Whip shook his head. “We’re wandering into snitch territory. Look, I know the place, okay? I know the guy. Maybe I can find out who hired that car. That’s all I’ve got for you.” He read the look on my face, held his hands up to fend it off. “Best I can do, Bean.”

I stood. “Who’s the buddy?”

Whip pressed his lips tight.

“I can find out,” Ben said.

Whip shook his head. “Won’t be from me, and even if you do, he’s not going to talk to anybody with a badge.” He slid me a look. “Or anyone who used to have one.”

“Are you involved with this front?” I needed to know that Whip wasn’t involved. I wasn’t about to lose him to the streets again.

“I’m out of the life, like I said. Now I cook. If you want the name, I can get it. You want it?”

“No,” I said. Just the one word. I screamed it in my head, but it flew out of my mouth quieter, but firm. I was doing it again. Involving my friends in work they maybe weren’t up for. “I’ll get it on my own. You stay away from it.”

Whip smiled. “You wouldn’t get two feet in before they made you, and whether I go or not isn’t up to you.”

The doorbell rang. The pizza. Whip stood, gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I got this. Now I’m going back out there and eat some greasy pizza, and if I were you, I’d do the same before Pouch starts in on it. He’s a bottomless pit when he gets going.”

He walked away. Then Ben walked away. I stood for a moment in the kitchen alone. The scream was back, but no one heard it but me.

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

It was well after midnight when things finally wound down. I’d been quiet most of the evening, not in a party mood, worried. I walked my guests to the door, knowing I wouldn’t sleep. Whip was going to Fleet Transports to ask his old prison buddy about the black SUV I’d seen at the marina, and it wasn’t sitting well. What was I going to do about it? What could I do? I noticed then that Pouch’s pack hung heavy on one side. “Pouch?”

He turned, startled. “Yeah?”

“Don’t make me frisk you.”

Ben took a step forward, towered over the little man. “Or me.”

Slowly Pouch reached into his pack and pulled out a crystal doorstop that’d been sitting behind my bathroom door. He sheepishly handed it to me. “I’ll get a handle on this eventually.”