Chapter Twenty-one
Eric
The fire hissed at the addition of the pine log Adam threw on when Eric wasn’t looking. It had taken most of a case of beer between the six of them but Bree was finally relaxing. “No, we don’t have marshmallows,” he told her when she looked at the fire pit in interest. He’d fix that for the next time.
“What are we going to do about Forrester’s interest in Bree?” Adam asked.
“We’re going to trust Bree can take care of her own damned self,” she replied.
“What have you been working on lately, Bree?” Booker asked. It was an obvious attempt to change the subject, but Eric was grateful for it.
“I’m kicking around a job offer. I also got a new contract with a local church. For the last couple years I’ve been working on getting my TESL certification. I’ll be teaching English as a second language to a few groups of refugees that have moved to the city,” she said.
Eric had forgotten Bree had applied to go back to school part-time. He’d forgotten too much about her. Her parents expected their children to pay for their own education, so Bree had busted her ass to cram as many classes into as short a period as possible to end up with her degrees. If another certificate was going to help her advance, he had no surprise that she want after it with the same single-mindedness. “Congrats on the certificate. That was fast.”
“Thanks. I’m glad I did it. The Zane case really messed with my contracts with WPS. I was hoping it was done now, but…”
“But the contract troubles continue, or the Zane case does?” Eric asked.
“Both? Testifying against Zane didn’t make me any new friends on the force. And this week Tyson told me to keep my schedule open in case I need to defend my translations I made during the case.”
Mackie leveled a pointed glare at him. “I told you my buddy had seen Courtney Fournier up at Stony talking to Zane and his lawyer. I’m telling you, something is going on.”
Adam leaned closer to his sister. “Well?” he asked expectantly.
Bree stared back and shrugged. “He didn’t tell me what was going on. Just to clear my schedule. I can tell you that the Crown Prosecutor’s office was in an uproar though. Leandra’s looking into it.”
Leandra Northman was a dog with a bone when it came the her stories. Eric would have loved to know what she had figured out so far, but he knew that bridge was well and truly burned.
“Moving on,” Eric said. He stared at Adam over the top of Bree’s head and hoped his look conveyed the “we’ll talk later” message he intended. He relaxed when Adam nodded. “Booker, have we heard anything back on Jane Doe’s tattoo yet?”
How thankful was he that Bree was reaching for her drink when Dutch frowned at Adam? “It’s okay, Dutch. Bree’s the one who told us what it meant,” Eric told him.
“I identified a potential source of a quote. I don’t know the significance,” Bree said, proving once again she was too smart for her own good. “I can go inside if you want to talk shop,” she offered.
“You don’t have to,” Eric said.
Nobody agreed with him. Not one of his friends gave a word of support. Not even her brother.
“Will you look at the time? I’ve got to get going. Tomorrow’s another chemo day, so I have to get to Allison’s early,” Bree said, like she hadn’t been insulted to her face by three men who had just apologized for doing the exact same thing a year ago. She kissed Eric on the cheek, waved good-bye, and walked through the gate.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked.
“What? We can’t discuss cases in front of a stranger,” Booker said.
“It’s fucking Bree. I think she’s proven we can trust her!”
“Calm down, Parker. That’s not why, Booker,” Dutch said.
“Then what is it?”
“Like Adam said, Forrester has taken an unhealthy interest in her. If she doesn’t have any information to share, he might back off,” his inspector explained.
“And we want him to back off,” Adam added. “We may not have heard back on the tattoo, but we did get some more information on our second victim. Want to guess what group victim Gloria Smith is tied to?”
“Ice Road Warriors,” Eric guessed. At this rate, they should take the files over from the gang unit. Forrester and his buddies had their fingerprints over everything.
“Do you see why we didn’t want to give any of them a reason to get close to Bree?” Mackie said.
