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By the time Luke got to him, open-eyed Zed was lying in a pool of blood with a handful of bullet holes spread over his neck and chest. Passersby ran up to him, yelling for a call to be placed to 911.
It had happened so fast; Luke hadn’t had time to follow the speeding car heading in the opposite direction. Nor did he get a good look at the license plate numbers.
All he knew was that the one solid human lead he had to finding the fentanyl producers had just been killed. Pissed, he drove back to the underground parking at his old apartment and changed vehicles. He’d bought this run-down banger and planted it here for him to use anytime he needed to go into headquarters without being detected.
Soon, he strolled into the area they’d set up as the main office for those working the case. His liaison who worked with him on night shift, Dale, strode up to meet him and they shook hands. “Figured you’d be in after we heard about the drive-by.”
“I wanted to see what you found on the house owner and the asshole at the gate. I make him for one of the killers. He was really pissed that Zed had the audacity to come to the house. Guess he did his homework and found out that Wendi was dead and put two and two together.”
“Yet we held back that information.”
“Yeah. So? They have moles everywhere. Word gets out.”
“True dat. You reckon they’re thinking Zed was set up by the police?”
“Maybe. Although, it’s just as likely they figure Zed to be buying for their competition. Product is limited now in Nashville with Jay Nelson’s operation shut down. And… you guys took down a big haul in Memphis a few days ago. Word on the street is that suddenly the shit is harder to buy.”
“Right on. Look, I could drop a few hints to our canaries, so the story catches on.”
“Yeah. Do that. I don’t want anyone looking too closely at Zed’s recent activities. I doubt I’d be recognized but one never knows.” He threw the mic on the table he’d retrieved from Zed’s pants. “By the way, here’s your device back.”
Dale smiled. “Figured you’d be on that. Okay here’s what we have for the address you gave us. The woman who lives there is a young widow. She’s the daughter of an old man, Juan Marzola, who we can tie into a racketeering group that used to be big in California… called themselves El En.”
“He headed the gang?”
“Pretty much. But he’s out of the picture now.”
“You mean dead.”
“Yeah, shot in a drive-by ten years ago. His daughter married a well-known lawyer, Harry Jackson, and they moved here. Story is they wanted to get away from that life. Then Harry died under rather suspect circumstances, and now she’s on her own. Name of Mrs. Lori Jackson.”
“Any ongoing relationships with her father’s gang?”
“Nope. None that we can find. But she’s built an empire of her own… even worse.”
“So the widow is shadowing her father’s footsteps.”
“From the looks of it, she’s one-upped the old man. He’d only begun trafficking drugs but had a thing about keeping his products safe… no dirty shit. Guess the old guy had some morals. This woman doesn’t seem to give a hot damn where she gets her inventory.”
“Ahh… from China.”
“Looks like.”
“Jesus. All for the fucking almighty dollar. Okay, continue digging into her background and keep me apprised of what you find. First priority is any traffic leaving that house. I want to know where each vehicle goes, and who’s in it if possible.”
“Right. For now, I have a van parked there to keep watch. But we’ll also get a hydro crew there tomorrow and set up camera surveillance across the street on both sides facing the driveway. We’ll see them coming and going.”
Luke took the iPad Dale passed over and scrolled through the series of images they’d already collected on Lori Jackson. Surely attractive, but as the saying goes… beauty is skin deep, especially in her case. If even half of the buzz they’d found on her was true, the princess of the underworld needed to make one wrong move, and they’d be on her like dust in a windstorm.
Luke nodded. “Okay. One day, and hopefully soon, I’ll have a face-to-face with this pretty bitch.”
Little did he know it would be sooner than he imagined.
Chapter Thirty-four
Honey had a hard time settling after all the excitement of the night before. Following the roller-coaster of the last few days, she needed to slow down and think everything through before making any moves.
Still, finding out that Hamilton could possibly help her uncover her sister’s killer had re-sparked her need to get closure. As if it were a sliver under her skin, she couldn’t watch it fester without digging at it.
