Page 64 of Justice for Radar

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

“Give us a bit,” I said, and Atlas lifted his chin, went back out, and shut the door behind him.

Justice pushed off of me and sat up, sweeping her hair over her shoulder and running it through her hands. She wore this bohemian style white eyelet lace baby doll dress and with her slightly mussed hair and sleep wrinkled face with its faint lines from where she’d been pressed against my jacket and cut she looked adorable if stressed. I sat up too and put my back against her headboard.

“You ain’t got anything to worry about, baby,” I said softly. “I’m going to handle it.”

She shook her head and looked grim, putting her face into her hands and shaking her head, “You shouldn’thaveto take care of it,” she said. “But I’m grateful. I just don’t know what else to do…”

“You don’t have to do anything except chill and let me handle it from here on out. You’re tired, you’ve done everything you can. It’s our turn now.”

“It’s all so overwhelming,” she said, shuddering.

“I know, come here.” She came to me and hugged into my side and I sighed.

“I want to tell you everything we’re doing,” I said. “But I can’t.”

“Why not?” she asked somberly.

“For your protection as much as ours,” I said frankly.

“I think I understand,” she said, and I believed it. She was sharp.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, I can’t tell you as much for your protection as for ours,” I said. “You can’t tell the cops what you don’t know, and likewise you can’t be charged for something you had no knowledge of or any hand in.”

She nodded carefully and asked, “Are you going to kill him somehow?” I gave her a very direct look and remained silent and she nodded and tears brimming on her lower lashes she nodded and said, “Thank you.”

“None of that now,” I said pulling her into me and sighing, intentionally ignoring what she’d said.

“I hate it here,” she confessed. “This house and what he did to me here… but I don’t know how to get out from under it – I have no place to go.”

“The fuck you don’t,” I said as she sobbed silently against me.

“You’re going to sell it. Come to Florida far the fuck away from this shithole. I’ll put you up, you can make a down payment on something out there, or if we work out, you can keep your money and stay with me as long as you like. Just hang onto it, you know? Have it if you ever feel like you need to go. An exit strategy or an escape plan. Doesn’t bother me,” I said.

She looked at me stunned. “You’ve known me all ofthree weeks!” she cried and I nodded.

“I know it,” I said. “But I didn’t get this road name for nothing. I got a radar for these things and baby; you light it up like the northern sky. All beauty and grace and when you know,you knowand I know this is the right move… and just like that day in my daughter’s dinerI know.” I shrugged. “I just know; and just like that day, it was your decision then and it’s your decision now. You just say the word and you don’t have to say anything right now – but when you’re ready, and I’ll be here.”

“Hell, I’m going to be here for a minute to see this through. Now that Atlas and I are awake, we’ll let the boys from NOLA get some rest if they want it and figure our shit out. You just do whatever it is you need to do to stay comfortable, baby.” I touched the side of her face and stroked her soft skin with my thumb in a firm graze. “You ain’t gotta do it all by yourself anymore. I’m here to help.”

I pressed a kiss to her forehead and she crumbled against me, only think time I think it was with relief. I had a sense for these things.

* * *

When I went downstairs,leaving my woman in a hot bath to try and sooth aching muscles and to think some things through for herself I found the boys down in the living room.

“Hey, thanks for riding to the rescue guys,” I said, addressing La Croix and Collier first.

“Our pleasure, man…” Collier said while La Croix’s creepy tattooed eyeballs were glued to the empty stairs I’d just come down.

“She’s doing better, thank you for taking care of her,” I said, and he nodded.

“So, what’s the full meal deal you don’t mind us askin’,” Collier said.

I told them, all the details as I had them, from what Jussy had said, to what Atlas had dug up out of the court records, to what that fuckin’ ass bag in Colorado had told us. We sat around Justice’s living room on her leather couches that were clearly not in her taste but his, and La Croix looked more agitated, not less.

“His sister’s husband killed her a while back,” Collier said. “He don’t like these situations.”

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