Waylon scratches his head. “Like a gray SUV, I think? It happened so fast.”
“And are these guys who took him members of that gang you were involved with, Waylon?”
He looks alarmed as he quickly shakes his head. “No! That stuff is all over. I swear.”
“If they were after Waylon, I believe they’d have taken Waylon instead of his friend,” Jackson says.
“Was your friend also involved in the gang?”
“No! I just met him at school. I didn’t do anything to cause this, right?” he asks as he looks at Jackson and me for guidance. “Was I the cause of this?”
“No, you didn’t,” I say. “Detective, please place your focus on the missing child and not blaming ours who had nothing to do with it. They were clearly targeting Cam. You can’t tell me a group of grown men would have given up on a defenseless teenager who had already used his entire bottle of pepper spray if they were after him too.”
“I will. Are you currently carrying a gun?” she asks.
“Yes, I am,” I say.
“I’d really appreciate it if you handed your gun over… just in case.”
I glower at the pesky woman, despising the idea of her touching my baby. And then I’m stuck trying to decide which baby I love less to hand her—the baby on my right or the baby on my left—though really, I just love them both so much, but I must do what I can to protect Waylon.
“A-Are you going to hurt her?” I ask. “Last time, your crew wanted to hold on to my baby for so long only to go, ‘Wow, you’re right, youweren’tthe one to shoot them.’”
“It’s so weird this keeps happening to you,” she says. She’s such a sassy woman.
Jackson just gives her his innocent smile. “We are PIs, ma’am. I think sometimes we just end up in the wrong place at the wrong time while looking into our clients’ issues. But this time, we really were just rushing here to protect Waylon.”
“I understand. I’ll have someone take your weapons, and Waylon, after we get you looked over, can you give us a more in-depth statement?”
“I can try,” he says.
“Just remember, everything you do here can help us find your friend.”
Waylon nods and I’m left questioning what role I should play in this. The longer I’m stuck with the police, the harder it might be to find Cam.
SEVEN
LELAND
“She’s sonosy,” I complain when we finally make it to the Wellstone Detective Agency. I’m sure Sophia wasn’t pleased about being called in to deal with the police when she’d rather be out there herself looking for her son, but it gives us some time to dig into things ourselves.
“Patel? You’re calling Patel nosy?” Jackson asks. “What do you think a detective does?”
“I don’t know. It’s this strange thing where if she was bad at her job, that’d annoy me, but it also annoys me that she’s good at her job. She needs to be focused on the crimes at hand and not us, you get me?”
“You think that maybe it’s because wearethe crime at hand?” Jackson asks.
I hesitate before going to sit in my chair but as I do so, Tavish the Shithead slides his ass into the chair. “Excuse me?”
“Not sure what I’m excusing you for, but you’re excused,” Tavish says.
I slam my foot down right between his spread legs. “You’re in my chair.”
“You could have gotten my dick, what the fuck?”
“You shouldn’t have your legs spread so wide if you wanted to protect your dick,” I say.
“There’s just so much length in there that I can’t squeeze them shut. It’s physically impossible with such a large rod.”
