Page 49 of The Smart Killer

He went quiet.

“What is it, Noah?”

It was then he updated his brother on the raid and what Jason had told them about Big G’s, Zeke, and how he saw Ethan coming out of the house behind the bowling alley. “You think he’s running an operation over there?”

“Maybe, I don’t know right now, Ray. But I wouldn’t be surprised if doctors find morphine in Ethan’s system.”

“I’m going over there.”

“Ray, don’t do anything stupid.”

“Like I would do that?”

“I’m serious. We have to follow this up the chain. Luke thought he had nipped it in the bud. I thought it was out of town, but obviously, it’s just gone underground. We have to find out where.”

“And you think Luther or the casino has some involvement in all of this.”

“Call it a gut instinct.”

“All right. But there are always ways to get answers, right, brother? Keep me in the loop.”

“Ray.”

“Yeah?”

“Keep this between you and me.”

“Ethan?”

“Yes. Until I know more. If anyone asks, Ethan is with me.”

“All right.” With that, he hung up. Noah gripped the phone tightly. He now regretted telling Ray anything. Out of all ofthem, Ray was more than likely to go off the rails. His rough-handled approach had landed him in his own fair share of hot water.

“Mr. Sutherland?”

“Yes,” he said, rising from his seat.

“You can see your son now.”

Across town,Ray sat in his cruiser. The lights were off. His headlights out. Cloaked in the shadows of night, he watched teens come and go from the bowling alley; some slipped around the back, and others fissured off through the trees.

He gripped the steering wheel tight with one hand, his knuckles turning white, anger roiling in his gut. The thought of his nephew being dragged into the pit of the narcotics world only angered him.

With his window cracked ever so slightly, he could hear conversations drifting across the lot. Nothing that he could discern. Everything inside him wanted to go in, bust a few heads, ask questions, and rattle a few doors, but Noah was right: if liquid morphine was still on the streets, they needed to know where it was coming from, who was delivering it, and where it was being produced.

While shaking down a few of them might garner some answers, he also knew it might raise the alarm and cause whatever manufacturing process they had in place to shut down.

It felt like he was right back where he was three years ago with Luke, sifting through the mire for answers and encountering nothing but shady characters and lies.

Ray resisted the urge, fired up his engine, and slowly rolled away, skirting around the back and taking up position in a spotthat gave him a good view of the house and the rear of the bowling alley.

Shutting off the lights, he watched teens stumble in and out of the house, some clearly intoxicated and unable to walk a straight path.

If his father was here now, he would have told him to go in there like a bull in a china shop and take charge. It was the Sutherland way. Keep the town clean. But had that ever really worked? Clearly not.

That’s when an idea came to him.

At first, he mulled it over. It was stepping out of his comfort zone and liable to backfire, but he needed eyes and ears without causing a scene.