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He jumped in the van, ready to help. He was a lawyer by trade—a good one, just like his Daddy, who worked tirelessly to get sickos free because Daddy was a sicko, too, before Dec shot him dead one night. He was twenty-one and had enough of him, enough of being forced to touch others to save his own skin. But all that did was put him in the line of fire. He continued with his education in law to avoid a life in prison, courtesy of Badeaux, who was all too happy to throw him under the dirt that surrounded his family, thanks to Alerion’s orders. That was when he met Ollie a month before Ollie met me.
I slouched back in my seat, barely comfortable because of my height.
“Don’t relax too much. The others are hanging back, waiting on a warrant. They find anything, and you’re looking at life.”
“That’s fine.” I kept my tone even. “I have nothing to hide.”
I had so much to hide, and Woodrow had better get to it—he’d already been briefed on what to do if shit ever hit the fan. My computer wasn’t an issue. No one would crack that, not even the cops. Pencil Dick’s system was impenetrable, assuming he hadn’t kicked me out of it. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t, not without implicating himself.
I was safe.
Unlike that poor girl, whoever she was.
Nothing could tie me to the trouble I was in except tracking devices in my closet and my wife, who was an actual trafficking survivor, living in my room. Then there was the issue of the hag’s cocaine that I still had stashed in a tissue box that resembled a vintage radio.
Why the fuck did I keep that?
Woodrow wouldn’t find it. The cops, well, they probably would.
I twisted to the window again, seeing Cat’s pretty face and the look of pure confusion on it as she pushed around Woodrow and Jolie. She called out to me, her voice breaking, but I couldn’t do anything about that, or about the cops who’d probably question her.
Woodrow guided her inside as the cop car spun around. I prayed to all that was good in the world that he’d encourage her to follow a less-is-more approach if she were to talk to anyone.
I caught another glimpse of Dec, his hands on the wheel, ready to go, and I vaguely made out the way his lips moved.
“I got you.”
Chapter 37
Catharina
“They can’t just take him!”
Woodrow and Jolie stayed silent, pottering around Remi’s room and collecting random shit to take the basement that I had no idea we had.
I got more sense and conversation from the fucking cats.
“Say something!”
Meow.
“Not you.” I side-eyed Gabriel as he pranced around Woodrow’s legs. “Woodrow, please?” I followed him from Remi’s room, hating how gloomy the house looked with all the drapes drawn.
“Remi isn’t a bad guy, but he is associated with bad guys. He, Ollie, and Dec have been trying to shut down a pretty big trafficking ring for a while. It looks like, maybe, they are on to them, which isn’t good. But it looks to me like he’s being framed.” Woodrow looked to Jolie like there was more to this story, but he didn’t say anything, and neither did she. “Just don’t say too much if you’re questioned.” Woodrow stepped over the cat and out of the room, entering Ollie’s seconds later. He opened the glass door of a gun cabinet that screamed of intimidation more than it did death.
Woodrow flicked a button hidden beneath one of the low shelves a gun sat on. My eyes didn’t move to the lights in the cabinet, but I assumed they’d come on. They didn’t.
“The switch is designed to look like a light switch, but it actually releases a latch.” Woodrow tugged the cabinet and revealed a secret door to a narrow staircase.
The basement was dark and eerie, like all my thoughts, as I followed him down. Jolie waited up top with Gabriel, smoothing his bald skin, using the excuse that he needed company. She seemed weary to follow. Maybe she’d been trapped in one of these places. I didn’t question it.
“Look, I know you’re concerned.” He dumped down a box full of the equipment that removed my tracker. “I am, too. But this will go away. I hope.”
What if it doesn’t? “What if it’s Rothbart?”
“Why would it be? It’s more likely Rubbichon, seeing as the boys are trying to destroy his empire.”
That name rang a loud bell, but I couldn’t picture a face.
