Chapter 6
SIX
Izan glanced at the clock, checking when their shift ended.
“Eighty-seven minutes to go.” Eddie took a bite of his pancakes.
When Izan made them, he either did blueberry or chocolate chips, but when Bryce made pancakes, he put ground breakfast sausage in the batter. It was always good.
Zoe and Della wandered in to get themselves plates. Amelia and Ridge sat at the other end of the table, their heads together. Smiling at each other, discussing something that was probably not lieutenant business.
The dark blue of a police uniform caught his eye. He looked over and lifted his chin to Olivia in the doorway, glancing around. He offered, “Pancakes?”
Olivia didn’t look like she was here for a social visit. “I’m starving. But I also need to talk to you.” She wandered to the dish on the stove and grabbed a pancake, holding it with a paper towel before she came back over to the table.
“Can I talk to you?” She glanced over at Bryce but said nothing, addressing Izan when she said, “Somewhere else?”
Izan grabbed his coffee and left his plate. He wanted to think this was about them dating, or going somewhere for breakfast when they both were off duty. However, given what had happened last night, he couldn’t help but think this wasn’t personal. “Are you here on official business?”
She finished her bite of pancake, stopping in the entryway, where they had a few chairs. The receptionist wasn’t in until nine each workday morning, so it was a quiet alcove right now. “I need to ask you a few questions.”
“About last night?” He settled by her and took a sip of coffee.
She finished the pancake, wiping her mouth with the paper towel. “That was really good.” She sighed. “Okay, you know we had a prisoner escape.”
He nodded.
“We caught one, but there are three still out there. One of them is Alonzo Sosa.”
Izan didn’t like the sound of this. “You should probably talk to Penny and Bryce, then. They’re the ones who brought him in a few months ago, after he nearly killed them. They’re the reason he’s in jail, right?”
“His girlfriend was killed, and Alonzo was sent to prison.” She held his gaze. “Have you ever visited him while he was in prison, or had other contact?”
“Why would I do that?”
Olivia said, “I’m just curious if you’ve ever had personal contact of any kind with Alonzo Sosa.”
The straight answer was no. But that didn’t satisfy the questions that collided in his mind. “You don’t actually think we’re friends, right?”
“It’s not my job to draw conclusions. Just to ask questions.” She paused. “Your family and his are intimately connected. He’s Diego’s nephew.”
“My mother was Diego’s girlfriend. Until she had an affair with my father.
” His father had ended up in prison, arrested shortly after Diego caught up to them and murdered Izan’s mother.
Later, he’d died there. A sad end to a dangerous life.
“I have nothing to do with the Sosas. I was adopted by the Collins family after my father made Elizabeth Crawford promise to take care of me. The Crawfords are more my family than the Sosas will ever be.”
Izan got up to pace the entryway, trying to bleed off the antsy feeling of being pent up and exhausted. They’d gone hard this shift, and he was ready for some sleep.
“No one is accusing you of being in cahoots with a criminal. I just need to check a box so the police department can say we’re ‘exploring all avenues’ and I’m not wondering if I made an assumption that might turn out to be wrong later.”
She couldn’t let her personal feelings affect her judgment when it came to her job. The same way Izan couldn’t presume what a fire might do. Situations turned a corner in seconds and were always a hair from becoming volatile.
But that didn’t mean he had to like the accusation.
“They’ve both been dead for a long time, and the Sosas are the people who killed them.
I’m not going to help Alonzo if he shows up.
” He turned to face her, sliding his hands into his pockets so he could try and contain some of the frustration.
“Who do you think told the ATF that the Sosas were working in Last Chance County in the first place?”
“The person who has nothing to do with them?” She lifted her chin, as if she’d caught him in an inconsistency.
“That was years ago. Jude is here now, and the Sosas came after the Crawfords.”
“Because of you?”
Izan shrugged off any guilt he should’ve felt. “They were stopped. But people got hurt. That’s what happens when you tangle with a cartel.”
“And the money your parents stole from the Sosas?”
Izan wanted to shrug again, but that would be redundant. “If I had all that money they siphoned from the cartel, you think I’d be living here?” He could be a firefighter…in Miami. Or San Diego. Drive a flashy car. Take expensive vacations.
But if it was just him, it would seem kind of empty.
“Has anyone from the cartel ever threatened you, or tried to contact you?”
Izan shook his head. “I have no idea if Alonzo even knows who I am.” Still, he should probably confess at least some of the truth.
“I went looking for the Sosas a few years back. It’s how I knew they were here in Last Chance County.
I guess maybe I did have designs on finding the money or finding out who I was, but I got my hand slapped pretty quickly. It’s a dangerous world.”
Maybe at one time he’d had a wild idea to bring down drug dealers.
To go on a one-man crusade to dismantle the criminal element destroying lives in Last Chance County.
But he wasn’t a cop—she was. Izan could make a difference in his job here at the firehouse.
Olivia’s job was to uphold the law and protect innocent people in the way that cops did.
He’d matured a lot in the last few years and left that wild bent behind.
Her phone buzzed, so he went over and sat down, resting his head back against the wall. “Everything okay?”
“Junior needs a ride home from the hospital.”
Izan said, “I’ll go get him. I’m just about to get off shift.”
“What are you going to do the rest of the day?”
“Take a nap.” He glanced over. “Are you going to be working?”
“I have no idea.” She stood up, stretching her arms above her head and rolling her shoulders.
“But I doubt anyone at the department is going to rest until these three guys are back in custody. One of the corrections officers is still missing, and the other is in no condition to tell us anything. We’re relying on what Damien Wallace has told us happened. ”
He wanted to ask her out for coffee, but it would have to wait until she was done with this case. Maybe she’d want to come with him to the firehouse Christmas party.
Izan watched her leave and saw how exhausted she was in her movements as she walked to her squad car.
He clocked out and, instead of going home, drove to the hospital. Junior stood in the waiting area, his arm in a sling. Talking to a shorter woman with red hair, wearing scrubs. She laughed at something he said, shifting on her white canvas shoes.
Izan knew that look on Junior’s face.
The problem was the woman he was speaking with.
“And here I was gonna buy you a cup of coffee on the way home.” Izan nearly turned around and walked back out. She could take him home if she was that eager to spend time with him.
She spun around. “Izan.” All red hair, freckles, and wide eyes. Totally innocent.
Yeah, right. “Ainsley.” He looked at Junior. “You’ve met my sister. Ready to go?”
Junior looked between Ainsley and Izan. “Your sister?”
He’d kind of thought everyone knew he was adopted. “Let’s go.” He turned away and heard her tell Junior she was glad he was all right.
Junior followed after Izan. He caught up as the doors slid open. “Bro, I had no idea she was your sister.”
“It isn’t like you did anything wrong.” Izan glanced over. “Or did you?”
Junior was the kind of guy who’d laugh and say Not yet. So Izan braced for it. But instead, the guy shrugged one shoulder. “It’s been a long night. Coffee sounds good.”
Izan drove his buddy back home so he could rest after getting stitched up, hitting the pharmacy on the way to fill Junior’s prescriptions.
When he finally got home to his little rental house, tucked at the back of a cul-de-sac and hidden from the road between two houses, he sat in the drive for a second.
Exhausted didn’t quite cover it. He was dragging, but if he wanted to maintain some semblance of a sleep schedule, he had to push through and not take a nap until after lunch.
He grabbed his duffel bag and headed for the side door that led into his kitchen.
Two steps into the house, the door closed behind him of its own accord. Izan spun around and faced a man wearing his clothes. A man who could’ve been his brother.
“Alonzo.”
The escaped convict lifted a gun and pointed it at Izan. “Hello, cousin.”