Rock Chick Reborn (Rock Chick #9)(10)

His mouth was still open when I turned and ordered, “Shut up, Brody.”

His mouth closed.

I was glaring at him and mentally deciding no more Brody-Shirleen Movie Nights (at least for a month, what could I say, Brody and I had similar cinematic leanings) when Luke declared, “We’re on mission in an hour.”

“Yeah, and it’s not color coded yet,” I put in.

Luke gave me a blank look.

Vance shook his head.

The rest of the men started to move away.

“My card,” I snapped at Hector, who still had Moses’s card.

Hector turned back, mouth open.

Vance’s mouth opened.

Mace’s mouth opened.

I didn’t look, but I was sure Brody’s mouth opened.

Luke’s mouth thinned.

But it was Lee who spoke.

“Give her back the card, Hector.”

Hector set it on my desk, his liquid black gaze to me before it shifted to Lee.

I didn’t touch it or say another word as all the men moved through the door to the inner sanctum.

Only then did I snatch it up and clip it with one of my (four) new magnetic paper clips to the week of Christmas, which was nine months away.

Because I had a feeling Moses Richardson was like Christmas when it was April.

Joy and goodness and dreams coming true . . .

But still . . .

So far away.





Lee Nightingale

Twenty-four hours later . . .

Lee walked into the control room, asking, “What we got?”

Luke shifted away from the desk Hector and Mace were also standing at to expose Vance in a chair, rolling over from the other desk in the room to the one Monty was sitting behind with his laptop in front of him.

Monty looked up from the laptop and didn’t fuck around with laying it out.

“Moses James Richardson. Fifty-one years of age. Army, honorable discharge. Distinguished Service Cross recipient.” His eyes locked on Lee’s. “Kuwait. Sierra Leone. Bosnia. Kuwait. Somalia. Bosnia.”

“Holy fuck,” Lee whispered.

“His boots got dusty,” Monty replied.

“Shit yeah,” Lee replied, impressed.

That kind of résumé meant his unit was elite.

Monty looked back to the laptop. “Married seven years. Divorce acrimonious, but since then they’ve straightened shit out and his ex is remarried. Two daughters, one seventeen, one fifteen. Both honor roll. Oldest drill team. Youngest, sophomore class president.”

“How’d he get into juvie work?” Lee asked.

“Far’s I can see from his interview notes, he had a cousin. His uncle was a good man, kid just had a tendency to go off the rails. Kid was younger than him, but Richardson took him under his wing. They were tight, helped keep him on the straight and narrow as best he could. While Richardson was occupied with earning his Distinguished Service Cross, the cousin got into some trouble that bought him being tried as an adult at seventeen and hitting the big house for a dime. After Richardson got out of the Army, used the GI Bill to get his degree, went into the Academy, became a beat cop, made detective. But eventually he moved over. Did his time as a juvenile corrections officer, now he oversees that outfit. What we got, he’s still very hands on with the kids in a way it’s not a job, it’s a mission.”

Monty turned the laptop around and on it was the photo panel of a Facebook page album entitled “Me and my dad.”

His youngest daughter was pretty.

Her dad was built.

And the man was good-looking.

“So no red flags,” Lee noted, starting to look at Monty, but Luke grunting switched his attention.

It was Monty who spoke.

“He undoubtedly knew Park and probably knew Roam. Which means he might know Shirleen.”

Lee felt his neck get tight. “Say again.”

“Both Park and Roam went through Gilliam, Lee,” Monty shared. “Richardson was there when they were there. Park was there more often than Roam. Roam only hit juvie once, Park was there repeatedly.”

“So how’s he gonna know Shirleen?” Lee asked.

“It wasn’t exactly off radar how Jules and King’s Shelter finagled that placement, two teenage street kids placed in foster care with an ex-drug dealer who had not gone through the program. This right after a social worker was shot twice trying to protect one of those kids. It caused some ripples. It isn’t a stretch this guy, working in the system as long as he has for the reasons he quit being a cop and became a JCO, heard that word.”

“You think he has some problem with her?” Lee pushed.

“I think if there’s anyone who knows the difference between people who fuck up their lives with no intention to change them and people who made stupid decisions in their lives, and worked their asses off and or put them on the line to get their shit sorted or get clean, and admires it, it’s this guy,” Monty answered.

“But we can’t know that,” Luke growled.

Monty shook his head but did it in agreement. “We can’t know that.”

“So before we go all matchmaker, we feel this guy out,” Luke declared.

Lee turned to Luke. “Absolutely.”

“I want on him for a day or two,” Vance, their best tracker, said. “And I want in his house.”