Oh, God.
The coffee cup and file were missing from Walter’s desk.
He’d forgotten about the fucking file.
Chapter Thirteen
At one time Lucky answered to nobody and kept his own secrets. Now he could barely look Bo in the eyes for fear he’d drag his lover into his own personal hell.
Best to keep the distance and shield him as much as possible. Bo didn’t fully believe his suspicions about Johnson, and he wouldn’t believe Lucky and Keith were kinda, sorta collaborating.
For Walter. Only for Walter.
“Why don’t you take the boys out and hunt floofballs or something?” Lucky asked around noon on Sunday.
Bo raised a brow, but in the end herded Todd and Ty out the door, phones in hand, to pursue their favorite non-couch potato video game. Although Lucky didn’t understand the rules, at least the pursuit of pokey-whatevers got the three of them out of the house.
The more he thought over his last case, the more things didn’t make sense.
He’d love to have someone with him, but better to keep Bo out of things, and doubts remained about Johnson. The missing cup and file. The case. Somehow the two were related.
He made the call on his own and set up an appointment.
***
Lucky checked behind him but couldn’t see a tail. Didn’t mean there wasn’t one, just that they’d gotten better at their job.
He drove to the outskirts of Atlanta, to a nice neighborhood, but hardly the plush place he’d expected.
Chastain opened the door of a modest home—modest for the owner of a successful pharmaceutical company.
“Mr. Harrison?” Chastain held out his hand, though he didn’t smile. “Come in, please.”
Lucky shook the guy’s hand and went inside. This visit might be considered a conflict of interest, since he wasn’t here in an official capacity. What O’Donoghue didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. Or, rather, it might. Real soon, if Lucky had his way.
“Thanks for meeting with me.” The house smelled nice, some kind of floral scent. Lucky followed Chastain into the living room.
“Can I get you something? Soft drink? Beer?”
Lucky shook his head and sank down onto a black couch a couple of cows had given their lives for—there he went thinking like vegetarian Bo—and leaned back to appear casual, like he’d seen Walter do many times to put people at ease and not on their guard.
The better to extract information.
Chastain sat across from him on a chair, wearing a pair of shorts and a polo shirt. “I don’t know what else I can tell you that I haven’t already told the DEA. My attorney advised against seeing you, but you were there. You know we followed the code of federal regulations to a T.”
He’d checked with his lawyer before seeing Lucky? Proved he had sense. Even against the advice of legal counsel he agreed to the meeting. Which meant he had nothing to hide, in Lucky’s experience. “Do you remember the name of the DEA agent who came to see you?”
“Umm…” Chastain rolled his eyes upward and rested a fingertip on his chin. “Not at the moment. I’m afraid all my notes are at the office.”
“That’s fine, but I’m curious to know the name.”
“If I think of it, I’ll tell you.”
“Right before they came, did you hire any new employees who had access to the shipments or paperwork?” Lucky clutched at straws, but even a blind squirrel found an acorn every now and again.
A muscle twitched in the man’s jaw. “We’ve been expanding the business, so new faces are normal. There’s probably three or four in the office with access who’ve been there less than a year. But we perform thorough background checks.”
Uh-huh. Lucky offered living proof of background checks being altered. If the man researched him he’d find a squeaky-clean record, with no mention of a ten-year sentence for conspiracy in connection with drug trafficking. “Anybody suspicious?”
