“Thank you,” he managed, looking up at me with tears of gratitude in his eyes. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” I breathed, elated to see the family together again.
“You, uh, you see anything fishy in this house?” Wallace asked, looking past me with an apprehensive look on his face.
“Just your everyday human criminals,” I assured him with a clap on his shoulder. “Not to worry, my friend, there are only human terrors in here.”
It took a while for the team and I to case the whole house, given how large it was, but no other goons were found on the premises. Flashlight beams now filled the whole place from every corner, illuminating it all but for the occasional corner left untouched, still shrouded in darkness.
When we were finished, I made my way back to the kitchen area where I had left the head goon to be tended to by a team of medics. More than anything, I wanted to go back to the main room and look through all those old papers Tessa had found on the table. Was Grendel’s journal in there? Something else that could potentially lead me to the real Dragon’s Rogue?
I was itching to find out, but that would have to wait. I had a real living, breathing person to talk to first if he was able.
I had a couple of reasons for wanting to talk to the goon in the actual Hawthorne house. First of all, I wanted him to be able to point out to me exactly where important documents might be, instead of giving me some vague notion to figure out for myself before he was shipped off to prison. Second, I just wasn’t ready to leave the place yet. Sure, I could always come back. But for now, I wanted to be right there, where all the stuff was, where I could watch and make sure that nothing was moved out of place before I could find it.
I knew that this was probably selfish and unreasonable of me. These guys were professionals, and they would do their jobs well. Nothing would be out of place if I were to return at a later time. Still, the idea made me uncomfortable. After so long obsessing over that fake journal and stalking the nautical museum’s website, I was finally here, and I wasn’t about to let any potential leads on the Dragon’s Rogue’s location or the Hollands slip through my fingers this time.
“Can he talk now, or do you need to ship him to the hospital for treatment?” I asked the medics when I arrived in the kitchen where they were knelt down next to the goon, who was propped up against the kitchen island and appeared to be awake.
He glowered at me with perhaps even more animosity than he had before I’d shot him if that was even possible.
“I think he’ll be alright,” the medic to his left said dryly, giving him a scathing look of her own. I noticed that her finger was bleeding out of what looked like a bite mark.
“You bit her?” I asked the man, arching an eyebrow at him. “You bit your doctor? How stupid are you?”
“Very, apparently,” the goon said, his voice coming out mangled and low, compared to his booming presence from before he was wounded.
“Well, at least you’re honest,” I said, crouching down in front of him.
“Do you need us to stay?” Officer Bauer asked from where he and a couple of other officers had been stationed to make sure the goon didn’t try anything funnier than biting his doctor.
“Oh, I think I can take care of myself,” I assured him.
Tessa had gone back with the Carltons to their house for the time being to help them get settled there since they seemed comfortable with her and were more than a little shaken up. She’d promised to come back as soon as she could and made me promise not to find anything too interesting without her.
Yes, talking to the goon would have to do for now, though my mind kept drifting back to that table covered in old papers. Old papers that looked suspiciously like the few pages I already had from Grendel’s real journal, old and yellow and covered in black ink.
“So what do you want to know, boss?” the goon asked dryly, narrowing his eyes at me as the police officers and all but the medic he’d bitten dispersed, giving me the space I needed to conduct my interview properly.
“We can start with your name,” I suggested, and he gave a low huff.
“They call me Knuckles sometimes,” he said, practically spitting the words out at me, but I made a point not to flinch. The battle of muscles with this one may be over, but the battle of wits appeared to just be getting started. And I liked my odds even better for this one.
“Nice try,” I said dryly. “What’s your real one?”
He had a soft Brooklyn accent beneath all that bravado, and he had olive skin, so I wasn’t surprised when he gave me an Italian name.
“Joey Rossi,” he said, and he looked unhappy enough as he said it that I believed him.
“Alright, Joey,” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“You can call me Knuckles,” he said with a sneer that brought me back to when he was lunging at me with those guns and those biceps of his.
“No,” I said bluntly. “As I was saying, so Joey. How about you tell me how you came into the Hollands’ employment?”
There was another flicker of annoyance in his expression as I said his bosses’ names.
“Oh, is that not the name they were using here?” I asked airily. “I’ve forgotten since they have so many. Their parents must’ve had trouble deciding. Answer the question.”
“I came on about five years ago,” Joey admitted after a moment of hesitation. “I moved up the ranks pretty quick.”
“I can imagine,” I said, giving him a disdainful look. “Brains and brawn, I’d
