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Izzy blew me a kiss, then pushed the last cookie closer to me. “Eat that before I get in trouble.”
I did as she asked, shoving it into my mouth right as she turned to leave.
That was when I saw the woman at Izzy’s side turn as well, but not before flicking her eyes away from mine.
I watched them both go and sat there for another two minutes as we were all led out, one by one.
When the guards finally came for me, I stood up and waited patiently for them to unchain me.
It was when we were all being led back to our cells that the man that the blonde had been visiting turned to me.
“You get cookies?”
I shrugged. “I get what I want.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do I get what I want?”
“Become a cop, protect the guards’ backs, and keep your nose clean?” I shrugged. “But that’ll also get your ass kicked by the other inmates, so choose wisely.”
With that, I walked away and tried not to think of the blonde or her beautiful looks.
***
Harleigh
“Your brother is fine,” I said to Dre, then turned to my dad. “Tray didn’t get much. He said that he hasn’t had much of a chance to get any information yet because everyone still looked at him with suspicion.”
My father sighed and leaned back, his hands on the back of his head.
“I need to find someone else then,” he muttered. “Thanks, baby.”
I thought about the big man that’d been at the table next to us, then decided, fuck it.
“There was this man that was seated beside us,” I said. “He had a clock tower tattoo on his right forearm. A cop shield on his left wrist, and a thin blue line tattooed to his other wrist. Plus he looked like he was capable of taking care of himself…I have the sister’s number if you want to look into him.”
My dad looked at me in surprise.
“Yeah, give it.”
I didn’t actually need a cleaning lady.
In fact, I didn’t actually know anybody in Bear Bottom.
I’d just been listening to Tray who had absolutely nothing for my dad to go on, and I’d heard a stray comment about ‘Bear Bottom’ from the woman next to me as well as her cleaning business and I’d acted without thought.
“Do you think we’ll find anything, Daddy?” I asked softly.
Dre, my best friend, my very-taken gay best friend, dropped his hand on my head and squeezed lightly.
See, a year ago, Dre and Tray had been living normal lives. Tray had been attending UCLA and had been a year away from graduating in the top ten percent of his class. Dre had been living with his partner, Craig. Working and starting a business with him.
Then, a weekend that Tray was down visiting Dre, all hell had broken loose.
While Dre was away picking up take-out for dinner, a masked gunman had entered their residence and attempted to shoot Craig. Tray, seeing this, had picked up his own concealed carry weapon and had shot back at the gunman. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Tray had hit his brother’s lover, Craig instead of the gunman. The gunman, being wise and seeing that he might not win this battle, had left, but not before managing to knock Tray out cold. Unfortunately, at the time of the incident, Tray and Craig had been arguing quite heatedly about something—something in which neither man remembers. Something that the neighbors did remember and had relayed to the cops.
And since all evidence had pointed at Tray and Tray only, things had deteriorated from there.
Tray had no memory up until about four hours before arriving back home. Craig had none of the last year of his life—all of which including Tray and Dre combined.
Dre, who’d arrived on the heels of it all happening, had known damn well and good that his brother wouldn’t have shot his fiancé. Unfortunately, nobody had believed him but me.
And the man that did it was never to be found again to corroborate Tray’s telling of the tale.
Tray went to prison because he seriously believed himself guilty. Craig moved out of Dre’s house and into one in Bear Bottom, Texas about fifteen minutes away—refusing to talk to anybody about it. And everybody was extremely unhappy.
Hence where I came in.
Tray’s good name was smeared, and though Tray wasn’t my best friend, Dre was.
And since Tray refused to allow Dre to visit him while he was in prison, I did it for him.
Which led us to now, trying to use Trey to get insider information for something my father was investigating for his work, while my father worked with his partners to help exonerate Tray of any wrongdoing.
When I’d brought up the question to Tray about helping my father, he’d jumped on the chance to do something.
The problem with Tray was that he was a highly intelligent individual, and when I say highly intelligent, I mean genius level intelligent. But he had the little problem of getting himself in trouble if he got bored.
