Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128260 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“Not a problem.”
We both stood and shook hands, and she walked me to the door. I thanked her again and headed back to my office. I had two days to prepare for grand jury.
_________
Carson
I walked into Leland’s office and closed the door quietly behind me. He was on the phone, but when he saw me, he told whomever he was talking to that he needed to go.
I sat down in the chair across from him and leaned my elbows on my knees, running my hand over my hair, which I had kept short even after leaving the navy.
“Anything?” Leland asked, looking at me warily.
I shook my head, my jaw tensing. “No. Not a damn thing.”
Leland paused. “Okay. But you’re in agreement that we can’t visit him. It’s too risky. And even if we sent someone else in there, everything’s recorded. Josh couldn’t talk anyway.”
I let out a frustrated sigh. “I know. We’ll just have to wait until bail is set. Fuck! We’ve always been like a well-oiled machine. How did this happen?”
Leland frowned, drumming his pen on his desk. I knew that if anything happened to Josh—hell, any of us—Leland was going to take it the hardest. He had presented this operation to us in the first place after he and I had been medically discharged from the navy.
“Fuck is right,” he mumbled, looking out the window at the midday Vegas strip. I looked out the window too, breathing out some of the frustration. It wasn’t going to help anyone—especially Josh—if I totally lost my cool. I could see a small slip of the Bellagio and I had the sudden flash of who I’d been the weekend my life had changed. The weekend I’d met Grace. I’d been so disconnected. Directionless. She’d made me see that and because of it, I was sitting here, burning with purpose. I sat up a bit straighter. So yeah, this specific situation sucked. But when I thought about other turns my life might have taken, other places I might be, I was fucking grateful to be where I was. Now? Now we needed to get Josh back with us too. Any other option was unacceptable.
I made a point of relaxing my muscles. “Leland, this is a bad situation, about as bad as it fucking gets, but we knew the risk going in, and so did Josh.” And we still deemed it worthwhile.
He took a deep breath, moving his eyes back to me. “Yeah.” After a minute he continued. “Josh has gotta know we went back in for him, right?”
“Fuck yeah. He knows the motto. Hell, we’ve proven it enough times over the years.” I paused. “Yeah, he knows.”
Leland pursed his lips, still drumming his pen. “Okay, what’s next?”
“Well, the operation halts, obviously. We keep a low profile. We can’t be seen together. We keep trying to pinpoint Bakos’s location because there’s no one else who could be responsible. And we do it before he starts putting the pieces together and we all have targets on our backs.” Bakos. The fucker who was behind this. The only one who could be.
“Well, why didn’t you say it was a fucking cakewalk? Shit, is that all?” He laughed a humorless laugh.
I chuckled and it sounded just as hollow. “Yeah, it’s in the bag.”
We were both quiet for a minute. “Any idea why he’d set Josh up like that rather than just shooting him in the head?”
“I figure he has him shot in the head, he’d never know who he was. We don’t carry ID. Frame him, get him arrested, it not only goes down harder, but it’s an easy way to get him identified. I mean, I’ve gotta give him credit.”
Leland huffed. “Damn. We underestimated him.”
I shook my head. “No. We got caught.”
“Well, yeah, that didn’t help either. So now it’s just a waiting game.”
“Yeah, now it’s just a waiting game. We’re doing everything we can.”
“Have you talked to the detective yet?”
“I put her off, but I have an appointment with her Friday. I couldn’t hedge any more than that. I’d appreciate it if you could call my office phone, so I can cut the meeting short though. If she wants to meet with me beyond that, she’ll have to bring me to the station.” I wasn’t going to make it easy, and for good reason. I was involved too.
Leland nodded. “Yeah, no problem. Does the detective know you were in the navy with Josh?”
“Yeah, I didn’t really have any choice but to tell her. I figured it’d look suspicious if I didn’t offer that up and it came out later.”
Leland frowned. “Probably true.” He paused, obviously thinking. “Is there any way us serving with Josh could get back to Bakos?”
“I don’t see how at this point, but again, we need to find him before he has time to gather information we don’t want him to have. He’ll be keeping an eye on the investigation. It’s just normal police protocol to question an accused’s boss at his place of employment. Hopefully Bakos takes it at face value and doesn’t look any closer.”