Page 11 of Leaving Lando

“Okay.” He’s trembling. “Okay,” he says again.

I slide from the booth and tell Miller, “Go on back to the station and try to get authorization to move tonight. I’ll be along as soon as I’ve got him settled.”

She nods. “I’ll ask the LT to call the captain. He won’t want to wait on this.”

“Good. See you there.” As we move toward the entrance, I stay close to Jeeter and signal Bree.

* * *

I don’t takeJeeter to any of the motels the department usually uses. Maybe he’s just naturally twitchy, or maybe he’s really spooked. If the latter, the only thing I can think of is that his friend — assuming it was a friend, and not Jeeter himself — witnessed a murder.

I’ll check with homicide, see if they have any unsolved cases with bodies found in that area. In the meantime, just in case he might be in danger, I want him out of sight.

He stares at Bree when we all get to the truck. “Is she a cop too?”

“No.”

“Too pretty to be a cop,” he mumbles. Brianna smiles and climbs into the back, leaving the front seat by me for Jeeter. Hoping he might open up about what else his friend said, I stay quiet on the drive, but he doesn’t speak.

“You want any snacks?” I ask finally. “Chips, soda, anything like that?”

He clears his throat noisily. “I like cheesy puffs. The crunchy kind.”

I swing into a drugstore parking lot. “Come on. Let’s get you fixed up.”

Besides a bunch of junk food, I pick up a shaving kit and some deodorant. Brianna finds some cheap sweats and t-shirts, and I grab some of those too, plus socks and underwear. Some of these guys aren’t comfortable staying at the shelters; who knows when he’s last had the chance to be clean, to wear clean clothes?

At the motel, I pay for a week up front; the clerk gives Jeeter a room around back. Even though no one knows he’s here but me, I’m glad he’s out of sight of the road. Most of my fellow detectives would tell me I’m being paranoid, but I’ve long since learned to trust my gut.

When he’s in his room, with about a month’s worth of snacks and other stuff sitting in bags on the table, I present him with the final thing I purchased: a prepaid phone, with my number already programmed in. “If you want to talk, or you’re worried about anything, you can call me with this.”

For a moment, the mists fogging his brain seem to clear. The penetrating look he gives me offers a glimpse of the mind he must have had, once upon a time, before the street wore him down. “Thanks,” he says, and sets the phone carefully on the nightstand.

“Keep your head down. Miller or I will be in touch. Don’t leave here unless you have to, and let one of us know if you need anything.”

* * *

On my wayto the station, I drop Bree at my house. As soon as we kissed tonight, my resistance burned to a cinder. There's no way, now that I've tasted her, felt her response to me, that I can back off and be just friends. Maybe it's a bad idea, but fuck it. The best things in life have some risk attached to them. “I’ll probably be late. Go ahead and go to sleep.”

“Be safe. Wake me up when you get home.”

“See you soon.” I don’t promise to wake her; she has to get up in the middle of the night to go to work as it is. Not that I wouldn’t love to find her in my bed, soft with slumber, and bury my head between her legs.

She watches me go, most of her in shadow, those big gray eyes fixed on me. There’s no teasing, no asking to ride along. My guess is she’s picked up on the sense of danger around the whole situation, and knows better than to try.

I drive fast on the way in, crossing my fingers that Miller’s got clearance for us to move on the tip. She calls when I’m two minutes out. “It’s a go. Leaving in five.”

“Almost there.” I disconnect and gun the engine. If we can hit Oman’s base of operations, it’ll be the closest we’ve gotten in months of frustrating effort to reaching the heart of the drug trade in this town.

And then I can go home. To Brianna. And torture myself with her nearness.

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