“Are you fucking serious? Do you even have a hundred thousand dollars laying around?” I ask suddenly wondering.
“Allegedly,” Noah adds. “So let’s say he allegedly demanded a hundred thousand dollars from me that I allegedly have in an account that you can’t trace,” he says throwing a condescending look towards me.
Oh yes, now I remember why I hated him in high school too. He was always a cocky bastard.
“Let’s say he told me that he wants one hundred grand, and if I don’t pay up then he is going to hurt my children. He told me this in the middle of the night by showing up at my door pounding away, then told me they will go missing one by one until his demands are met. He said I have twenty-four hours to comply. If I don’t comply then…” he trails off his face hardening.
“Alright, so hypothetically you choose to be a part of this truck sale,” I say gesturing with my hands and choosing my words carefully so as not to scare him away from sharing the rest of the story.
“Yes. I must decide between the life of the upstanding citizen I have been leading or losing my children. That’s basically what it comes down to.”
“Why didn’t you just come to me for help?” I ask shaking my head in disbelief.
“Because I wasn’t sure who I could trust. I didn’t think you would believe me. We aren’t exactly friends Kenton.
That’s true. I arrested his ass only a few months ago and was openly against his early release from prison.
“Fine, but if you had told me that he was in town and threatening you, I would have intervened. I would have done something to protect you and to protect Lucy.”
His eyes darken at the mention of her name. But he says nothing about it. He merely watches me for a moment longer and then begins speaking again, clearly irritated.
“Well, it’s too late to go back and change anything. Believe me, there are a lot of things that I would do differently given the chance. But you know what they say about hindsight, so back to my story. I decide to help him with the sale. Everything was going smooth until Chip,” he pauses with a significant glance, “you know chip,” he says not bothering to wait for me to confirm.
I nod and he continues his story.
“So, everything was going smoothly until Chip got cocky and attempted assault on an officer,” he says gesturing towards me. “And then from there, I know that you got ahold of him. I assume you told him that if he was a sell out, you would give him a more lenient sentence.”
“Sure did,” I say with a grin enjoying where this conversation is going. I like the feeling of one upping the local drug lord. There is definitely some police satisfaction in it.
“Soooo I know that I am being watched by you. Clearly you don’t trust me or believe that I’m entirely reformed because you are, rather conspicuously I might add, keeping tabs on me. I can’t step the fuck out of line without you calling in fifty other cops and making my life a living hell and sending me back to prison. I need someone who I can trust. I can’t trust my lackeys like Chip for shit apparently because they’re more concerned about your offer.”
“Do you mean they don’t want to go to prison for someone else?”
“Oh shut up Kent,” he growls using my high school nickname. “We all do what we gotta do, and when it comes down to it and you gotta reward somebody when you call on them and they stand up and be loyal to you. I can’t reward loyalty if the kids gonna run around and be a rat. Regardless I had to ask someone for help. And the only person I can trust in this town is Lucy,” he says his voice breaking now. “Believe me I would not have ever called her if I didn’t feel like I had no other choice. I never wanted for her to get hurt or for her to be in danger for chrissake. She’s my daughter. Her safety and happiness is the most important thing to me, and since I knew that Chip was in charge of the drop off, I knew that she would be physically safe. Worst case scenario you would be tailing Chip because of his part. But instead you saw someone in a black hoodie and trailed them. I knew that she was fast. No one is faster than my girl,” he says with a quick grin of pride flashing across his face. “Years of track meets and training have made my Lucy one hell of an athlete, and honestly I couldn’t be more proud of her. So I knew that worst case scenario she would still be okay because she could out run your sorry ass,” he says smirking at me knowing it’s true.
“So you’re telling me you used your daughter, to save your daughter, and save your own skin?”
“Yes.” He nods. “And it is something that we all have to live with because in the process I have hurt my daughter, the person that I care for the most in the world.”
Nodding my head slowly in understanding I lean back in my leather chair.
“Lucy doesn’t do drugs. I would know if she did drugs because all the drugs that ran through this town ran through me. The only reason I’m telling you this is because I’ve already been pardoned for things that happened over a year ago. I know my kid. She doesn’t do drugs.”
Nodding my head, I watch as his face creases with lines of concern.
“Lucy has never had any part in the drug operation. None. I mean it. She has never so much as delivered or carried messages. I have kept that stuff as far from my children as possible. To my knowledge, my children couldn’t even have said whe
ther I was a part of this kind of business until I went to prison,” he says. “I’m sure they suspected like everyone else, but it wasn’t in their faces. Everything I did, I did to protect them or help them in some way. Even if it was stupid or selfish,” he adds frowning down at his hands.
I nod and let him know I believe him.
“Anyway, I called Lucy a couple of nights ago and asked her to meet me at my apartment. I told her it was important, and that I couldn’t do it without her. Which was true. You would have been all over me, and she is all there is. So when she came to the apartment, I gave her the assignment. I handed her the black sweatshirt, told her to keep her head down, where to go, and told her that she would find the package in the middle of the warehouse. After she picked up the package, the plan was for me to skip the money to my father and for it to be done quick and easy. My father would get the money that he wanted, and then he would leave town. And life would go on as it should be. But things went bad on so many fronts,” he sighs. Leaning forward he scrubs his hands over his face.
“For one, my daughter is incredibly upset because she knows that you know she is involved, even though she isn’t really involved because she didn’t even know what was going on until she saw you there. She did what she did out of loyalty to me because it’s who she is. And now she is terrified she will go to prison and wondering if she will lose her boyfriend in the process,” he says looking hard at me now. “I don’t like to see my daughter hurt.”
I nod for a moment watching him.
“Okay, so Lucy is relatively innocent in all this,” I say frowning at him and processing the information.