So he had always done what he had to do to keep his secrets.
He would do so again.
Until there was no threat left.
He looked up at Bo when his step-nephew came in. “Is it finished?”
Bo just nodded. “No one is digging now.”
Bo understood the mission. And he was blindly loyal to those who were loyal to him. He had learned that about the young man long, long ago. It made Bo very, very useful to have around.
56
This wasn’t justabout someone involved in one of Dom’s case like she’d first thought. This was personal. Madison stood at his shoulder, staying quiet. She would never forget the day she had been called to the ME's office to identify her father after he had died. It would always hurt. To see someone like this.
She’d seen dead bodies so many times before. It was a part of the job. But this…was someone Dom knew. She knew how that had to hurt. She’d…identified three work friends herself who had been killed in the tornado a few years ago. It still hurt to this day.
"That's him. Antonio… He went by Tony on the street. He relayedinformationfor me. We had a business relationship."
Tony.
This was the snitch Dom had talked about and to before. Madison just knew it then—the one he’d told her he’d wanted to help once.
"Your business card was found in his pocket," Daryn said. "We figured we'd start with you on the ID. He didn't have any other ID on him. Personal effects are there. He didn't have much."
Madison looked. An old cracked phone, a cigarette lighter and a pack of Marlboros. Not even a watch.
"No, he didn't. He inherited his mom’s place in Garrity, but it is pretty rough, I think. I was by there once, with Lake.”
"How did you meet him?" Madison asked. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to just wrap her arms around him. Well, she couldn’t do that. But she could be there with him now.
His outward appearance showed nothing but the big, strong guy type that she knew he thought he had to be. But she knew him well. She saw the hurt in his eyes.
Her caveman was hurting. Madison didn’t like it when he was hurting.
"Came across him years ago. In my patrol days. He was always willing to talk for twenty bucks. Sometimes that twenty bucks was all he would have for buying food for a week. He didn't work real jobs. No real… anything. He wasn't a bad guy. He just made stupid choices after… well, meth. Meth was his drug of choice. Before that he had a chance. He wasn't half bad. Making stupid decisions around age nineteen, twenty. He didn't deserve this."
Daryn covered the man's body with the sheet again. "I'm sorry."
"He didn't deserve to end up like this. What do we know so far?" There he was. Mister Professional. Of course. Dom would shove the hurt away to go hunting the bad guys.
"Cause of death GSW to the frontotemporal. Close range. But it was a small caliber, probably .22 or .38. I'll know more after I have him on the table," Daryn said. "For now. That's my preliminary showing. I'll let you know more later. He's… a priority. As soon as I get the slug out, I'll get it to ballistics. Really can't say any more now. Do you know who should we call to make the notification?"
Dom just shook his head. "Only family he had died two years ago. He had no one. Hell, I'm probably the closest thing to a friend he had."
She was watching him.Not saying much. Dom almost felt her gaze as he drove her home.
"Shitty day."
"Yes. I suppose that would describe it.” Damn it. He hadknownthis was probably going to happen to Tony someday. He’d just always half-hoped he’d find a way to help the other man. But Tony had taken a few extreme turns after losing his mother to a stroke two years ago. She had been all the grounding influence Tony had had in the world. But why had this happened to Tony now?
“How well did you really know him, Dom?"
He stayed silent for a moment. Thinking back to those days. "I met him my first week on the job here after I transferred in. Just some skinny punk urinating on my tire. I was in the gas station taking a leak myself. Came out, and he was no more than twenty-one, twenty-two. Just a few years younger than I was. I'm not even sure he made thirty."
"I thought he was in his fifties. From the way he looked."
"Meth will do that to you. We both know that. I crossed paths with him every so often. Hassling a bit, that kind of thing. I just sort of… hell, honey, the city is sixty thousand, and my territory overlapped his. Nothing more complicated than that. Just… You see the same people sometimes. Eventually it was, hey, I'll give you twenty if you tell me what you know about this or tell me what you know about that, and we’d talk for a few minutes when he felt like it. Eventually…he started calling me with things hethought I needed to know about. Always…when the underdog…he had a heart. Soft spots. I…tried to get him into rehab a few times, but it never stuck. He was always a good source of information."
