Suspicion (Diversion Book 7) Read online

  And inwardly rolling his eyes, no doubt. “Sit.” Lucky patted the couch cushion beside him.

  Ty pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in a stunning imitation of his mother at his age in all her teenaged, bratty glory. He sat in a chair opposite of Lucky. “Okay, I’m here. Now, shoot.”

  Lucky’s heart pounded harder than it ever had when he faced down a gun. Say words he couldn’t take back and he might live with regret the rest of his life.

  Oh, to make this easier. Inspiration struck. Lucky stalked to the hall closet, rose up on his toes, and fumbled around on the top shelf. A-ha!

  He pulled down a full pack of Oreos. Hmm… He’d only left a few…

  Bo.

  Lucky returned to the couch and handed over the pack. “Don’t tell Bo about my junk food stash.” Although Bo replacing the nearly empty package meant he already knew and understood Lucky’s need to self-medicate with sugar.

  He waited, holding his breath. Ty ripped open the pack and shoved a cookie into his mouth.

  “Good, now I have to do the parental thing and tell you we have rules around this house for a reason.” Lucky had no right talking about rules when he usually went to great lengths to bend them to the point of breaking. “We’re all living here. If we follow the rules, we stand a chance of getting along.”

  “Or else what?” Ty crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll kick me out? Go ahead. It’s not like I want to live here anyway.”

  Taking a deep breath and counting to ten helped Lucky calm his nerves. “Until you’re eighteen, you have to live where your mother tells you to. Right now, that’s in this house.” Over the years Lucky had lived in much worse places—some with bars on the windows and doors, and some guy with a ridiculous nickname determined to make Lucky his bitch.

  The last guy who’d tried sang opera for a week.

  Ty kicked up his glare. Too bad for him seeing the same expression on Charlotte’s face far too often left Lucky immune.

  Lucky fought not to glare back, fighting the same battle of wills he’d once fought with his father. His mother used to tell him and his siblings, “Your kids are going to be twice as bad as you are.”

  Maybe Lucky shouldn’t have kids. They’d be delinquents for sure.

  Lucky tilted his head right and left, cracking his neck and easing some of the tension out of his shoulders. Intimidation never worked on a pissed off young ‘un.

  “Look, kid,” Lucky began.

  “I’m not a kid.”

  Lucky studied the product of his sister’s raising. No, not a kid. Lucky had arrested guys Ty’s age for drugs and other crimes—one he’d even had to bring up on murder charges.

  No longer a boy, not yet a man, and so ripe for trouble.

  “No, you’re not a kid,” Lucky tried again, “but you’re sure the hell acting like one. Pass the Oreos.”

  If Ty glowered any harder Lucky’s head might explode, yet he snagged the cookies and handed Lucky the pack. Even with his stomach tied in knots, Lucky took one, to at least share something with his nephew.

  “You ain’t got the right to talk to me about rules and being a kid.” Ty practically spat the words. “Mom told me all about you, what you did.”

  Lucky winced. “Yes, I made some bad choices. I deeply regret one”—okay, maybe a few— “I’m sorry. I know it had to be rough on you, having an uncle in prison.”

  “Hard? Dude, I thought you were the coolest thing ever.” Ty slapped a hand over his mouth.

  What? “What did you say?”

  Ty stared at the floor for a long, long moment. “I said, it was pretty cool to have an uncle in prison. All my friends thought so. I mean, before you got busted, you had an awesome car, went everywhere, had lots of money.”

  Lucky cringed. “What I did wasn’t cool, it was dam… Darned stupid.”

  “You can go ahead and say damned, you know. I’ve heard it often enough.”

  “And have your grandma wash my mouth out with soap if she found out? No, thank you.” Old fears died hard.

  The corner of Ty’s mouth twitched, then stopped. “What wasn’t cool was what you did to the man who bought Mom a house.”

  He should’ve known his sister’s kids would know. He’d never expected them to be homophobes, not with a mother like Charlotte, but one never knew. “What, exactly, did I do to him?” Lucky snagged another cookie to have something to do.

  “Turned on him. Testified against him. He killed himself because of you, after all he did for this family. Then you got out of jail to work for narcs. Mom told me all about it when she said we’d be moving here, so I wouldn’t find out on my own.”

  Oh, fucking hell. “I don’t regret what I did, but you need to know, this man you’re so upset about?” Lucky made sure he had Ty’s full attention. “His name is Victor Mangiardi, the drug lord I worked for. He didn’t kill himself. He made a deal too.”

  Ty narrowed his eyes. “He what?”

  Lucky shrugged. How to explain Victor, and his continued existence in Lucky’s life, if from a distance? “He’s now working for an international drug trafficking task force. Sort of like my job, only world-wide.”

  Eyes nearly sparking, Ty folded his arms across his chest. “Mom told me he died.”

  “I only found out recently that he’s still alive. I might not have told your mother the whole story. I don’t want her to worry about me, and talking about what I do scares her.”

  Ty pushed his chin out, a gesture so much like Bo’s it made Lucky’s chest ache. “Doesn’t matter. I barely remembered you, but Mom showed me pictures of you and me. Todd talked about you. I couldn’t wait until you got out so I could meet you.

  “Then we heard you died.” The anger left his eyes, replaced by something aimed to rip Lucky’s heart out. “Why didn’t you try to see us? Tell us you were alive?”

  “You were better off not knowing me.” A hard admission, but the truth nonetheless.

  The world’s angriest teenager snorted. “Don’t you think you should’ve let me be the judge of that? I hate when people say they’re doing stuff for my own good, when really, it’s all for them.”

  “You have to understand—”

  Ty shot to his feet. “Grandpa says two words to me on the phone and then ‘here’s your Meemaw’, my uncles are either too good to talk to the likes of us or off in rehab. Then there was you… you played dead.”

  While they were telling hard truths, Lucky had another. “I was dead. Officially. No play about it, I was in an agent protection program. Had a memorial and a death certificate and my 401K got paid out. My ID doesn’t say Simon Harrison because I like it. Guess I’m just a bad smell, coming back to life all inconvenient-like.”

  “Convenient for you, though.”

  Even though Ty spoke pure fact, Lucky flinched. He deserved every single barb digging into his soul. “I’m sorry. If I had it to do over again… I’d probably do the same thing. I honestly did what I thought was best for you, your mother, and your brother.”

  “Well, then maybe you should have stayed dead! You couldn’t be bothered with us for years, and now all of a sudden you decide you want us back in your life, so we have to give up our home, friends, so you can get what you want. Have you ever thought about what I want? Have you?”

  Lucky closed his eyes, each of Ty’s words tearing out chunks of his heart. He’d been so sure, so damned self-righteously sure, that his family was better off without him.

  Leaning forward, Lucky rested his head on his hands, elbows on his knees. What could he say, what could he do, to make this better? “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “I agree. You’re sorry.”

  Had Lucky been such a hard-ass at sixteen? Yeah, probably. “Look, Ty, I’m sorry I wasn’t there for y’all. I’m sorry about doing things that caused me to go to prison, but I’m not sorry for what I have now. I’ve made amends, have a new life, and I’m making a career out of putting men like me, no, like I used to be, out of business.” All he cou
ld do was his best, right? “If I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m not perfect—”

  “You can say that again.”

  Lucky tamped down a glare. “I’m trying. I know I can’t turn back time, but I can promise you from this moment forward, I’ll do my best to be the uncle you deserve, the brother my sister deserves, and the son my parents deserve.”

  Ty sank back down to the chair. “Bo likes you. Says under all the bullshit you’re okay.”

  Lucky let the “bullshit” slide for now. He didn’t deserve Bo’s praise. He’d done good from time to time, mostly by accident. “Bo could find good in the devil himself.”

  “I think he could, at that.” Ty’s laugh died a quick death, along with his too-brief grin. “I want to forgive you, understand why you did what you did, but right now it hurts too much.”

  Lucky well understood the pain of rejection. For years he’d endured the agony of having a family turn him away.

  He’d treated Ty the same way. “I’m sorry,” he said again, when nothing better came to mind.

  “Bo says, given time, I’ll be able to forgive you.” Ty shook his head. “But right now, I don’t think I can. It was okay when we lived there and you lived here, but now…” He spread his hands and shrugged. “I don’t want to live here. I want to go home.”

  Ouch, but understandable. “The best I can hope for is for you to try.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Ty held out a hand and Lucky passed him the cookies. “Why do we have to move? I have friends up there. Things going on at school.” Now he sounded more scared little boy than pissed off young man. “I was on the soccer team.”

  “Your mother loves you more than anything, worked hard all her life to raise you and your brother. Now Todd is going to college, and you will too before long, if you want to. Once you’re gone she’ll be alone. She doesn’t want to be a nurse’s aide all her life. When she was younger she wanted to be a nurse. Now she’s got the chance. Yes, she wants to be near me and Bo. We were close growing up.” He wouldn’t tell Ty about Charlotte’s offer to have a child for Lucky and Bo.

  “But my friends!”

  “You still talk to them on your computer or phone nearly every day, right?” Not the same, but better than the available options when Lucky was sixteen.

  “Yes.”

  Inspiration hit. “We’ll try to get you up to Spokane every once in a while, if that’s what you want. But, please, will you give me a chance? Give Atlanta a chance?”

  Ty yawned. “I’ll think about it. Can I go to bed now?”

  Nothing else came to mind to help Lucky’s case. “Yes.”

  Ty stood and picked up his shoes.

  “Ty?”

  Ty turned back toward the couch. “Yeah?”

  No “yessir.” Lucky hadn’t earned a yessir. “You need to let me know when you leave the house. I don’t care what you think of me, this isn’t Spokane, it’s Atlanta, and I spend my days on the streets, seeing how bad it can get. I don’t want you wandering around alone, you hear me?”

  “I’m not a child!”

  No, he wasn’t, no matter how much Lucky wished to turn back time. “I don’t care if you’re that old guy from the Bible.” He remembered the story from long ago Sunday school, even if he couldn’t recall names. “I feel the same way about your mother, and even Bo. They both tell me where they’re going, and when they plan to be back. It’s common courtesy.”

  “Like you said you’d always be there for my mother?”

  Ouch. Lucky tried not to flinch. His nephew sure knew how to hit below the belt. Probably learned from his mother, but then again, Lucklighter blood flowed through his veins, so he’d likely been born knowing how to fight dirty.

  But not how to fight to defend himself if he needed to. Lucky might not have much to offer, but he could teach self-defense. “Have you ever boxed?” Talk about grasping at straws.

  “Boxing? Like on TV?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  “I want you to go to the ring with me sometime.” Usually, Lucky took rookies to the boxing ring to teach them who was boss. He’d teach Ty one of the few worthwhile things he knew.

  Maybe, just maybe, they’d start to bond.

  If Lucky didn’t get killed for good first.

  When Ty reached the door to the bedroom he shared with his brother, he said, “I’ll think about it,” and slipped inside.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Being with his sister in Spokane” gave a guy a lot of leeway to work behind the scenes. Amazing how also knowing who owed Walter favors led to expedited warrants. With minimal effort Lucky compiled a mountain of information.

  He sat at his kitchen table, sipping coffee and tracking the fateful shipment that closed Chastain’s doors. Sun streamed through the windows, nephews taking root on the couch he might have to have surgically removed from their asses one day soon. At least he knew their whereabouts.

  A man could get used to working from home.

  Hmm… Phillip certainly had his fingers in a lot of pies. Many of his schemes fell just this side of illegal. Others?

  Both the purchase order and receipt of shipment signatures matched the illegible chicken scratch Phillip used to sign his SNB reports. The HR department at Chastain used a computerized system to produce employee ID badges, so no big deal to get a copy of the badge Phillip had used.

  O’Donoghue blocking research to Forsyth? Forsyth’s new hire coming from DEA? The man either wasn’t smart enough to hide his tracks or thought his position meant he’d do what he wanted and not get caught.

  Not on Lucky’s watch.

  Lucky couldn’t get his hands on Forsyth’s records, not without probable cause and a warrant, which would tip O’Donoghue off to his research. There was nothing illegal about hiring a man for a job.

  Phillip didn’t do his own thinking, even in his personal life. He likely followed O’Donoghue’s orders. If he faced serious enough charges, he might give up some dirt on his boss.

  As Lucky had done to Victor Mangiardi many years ago.

  Nope. Not going there. Lucky sure as hell didn’t have anything in common with Butt Kisser Phillip.

  Lucky dove back into his buttload of borderline illegally gotten records.

  There had to be some reason O’Donoghue snatched up Walter’s job and took Lucky off street work.

  Still, Lucky needed more proof against the man. Maybe he should call Nestor. No, better not make a deal with the devil.

  Maybe another devil.

  He dialed Keith’s number and left a message on voice mail. “Okay, you asshole, I’ve had enough of your shit. Bring your sorry ass to the gym and fight me like a man, in the ring.” If anyone managed to intercept the message, they’d now know Lucky wasn’t in Spokane, but oh well.

  He pushed Cat Lucky off his lap, strode into the bedroom, and filled his gym bag. On his way to the front door he paused. “I have to go out for a while. Y’all behave yourselves while I’m gone.”

  Moose opened his eyes, stared up at Lucky from his place by the couch, thumped his tail twice, and promptly went back to sleep.

  With more spring in his step than Lucky had a right to, he traipsed out the door. With any luck, he’d find Keith waiting for him.

  Now to put plans into motion.

  Even if he did have to call in Keith for help. An SNB agent beat one of O’Donoghue’s puppets any day of the week.

  ***

  “I’m not fighting you.” Keith stood in the gym locker room, fully clothed, and with no gym bag in sight.

  “You’ve smartened up some then.” Lucky couldn’t resist the dig.

  Keith rolled his eyes. “Is there a reason you called me here?”

  “Yeah. No one will question us being here, and I didn’t want to get Lisa involved again.”

  “What for?” Keith took a step back.

  “I need a favor.” Lucky dropped his gym bag to the floor and crossed his arms over his chest. Normally,
he’d love to intimidate Keith. Right now he needed information. “I thought we’d be safe enough here to talk.”

  “Except that the gym is the last place I’d willingly go.” Keith waved a hand, indicating a body more used to a couch and TV than a gym.

  Oh. Yeah. “Well, there is that.”

  Keith narrowed his eyes. “What do you need?”

  “Were you ever able to locate the missing parts of the video you gave me?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I need more evidence on O’Donoghue.” Lucky gave his nemesis the condensed version of all he’d learned, minus the part about Walter being on his way back into the game. As much as it pained him to take a dickwad like Keith into his confidence, he’d proven his loyalty to Walter.

  “What do you need from me?”

  “You’re the surveillance expert. I need something tying him to what happened at Chastain Pharmaceuticals. Phillip was undercover there when the illegal shipment showed up, but that doesn’t prove O’Donoghue put him up to it. I also have reason to believe he’ll soon be working for Forsyth.”

  Proof of Phillip planting an illegal shipment would bring more than just embarrassment to both DEA and SNB.

  Which didn’t make sense. If O’Donoghue could be working at Forsyth, making one hell of a lot more than with the SNB, why hang around?

  “What do you want me to do, specifically?” Keith relaxed his fight or flight stance. Slightly.

  “Can you bug Phillip?” Johnson still had the necklace, but so far Phillip hadn’t said anything useful to her. He’d brag to his buddies at work though.

  Keith shook his head. “I’ll do what I can, but while Phillip isn’t exactly smart, some of his cohorts have enough sense to realize lines are drawn, and sooner or later, we’re going to push back.” He rested his hands on his hips. “I’d keep an eye on Landry if I were you.”

  Lucky always did, but didn’t feel the need to share. “Any particular reason?”

  “I dunno. Just something about him gives me the creeps.” Keith gave an exaggerated shiver.

  Lucky could say the same about Keith, but didn’t.