Page 89 of Rogue Wave

I sighed as I sat next to her and Dougie at the table with Deputy Kingston standing nearby.

It had been two hours since everything had gone down. The power was finally back on, and we had all finished giving our separate interviews. Huxley and Carson had both been transported to the hospital for their injuries, though Huxley wasn’t likely to make it.

“When I went to check Carson after he’d been shot, he told me he had on a bulletproof vest,” Dougie told her. “In California, convicted felons are not legally allowed to purchase those, so he had to get special permission somehow, or someone else bought it for him. Given that Samson shot him in the chest, I assumed he bought it himself and hadn’t told his buddies.”

“Oh,” she said, the details starting to register.

“Your father worked for Samson and the rest of their group, but he was also working against them,” Dougie added, and Hazel’s eyes widened. “Your father was offered a plea deal by the government years ago to feed them intelligence and embed himself with the group in order to help build the FBI’s cases.”

Hazel let out a small gasp.

“I’m guessing that’s the reason backup arrived so soon,” Dougie said, lifting the veil to her understanding of her father’s motives. “He must have sent a message through at some point to his FBI handler, telling them the mission went sideways fast and to intervene.”

About ten minutes after my deputies showed up, the FBI also arrived, filling us in on what they knew and who Carson was.

“How did you know something was wrong?” Hazel asked me.

“Dougie texted me. I didn’t get them right away, but once I did, I alerted everyone I could to what was going down.”

“Why were you inside? How did you get inside?” she asked Dougie.

“I saw two people enter your house from the back, so I walked over and climbed through your bedroom window.”

“But…it was closed. How did you… Where…” she sputtered and then held her hand up. “Never mind.”

She changed course and turned to me. “But how did you know my dad was one of the good guys?”

“Something about your dad was bugging me,” I explained. “He had way too good an attorney for his salary. I’d suspected the people behind the drugs were paying for it, but his main concern always seemed to be you, not necessarily the drugs.”

Dougie explained how her father had spotted him and said nothing to Huxley, clueing Dougie in that he was one of the good guys.

“Samson told him to text their men to come help,” Hazel said softly. “They never showed up, but I just assumed you found them and took care of it.”

“We never saw any of his other men, so I’m guessing that’s when he messaged his contacts instead,” I told her.

“He actually never messaged anyone,” Dougie interrupted. “It’s how I finally knew he was on the good side. Smart, actually, because Samson clearly had no idea.” Dougie then turned to me. “I’m guessing his FBI contact is also how he ended up getting out of jail so quickly for breaking his parole a couple of weeks ago.”

I hadn’t thought of that, but it definitely made sense. When someone reported a parole violation, it didn’t always result in an immediate arrest because they needed time to verify, but since I was the one to call it in, the arrest had been done swiftly.

However, he’d been released less than twenty-four hours later on a technicality that I thought was bullshit.

Now it all made sense.

“How do you know all this?” She looked at Dougie, and I knew the whole persona he had created for himself was about to be blown open.

“I work for NCIS,” he said, not giving her anything else.

She jerked her head back in surprise. “What? I thought you worked at the VA?”

“I volunteer there, but I also work counterintelligence and cybersecurity for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service,” he replied.

Hazel’s eyes went wide at this revelation.

“Oh my God,” she whispered and then jerked her head in my direction. “Oh my God! That’s why you two were always having your super-secret conversations on your porch every night—or his porch.”

Most of what Dougie and I did together was off the record, so instead of responding verbally, I simply nodded.

“Wow,” she murmured, barely louder than a breath.