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“Killed him, too,” Janie added.
Janie was our resident computer genius. She ran background checks and did all the computer hacking that needed to be done for my father’s business. Well, his secret business anyway.
By day, my father and his friends worked at Free—a car restoration business as well as a customized bike shop. They also did the occasional repair job when they felt like it as well, but those were getting fewer and farther between now that time had gotten them to a place where they could be picky.
They’d had builds make it all the way to Barrett-Jackson’s car auction in Las Vegas, Nevada and had made millions.
And don’t even get me started on their custom bike builds. They had a waiting list so long that it spanned two years into the future, and that was just the ones that they chose to take on.
The other side of their business, however, wasn’t as glamorous. Though way more important.
They ran an underground railroad of sorts, doing their best to remove women and children from abusive situations and set them up in new lives with new identities.
Hence the reason Janie was needed in the first place.
Though, Janie was a second generation for Free, like I was at times. Jack, another member of my dad’s team, and his wife Winter, used to be the ones that did the computer hacking. However, now they only did it on a minimal basis seeing as not only was Janie younger, but she was better.
“Killed him?” my dad asked. “Why?”
Only my dad would ask why.
I wasn’t sure if he’d figured out the significance yet or not of who I was running the background check on, but he would.
Oh, he would, and then I wouldn’t be getting anything at all seeing as he worked for my father.
Or he had while he was in prison.
Janie’s eyes tipped up to meet mine, and I rolled them. “Just tell him. He’s going to figure it out anyway.”
Janie did, sparing no details.
“Slate Alejandro Solis was,” I missed a few beats of explanation because of Slate’s full name shivering over me like a caress. Damn, that was a great name. “He and his fiancée were working the same shift when a man was called in for drunk and disorderly conduct. Slate and Vanessa responded. Before they could even get out the door of their cruisers, the drunk was firing shots. One hit just perfectly and lodged into her stomach. She bled out in seconds because the bullet hit her aorta.”
My heart pinched at those words.
For Slate to have experienced that with a partner was more than awful. For him to experience the death of his partner and his fiancée all at once? Well, that was just awful times infinity.
“Instead of staying at the scene, Slate drove Vanessa to the hospital. She was dead on arrival.” Janie paused. I lost her again as I was thinking about the utter pain he must’ve been going through while driving her. God, I couldn’t even imagine. “…he found the man first after a search. That’s when the beating happened. Took five police officers to pull him off of the suspect.”
I felt my stomach clench at those words.
The rage the man must’ve been feeling for him to need five police officers to pull him off? That said it all without me having to explain a single thing.
“Why does this sound so familiar?” Dad asked once Janie was done.
“Because I’ve already run a background on him once,” Janie answered. “And you’ve been working with him on and off since then.”
My father’s eyes turned to me, and he narrowed them.
“I didn’t like the way he was looking at Dre,” I lied.
My dad rolled his eyes. “You’re so full of shit it’s not even funny.”
I shrugged. “He turned the sprinklers on me, okay? I wanted the background on him so I could get back at him…but you forgot to mention all the dirty details of his case to me.”
The look I gave my father was less than amused.
My dad shrugged. “You didn’t need to know any more than you already did.”
That was true.
I wasn’t ‘in’ the part of the business where I needed to know that much information.
I was an X-ray technician.
The only time I was involved was when I was needed to do babysitting duty or run the stray letter across a couple of counties to another person. My dad didn’t want me involved in this daily part of his life, and I couldn’t blame him. It was dangerous.
And I didn’t do danger.
I was a wiener.
Hell, I couldn’t even live by myself, hence Dre as my roommate.
My mom called me a ‘delicate flower.’
Which was true.
I was a delicate flower.
At five foot and two-thirds inches, I was literally two and two-thirds inches from being legally defined as a dwarf.
My body type was small. I had curves, of course, but they were definitely proportionate to my body type.
