“Children,” Diesel growled into the phone, cutting off his best friend before he could drop the f-bomb. Yes, it was fucked up. This whole situation was fucked up, but he didn’t want Joshua hearing that. It had been bad enough that Joshua had heard him recount the story to Marcus O’Bannion.

Marcus was technically Diesel’s boss at the Cincinnati Ledger. When he’d inherited the newspaper from his grandfather, it had been failing, but he, Diesel, and the rest of the Ledger’s investigative team had brought it well into the black. They’d broken a lot of high-profile stories. To do so sometimes they needed an inside edge during an investigation, a peek at their target’s computer.

Computer sleuthing sometimes happened. That was where Diesel fit in.

“Sorry.” Marcus’s wince was clear in his tone. “I’m not on speaker, am I?”

“No, but Joshua is sitting with me.” Diesel had tried to put the child on one of the kid-sized chairs at the table in Dani’s office that was stocked with crayons and paper, but Joshua had clung, wrapping his little arms around his neck so tightly that Diesel had found it hard to breathe. So he’d relented, and Joshua now sat on his lap, cheek pressed to Diesel’s chest, small hand clutching his shirt. “Close enough to hear you.”

“Sorry,” Marcus said again. “Poor kid. What do you need me to do?”

“Michael needs a lawyer. Can you call Rex Clausing and ask him to meet Dani at the precinct? She’s Michael’s emergency foster parent and will be present during any questioning. This kid really needs Rex’s help.”

“I just texted him,” Marcus replied. A little ding chimed at Marcus’s end. “And he just replied. He’ll be there. The kid’s last name?”

“Rowland. Michael Rowland.”

“Got it. What else?”

“I need my laptop. Can you go by my house, get it, and bring it to me?” Marcus was one of the few who had a spare key to Diesel’s house. They’d met in Ranger school seventeen years ago and had been friends from the get-go. There was no one Diesel trusted more to have his back, unless it was Marcus’s brother Stone. The entire O’Bannion family had made him one of theirs, and he was damn grateful.

“I’m at Dani’s clinic right now, but I’ll take Joshua to the Ledger once Dani and Michael leave with Deacon and Adam.”

“Which laptop?” Marcus asked, because Diesel had three. One was for games, one was for e-mail and bills, and the third was the machine he used for his less-than-always-legal searches. It was souped-up and powerful, its browsing history undetectable on the Web.