Thirteen #2
“There’s cream and sugar there, Mr. Colter,” Viola said, looking concerned.
“No,” Owen said with a shudder. “He drinks it black.”
“Got used to it in the Army,” he told her. “And call me Jared.”
“You were in the Army?” John asked.
“Yessir,” Jared responded. “For quite a while.”
“Okay, so really quick,” Owen said to Luke.
“Your ex-wife will not have to testify. The man she was testifying against turned witness himself, so they will keep her in the queue, as it were, in case he changes his mind, which is highly unlikely. So she’s still in WITSEC and will remain so for the foreseeable future. ”
“Thank you for letting me know,” Luke replied.
“This also means that you and your family are no longer in any danger from the cartel.”
“But technically, if anything happens to…who was it again?”
“Edward Beaton,” Owen supplied. “And no. If anything happens to Beaton, then she and Mr. Conti would be released, because your ex-wife only saw Beaton commit a crime, no one else.”
“I see. So we truly are done. No fear of anyone hurting me or my kids.”
“That’s correct, and so you know, after doing some digging, there was a hit out on Mr. Conti, but no one else.”
“I’m happy to hear my kids and I are not in the crosshairs.”
“Not you, Darwin, and Tatum, but that’s why I needed to speak to the kids, and specifically, Griffin.”
“This has to do with Ward Firmin, who was on the back deck last night?”
“Yes, it does,” Owen said as the kettle started whistling in the kitchen.
When Owen moved to stand, John said he would get it.
“Irish breakfast tea?” I guessed, smiling at Owen.
“Of course.”
“Sorry, but are we not concerned about my son?” Luke asked.
“If I were concerned, ex-Chief Wilson would already be dead,” Jared said flatly. “You and your kids are part of the Torus family now, Mr. Duchesne. We take care of our own.”
Luke’s eyes were huge when I turned to him.
“It’s okay. Owen will explain everything.”
He nodded, then leaned forward so he could see Jared. “Please call me Luke, Mr. Colter.”
“It’s Jared. And, Luke, we’re going to figure out what’s going on.”
Once Tatum returned with the boys, after they met Jared and Owen, and after John carried over Owen’s tea and the boys got doughnuts and milk and sat down, Owen addressed Griff.
“The night Chief Wilson arrested you, was there anyone else in the car with him?”
Griff stopped eating—which was hard, he was sixteen. “Yeah. There was a guy, not that old, in the back seat. He had a scar on his right cheek. I didn’t have much time to study him because Wilson started in on me, and then I was out.”
“Is this the man?” Owen asked, spinning his laptop around to show Griff a mugshot of a guy who did, in fact, look scary.
“Yeah, that’s him. Who is he?”
“That is James Mullane, one of the many men trafficking fentanyl and other drugs along various routes up and down the West Coast. He’s just a link in the chain, not very high up, but unfortunately, that same night you were hurt, he was caught by Wilson as well.
The issue is, no one’s seen or heard from him since. ”
“What do you mean?” Luke asked.
“James Mullane has disappeared.”
“Which has what to do with Griff?” John wanted to know.
“Two things: one, Griff can place Mullane in the car that night, and two, the key to Mullane’s car is missing. After going through the footage from the police station?—”
“That wasn’t deleted?” Luke questioned Owen. “You’d think Wilson would have been all over erasing evidence.”
“Well, there’s deleting and then there’s deleting from the server, and if there’s a bread crumb anywhere, I will find it.”
Luke faced me. “You didn’t question that because you knew the answer already, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. It’s Owen. He can find anything, anywhere, at any time. Ask the DEA.”
As predicted, Owen’s deep green eyes met mine.
“Too soon?” I asked.
“That was years ago,” he said through clenched teeth.
I grinned at him, and he muttered the word ass under his breath. Jared told him to continue and bumped me gently.
“What? It was funny.”
“Not funny,” Jared mumbled.
“Anyway,” Owen went on, “I suspect Mullane was smart enough to know he was in trouble, so when Griff was passed out in the back seat of that police cruiser, I’m fairly certain he put his car key in Griff’s pocket.”
“A key?” Griff asked.
“Yeah. His gorgeous, tricked-out 1969 ZL1Chevy Camaro that was fortunately found abandoned on the highway just outside Eena proves that Mullane was here. That, along with Griff’s eyewitness account and the key, if it’s here, will bring a whole new level of scrutiny on ex-Chief Wilson.”
“Yeah, but all I have are my keys,” Griff said.
“May I see them?”
“Sure.” He went to retrieve them. After a quick examination, there was no key that didn’t belong on his ring. “See?”
“I do.” Owen smiled. “Let’s think now… When Nash brought you home from the police station, he drove the Jeep, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“Would you go check it for me?”
Griff took Darwin with him.
“I will never forgive myself for not being home,” Luke said softly.
“That’s useless,” Jared assured him. “You took on a big job to make certain your family was provided for. Nash was here to care for your family.”
“Yes, but if Nash hadn’t decided to come early, then?—”
“Then Griffin would have spent a second night in custody. I read the hospital report, and the important part to remember here is that nothing was broken, and he wasn’t suffering from hypothermia or anything else.
I’m not downplaying Nash’s part, as there might have been a small fire—literally—where Tatum was concerned. ”
“You know about that?” she asked him.
“I know about everything.”
“Wow,” she murmured, staring at him.
He regarded Luke. “Live in the present. It’s all you can do.”
“Yes,” Luke said, leaning into me when I lifted my arm for him.
“What an excellent pair you are,” Viola said with a smile.
“Agreed,” Jared rumbled.
I saw John nod as well, and that was nice.
“Found it,” Griff declared, striding back into the room. “Well, technically, Dar found it, on the floor under the passenger seat.”
“It’s orange,” Dar announced, clearly surprised. “I’ve never seen an orange key.”
It was on a small ring, and when Griff passed it to Owen, he smiled.
“Yep, there it is. Now all we need to do is deliver this to the FBI field office in Seattle, and they will take Wilson into custody and send a forensic team here to Eena to search the police station. If there is anything there to find, you can bet they will.”
“Do you think Mr. Mullane is dead?” Griff asked Owen. “Maybe he got away from Wilson and he’s just hiding somewhere.”
“I don’t believe he got away, and yes, I think he’s dead.”
“I feel bad that I almost lost his key.”
“You can’t feel bad about something you didn’t know anything about,” Owen reasoned.
“The fact is, at the time, Wilson never suspected the key was given to you. His officers pulled out your keys, but obviously, didn’t turn your pockets inside out as they’re supposed to do.
I think after the fact, Wilson grew suspicious when they were ready to move the car and couldn’t—and towing it was probably out of the question, as it would have meant involving others and risk being seen.
And the only plausible answer was that somehow Mullane had given you the key, which is why Firmin was skulking around. ”
“Will there be more people coming after my son?” Luke sounded scared.
“No,” I told him. “As soon as Owen and Jared visit the FBI field office this morning, they’ll send people out here to Eena to go through the police station piece by piece. You haven’t seen thorough until you’ve seen an FBI forensics team at work.”
“That’s good,” Luke said with a sigh.
“And then Newcastle PD will pick up Wilson on suspicion of murder.”
“Okay, good. So I shouldn’t worry.”
“The only one who should be worried is Wilson,” Owen disclosed. “James was Ryan Mullane’s youngest son, and my understanding is that Ryan is not a forgiving man.”
“How did you find out all this so fast?” Griff wanted to know.
“Nash caught Ward Firmin last night, and as Deputy Chief Sampson explained, he had worked and was still working for Wilson, who was paying him under the table. So once I knew that, I got into Firmin’s phone messages, and it’s all there—Wilson speculating that Griff had the key to the Camaro.”
“Amazing.”
Owen shrugged, but I could tell he was pleased. “It’s lucky that even though Nash isn’t as fast as he used to be?—”
“Hey,” I warned him.
“—his reflexes are still good, and he can follow anyone, even if they have a head start.”
I grunted.
Owen closed his computer and turned to Tatum. “I think I want a doughnut before I go.”
She touched his gold-and-diamond wedding ring. “This is really pretty. I like diamonds.”
“I do too.”
“Your diamond ring is pretty too,” she told Jared. “Have you been married to Owen a long time?”
His brows lifted. “No, we just… How did you know he was married to me?”
“You smile when you look at him, and he stares at you the way Daddy does Nash. That’s how I know they’re gonna get married too.”
“I think so as well. We’ll be sure to come back for that.”
“Oh, yay. I want Owen to see my treehouse when you guys will be here longer.”
“I can’t wait to see the treehouse,” he affirmed with a grin.
“Do you want a maple bar or a sprinkle?”
“Maybe one of the cake ones. Let’s go see.”
The boys went with them.
“So this is over?” Luke asked Jared.
He nodded. “Without question. We’ll take care of this end. I’ll call Chief Higheagle to make sure she sends some more officers over to Eena PD in case someone with a match thinks it best to burn down the building before the Feds show up.”
“Will the FBI see you on such short notice?”
He smiled. “They will. My security clearance is better than anyone on staff there. People tend to scramble when I walk into a building.”
Luke faced me. “This is done,” he said with a sigh of relief.
“It’s done,” I replied with a smile.
“I know if you hadn’t gone after Firmin, it wouldn’t be, but still. Please never again chase people out into the rain without your gun and wearing only your socks.”
I closed my eyes and hoped because he’d said it softly, that maybe, just maybe, my boss had missed that.
“I’m sorry, you did what now?” Jared asked with a bite to his voice.
Fuck. “Listen,” I said, turning to him.
“Griffin,” Jared said, picking up the bottle of ibuprofen and holding it out to him. “Are you still in pain, son?”
“No, sir,” Griff said, reaching the table.
“Then lemme have you put these in a baggie with the coffee grounds from the French press, and whatever’s in the kitchen strainer, and then throw them away. We don’t want old medicine around.”
“You don’t crunch them up in the garbage disposal?”
“No. We don’t want them to end up in the water supply now, do we?”
“Absolutely not,” he said quickly, compelled, as we all were, to do as Jared Colter said, and to call him sir in the process.
“That was mean,” I muttered.
“Running after someone without your gun… Are you insane ?”
“It worked out.”
“That’s because your guardian angel puts in lots of overtime.”
I couldn’t very well argue.
When I walked Jared and Owen to the front door—they had declined to have breakfast with us, there was a crime to solve—after hugging Owen, Jared cupped the back of my neck and pulled me in for a brief tight hug.
“You got rid of the drugs, and now you wanna manhandle me?”
“Shut up,” he ordered, and I was laughing as I hugged him back.
Once they were gone, Griff got busy making breakfast with John watching him, very impressed with his sausage, cheese, and egg scramble.
I convinced Viola to give me four of her ibuprofen tablets, and between those and more coffee, I started to feel a bit better.
After Griff made me eggs Benedict, complete with sauce from scratch because he was showing off, but mainly because I was not a big sausage eater, Luke was asking me about my new job.
“You’re just happy I have a job and won’t be a freeloader,” I muttered.
“Of course.” He was indignant. “You taking care of us all couldn’t possibly be enough.”
I smirked at him, and he grinned back.
John was suddenly standing over us and then took a seat almost violently.
“Dad?” Luke said after a moment, sounding concerned.
He cleared his throat. “I thought it would be weird and that somehow, I wouldn’t be able to be all right with you and Nash.”
“Well, if you want to have?—”
I bumped him gently with my shoulder. “Stop. Your father’s trying to tell you something.”
He looked at me, and then his eyes widened. “Sorry, Dad. You’re right, interrupting is bad.”
John nodded. “I wanted so say… I see how it is here in the house with you and Nash, and it’s so easy, so normal—and I don’t mean that in any way, but that’s the only word that…
I simply never expected you to be with…but he fits with you, with the kids, and”—he turned to me—“I don’t mean to speak about you as though you’re not here. I hope you understand.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know any same-sex couples, and so I was thrown yesterday, and then this morning your boss and his husband—them being together is possibly the least interesting thing about them.”
“Oh, you’re not even kidding,” I said, chuckling.
“Owen is—he solved a crime simply sitting here on his computer.”
I shrugged. “That’s normal for him.”
“And Mr. Colter—Jared—I’ve never actually met a person like that.”
“He has spooky friends too.”
“I have no doubt,” he replied, smiling. “All this to say, I would very much like you to consider coming for Christmas and meeting the entirety of our family.”
I had no idea when I walked into this house on that Sunday morning that my whole life was about to change. And now here was this man accepting that his son wanted me in his life and welcoming me with open arms. It was overwhelming.
It took a moment for my voice to work. “Yes…yes, sir, I would love that.”
“Traveling in December,” Luke began, sounding like he was in pain. “I’m not sure that’s the best?—”
I turned and stared at him.
“Yeah,” he told his father. “Great. Good.”
John smiled, reached across the table with an open hand, and I took it and held on.
“Oh God,” Luke mumbled under his breath.
I couldn’t have asked for a better day.