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“Just tell me what you know about Mueller.”
“Not much,” I told her with a shrug. “He’s a creepy old priest with a hard on for very young girls.”
“Which you supplied?”
The snark in her voice wasn’t lost on me, and I knew I’d have to reconcile my own part in the family business with what happened to me, but not today and not with this bitch.
I stood a little taller, enjoying the four-inch height advantage I had over her. If only there wasn’t a screen door between us.
“You have me confused with my father and brother, who actually ran the business. Then again, your boys caught him and let him go so many times, maybe they were supplying you with incredibly young girls.” Ronan had always bragged that he had a man on the inside of the FBI and after the third arrest which resulted in nothing, I believed him.
I could see that information shocked Agent Beck, and I had to work hard to suppress my smile.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. Was the surprise mock or real?
“I don’t really give a fuck. I’ve told you what I know about Mueller, but the FBI is filled with repressed Catholics, isn’t it? Maybe you should aim your questions at your fellow brothers.”
Just then Agent Beck’s phone rang. She turned her head away when she answered. She reported to the caller she was waiting to speak to Charlie and then hung up abruptly.
She put her phone away and pulled out a business card. “I can’t wait any longer. Please give this to him and tell him to call me.”
Beck stuck the card between the wrought iron decorations on the door with an angry sigh. “And if you think of anything else, give me a call. Otherwise, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you soon, Ms. Rhymer.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” I told her with confidence. I wouldn’t be around much longer, I could feel it. There was a static electricity in the air, the still tension that filled the air just before the shit hit the fan.
It was coming, I just knew it.
I locked the door after Agent Beck’s departure and went to the kitchen where a window still allowed sunshine to filter into the room, so I could think. Details that were, for a time, just bits and pieces of information had started to come together.
Sort of.
I didn’t have it all worked out, but I grabbed an empty notepad from Charlie’s junk drawer and jotted down everything I could remember to see how it all fit, and that’s how Charlie found me a few minutes later when he came down from his shower.
“What did she want?”
“To talk to you about Brendan.” I pushed the card toward him.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said before closing the notepad and looking up into worried gray eyes. “Just putting some things together in my mind.”
“Things like what?” I bristled at the hint of suspicion in his tone, but I let it go on a slow exhale.
“Do you think Ronan could be an informant for the FBI?” It made a twisted sort of sense, except the man I grew up with hated snitches with a passion, had killed more than his fair share. Snitches were the few occasions when Ronan actually got his hands dirty.
Charlie gave the question some thought before he answered. “It’s possible in this line of business.”
“So, you think he’s an informant?”
“No, Savannah. I’m saying it’s possible.” Now Charlie was being shifty, and I had to ask myself why.
“So he could be a snitch, but he could have a good reason for it?”
His lips twitched from the force of holding back a smile and, dammit, I wanted to kiss him. But I needed answers. “We all have our reasons for the shit we do, right?”
I told him about Agent Beck’s surprise at seeing me on the other side of the door.
“She wanted information on Mueller, because she obviously has some anger toward the Ashby family, but she seemed genuinely surprised that Ronan had been let go so many times by the FBI. Shouldn’t she already know that? Something doesn’t add up.”
“No, it doesn’t and I’ll look into it.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Ronan might or might not be an FBI informant, but he definitely had someone in the FBI on the payroll. I knew because I prepared the envelope of cash myself every month. “I guess it doesn’t matter either way, right? Ronan made no effort to find me, didn’t threaten one asshole to see if I was dead or alive, which means he just doesn’t give a fuck about me.”
And that only made me more determined to find out his secrets, maybe expose them before I left town for good.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Charlie
“Fuck, Vannah.” I gripped her hips tight as she rode me like a stallion, bucking her hips against mine while her body jerked at the force of her orgasm. “Yes.”
