Ty stood and picked up his shoes.
“Ty?”
Ty turned back toward the couch. “Yeah?”
No “yessir.” Lucky hadn’t earned a yessir. “You need to let me know when you leave the house. I don’t care what you think of me, this isn’t Spokane, it’s Atlanta, and I spend my days on the streets, seeing how bad it can get. I don’t want you wandering around alone, you hear me?”
“I’m not a child!”
No, he wasn’t, no matter how much Lucky wished to turn back time. “I don’t care if you’re that old guy from the Bible.” He remembered the story from long ago Sunday school, even if he couldn’t recall names. “I feel the same way about your mother, and even Bo. They both tell me where they’re going, and when they plan to be back. It’s common courtesy.”
“Like you said you’d always be there for my mother?”
Ouch. Lucky tried not to flinch. His nephew sure knew how to hit below the belt. Probably learned from his mother, but then again, Lucklighter blood flowed through his veins, so he’d likely been born knowing how to fight dirty.
But not how to fight to defend himself if he needed to. Lucky might not have much to offer, but he could teach self-defense. “Have you ever boxed?” Talk about grasping at straws.
“Boxing? Like on TV?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“I want you to go to the ring with me sometime.” Usually, Lucky took rookies to the boxing ring to teach them who was boss. He’d teach Ty one of the few worthwhile things he knew.
Maybe, just maybe, they’d start to bond.
If Lucky didn’t get killed for good first.
When Ty reached the door to the bedroom he shared with his brother, he said, “I’ll think about it,” and slipped inside.
Chapter Twenty
“Being with his sister in Spokane” gave a guy a lot of leeway to work behind the scenes. Amazing how also knowing who owed Walter favors led to expedited warrants. With minimal effort Lucky compiled a mountain of information.
He sat at his kitchen table, sipping coffee and tracking the fateful shipment that closed Chastain’s doors. Sun streamed through the windows, nephews taking root on the couch he might have to have surgically removed from their asses one day soon. At least he knew their whereabouts.
A man could get used to working from home.
Hmm… Phillip certainly had his fingers in a lot of pies. Many of his schemes fell just this side of illegal. Others?
Both the purchase order and receipt of shipment signatures matched the illegible chicken scratch Phillip used to sign his SNB reports. The HR department at Chastain used a computerized system to produce employee ID badges, so no big deal to get a copy of the badge Phillip had used.
O’Donoghue blocking research to Forsyth? Forsyth’s new hire coming from DEA? The man either wasn’t smart enough to hide his tracks or thought his position meant he’d do what he wanted and not get caught.
Not on Lucky’s watch.
Lucky couldn’t get his hands on Forsyth’s records, not without probable cause and a warrant, which would tip O’Donoghue off to his research. There was nothing illegal about hiring a man for a job.
Phillip didn’t do his own thinking, even in his personal life. He likely followed O’Donoghue’s orders. If he faced serious enough charges, he might give up some dirt on his boss.
As Lucky had done to Victor Mangiardi many years ago.
Nope. Not going there. Lucky sure as hell didn’t have anything in common with Butt Kisser Phillip.
Lucky dove back into his buttload of borderline illegally gotten records.
There had to be some reason O’Donoghue snatched up Walter’s job and took Lucky off street work.
