Page 190 of Protecting Peyton

Jordy was too busy with his typing to answer that. “Got her. Forty-one hundred block of Industrial Boulevard.”

“Jordy, you’re here,” Lucas commanded.

“I know,” he whined. “I’ll get a drone in the air so I can save all your asses.”

“Send us the layout.” Lucas patted him on the shoulder as we left the room. “Handguns, Tasers, vests. Constance, you’re with me. Joe, you ride with Zane.”

In less than a minute, we grabbed our gear and the two Cayennes turned right out of the garage to blast down the boulevard.

“I’ve programmed the fastest path in your navs,” Jordy said over coms.

I punched up the map screen and followed Lucas.

“Jordy,” Lucas said. “Give the location to Wellbourne and tell him we’re going in.”

“Roger that. Building layout going to all your phones now,” Jordy added. “Unfortunately, the building has four doors, one on each side.”

“We hit all the doors at the same time,” Lucas decided.

“Which side did the detective park on?” I asked Jordy.

“That’ll be a minute,” our techie replied. It took two minutes. “He parked at the back, next to two other cars.”

“I’ve got the back door,” I said before Lucas could give out a different assignment.

“Joe, you’re east,” the boss added. “Constance will take west, and I’ve got the front.”

I could tell from his voice that he didn’t like us splitting up like this given that there could be three or more bad guys inside.

Peyton

The blood poolingon the floor and the acrid smell of gun smoke in the stagnant air made me want to puke. I’d been wrong to think that Buzzcut was the dangerous one.

I had to keep O’Connor talking long enough that Zane could find me. He’d done it before. “You said you caught him before?”

O’Connor turned back to me, totally okay with the fact that his son had just killed a man. “I did, and I made a deal with him.”

I leaned forward listening intently, since it was clear he wanted an audience for the tale he hadn’t been able to brag about to anybody except his son.

“You see, my ex was bleeding me dry with the alimony. So, I made him a deal. I let him go if he took care of my wife and then limited himself to the bitches I pointed him at, the ones who deserved it.”

This could get tricky, but I had to take a chance. “The divorce courts can be so unfair to men. My father had to downsize his apartment and sell his car.”

“Exactly.”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. It broke my dad. He was never the same.”

“That was the deal, but the fucker stole my watch and said if anything happened to him, it would get mailed into the FBI.”

When I didn’t say anything, Simon, spoke up. “She doesn’t get it, Pops.”

O’Connor held up the watch. “He put some of Nancy’s blood, and alsothe next girl’s on this band. The watch is registered to me. He altered his M-O for those two, and made sure I’d be take the fall if the watch was found. I couldn’t make a move on him and those other women paid the price. I couldn’t save them.”

The pieces finally fell into place. “He threatened to frame you with the watch.”

“Yeah,” Simon grinned. “But then my pops is so smart he made lemons out of the lemonade.”

I didn’t dare correct him.