Page 46 of His Middle

“Baby, oh my God. Are you all right?” Sawyer gently cupped his uninjured cheek. “What happened?”

Noah’s bottom lip began to tremble then he launched himself into Sawyer’s arms. He sobbed his way through his terrible ordeal while Sawyer attempted to control his growing fury at Jonathan. If Oliver were still alive, he’d probably want to kill the guy for placing his son in danger.

An unfamiliar voice sounded behind them.

“Is one of you Noah?”

They turned around to find an officer standing in the doorway.

Noah sniffed. “Yeah, that’s me.”

The officer nodded. “I need to ask you some questions about your relationship with Big Earl and the business relationship you share with him.”

“He doesn’t share a business relationship with that asshole,” Sawyer gritted through his teeth.

“That’s not what he says. For your own sake, you’d better come clean.”

Chapter Fifteen

The club had been cleared out and closed for over an hour and Noah was stuck sitting on one of the dining chairs that Sawyer had dragged over to the bar area. He’d already been prodded by the paramedics and grilled by one of the officers who’d responded to Bruce’s call. His injuries had amounted to nothing more than a big scrape and a few bruises. They’d warned him he’d probably be pretty sore for the next couple days or so as well. All he wanted to do was get out of there and go home so he could cuddle in Sawyer’s arms. But from what he’d gathered, a detective wanted to speak with him first.

Sawyer, who had miraculously avoided serious injury as well, had ordered Noah to stay in the chair and grabbed a blanket from the medics to wrap around Noah’s shoulders. He’d already made Noah drink some lemon-lime soda, gotten him into a clean shirt and generally fussed over him. One of the servers had called Arlen and told him about the night’s dramatic events, so he’d rushed over as well.

Noah glanced over to where Sawyer was filling in an increasingly upset Arlen on everything that had gone down. Noah supposed Sawyer hadn’t wanted him to have to run through the whole saga again for Arlen’s sake, and for that, Noah was grateful. It was bad enough he’d be on the hook with the detectives.

Noah took a sip of his soda as a man he didn’t recognize entered the building. He noted Sawyer pointing in his direction as he guided the stranger toward him. It didn’t take a genius to figure out this was the investigator he’d been waiting around for.

The man held out his hand as he approached. “Hello, Noah. I’m Detective Liu. May I sit down?” He indicated to the chair Sawyer had been occupying earlier.

Noah nodded. “Yeah, sure.”

He wasn’t sure why the niceties were necessary, but whatever got the questioning over and done with was fine with him. All he wanted was for this whole nightmare to be over.

“I’ve had the chance to look over Officer Klein’s notes, and from what I gather, you’ve never met or heard of Big Earl, the loan shark?”

“That’s correct.”

“And what’s your relationship to Jonathan Forrester exactly?”

“Zero. I haven’t seen or spoken to him in over three months. He used to be the manager here when my dad was alive, but he had a hissy fit when he found out the club wasn’t going to be his at the reading of the will. That’s the last I saw of him.”

“Hmm.” The detective nodded as he jotted down notes. “So, Jonathan never had a financial stake in the club? Gave your father a loan or anything else that would cause him to believe the club was his?”

Noah shook his head. “Nope. When he had such a huge meltdown, I reverified things through the estate attorney. This was my dad’s place, free and clear. He willed it to me. End of story.”

“Uh-huh.” The detective jotted down more notes. “I’ll need to get the estate lawyer’s number from you, but this tracks with everything we’ve uncovered so far.”

Noah exchanged glances with Sawyer then Arlen. They appeared as befuddled as he felt.

“What’s been uncovered?”

“Jonathan apparently went to Big Earl for a rather hefty loan. Fifty grand, to be exact. But the payback amount Earl wanted from Jonathan was a hundred grand, and he wanted it within three months—or else. From what we’ve pieced together, Jonathan thought he’d be able to take a loan against the business to pay Earl back and when he discovered he was out in the cold, he tried to disappear.”

Sawyer interjected, “Tried?”

The detective smirked. “We found him. Anyway, he was getting ready to skip town and clearly thought he could get away, leaving Noah to deal with Big Earl.”

“What a fuckwad.” Arlen angrily crossed his arms. “I never could stand him.”

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