Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(88)

“And what I’m sayin’ is, yeah. She’s up the creek without a paddle. I reckon she thinks that’s her paddle,” Ozzie stated.

“Then you haven’t got all she could give you,” Sam declared.

“How you figure that?” Dad asked and Sam looked at him.

“Because she’s covering her ass. She was bein’ smart and doin’ the right thing, she’d come completely clean, cop to what she did, confess and use her tell-all as ammunition for a plea bargain. She’s hidin’ something,” Sam replied.

“You can’t know that, you haven’t even met her,” Ozzie told him.

“Have you found the broker?” Sam asked Ozzie.

Ozzie inclined and twisted his neck but didn’t answer. In other words, no.

“My guess, she or the piece of shit met with the broker, face-to-face,” Sam speculated.

“Yeah,” Ozzie confirmed. “She said Coot did but that guy’s in the wind too.”

“Bullshit,” Sam clipped. “His percentage is probably ten, at most twenty. He’s local. He does not evaporate after brokering a deal, he doesn’t make the kind of cake that lets him relocate like that especially seein’ as he’d need to activate or create a network of scum everywhere he relocates. He needs business. He’ll be reachable. We’ll reach him.”

“Vanessa told us he told Coot that he also doesn’t have contact with his men,” Ozzie informed Sam.

“Then either that bitch lied or the broker lied to her. If he doesn’t, he knows someone who does. He can hardly get them assignments without some form of contact,” Sam returned.

“We thought of that but we got a warrant for her computer and she gave us details and he’s unreachable. No one’s even heard of him,” Ozzie returned.

“Then she met with him personally and that’ll hurt her case so she’s hidin’ somethin’ from you. She’ll give it to me. And the way I’ll get it means either during or after your Department will get a call from her. If she tells you I’m there, your boys take their time showin’ up. If she calls after I’m gone, you cover my ass,” Sam demanded.

“You have got to know askin’ me to do that is not only unlawful, it’s insane.” Ozzie was getting heated.

“I get that you got a responsibility to all your citizens, including that bitch. I feel for you, that’s gotta tear you up. But straight up, I don’t give a shit about that either. You’ll cover my ass.” Sam was still cool as a cucumber.

“You need to stand down and let my boys handle this,” Ozzie snapped, at his end.

“And I’m tellin’ you, I’m not gonna do that,” Sam retorted.

“Then you’ll find trouble in this town,” Ozzie returned.

Sam was silent.

I waited.

Dad waited.

Ozzie waited.

Sam finally gave it to Ozzie.

“Seven years, you knew,” he said quietly.

Ozzie and Dad sucked in breath.

I held mine.

Sam wasn’t done.

“You, of all people, had a responsibility to her.”

“I –” Ozzie started but Sam cut him off, no longer cool, totally pissed.

“Don’t,” he bit off. “Do not. Do not stand in front of her and make excuses. Do not do it. Her friends, her parents, they were caught in his web, she was fragile, they had to be careful not to break her in trying to deal with that shit or tip him into making it worse. You have no excuse.”

“She never called it in, never made a report,” Ozzie said softly then his eyes came to me. “Darlin’, I’m sorry but –”

Sam cut him off. “That’s an excuse.”

Ozzie’s gaze sliced to Sam and he clipped, “You clearly do not understand the sometimes extremely frustrating limits of law enforcement.”

“Yeah, I do. But not for men who hunt with an abused woman’s father who’ve known that woman since she was a little girl. Men like that make shit happen so that shit stops,” Sam fired back.

It was time, I felt, for me to intervene and I did this by lifting both hands and wrapping my fingers around the arm Sam had around my chest, twisting my neck, tipping my head back to look at him and whispering, “Sam, honey, that’s not fair.”

Sam looked down at me. “Did you tell me you were contaminated?”

Another audible breath from my Dad.

I stared in Sam’s eyes, silent.

“Did you tell me that, baby?” Sam asked.

“I… yes,” I whispered.

“You’re terrified of me when I get angry. Not an adrenalin rush, you get the shakes. I see ‘em, it’s so f**kin’ bad.”

“Sam,” I was still whispering.

“First, a woman like you with a family and friends like yours, beauty like yours and a personality like yours should never feel like she’s contaminated. I do not know how that feels for you, baby, but I do know what your face looked like when you said it to me and I held you in my arms when you cried after you confessed that shit so I can guess and that is not right, that is not fair. And you jumpin’ straight to that kind of fear because you were trained to do so at the hands of your dead husband is also not fair.” Sam looked to Ozzie. “I know you’re a good man. I can see you warred with this for a long time. I can also see you carry a burden for the decision you made. So what you need to do now is stop makin’ decisions that cover your ass and start makin’ them to take care of Kia.”