“Why don’t you let me handle City Hall?”Savvy offers.
“Gladly.”
She definitely has more patience than I do dealing with Mayor Don Merrick or any of his pencil pushers, so I’m happy to hand off that job.
She starts to walk away when she suddenly stops and turns, fixing a pointed look on the laptop in front of me.
“What were you working on when I walked in?”
Caught off guard, it takes me a moment to react.
“Just looking over some old cases.”
She lifts her eyes to mine and for a moment I wonder if she’s going to push for more, but she finally nods and continues to her office.
Technically, I’m not lying, but it’s still a severe misrepresentation of the truth, which makes me feel uncomfortable.Especially since Savvy already appears to have that disappointed-mother look down pat.
But Savvy and Bess are the best of friends, and if Savvy knew I was digging up Bess’s family history, she might feel compelled to share that fact with Bess, and I’d prefer for her not to know.At least not yet.
For now, all I was looking for was some background information to better understand what might have put the fear in her eyes after she spoke to her brother.What I got was far more than I bargained for.
Kenneth Choi was just released on parole from a twenty-year stint in prison for an assortment of crimes ranging from drug smuggling, to assault, to robberies, and the list goes on.And those were just the crimes he’d been convicted of.The guy was a known member of the Lotus Squad and, from what I can tell, was suspected to have had involvement in much more than those charges.
The fact that a known gangbanger—brother or not—is blowing up Bess’s phone does not exactly fill me with the warm and fuzzies.It can mean nothing good.But I’m afraid if I confront her straight up, she’ll simply shut me out and push me away, which would make it much harder to keep an eye on her.
I’d much prefer for her to volunteer the information, and that will require diplomacy; an attribute I wasn’t exactly blessed with.
Chapter7
Hugo
“Homework?”
Carson stops at the door and looks back at me.
“Dad, I’ve got all weekend.”
“You mean you have Sunday.You work tomorrow, remember?Are you really going to want to spend the only full day off you have worrying about homework?”
He rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and sighs dramatically.
“Come on, Dad.I haven’t seen Tate at all today.First school, and my shift at Strange Brew started right after, then when I got home, I even got dinner started.I promised Tate I’d come by for a bit after dinner.I swear I’ll be home by nine to do my homework.”
That’s right too, he’d mentioned he got called in to help out at the coffee shop for a few hours.I bite off a grin, looking at those big, innocent, blue eyes he’s trying to ply me with.
“Fine,” I concede, and he’s halfway out the door before I call him back.“Hey, what was going on at the coffee shop they needed you for?”
He throws me a grin over his shoulder.
“Clean up.Ragnar demolished the pantry.”
I’m puzzled, not sure what the heck he’s talking about, but it doesn’t sound good.
Ragnar?Who the fuck is Ragnar?
I manage to grab the front door before it latches and step outside to try and catch Carson, but he’s already hopping into my old pickup.I don’t bother waving him down, and instead head back inside to grab my coat and my keys.
Guess I’ll just have to go find out for myself.
