Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (Road to Redemption #1)(96)
“Dude, I know, okay? I was trying to figure out a way to get to him when you showed up.”
Un-f*cking-believable, this night.
“So what’s your theory, anyway?” he asks, and I laugh. Kinda. “Come on, Jackson. I know you have one.”
“On or off the record?” I ask him, and when he opens his mouth to answer me, I have to add, “’Cause this shit can’t get back to Walker.” He opens his mouth again, and I tell him, “Or anyone else in the precinct.”
He purses his lips.
“What?”
“You done?”
I think it over with a nod of my head to one side, then the other. “Yeah.”
“Okay. Off the record. What’s your f*cking theory?”
Here goes nothing.
“It started with the cops who showed up at Donnie’s murder scene.”
“What about them?”
“A couple of them were the ones I handed him off to in the first place.”
“And?”
“And I think they, or one, or I don’t f*cking know, some of them might have had something to do with Donnie getting out of jail that night.”
“They couldn’t possibly have taken the kid out once he was─”
“There’s no paperwork on him.” At my admission, Nick’s face goes from convince mode to confused in less than two heartbeats.
“You didn’t get the paperwork?”
This is gonna hurt. “I got the paperwork. Or I thought I got it.”
“How do you think you got something then didn’t get it?”
“Galley handed me what I thought was the paperwork I signed. It was blank when I checked it later.”
“Jesus!”
“Yup.”
“Okay.” He adjusts in his seat. “What else?”
“Then there’s the fact that ex-cops are living on the streets like homeless people, and they may or may not have witnessed other cops visiting Thomas’s headquarters once or twice.”
“Okay, that is bullshit.”
“I thought that too, at first, but then there’s the crème de la crème.”
“Big words; I’m scared.” Nick’s not blowing smoke. Neither am I, if I’m being f*cking honest.
“You should be. Because why in the hell would Walker want me to come work for him if he wasn’t trying to manipulate me out of working this case?”
He scowls over at me. “Say what?”
“Your team specifically.”
“You are so full of it. You know that?” He’s laughing. He literally thinks this is a joke. Or hopes it is, maybe.
“I’m not lying.”
“When? When did Richard Walker request your presence on the Redemption police force?”
“Today, actually.”
That quiets him down. “I thought he was interviewing candidates for a special assignment today.”
“Guess I’m the special assignment.”
Nick thinks. He thinks a lot. Then he insists, “He can’t be shady, Jackson. I’ve known the guy my whole career. He mentored me. It was because of him that I went out for detective, for Christ’s sake.”
“Did you see him slip Dad that piece of paper?”
“What? What piece of paper?”
“Don’t know; I couldn’t get a good enough look at it. I was working on that when you so rudely interrupted my ass.” Still am, actually. “And I think Walker might have been the contact Green was supposed to meet there tonight.”
And why in the hell hasn’t she texted me back yet?
Dammit. This is why you do not get involved on a personal level with people during a goddamn case. The word is right there, plain as day.
Personal.
Too late, *.
As I struggle internally with myself over just exactly how personal things are with Green, and whether or not that’s a good thing, it occurs to me that all this bullshit isn’t something Nick is ready to hear yet. And I don’t have any locked and loaded proof. So I humor him on his whole Walker’s a good guy theory.
“Maybe I’m wrong, though.” And maybe I just have bad timing.
“Damn right.”
“Fine.”
“Great.”
“Idiot.”
“Jackass.”
His lips curl up ever so f*cking slightly, and I know we’re good again for the time being.
Siri tells me to turn down a dirt road I can barely see this time of night. “I think we’re here.”
“W─” There’s no need for Nick to finish asking that question. Movement from outside catches our attention, and I slam on the brakes to avoid running smack into the chain-link fence in front of us.
The movement outside has me checking my rearview mirror, but it’s too late. We’re surrounded.
And Green is a terrible f*cking listener because there she is, standing on the side of the road with Walker, slightly surprised to see me.
“The f*ck?”
“What’s Emma doing here?” Nick asks me through the side of his mouth.
“I have no f*cking clue. But, hey, look. There’s your boss.” I tell him through the side of mine. Good guy, my ass.