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“Hettie find out yet?”
“Shit no. Had a close call this summer when she came down to the docks. I fell in the water slapping that magnetic cover over Master before she saw it.”
The corner of my mouth twitched. “She knows.”
Jaeg smirked with a shrug. “Probably. Grandma Hettie is a freakin’ bullshit detector,” he said. “Remember when she found our stash under the garden shed?”
The stash had been a shitload of cash, weapons, alcohol, and the stupid garden gnome Jaeg stole from Mrs. Danbury’s front lawn.
He shook his head. “How the hell did she know it was there?”
She’d known it was there because we were teenagers and didn’t know how to keep our emotions in check. Every time any one of us saw her go out to the shed, we’d get tense. It only took one Sunday night dinner with all of us there and her banging around in the shed to have all our nerves shot. She came out of that shed, her eyes shifting to each of us sitting at the patio table, and that was it. She knew we were hiding something. Hettie never said anything about the gnome or the cash, but weapons and alcohol were on her shit list, which meant we were on her shit list.
“Just like she knows you’re hiding something about the girl and the kid,” I said.
“They have names, you know,” Jaeg said.
It was always easier to keep people at a distance if they were nameless. It was too late with Macayla. Her name became bone deep on her sixth birthday, but saying it out loud would only make it worse.
He shoved the rag back into his pocket. “So, is that why you’re here? She send the interrogator in?”
Jaeg didn’t know exactly what I did to the sick assholes I interrogated, but he’d have a good idea that I wasn’t coercing them with apple pie and the promise of freedom. I’d never promise something I wouldn’t follow through with, and giving one of those sick fucks freedom would never happen.
“If I was interrogating you, you’d know it. She thinks they’re on the run from an ex and is worried.”
He dragged his forearm across his forehead, wiping away a bead of sweat. “Don’t know.”
“Bullshit.” And I knew he was bullshitting because the finger on his right hand tapped his thigh.
“All North said was that she’d lost Jackson for a while and now has him back.” He walked over to the toolbox on wheels and opened the top drawer.
“Did the kid’s father have custody?” As I said the words, it didn’t make sense. From what I’d seen, Macayla was a great mother, and no way would the courts give full custody to the father. A father who had obviously hurt the kid.
“North doesn’t know who the father is.” He raised his head and looked at me with a grin. “What do you care, anyway? Unless you have the hots for her.”
My jaw flexed. “They’re in my cabin. I have the right to know if some crazy ex will be showing up with guns blazing, looking for his ex-wife and kid.”
“Fuck, man, you’ll be gone in a few days anyway. Stay out of it. She and the kid have obviously been through something, and they don’t need you being an asshole.”
“You put them in my cabin and now you tell me to stay the fuck out of it?”
“I didn’t expect you to come back.”
“But I did. And I’m here, and I’m not leaving.” The words were out of my mouth before I’d even processed what they implied. Shit—four days ago I was sitting in my truck ready to leave town, and now I was staying and getting involved. And this wasn’t because of Hettie being worried. This was because of Macayla. Because of the kid cowering on the floor of the bedroom. It was because she touched me, and it didn’t hurt. It had never hurt.
Jaeg ran his hand through his hair and propped his ass against the Audi with one leg crooked. “Mac wants to tell you anything, that’s for her to do.”
Even if Jaeg knew more than he was telling me, the guy was a vault. Always had been. When he was eighteen, he’d taken the beating of his life, and it wasn’t in the underground. He’d been chained to a fence in an abandoned industrial yard and used as a punching bag by some asshole and his crew. The guy was looking for his girl. A girl he’d also used as a punching bag, which was why Jaeg helped her get away from him.
They’d left him there after the beating. If Callum, Saint, North, and I hadn’t found him when we did, he’d be dead. Stubborn as fuck, but I couldn’t fault him for it. He’d never break. He’d die before he broke his word, and as much as I hated that at this moment, I respected him for it too.
I heard tires roll into the parking lot and glimpsed the police cruiser through the window. Great, a Horsemen reunion.
Saint climbed out, wearing full gear.
He’d been on SWAT for six years in the city until shit went wrong on a mission, and he’d been shot and nearly died. But he didn’t leave SWAT because of a gunshot wound. I wasn’t sure why he’d left because he’d been good at it. Maybe the best. He’d climbed the ranks faster than any other officer.
Saint glanced at my Raptor and tapped the hood with his fist as he passed. He walked into the garage and chin lifted toward me. “Gate.” He approached, then slapped me on the back of the shoulder. “Good to see you.”
