Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“I will,” he promised.
He turned to go, and I said I’d walk him to the door.
“No need, sir,” he assured me, and then he strolled right out of our house and no one stopped him.
Sam looked at the others.
Mabe flopped down on the couch, still complaining about his head.
Salazar told him to finish the hydrator and then he’d get him some food.
O’Meara was concentrating on his tablet, and Hall was scrolling through something on her phone.
“Crap,” O’Meara said, and I saw the word “RESTRICTED” in big bold red letters.
“No,” Hall said, looking up at him. “You did not.”
“I had to check.”
“Because you thought he was lying to you?”
He passed her his tablet and then joined Mabe by dropping down onto my couch. Moments later his phone rang and he was all yes sir, and no sir, and right away, sir. I was thinking he was going to be having deep conversations with the state department that George warned him about.
I looked at Sam and smiled. “Are you okay?”
“I am now,” he told me with a grin. “The angel of death is actually watching over my girl. Why would I worry?”
“You know, Hannah told me the motto of George’s black ops group is actually ‘death comes from the shadows,’ or something close to that.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s the one Doyle’s from.”
I took a breath. “I’m sorry they suspected you. I know you would never ask any of your men to kill for you.”
“That’s right. I would have killed those men myself if they tried to hurt my girl.”
“Well, again…George. We don’t have to worry about stuff like that, just her getting her heart broken.”
“Great,” he muttered, and then told all the police detectives to get the hell out of his house.
He shook all of their hands anyway, which I was pleased with. He then went to start making calls. The first was to the police superintendent, because he was still going on a warpath where Ayers was concerned, and Kidd as well. Decisions had been made for Sam’s family without alerting him. The fallout was going to be brutal. Stafford, from the DEA, was also on the chopping block, as was any and all interagency cooperation. They didn’t even know all the bridges they’d burned with him. But they would. They surely would.
Hours later, Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, paying bills, when I brought him a mug of hot chocolate and put it down beside him.
Smiling at me, he held up a pen with a lid. “Do you know what this is?”
“A pen?” I teased him.
He nodded. “It is a pen. It’s my pen. My daughter gave this to me for my birthday, along with other things, because she said she was tired of coming to my office and seeing me use the ballpoints in my desk to sign important documents. She also thinks I should have something on me, at all times, to write something down with.”
“Okay,” I agreed, crossing my arms. “It’s a nice pen, Sam. Did I not make that comment before or when she gave it to you?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“When she gave it to me, it was no big deal.”
I smiled at him. “What’s going on?”
“Well, here’s the thing. My child knows that I know what a Montblanc pen is because Aaron carries that burgundy fountain one and Duncan has a roller ball that’s also pretty fancy.”
“Oh God, what is it?”
“So, I was at the mayor’s office today, and he had to sign something as we were walking out and no one had a pen. Not one aide, which you know they’re gonna get reamed for later, but I digress. Since I want to help the man out, I pull mine from the breast pocket of my jacket and pass it to him. He tests the weight, loves it, uses it to sign whatever it was, and then goes on to say that he would normally keep such a nice pen, but since he knows it’s worth about ten grand, he knows I probably want it back.”
I gasped.
“I looked it up,” he growled, still holding the pen. “It’s a Richard Meier Acme pen and it runs close to ten grand.”
“Wow.”
“Wow?” He was indignant. “Wow is all you have to say?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s cool and all, but to me it looks like a fancy roller ball.”
“I know! This is what I’m saying. Why on earth do I have a pen that’s worth more than my first car?”
I grinned at him.
“And she gave it to me with a thing of that lens cleaner I like for my reading glasses and a microfiber cloth. What is happening in her brain that she spends ten grand on a pen?”
“It’s doubtful she actually spent ten grand on it,” I told him. “She haunts that scary warehouse place and finds deals. I’ll bet you it was nowhere near that much.”