Taking chances was a part of Lucky. “You’re trying to change me?”
“No!” Bo brushed a kiss over Lucky’s forehead. “I love you just the way you are, but you’ve got to start listening to people trying to take care of you. Like your doctor.”
“Like you?”
“Yeah. We have a family now. Look—” Bo crossed his legs, resting his ankle on his knee. “—you’ve done so damned much for the department, for me, but now it’s time to trust others, let them take part of the load.”
“But—”
“But nothing. Jimmy Salters is ready, and Loretta is more than capable.”
Something in Bo’s words still hinted at a “but”. “You want me to quit?”
“No. You trained them well in undercover ops. Trust them to follow your lead. Your expertise is what’s in your head.” Bo gestured toward the laptop. “Look what you’ve turned up.”
Lucky stared down at his injured hand. The injury didn’t slow him down much, though sometimes he swore he still felt his missing fingers. Fatherhood might. Having his sister here, his nephew, Bo, yeah they all changed his life in little ways, in good ways.
Now his life would change again. He closed his eyes. “Give Johnson the information.”
Bo glanced back toward Lucky’s poster-wall. “You know, you’re really good at this. I’ll remember that in the future.” He took Lucky by the good hand, the one now wearing a wish-it-was-a-wedding-band. “You can’t do it all.”
“I’m not letting those assholes get away.”
“And they won’t. Our international contacts can work on the official betting channels, while Loretta looks closer to home. Either way, the case isn’t ours anymore. It hasn’t been for a while. DEA is closing in on whoever’s behind this.”
Yes, the case needed more resources than those at Lucky’s disposal.
“Now, how about you explain this wall to me?”
***
Lucky might not be there to witness the takedown, but his armchair research rounded up more suspects: a nursing home employee buying cheap substitutes for patients while selling their medications on the black market.
The school board had Clifton High under investigation. Good thing the school year ended soon, though Ty might never forgive Lucky if he couldn’t play soccer next year.
Looking into Judge Spence’s acquaintances turned up nothing, and the warehouse owner, a foreign holding company, had no knowledge of what went on in the building they’d planned to tear down.
So many hands in this cookie jar. All about to get slapped.
Like the pharmacist, using Grandma’s facility.
But… was he really doing so without her knowledge? Ah, hell, Bo couldn’t fault him for making a drugstore run to fill his prescription, right? Even though there were much closer pharmacies. He could always say he intended to support the small businessman—or woman.
He lumbered into the facility a half-hour later, plopped his paper script on the counter, and gave his full name, phone number, birthday, underwear size. The last might be exaggeration, but did they really need to know so much about him?
Given the rate of drug diversion in the company, probably so. He drummed his fingers on the countertop.
“We’ll have this ready in a few minutes,” a smiling pharmacy tech told him.
Instead of sitting in one of the four chairs making up their waiting area, he ambled around the room. SNB already investigated this pharmacy, the books, inspections, and found nothing.
He counted four cameras keeping a watchful eye.
Cameras.
He took his bag of goodies and hightailed it back to his house. Although they’d taken the video footage from the pharmacy for evidence, with nothing tying the owner to the crime, how closely did anyone look?
He logged into the work system, and had eyestrain by the time he found the glitch. Right there. The same thing he’d seen with the videos from Walter’s attack last year. A jump. This video also included a time stamp. Throughout the day, random minutes were missing from the display.
