When the Bough Breaks (Rose Gardner Investigations #6) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,49
me how he really felt?
He slid past me to grab a juice glass out of the cabinet, the whiskey bottle in the other hand. Setting the glass on the counter, he filled it halfway and took a generous gulp.
Good. Let him get drunk. Forget his feelings. There were more important things than our feelings to deal with here. I needed every scrap of information I could pry out of this man to find Ashley and Mikey. Everything else was wasted breath.
“What did Mike do for Hardshaw?” I asked.
“What makes you think I know?” he asked in a snotty tone.
“For one thing, you’re not stupid, James Malcolm. You were able to control him last September, which means you had some authority over him. And that leads me to believe you know exactly what he was doin’ for them. What was it?”
“I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” He snorted, then took a drink.
I rolled my eyes. “Look, if you want to roll around in bed with Hardshaw, then you accept the consequences, but whatever Mike’s been doin’ has gotten my niece and nephew kidnapped, so if you have any feelings left for me at all, then I’m begging you to help me.”
His gaze lifted to mine. “What makes you think I give a single shit about you?”
That stung, but the fact that he was getting shit-faced to have this conversation wasn’t helping his defense.
“Fine,” I said, “you don’t care about me. You made that clear last fall, but you once told me you cared about kids, and the fact remains that two kids are missing, the children of a man who works for Hardshaw, which means you probably have some clue who took them or where they might be.”
He shot me a glare. “I’m not tellin’ you shit, Rose. Not without something in return.”
“What could you possibly want from me?” His look hardened, and I said, “If you’re askin’ me to choose between you and the baby, don’t waste your miserable breath.”
He started to say something, then took a generous gulp of his whiskey. “That ship has sailed, sweetheart. I’m not interested in some bitch who tried to trap me into a relationship with a baby.”
I flinched. His go-to defense mechanism was to lash out, but I wasn’t going to put up with his disrespect. “If that’s how you choose to remember it, by all means, live in your land of delusion. In the meantime, tell me how you wish to profit off two missing children, James.”
“Glad you see it my way,” he said, his words sounding a bit slurred.
“What do you want, James?”
He turned to face me. “I know your new boyfriend is investigatin’ Mark Erickson’s murder. I want to know what he’s discovered.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why do you care about the murderer of an electrician?”
His eyes were unfocused. “I like to keep tabs on everything that happens in this county.”
“Seems to me you’d know more than Joe, what with your criminal connections.”
He snorted and finished off his glass. “Seems to me your own criminal connections would come into play for you too, Lady,” he sneered.
“And you have to know that I haven’t met with the criminals of the county in months.”
“It’s too bad that you haven’t,” he said, pouring more whiskey into his glass. “Especially your buddy Carmichael.”
I blinked. “What does Denny Carmichael have to do with this?”
He lifted his glass in salute, his hand waving. “Maybe you should ask him.”
Then he turned and walked into the living room, carting the glass and whiskey bottle with him. He plopped onto the leather sofa and flipped on the TV, grimacing when an episode of Cupcake Wars came on. He quickly changed the channel to a dirt bike race.
Shooting me a dark look, he asked, “What the hell are you still doin’ here? I gave you some information, for free no less. If you want more, you’re gonna have to bring me something about Mark Erickson.”
I counted to three, trying to get my temper under control. Then I turned around and left.
Chapter 12
When I got home, Joe’s sheriff’s car was parked outside the house and he was sitting on the porch drinking a beer of his own, petting Muffy, who sat on his lap.
He stayed seated while I got out, but when I started up the steps, he rose to greet me. “Decided not to stay with Neely Kate and Jed?”
“I wasn’t at Neely Kate and Jed’s.”
He didn’t say anything, but I could tell he’d known that.