his B&E was related. But like I said, he didn’tdivulge this information. I slapped him with a few charges, destruction of private property, public intox.”
I felt like I’d just taken a shot of espresso. I was practically buzzing with this new information. Had Sunny’s attack been Julian Griggs’ initiation to The Collars? Had Rees ordered him to do it? It made sense. It added up. I just had to figure out how to prove it.
“Anything back from ballistics? Either the casings from Seagrave’s scene or Sunny’s?”
“Not yet. I’ve got Darby following up. So…” Colson said, moving on from that conversation. “How are you doing? Heard about the break-in at Sunny’s.” His gaze sharpened.
“What did you hear exactly?”
“That the crime scene unit found jack shit.”
“Then you heard correctly.”
“Do you think it’s connected to her attack?”
“Among other things, yeah.”
“Could be a pissed-off church goer. One of Pastor Griggs’ most beloved followers.”
“I wouldn’t think ‘bitch, whore, slut, and cunt’are part of his beloved followers’ vocabulary.”
“Givers on Sundays, sinners on Mondays. You know how it goes.”
I nodded, wrapped my hand around the back of my neck. When did my neck start hurting?
“I drove by her place on my way home last night hoping to catch you guys,” he continued. “See if you needed anything. You and Darby had already left… and Miss Harper wasn’t there either.”
I met his gaze, my eyes narrowing to slits.
He continued. “You don’t happen to know where she went off to, do you?”
We stared at each other for a minute, the tension in the room going from casual to heated in under two seconds flat.
“She went to a friend’s house,” I lied. “I advised her it wasn’t safe to stay in her cabin until we found who vandalized it.”
“A friend’s house?Come on!” He slapped his palm against my desk. “This woman has got you under her spell, Jagger. You’re letting it happen. You’re thinking with your dick instead of your brain, and I gotta tell ya, I’ve never seen you like this before. You’ve lost your focus. You’ve got too many balls in the air. You’re missing the obvious. I don’t like it. I don’t likeher.Maybe you should pay a bit more attention to the writing on her cabin walls. Because right now, witch?—”
I surged to my feet. “You say another fucking word, Colson?—”
He surged to his and cut me off. “Do you know the Chief’s got me hunting down those rednecks you roughed up at Frank’s last night? Wants me toconvincethem to press charges. To come in and give formal statements about your use of excessive force. What the hell were you thinking? McCord aims to have your badge pulled by the end of the week. People here are noticing. You’re becoming a joke, do you understand that? A lovestruck puppy. Sunny Harper is going to make you lose the only thing you’ve got in your life. I hope she’s worth it.”
