CHAPTER12
Walker pinchedthe bridge of his nose. His girlfriend—if he was allowed to call her that—had called in a few favors to get Randall an immunity deal.
But for what?
He’d been left out of the loop, which annoyed him. He understood it had something to do with Lee, and in a text message, Fay promised she’d fill him in as soon as she could.
But that didn’t make the pounding between his ears go away.
“This entire investigation is fucked up.” Lee paced up and down the hallway in the local sheriff’s office while Fay was holed up in Sparrow’s office making phone calls and Sparrow was dealing with her boss and the district attorney. Something big was about to happen and Walker was on the sidelines.
Babysitting Lee.
“Why the hell are we sitting around here doing nothing?” Lee said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “We should either be hauling Chris’s ass in here for questioning, or we should be handling this our way.”
Walker wasn’t going to let that go without comment. “Oh, really? What the hell is our way? Do you plan on torturing the man until he talks?”
“It works.” Lee glared.
“Actually, it doesn’t,” Walker muttered. “Our job is to support and follow Sparrow’s lead.”
“And of course this is Fay’s mission.” Lee rolled his eyes like a toddler. “These women. They’re soft. They’re going to cut a deal. That guy’s going to walk and tomorrow, we’re going to have a dead body on our hands.”
“That’s not how this is going to go down.”
“Yeah. It is.” Lee lifted his palms toward the ceiling and then dropped them to his sides. “Fuck it. I can’t work like this. There are organizations out there that will appreciate my skill set and where I won’t have to put up with this bullshit.”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“Nope.” Lee glanced at his watch. “I’ll go collect my things. It’s not horribly late. I can make it to the state line.”
“That’s not necessary.” The last thing Walker wanted was for Lee to leave like this.
“Actually. It is. I’m tired of biting my tongue and being forced to be a person I’m not. It’s been nice seeing you. Good luck.” Lee didn’t even bother to shake Walker’s hand. He turned on his heel and marched down the corridor toward the lobby.
Fuck.
Walker didn’t have time to go chasing after him either.
He pulled out his cell and found Hank’s contact information.
Walker: I have bad news. Lee bailed. Just decided he couldn’t work with Fay and Sparrow.
Hank: Is he leaving town?
Walker: That’s what he said.
Hank: He’s not Brotherhood Protector material. So, good riddance. But I’m going to ask Stone to tail him for a bit.
Walker: Why?
Hank: I don’t trust a man who quits in the middle of something. It smells of cowardice. I want to know where he goes.
Walker: Keep me posted.
Fay stepped from Sparrow’s office. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Her forehead crinkled.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Where’s Lee?”
“He quit.” Walker shrugged. “Fucker just decided he couldn’t work with women.”
“Shit,” she mumbled. She plucked her cell from her back pocket and tapped at the screen. She turned it and held up an image.
“That’s the sweatshirt.”
She nodded. “Look at the logo.”
“It’s an oak tree.”
“I saw the same one on a shirt in Lee’s room.”
Walker cocked his head. “When and why were you in his room?”
“I just had a bad feeling, but I found nothing. Only, when Sparrow brought that hoodie into the interrogation room, I nearly shit my pants. At first, I couldn’t remember where I saw it, and then I remembered. So I sent the logo to a friend of mine because it’s not a designer logo, and guess where it comes from?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “A private men’s club in a small town in Tennessee.”