G-Men: The Series (57 page)

“Are Slate and Bryce going?”

“Yes, both of them are coming with us for the funeral, but Slate and the baby are flying back with you on the 29th. Is it a problem for you to watch Bryce while Slate works?”

“No, he’s my bubby. Of course, I would love to have some time with him. You’ll be back before the 11th then?”

“God, I hope so. I can’t imagine it taking any longer than a week or two.”

“Do you think Grandma will want to stay in Indianapolis?”

“At this point, it’s too early to tell. We just need to take it one day at a time. Now, one very important thing I came up to tell you is that there are a bunch of unopened Christmas presents under that tree with your name on them. Come on.”

“I think I better put some clothes on first.”

“Okay, sweetie. See you in a few.”

I felt better as I redressed in my earlier outfit. I didn’t want there to be a wedge between Mom and me ever.

^{chapter 17}

~ TAZ ~

I heard the blare of Slate’s truck horn several times out front. Shit! Dude could be an impatient dick sometimes. I grabbed a hoodie, shrugging it on as I pulled my front door shut behind me. It wasn’t as if I’d kept him waiting long. He said 7:30 a.m. and by my watch it was 7:37 a.m. Our meeting in Germantown wasn’t until 9:00 a.m. Even with rush hour traffic, we had plenty of time to get there.

I got into his truck and saw the now-familiar scowl on his face. Ever since Sammie had been staying with her mom in Indianapolis, the dude was in a foul mood. Christ, it had only been a little over a week since he returned without her. He must be jonesing that pussy big time.

“How’s it going, bro?” I asked, closing the passenger door.

He slammed his truck into gear. “It’d be going better if I didn’t always have to wait on your sorry ass.”

That well, huh?

“Sorry, man, I was up late last night, burning the midnight oil.”

“Is that right?” he asked with a scoff. “Anyone I know?”

“I was studying. I’m going to school, remember?”

He grunted, “Yeah, I know.”

“So, you heard anything from Sammie? Does she know when she’s heading home?”

“Fuck no,” he said, taking a sip of the coffee he’d evidently stopped to pick up at McDonalds. “It sounds like she may be there for two more weeks, maybe longer.”

Shit! Maybe I need to put in for a transfer.

“Really? That blows.”

“You got that right,” he replied. “Apparently there are a lot of things to go through before the will is even in Probate: his controlling shares of Banion Pharmaceuticals, real estate holdings, and stocks. They haven’t even filed the inventory for his estate yet.”

“Hmm,” I said, “bet he was worth a pretty penny. You married well, dude.”

Slate shot me an evil glare.

“Hey, I’m just fuckin’ with you,” I said. “So who’s taking care of the rug rat?”

“Lindsey. She’s home until the 12th. Shit, I don’t know what I’ll do with him if Sammie’s not back by then. I think Lindsey would like to be back in Charlottesville now if she could.”

“Doesn’t like pulling diaper duty, huh?”

“No. It’s not that. It’s that Kyzer dude. He’s blowing her phone up big time these days.”

Oh, really?

“Sounds like love,” I said, almost wanting to choke on the words.

“Or lust,” he replied with a laugh. “Christ, you remember what it was like to be twenty years old and…unattached?”

It was my turn to grunt. “Hell, I still know what that’s like at twenty-nine, bro.”

“Yeah, I guess you do at that,” he replied, chuckling.

“I guess those college prep guys have it made, huh? Probably getting different tail every night.”

“Not with Lindsey,” he stated firmly. “At least I don’t think so.”

“Oh sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect your step-daughter. I was speaking in general terms.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s not about that. It’s something else that happened over the holidays. I happened to walk into the room when Sammie and Lindsey were wrapping Christmas presents one afternoon. I overheard her tell Sammie she was still a virgin.”

Oh fuck.

“No shit?”

“Yeah. She sounded pretty pissed about it, too.”

“Well, hey, you know, that’s a good thing, right? She’s not a skank.”

“Well, then she pulls this disappearing act sometime in the early hours of Christmas morning. Comes trippin’ in damn near eight o’clock in the morning. I thought I was going to have to medicate Sammie.”

“Really?” I asked, focusing hard on the windshield.

“Yeah. Claims she was driving around to think or some shit like that.”

I shrugged. “Maybe she was. I mean, a lot went down the night before with her grandfather and all.”

“Naw, there was definitely more to it than that. She had that “just fucked” look going on big time. Then she proceeds to get lippy with her mom and flat out
bitchy
with me.”

Shit, I know that didn’t go over well.

“You know what I think?” Slate said.

Fuck, here it comes.

“What, man?”

“I think that Kyzer dude that so generously commissioned his rich daddy’s plane to bring my mother-in-law up from Florida stuck around. I think they planned to meet later.”

My hands quickly formed fists at my sides. “Well, you know, that’s a thought,” I replied. “But hey, it’s really none of our business I guess, right?”

“Yeah, I know. I just hope to hell she doesn’t fall for some slick Willy like her dad. Rat bastard.”

“I hear that.”

I was relieved when the topic of conversation between us changed. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t constantly thinking about Lindsey without Slate having to bring her name up anyway.

Christ, I was replaying that mind-blowing fuck we’d had like an X-rated movie in my mind over and over again. I couldn’t recall ever being inside someone who was so sweet and so innocent, yet off-the-charts sexy at the same time.

She was a fucking contradiction in terms. She was soft and sweet; lusty and sexy; reserved and abandoned at the same time. I’d gone back to bed right after she left, wanting to revel in the scent of our sex all day long.

I finally had to wash those sheets after three or four days. Her scent was gone now and it pissed me off. I wondered how it would’ve felt to have been inside her without that damn condom on. I’d never wondered that with any other girl before.

God, I wanted to teach her so much more. I envisioned those sweet full lips of hers wrapped around my cock, her tongue tracing the length of it.

“Hello? Did you hear me?”

“Sorry, man, I was drifting off to sleep.”

“With your fucking eyes open?”

“I do that sometimes.”

“I’d like to review the notes we’ve made so far on this sting operation in Baltimore. Laraby is going to want it drawn out for him blow by blow, step by step. If we aren’t prepared, we’ll be jacking around with him all fucking day.”

“Yeah, I know. Let me grab my notes.”

Slate and I had been covering a drug cartel that had been operating in the Baltimore area for more than two years. They were a slick bunch. The cartel was small and closely knit.

We had uncovered the fact that the leader was a semi-notorious mobster out of Philadelphia. He was the silent leader. Getting the inside scoop of the workings of this group had been extremely complicated. We had tracked the activity to a couple of well-paid longshoremen working out of the Port of Baltimore.

A beer exporter out of Belgium had created a unique brand-name ale that was imported with the rest of the legitimate ale and pilsners produced there and shipped to the U.S. The brand that was not legitimate was called ‘Augustus Ale.’ It was liquid cocaine.

Slate and I had been working on our covers for weeks. The bust was to go down in a couple of weeks. According to the manifest, the shipment was to arrive on the 28th.

The dock loaders were staying over their normal shift to unload the cargo during the late night hours. That was when we would make the bust. It was to be transported by a commercial truck to Philadelphia before 6:00 a.m. Agent Hatfield had already been working undercover with the longshoremen for about three months. The shipments were like clockwork. This bust stood to net about $6.5 million dollars’ worth of illegal contraband. I was stoked.

Our meeting went well with Laraby. He was on board with the plan. We went over the layout of the dock areas and entire waterfront region. We had our cover assignments and post areas cleared.

There would be a host of undercover assistance if back-up was needed. Intel told us these guys were fully armed and had an arsenal at their disposal. That included the thugs driving the semi-truck that always parked at the end of the pier.

The trailer was never completely empty. There were armed personnel stowed back there as well with the ability to observe anything going on in the vicinity.

On our way back to Falls Church, Slate’s phone chimed.

“Hey, babe,” he said, all smooth and sweet. “How’s it going?”

How fucking cute.

It was quiet for a couple of minutes as Sammie was evidently filling him in on how it was going.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked.

Evidently, things aren’t going well…

“Yeah, yeah. I understand, baby. I miss you, too. He’s fine. Lindsey’s spoiling him rotten. No, I’m in the car right now. Taz and I had a meeting today in Germantown on a project. Okay, babe. I’ll call you later tonight, how’s that? I’ll give him a kiss for you. I love you too, baby.”

Christ! If I hadn’t heard it with my own ears I wouldn’t have believed that shit was coming out of Slate’s mouth. God damn, he used to get some serious fucking tail back in the day. Now the dude was totally wrapped around one woman’s little finger.

He ended the call.

“Everything okay, babe?” I asked with a smirk.

“Shut the fuck up. One of these days, you should be so fucking lucky.”

I laughed good-naturedly. I
was
actually happy for Slate. He was my best friend. I would say he was like the brother I’d never had except I did have a brother. I had a sister, too. I just wasn’t tight with them. They were different people than me.

“Hey,” he said, interrupting my thoughts, “do you have plans for tonight?”

“Not a thing, man. Want to hit some dives?”

He looked over at me, rolling his eyes.

“Not exactly. Lindsey told me this morning she was making homemade lasagna. Just thought you might want to have something decent to eat for a change. Plus, I could use a little more testosterone in the house, you know? Besides that, the Knicks are on tonight.”

The thought of eating a home-cooked meal definitely appealed to me. The thought of kicking back with some cold ones and watching the Knicks was even more appealing. The idea of seeing Lindsey and that sweet, sexy body of hers drove me to fucking distraction.

“I’m in.”

^{chapter 18}

I pulled the lasagna out of the oven and set it on top of the stove. I shoved the tray of sliced garlic bread into the oven and set the timer. The salad was made, so everything was good to go if Slate made it home when he said he would.

I looked over at Bryce in his high chair. I’d fed him earlier. He’d been snacking on graham crackers while I’d tossed the salad and set the table. He now had soggy pieces of cracker smeared on his face.

“Look at you,” I said to him. “You’re never going to impress the girls with that face.”

He gave me a big grin, drooling some liquid cracker down his chin.

“Come on, big boy. Let’s get you cleaned up before Daddy gets home.”

I removed him from his high chair and took him to the nursery for a diaper change and clean-up.

I’d dressed him so cute today in a pair of bib overalls that had a Harley Davidson emblem on the front, and a plaid flannel shirt underneath. He was such a good baby for me. Spending this time with him made me think how much I wanted a baby or two someday.

Mom had called earlier to check on the both of us. She told me things were going slow with getting the assets calculated for the estate. I was relieved to hear that Grandma had started to come out of her silent funk.