Frustration roiled in my gut, but I bit back the urge to argue with him. It was obvious he wasn’t ready to share this part. Not yet, at least.
“Fine,” I groaned, getting up off the sofa. “Keep it to yourself, but you’ll have to tell me at some point.” I started to walk past him, but he snagged my wrist, pulling me to a halt.
His gaze held mine. “I need you to be patient with me.”
The tension in my shoulders eased. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t. But you know I’ll need to know at some point.”
“I know.”
I gave a nod and then grabbed a change of clothes from my bag. I headed to the bathroom and shut the door, needing a moment alone to sort through my feelings. His initial plan for the day was solid, and it made sense for us to see what he could find from the autobody shop owner before we planned our next steps.
Room service showed up soon afterward. James ate a hearty breakfast, but I only had two cups of coffee and a few bites of eggs and pancakes. James changed into jeans and a short-sleeve black T-shirt, then we both strapped on our over-the-shoulder holsters, donned our jackets, and left the room.
We headed out the door, down the back stairwell, and out the back entrance. I let James take the lead, heading the opposite direction we’d gone the night before.
After we walked several blocks, James dipped into a parking garage, then climbed the stairs to the top level. It was mostly empty, so the dark sedan was easy to spot. He reached under the trunk and pulled a key fob out, and a couple of minutes later, we were driving out of the garage.
“How long have you been working on this?” I asked.
He shot me a quick glance, then turned back to the road. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
I glared at him. “You know what I’m talking about.”
His lips pressed into a thin line. “It depends on how you look at it. I made a few half-hearted attempts the first year after I was released. I told my handler I had to get settled into my new life and that no one was gonna trust me fresh out of prison. The second year, I made a little more effort. My handler was makin’ noise that they were gonna toss me back in prison and reinstate my charges. Over the past six months or so, I’ve gotten a little more aggressive.”
“Why the last six months?”
He hesitated. “I’d put out a few feelers the two years before and asked a few people to contact me if they heard anything. A couple of them started pingin’ me last fall.”
An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. “When last fall?”
“Late September, then it intensified in early October.” He turned to glance at me.
I didn’t respond.
“One of my sources said he heard that there was a shipment arriving early October, but he wasn’t sure where or who was even runnin’ it. I tried to check into it, but it was vague enough that I couldn’t find anything of substance. Then he turned up dead a few days later.”
“Someone killed him?” I asked, unsettled.
“The official report was drug overdose, but he’d been clean for a good five years. It seemed mighty suspicious.”
“And the other source?” I asked.
“He disappeared.”
“Shit.”
“Yep,” he said with a grimace.
“Are you worried something might happen to the people we talk to today?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“So what do you want to do?” I asked, wondering if I’d endangered my own contacts.
“We talk to ’em anyway.”
I studied him to see if he looked as okay with that as he sounded. The expression on his face confirmed he wasn’t.
