Ellis and Cassel hurry off as I debate what we should do now.
“I really wish I could have had a longer… “talk” with those guys,” I grumble.
“I guess we should tell the police we found Waylon. Jeremy likely told them Waylon’s the one missing,” Jackson says.
“Yeah, we’ll inform Jeremy,” I agree. “Then we’ll head to Wellstone and have Sophia meet us there. Best neutral ground we have.”
“My car is down here. Let’s put Waylon inside and then drive down to Jeremy,” Jackson says as he points to where his car was left behind when the fleeing vehicle buzzed around it.
“Did you kung fu them?” I ask Waylon, wrapping my arm around him again and ruffling his hair.
Waylon doesn’t seem to know what to do with the petting, but he permits it because he’s a good kid or a sucker, I’m not quite sure.
“I sure tried! It’s so much different when it’s in the moment,” Waylon says, looking disappointed in himself. “It’s like… my adrenaline was running so high but my mind wasn’t. I actually had gotten one guy to the ground and sprayed him right in the face, but when they took Cam, it just… I couldn’t get to him. I was panicked, and I wasted the whole thing of pepper spray on one man. Like… why didn’t I share it with the others?”
“It’s alright. I nearly got myself killed the first time I went on a hit. I had trained for a while, and I was so confident in myself but like you said, right in the moment… it’s very different. But I’m going to up your training to six hours a day, seven days a week,” I decide.
“I wouldn’t have time to even exist between that and school!” he cries.
“And then I’m going to build a little box to store you in. Like a little hamster! I’ll give you a wheel and come around every now and then to give you a pat and tell you what a wonderful job you’ve done for that day.”
“Wonderful job doing what? Questioning my life choices?”
“You’ll besosafe. Ooh, I could build you a little Fence Jr. to keep you company!”
“Let’s not terrify the child,” Jackson says before hesitating. “Um… looks like… my car has company.”
“The fun kind of company?” I ask. “Tavish’s extra-large head is in the way.” I push it out of the way and when my eyes make contact with the dark-haired woman in her thirties waiting near Jackson’s car, I hastily push Tavish’s head back in the way. “Change of plans. It’s all Tavish’s fault.”
“I come when you call, find your boy, and ya still blame me? I cannae wrap my head around your brain,” he mutters, his accent flaring up with his declaration.
“That’s because your brain is the size of a wee acorn,” I clarify for him.
“Ah, of course.”
“I think we should be as honest as possible without admitting that we had anything to do with shooting the car. The guys in the vehicle might describe us, but people like them will likely keep their mouths shut. I think there’s only so much Detective Patel can speculate about us before she starts looking into us harder,” Jackson says as he watches the detective who is rather new to the force but took an interest in us far too quickly. Irritatingly quickly.
“That’s fine. Sophia might not be happy that she’s being dragged into it, but she also put our baby boy in danger.”
“Leland, I see you walking backwards,” Detective Patel says. “Only a guilty man walks backwards.”
“I’m the least guilty man here,” I respond, all smiles as I push Tavish out of the way. “I was simply trying to put some distance between me and the stinky Scottish man. I needed a bit of fresh air.”
“There’s quite the ruckus going on just down the road,” she observes.
I nod. “We were actually just heading that way to stick our nose into it.”
“Looks like you already did. I was seeing what you boys were up to. Just found it peculiar your car was here,” she says. “Officer Walker informed me that Waylon, who I’ve learned is under your care, got wound up in this but I see you have him. Officer Walker stated that he sadly made it onto the scene after the gunshots and was here just to clean up the mess. I’m hoping his cruiser picked up something, but of course the camera is pointed in an inconvenient direction.”
Jackson looks over at me before stepping forward. “To explain our involvement, Waylon was walking to the mall with his friend Cam when he called and said some men were following him. We got here after whatever happened over there. We just now found Waylon, but he has informed us that there was a second vehicle and his friend was taken in that one.”
“So your friend is missing?” Patel asks Waylon.
He nods. “A guy began following us back there,” he says as he points. “I called Leland, and he told me to get into any building I could. So I tried heading for that office building there when more guys came out and started after us. We ran down some alley where a guy grabbed my bag, dragging me back from Cam, so I shoved it at him. I made it around the edge of this building before another guy grabbed me, and I sprayed him with pepper spray… but I wasn’t close enough to hit the others.
“They grabbed Cam while I was spraying the guy… by the time I got the guy off me, I realized Cam was already in a car that was headed that way. That’s when I heard the gunfire.”
“What color was the vehicle?” Patel asks.
