Page 53 of Special Agent Jennie

Chapter Thirty-eight

Kane hated returning to the house in the ghetto and resuming his alter ego of a man filled with hate. It took everything in him to wipe the smile off his face after the night he spent loving Jennie.

He thought about his earlier visit to the office where they held Lance, interrogating him about his probable cause for killing Henry Brunner. Much of it was pure red-tape regulation bullshit, but procedures had to be followed. They’d swept the crime scene and no surprises had been found. Everything they’d learned from the various statements fit in with what they’d uncovered.

With a strong push from Kane to get the boss involved in speeding up the process, Lance was finally released. They met for a quick coffee to go over the final details on how they would carry out the looming sting. Choosing a café out of the area where he lived, he couldn’t believe Gordie would show up.

“Hey, man.” Not able to ignore the other guy, Kane acknowledged his presence. “What’s up?”

“Fancy meeting you here. I was just at my sister’s place. She makes slop and calls it coffee. Figured to stop here and get some real shit.” Gordie looked over at Lance and Kane thanked his stars that the younger man looked like he’d been the loser in a bloody fight and spent the night in a jail cell.

“Remember I told you about a buddy who got messed up by the cops? Well, meet Lance.”

Gordie held out his hand. “Hi. Gordie Oliver.”

“Lance Bos-enova.” He coughed halfway through his surname and then grinned at Kane as if to say – what do you expect when I’m forced to come up with an alias and no time to plan?

“You coming to the clubhouse later, dude?” Gordie turned to Kane, his stern gaze unmoving. Kane picked up on his unspoken message and nodded.

“Oh, yeah. Looking forward to it. See you there.”

“Great, bring your buddy along if you figure he’d be interested. We can always use more bodies for this next job.”

Lance grinned. “Not messin’ with the cops again for a while. They still want my ass in a sling. I do anything, they’ll be on me like a whore finding a willing John with a full wallet.”

Laughing, Gordie responded with certainty. “Not a problem. No cops involved. It’s a slick operation.” Gordie walked away with a last wave in Kane’s direction. Once he’d turned the corner, Kane muttered, “Like a whore finding a… Seriously?”

Self-conscious, Lance turned to Kane, pretending he didn’t pick up on his boss mentioning his last dumb retort. “Hey, I’m sorry. He came up too fast for me to make up a better name.”

“No biggie. I told him about a nameless buddy earlier who got picked up by the cops being accused of killing someone. You just became the flesh and blood model… Bosenova.” Chuckling, Kane started in the direction of the door with Lance following closely.

“Dude, be glad I came up with an alias at all. My tongue got all twisted when I figured we were busted. Are you going to bring me with you into the group now?”

Kane swung to him, stopping him in his tracks. “Are you kidding me? No. Not a chance. I don’t know who’d be madder if you got injured – Jennie or Lisa.”

“You figure either one of them would give a shit?” Lance looked intrigued.

“You tell me.”

“Yeah, well, I have no idea. But one person I know would be sad is Mellie. I’m off to visit her now – see how she’s getting along. You wanna join me?”

“I’d like to, but I better get back in character. I’ll be expecting you close by later so we can go over details and formulate some plans for the operation.”

“I’ll be there.”

***

Lance went home to a messy apartment, police crime scene tape still hanging over the doorway. By the time he put stuff back in some semblance of order and cleaned himself up, he got to the hospital later than he planned.

Alone, Mellie sat on her bed, closest to the window. When he stood in the doorway and watched her before she’d seen him arrive, his heart melted at the sadness on her face. She looked lost, stranded in a nightmare, and he rushed into the room, laid the bouquet of sunflowers on the bed, and swept her into his arms.

“Hi, sunshine.” He hugged her close. Then they sat together, his arm still around her shoulder.

“Lance. You came. Jennie said you would, but she didn’t know when. Is everything okay now with the police? Did they arrest you?”

“No, honey. Nothing like that. They just made me answer a lot of questions. The department has a whole list of inquiries that anyone wearing a badge must go through when they’ve… ahh, used lethal force.”

“You mean when they kill someone.”

---