“Shit,” I whispered.
“He wants his money back.”
“How much?”
“Half a mil ion.”
“Fuck! ” I shouted and everyone at the espresso counter looked over at us. “Half a mil ion dol ars?” Lee dropped his foot and turned to me. “Roxie, calm down.”
“Half a mil ion dol ars and he bought me cheese puffs and took me to that sleaze bag motel? I’m gonna f**king kill that motherfucker!” I yel ed.
“Roxie –”
I slammed my fists on my knees. “The least he could have done was bind my wrists with velvet rope. He sure could have afforded it. Stupid jerk.”
“Roxie.”
“Do you know…?” I interrupted conversational y, wel , more like loony-tunes conversational y, but stil . “He never paid any rent. Never bought groceries. What a dick!”
“Roxie.”
“What? Was he sel ing drugs?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Lee answered. “Listen to me, Roxie –” I rambled on. “Probably. Probably to little kids. How could I have been so f**king blind? ”
“Please listen to me.”
“I’m an idiot. I’m ten times an idiot. God, I could just die.” Then I forged ahead because the last comment was too close for comfort these days. “Not die die, as in not-breathing die, but die figuratively, if you know what I mean.” Lee was grinning.
“What?” I asked as if I hadn’t just been on a long-winded rant.
“Definitely not boring.”
I made a noise that sounded like “harrumph”.
Lee took his opportunity.
“I have good news.”
I nodded. I very much wanted to hear good news.
“Marcus set a meeting with Harper. He flew out to Chicago last night and spoke with him this morning. Harper now knows you aren’t involved. Not only that, Marcus has warned him off. He’s given you his protection and whether you, or Hank, want it, it’s now there.”
I took in a deep breath and let it free.
Maybe Marcus was gray too.
“Now I have some bad news,” Lee said.
I tensed. I very much did not want to hear bad news.
“Vance and Mace have been in the wind.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“After the car chase, Vance came to me to tel me he was going to ground hoping to find out what the f**k was going on with you. I assigned Mace to move with him.
They’ve been tracking and listening. Preliminarily, their assignment was to find out as much as they could, and ferret out Flynn or anyone else who came to town lookin’ for you. They got tuned into Desmond Harper at about the same time the police did.”