Really, there was nothing he could do, short of building himself a guard’s shack in her yard and sitting in it with a shotgun, twenty-four-seven.
Had to be a hard position for any loving father, even when his daughter was an adult. And even when she had twenty-four-hour security that wasn’t him. I understood that I was a stranger to him, despite my credentials; that both me and his daughter were asking him to trust me with her life.
“Your daughter is safe,” I tried to assure him. “The police are involved. We’ve got the restraining order. And we’ve got a team of qualified professionals at our disposal, at any given minute, to see that Summer’s security needs are met. Her manager, his head of security and their team, and my team, we’re all working together on this to assure her safety.”
I didn’t mention that a key component of his daughter’s safety had pretty much been insured by the Vice President of the West Coast Kings motorcycle club.
There were some things that were better kept on the down-low.
He nodded, looking up at the house. “I can see that you’ve got things covered here. I’ve been on my daughter about that fence post for the better part of a year. I tried to pay for an alarm system to be installed, several times, and she wouldn’t hear of it. I advised her to get more of those motion-activated lights in the yard. She doesn’t listen.”
“She values her independence,” I offered. “I can respect that.”
“A young woman on her own needs to know when to accept help. I’m glad she’s listening to this new manager of hers. I don’t know how you got her to come around on all of this…” He tapped the window, where the Triple X Security logo had been affixed on a sticker that warned potential intruders to fuck off—literally with a fist giving the middle finger. “But I am grateful.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m just glad I can help. And maybe provide you and your wife some peace of mind. Must be difficult, living so far away from your daughter under the circumstances.”
“It is.” He looked me over again, briefly. “But I can see she’s in good hands.”
“Thank you.”
“And I respect a man who can hold his own with my daughter,” he added, unsmiling.
“I do my best, sir.”
He nodded.
And yeah, I definitely felt like an asshole accepting the man’s praise when he had no idea I was boning his daughter.
But that seemed like a conversation for a later date.
As we were heading back into the house through the sunroom, my phone rang.
Naveen.
“It’s my partner,” I told Summer’s dad. “I need to take this.”
I left him in the kitchen with the women. Summer gave me a curious half-smile as I caught her eye; I pointed at my phone and headed down the hall to “my” room.
“Naveen,” I answered, slipping into the room and shutting the door. “What’ve you got?”
“We finally finished that check on Summer’s brother for you.”
“And?”
“Went pretty deep, reached out to connections in his neck of the woods, both street and RCMP. Turned up nothing. The kid is clean.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I am, actually.”
“He’s not in the system, not even a parking ticket. His business seems completely legit. Pays his taxes. From what I can tell, he doesn’t owe any money on the streets.”
“Well, that’s a fucking relief.”
“Thought you could use some decent news.”
“Yeah, that’ll do.” It was good news, for both Summer and her brother.
But I still needed to make sure there was no connection between Summer and the Bloody Bastards MC.
And that Blair Sanchuk was out of her life—forever.
Her mom was right. One year was not enough. Especially when we didn’t even know where the fuck he was.
“I’ve got some not-so-good news, though,” Naveen went on. “Thought I’d hit you up with that last.”
“Hit me.”
“Seems Justice Sorensen has got himself a pretty voracious coke habit. Far as we can tell, he’s being supplied by your friendly neighborhood Bloody Bastard. Goes by the name of Boasty. Word I got is that this guy has a Bastards tattoo on his right forearm. And a reputation for being a decent guy, whatever that means.”
“Same guy I met at Justice’s place. Any reason to think their relationship is anything more than dealer/user merriment?”
“Nothing I could find. They seem to be friendly. That’s about it.”
I considered this, wondering what it all meant. There was no crime in being “friends” with a criminal. Even scumbags had friends.
Buying drugs from him, though… that was a crime.
“I’m assuming you’ve got no word on Sanchuk?”
Every day, it was the same damn thing on that front.
“Not yet.”
“Any chance this Boasty guy might be talkative in a way that could help us?”
“That’s doubtful, especially when he’s so far out. We can’t pull that kind of weight out near Hope. Sticking our necks out to try to question him about Sanchuk would probably do nothing but get Sanchuk tipped off that we’re looking, and send him deeper into hiding.”
Yeah. Unfortunately, that sounded about right.
“Right. Well, keep at it.”
“Will do,” he said.
I was actually starting to feel a little bad taking up so much of his time with this shit. Naveen had a lot of other work to do, a large part of which was managing all our guys on their various assignments. I’d been asking a lot of him on this—and him only, because I wanted my best guy on it, overseeing our efforts from the office.
Really, it had only been a few weeks. But it felt like a long damn time. And I wondered, not for the first time, how long we could keep this up.
At what point we’d have to give up this fruitless
