Page 5 of Givin' Me Fitz!
The relationships we built with our workers were ones of trust… both ways. If there wasn’t trust, we shouldn’t continue to work together.
“You’d better be, young man. You know me better than to think I’d ever take a penny from these—shame on you, Sawyer. Emily is very secretive about what she does when she’s not here, and she’s usually only gone for a few hours at a time. She’s one of our top earners, and I’ve always thought that if she played by the rules, there was no harm done to her having some time to herself. I’m sorry if I made a mistake.”
“Please just talk to her. If she’s into rough stuff, then we can’t have her working for us. I don’t want to send a message through the houses that it’s expected for our employees to do things they don’t want to so they can keep earning like their coworkers. Please let me know what she says.”
I wasn’t threatening Bess. I was reminding her that she had a job to do. I wouldn’t hold other people’s actions against her. She’d worked for the organization since my father was the president, but she was responsible for the employees under her watch.
Bess sighed. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow, Bones. She’s a good girl, though she’s had a rough life. Don’t write her off yet, please.”
I sighed. “Okay, Bess. Let me know.”
I hung up and turned to Hobie. “Stay on this. I’m not sold this is a one-off that this guy showed up and happened to hurt her. Either she knows him from somewhere else, or someone else sent him to her. Talk to Florence and Mina. See if this shit happens at North Woodchips, too.”
Hobie nodded. Sometimes shit went south, as we all knew. It was my job to ensure it didn’t happen very often, and it didn’t touch the rest of our people.
“Talk to Mouse and see if he can find out what that guy was hauling? If he’s being paid off the books, I wanna know what Sans Truck Lines has going on.” As they always say, follow the money…
Chapter Two
Fitz
It was a fucking hundred and ten degrees outside, and I was sitting in a pickup truck with the windows rolled up and the air conditioning off. I’d been around the world, and I’d never experienced the feeling of my guts baking like a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey. What had I been thinking when I agreed to this quasi-torture?
“There’s no humidity, so it’s not as bad as summer on the East Coast.” Monty had a smirk on his handsome face. It was good to learn he had a sense of humor. Sparky, his husband and business partner, was still unknown to me, and I’d been there for two weeks.
“You’ve never been to West Texas in the summer, have you? Heat and humidity are killer, but right now, I feel like I’m in a goddamn oven with all your dry heat.”
Ryan “Monty” Montgomery, one of my bosses and babysitters, laughed loudly. “Yeah, I hear ya.”
“Who are we looking for, anyway?” I reached for a large water bottle I’d received on my first day. It had the Sparks Bail Bonds logo on it. At the time I thought it was too big to haul around, but now I was grateful to have it.
We were sitting at the entrance to a cul-de-sac where six small houses were located, three on one side, three on the other. Nobody could come or go without us seeing them.
Monty stared at me. “Did you not read the file?”
The paperwork was on the console between us. I’d read it, but there were a lot of acronyms I didn’t understand, and I was too embarrassed to ask. I’d been in the military, the US Marshals Service, and for a short time, I’d worked as private security. I’d never seen anything like what was on those papers.
“I looked at it, but I didn’t understand a lot of what was in the papers. It’s not military code or ten codes used in law enforcement.”
Monty chuckled. “Yeah—Sparky wasn’t in the military. Show me what you don’t understand. It’s a homegrown code, and I guess I should get one of the guys to make a reference list.”
I pointed to the sheet he’d put in front of me. “For starters, why are we sitting outside this shitty little cul-de-sac in metal-melting heat?” I’d taken the bail recovery agent training and the test, though I was still waiting for my credentials.
I was already familiar with the laws regarding the capture of bail jumpers from when I’d worked with recovery agents as a Deputy US Marshal. How the Sparks’ recovery agents ran their operation was what I was learning, and I was guessing Monty had drawn the short straw to be the one to show me the ropes.
Monty flipped open the file, and I pointed to the first line of the description. “What’s this?”
“LKR means last known residence. The guy we’re following is named Russell Wycoff. He gave the address to that little bungalow on his bail application.” He pointed to the second house on the left side of the street.
Ryan Montgomery was a good-looking man. A damn good-looking man who wasmarriedto my other boss. I didn’t let my eyes linger on those big muscles or that roguish grin. I wasn’t trying to get my ass handed to me by Sparky.
“What did this asshole do? Why are we watching that house?” I needed more details so I could make sense of why we were here.
“DUI. Ped. H&R. 2XAR. LTS.” Seriously? What the fuck was all of that?
I cocked an eyebrow at Monty, and he laughed. “Yeah, I get it. It’s confusing as hell. So, the guy was driving under the influence and hit a pedestrian. It was his second time with an alcohol-related offense, and he left the scene of the accident. We put up his bond—I have no earthly idea why—and he’s got a court hearing in the morning. We’re here to make sure he doesn’t skip town.”
I stared at Monty as I sweated out every ounce of water I’d drank that day. “Do they do that a lot?”
