Page 78 of Ink's Devil

“And if he’s dead?” Bomber asks.

Hell shrugs. “Sort of confirms she’s telling the truth.”

Demon gives his father a quick nod. “I’m inclined to agree with Hellfire. We respect Ink but hedge our bets. All in favour?”

I think we can all live with that. I, for one, expect to find Connor Foster very much alive, kicking back and enjoying his freedom while my brother is suffering in hell. I give my agreement with a caveat. “If Beth’s played Ink, is playing us, I want her taken out.” And I’ll be the one to fucking do it.

Demon raises an eyebrow, but it seems in the case which I believe most likely, I’m not the only one who’d want her dispatched to meet Satan. Would balance the scales if Ink loses the best years of his life.

Buzzard hastily records our decision. Prez gives him time to do it. When his pen stops scratching, it’s Thunder who asks, “What else did Sykes get from Ink?”

Demon enlightens us. “The story Ink’s told the cops might be full of holes, but with any luck it should hold enough water to stay afloat. Look, I know we all hate that he’s inside, but he is, and we’ve got to rely on Sykes that he can spin it the right way. In the meantime, with Sykes working the legal angle, we’ll keep digging to see if there’s anything we can find that might help.”

Demon jerks his chin at Cad. “The man who was arrested, the man who pulled a gun on Ink and was obviously expecting the delivery of H was called Fender Childs. I want you to dig up all you can on him.”

“On it.” The tech guy makes a note on the tablet he’d brought in. “Black? White?”

Demon shakes his head but makes a note on the pad. “No idea. I’ll ask Sykes. Did you see anything, Sparky?”

“Not Black. White, or maybe Hispanic. It was dark, remember, and I was too intent on getting Beth away to take much notice.”

Cad’s tablet pings. He fist bumps the air and sits forward, not waiting for permission to interrupt. “I’ve come up with a location for Connor Foster. Or at least, where his phone call originated from.”

Now that’s a step forward. I can’t wait to start asking Beth’s brother questions in any one of my preferred ways. Men tend to talk while their fingernails are being pulled out.

“Where is it, Cad?”

“Prez, it’s a warehouse on the very outskirts of Denver.”

Beef looks concerned. “Warehouse? We’re talking large quantities of drugs. Could be a base for their operations. Could be a fuckload of manpower there. Don’t like the thought of us going in blind.”

Yeah. Beef’s observation makes sense. You don’t have your hands on that amount of shit without being able to protect it. Then there are the workers packaging it up. We’ve no idea of how it’s brought in, or how many might be needed to process it—

“We’ll use the new drone.”

As his voice breaks into my thoughts, my eyes snap to Pal who, I notice, looks smug.

“Yeah,” Pal continues, exchanging a smirk with Cad. “Cad and I were trying it out last week. We don’t need to get too close to send it in. It means we can see what’s going on, or at least, how many vehicles there are and whether people are going in and out. If there’s a convenient window, we might even be able to see inside.”

Well that’s a great fucking idea. Hands bang the table in appreciation.

“Good plan, Brother,” Demon says.

“I’ve also got a home address for the dad, Phil Foster,” Cad states. “Beth seems clear Connor lives with the man. Might be worth checking out to see if Connor’s gone home.”

“This Phil, anything to connect him to drugs?”

“Not that I’ve found, but then he’d hardly have it on his resume. Extortion, money laundering… those are the charges the cops have brought but have never been able to make stick.”

Sounds like this Foster’s some crafty fucker to me.

“Could be that Connor’s branching out on his own,” Beef puts in.

Demon’s fist bumps the top of the desk. “That’s why we need to find him.” He closes his eyes for a second, then reopens them. “I say we go to the warehouse first, that’s where Connor was last night and might still be there. Mace, Thunder. You head out with… Liz, yeah. You okay to go Ro? Right. Pyro, Judge and Wills, and of course Pal to operate the drone. You take the warehouse. I want to get inside and tear that place apart. If you need more manpower, we’ll be right behind you and rolling. Beef, Hellfire…” he pauses.

“You want us to check out Phil Foster’s place?” Hell asks.

Demon thinks for a moment. “We don’t know how or whether he’s involved, or if he is, how deeply. It could be him who’s behind it. Going straight to his lair tips our hand. See what we find at the warehouse first. That will determine any future conversation with Phil.”

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