Page 53 of Legends Luke

Luke’s eyes fell to the women crowding in his truck, Melody in the middle, and Erin by the door.

“I hope this won’t be a mistake, taking on a case in our backyard.”

“I know why we made that rule, but we can’t walk away when someone we know needs help. Even if they’re in our backyard.”Easton slapped his brother on the back. “Stop borrowing trouble. We can only do what’s best in the moment and handle things as they come.”

Luke narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Did you read that on a fortune cookie?”

Easton grinned, and he broke off to head toward his car. “Nope. It’s all my own brilliant wisdom.”

Luke rolled his eyes and headed to his truck, stealing himself for what would come during the ride back.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Luke let himself in the back door of the bar. The smell of fresh battered onions being fried in a vat of hot oil smacked him in the face. He waved to the guy preparing the blooming onion appetizer. Luke couldn’t remember his name because Easton had just hired him, but he figured the guy was practicing or perfecting one of the bar’s most requested menu items. It wasn’t his favorite, so the strong smell was enough to hurry him through the kitchen to the back stairs.

The staircase put him at the small apartment above the bar, where English stayed and where the four boys lived when they came to stay with English. The apartment was cramped, and Luke could hardly wrap his mind around how they made it work during their high school years.

His family waited for him in the living room, and he paused before closing the door. He was surprised to see Reagan and Jax sitting by Jackson on the lumpy couch while English sat in his recliner. Easton and Ben had moved two dining chairs to flank English’s recliner for them to have a seat. Luke was left with the armchair that leaned a bit to one side.

“Easton filled us in on your afternoon,” Reagan said with a smile as she cradled a sleeping Jax.

“Good because I stumbled on a lead for the robbery crew case.”

“Tater only asked you to keep an eye out for suspects. Not solve the case,” she countered, her smile falling away. “You’re risking a lot by getting involved this way. You all are.”

Luke scowled. “That’swhy you’re here. To bust my balls.”

“To be your reality check. I’m not saying to stop what you’re doing. I’m saying think this through. You guys have put a lot of time and energy into keeping your work out of your backyard. You were even angry when you found out the old chief told Tatum about the Legends. There’s a risk in people finding out the Legends live in a small town like Fire Creek.”

“It’s not like no one knows we exist,” Easton interjected. “How else would we get referrals for cases? I agree there’s a risk, but if we can’t help the people of our town, what’s the point?”

“The point is we have more to think about than just me and you boys,” English grumbled, his shrewd gaze falling on his grandson, who slept through the debate going on around him.

Jackson nudged Reagan’s shoulder lightly. “Do you want us to back off? We can pass the intel to Tater and stay out of the case if you’re worried.”

Reagan rested her eyes on Luke, and he held her gaze as he waited. She wasn’t someone who intimidated him, not when he topped her slight frame by several inches and several pounds. But as he came to know her, he valued her opinion. She was good forhis brother, and she supported their little family in ways they never knew they needed until she came into their lives.

“If I asked you to, would you leave this case alone?”

He hadn’t expected her to ask, but his answer was immediate. “Yes.”

Reagan sighed. “I appreciate it. As much as I would like to, I can’t ask you, or any of you, to do that. But I do think you need to be careful about how open you are about what you do. You deserve to have a life outside of the Legends, and things can get messy if you start mixing the two.”

Jackson hugged Reagan closer to his side. “Let Luke tell us what his hunch is, and we’ll decide if it’s something we should look into or if we leave it up to the cops.”

She nodded and rested her head against his chest. Luke felt a pang of something he couldn’t identify. Watching them made him wonder what it was like to have what they had. He’d never thought about it before.

“What are we looking at?” English asked him, jolting Luke out of his thoughts.

“Most of what I have are theories, so I don’t know about taking this to the cops yet. This robbery crew has hit every town in our area but not in Fire Creek.”

“Which is why you suspect the crew lives here,” Ben interjected. “We’ve been over that a hundred times.”

Luke nodded. “Just listen a minute. I’ve watched the security footage available from the robberies. I’ve read the police reportsand looked at the witness statements from the carjackings. The cops have pieced together that each crime was committed by different members of the same crew. They also believe we’re dealing with younger criminals. Kids. Teenagers, I guess is more accurate.”

“We know all of this,” Easton said impatiently.

“But Jackson got me to thinking about something. There has to be a leader of this crew. Someone who trained them to commit the crimes. Kids their age don’t wake up one day and become the perfect criminals who can evade detection by the police. It’s like the guy is training them. He lets the inexperienced do the carjackings and other crimes, and the older, more experienced members of the crew do the robberies with more significant paydays,” Luke explained.

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