Page 128 of State of Alert

“Why?”

Sam laughed at how the two of them cackled like little boyspulling one over on Mom. “Did you need something, Sergeant?”

“Yes, in fact, I wanted to talk to you about Ninth Street. We’ve got to move out of our place by the thirtieth of this month, so I wondered if we can start to move some crap into Ninth.”

“Absolutely. I’ll get you the keys, and Nick and I will find some time to get over there to move our stuff to the third floor so it’s out of your way.”

“We really appreciate this.”

“Glad to have someone using the place. No sense in it sitting empty. Speaking of sitting empty, I talked to Celia about my dad’s house for you, Frederico.”

“What?Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. When is your lease up?”

“Not until June.”

“Well, by then, Celia might be ready to turn her place over to you. She said she doesn’t want to be there without my dad, so it’s probably time since she’s living with us full time anyway.”

“Wow, this is incredible. Elin and I were talking about trying to find a bigger, safer place in the next few weeks, but the thought of the search exhausted us before it even began.”

“Now you don’t have to.”

He gave her a tentative look. “Do you know what the rent would be?”

“Whatever you’re paying now.” Sam was fairly confident Celia wouldn’t mind if Sam worked out the details. “She owns the house outright, so anything you pay her will be a nice extra income after she pays taxes and insurance.”

“I can’t believe this. Elin will flip. A whole houseinthe District! We thought we were years away from being able to swing that.”

“Same, brother,” Gonzo said. “Thanks for making this possible, Sam. We sure do appreciate it.”

“We’re thrilled that you guys can use the houses while we don’t need them.”

“And Skip’s house…” Freddie said. “That means so much to me.”

“It’ll mean a lot to us to have someone who loved him living there.”

“What happens after Nick leaves office?” Gonzo asked hesitantly.

Sam shrugged. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Celia will stay with us wherever we end up. No one will get evicted, so don’t worry about that.”

“We’re not worried, but if you want your house back, all you gotta do is say so.”

“Understood. We’ll probably have to go somewhere with better security than what we had on Ninth. We’ll see what happens.”

“You know how you’re always worried about how you’re asking too much of us since everything changed for you?” Freddie asked.

“Yeah, that weighs heavy on me.”

“Look at everything you do for us, and don’t give that another thought, you hear?”

“What he said,” Gonzo added.

“My two best friends.”

“Likewise,” Freddie said.

“Same,” Gonzo said.

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