Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Rus’s phone was vibrating on the desk, so he went back to it.
He had a text.
We’re coming up. We have a brief. No contact in case you’re being watched. But we got your back.
It was from his friend, Eric Turner, who used to be an agent. He’d left the Bureau a few years ago and went to work for a security outfit in LA. They were good at what they did, and this wasn’t the first time Rus, or the FBI, contracted with them.
He looked to Moran as he sat back in his seat. “That crew I was telling you about?”
“Yeah?”
“They’re in.”
“Thinking of CK here, in my town…” Moran shook his head and didn’t finish except to say a heartfelt, “Good. “
“I wanna brief Bohannan,” Rus told him. “And I want more of a plan than what we got for tonight’s meeting. We weren’t in shape yesterday to put our minds to it. I got some—”
“Rus?”
He turned to see Polly in Moran’s doorway.
“Hey, Polly,” he greeted. “What’s up?”
“Uh, Porter Sexton is here to talk to you.”
“Who?”
“Porter Sexton, Cin’s brother.”
They didn’t have the same last name?
He knew Bonner wasn’t Jaeger’s surname. Not only did Lucinda and he never marry, his last name was Rhett, as was Madden’s.
It seemed he did a lot of talking with Lucinda. It was time to do some listening.
Rus stood, shot a glance to Moran, whose mouth was quirking, and he moved out.
Rus wasn’t feeling this, considering one of the things he had learned last night was that Lucinda was not only the mother of a nine-year-old, she was thirty-six, had been with Jaeger for ten years, living with him for nine before he left for Oregon two years ago.
In other words, she was way out of the realm where a big brother paid a visit to her new suitor to lay the ground rules.
With reserve, Rus approached the man who was standing out in the lobby.
“Porter,” he greeted, not offering his hand.
“Agent Lazarus,” Porter replied, and he did offer to shake.
Rus still was a new suitor, so as not to appear rude, he took him up on it.
And Porter didn’t beat around the bush.
“Listen, Cin doesn’t let anything get to her, which is great, when women aren’t being murdered in motels. This only a year after a dead girl was found floating in our lake and a little girl was kidnapped from a slumber party and brutally killed. Cin can be chill, but I’m tripped out. This is uncool, me coming to you, but she keeps shutting me down, and not only me, but Mom and Dad want her and Mad off that mountain and staying with one of us. If she’s not into that, she can check into Pinetop and be close to you.”
He lifted a big, calloused hand in a don’t take offense gesture before Rus could say anything, and he kept going.
“People are talking, I’m not listening, exactly. She’s my sister. When she wants me to know what’s going on in her love life, she’ll tell me. But there’s murder shit happening, and I suspect you’re trained to take care of yourself and other people. So, if you two are…whatever you’re doing, me being here is not about pressure, it’s about safety. They don’t have to stay in your room, but I want her and my niece close to somebody who can offer some protection, something she doesn’t have on Bonner Mountain.”
Bonner Mountain?
He didn’t have time to get into that.
He said, “She told me she had tight security.”
“Of course she would. And yeah. There’s a security system on the old house. And the club is wired up better than the Pentagon. But that doesn’t stretch to the old house.”
“The old house?”
“She had Granny’s Victorian renovated. She lives there. Go out the back door to the club, down the incline about a hundred and fifty yards, around the face of the mountain, closer to the river, that’s where she lives. And no, you can’t see it from the club. And yeah, that means it’s more in the middle of fucking nowhere than the club is.”
Rus’s voice was tight when he said, “I’ll talk to her.”
Porter was visibly relieved.
“And, ‘whatever’ is happening between us, so thanks for coming to me,” Rus went on.
“Obviously, not a problem. And if you need anything to help her make the right decision, tell her she either does that, or I’m pitching a fucking tent in her front yard.”
If she didn’t make the right decision, Rus would go to an open outdoor gear store and rent something to pitch right next to him.
It was at that belated moment Rus endured the big brother giving him the full once-over before Porter offered his hand again.
Rus took it.
They squeezed and let go.
“See you at the council meeting tonight. Advice, brother, wear a flak jacket.”