No, he wasn’t.

He wanted to kill somebody.

And he had two targets.

Boone stared into the man’s eyes and he did this for several long beats.

When he got his shit together, he jerked up his chin.

Hawk relaxed.

He heard Aug getting Axl up to date, but he kept his eyes on Hawk because he sensed his boss wasn’t done.

So he prompted, “And?”

“And Eddie and Hank went to go talk to Tony Crowley’s widow. She’s a vise.”

Slowly, Boone’s gaze went to Eddie and Hank.

“They got to her,” Eddie said. “She’s got kids. She was twitchy as fuck. Terrified we were there. Terrified we were asking about Tony. Terrified we were asking about Tony maybe investigating someone off the books.”

Hank picked it up. “Hawk called it in on his way from Mamá’s, and we made a call too. Cisco’s sister described her stalker to a sketch artist. Fits to a T a con Bogart nailed, but he alibied out on every incident she reported. So they couldn’t do anything.”

“Or the cops investigating didn’t want anything done,” Boone offered an alternate scenario.

Hank’s lips thinned.

“This doesn’t seem smart to me,” Mag stated. “Something’s wrong with it, because if they keep picking perps that Mueller and Bogart brought down, somewhere along the line, someone is going to connect the dots, say, like we just did.”

“It’d be a good way for the higher-ups to keep them in line,” Hawk noted.

“But they’re fools to allow it,” Boone replied.

“They might have no choice,” Hawk said. “It might not be them making those selections. It might be others making those selections, so in turn, Mueller and Bogart are puppets.”

That was true.

Boone decided to share what he put together on the way there because if he was right, it was crucial steps were taken…now.

“I think Cisco has a rat in his crew,” he stated.

“Worked that out, did you?” Hawk muttered.

And yeah.

Of course Hawk had already come to that conclusion.

“I called Mamá on the way here too,” Hawk shared. “She was pondering this same situation, how Ryn was suddenly a target, and the only person we know who knew Cisco spoke to her, how long he spoke to her, and how that might have gone down was Corinne Morton, and guys from his crew. It could have been Corinne who shared. But from what you reported happened when Mueller and Bogart questioned Ryn, they wouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion.”

Boone nodded.

Hawk continued, “Mamá is going to have a chat with Cisco.”

Mag had told him that when Ryn left Cisco after he’d kidnapped her, Cisco had hugged her.

And the wrong eyes saw it.

Boone was really going to have to have a talk with Ryn about befriending bad guys.

But this wasn’t the end to that, Mamá having a chat with Cisco.

He just couldn’t push it with Hank and Eddie standing there.

“What next?” Auggie asked.

“Slim and Mitch are trying to create a list of cops that might have been close to Crowley who he might have shared with,” Hank said. “Problem with that is that Crowley didn’t have a lot of friends, and considering what it’s become clear he was looking into, he probably was so paranoid, he didn’t share dick with anybody.”

“And if whoever is behind all this didn’t know already, they know now because they instigated it, they’re on my radar. So we can move a lot freer in looking into shit,” Hawk said.

No one asked how they were going to move a lot freer, mostly because Eddie and Hank were there.

Both cops understood this, probably dealt with this kind of thing with Lee Nightingale and his crew all the time, so they didn’t waste a lot of time saying good-bye and taking off.

When they were gone, Boone didn’t waste any time re-huddling with Hawk and the boys.

“I just shared in front of two of Cisco’s crew that Ryn got a call from Cisco admitting to conspiracy to commit murder,” he reminded Hawk. “Someone tells a cop that, a dirty one or other, they get a warrant from a judge to look into her cell records, she’s fucked.”

“Her cell records have already been altered,” Hawk said. “Any record of that call was erased.”

Boone felt his brows go up. “That was fast.”

“Hawk phoned me too, muchacho,” Jorge said on a grin.

Another reason all the guys depended on Jorge.

When he was given an order, he did not fuck around.

“Thanks, bud,” Boone replied.

“Don’t mention it,” Jorge said.

“Now, assignments,” Hawk decreed. “We got business to see to and we also got this business to see to. I’m assuming you’re all in for overtime?”

Overtime didn’t mean money. They were all salaried.

Hawk meant they could tap out if they didn’t want to wade in.

The responses were immediate.

“Yep.”

“Yeah.”

“Yup.”

“Absolutely.”

The “absolutely” came from Mag.

Boone was seeing he was going to be paying for rounds probably for the next six months.

He didn’t mind.

And anyway, it wasn’t the first time.

“Right, then let’s sit down. We got shit to discuss.”

Again the response was immediate.

They all walked into the conference room.

Chapter Twelve

So, I’m Out

Boone

Boone made one detour before heading back to Ryn’s.

He went to visit Smithie.

He called ahead and was not surprised, when he hit Smithie’s office, to see Smithie’s nephew Dorian there.

Boone didn’t know Dorian all that well.

But what he knew, he liked.

And considering he had a feeling Dorian was behind the switch from titty bar to revue, he liked him better.

Needless to say, after Smithie lived through the antics of the Rock Chicks in their heyday, he was not real pleased to hear that Ryn was caught up in some dangerous business that had nothing to do with her but included her being the target of a sex offender.

Smithie did not blow and bluster.

After Boone ran it down, the man leaned back in his chair, looked to the ceiling and said, “Dear God. You got my devotion. I know I haven’t lived a blameless life. But I do not get it. I mean, the question has to be asked. What the fuck?”

God probably got asked that question a lot, though maybe not with that language.

One thing Boone knew, unless you paid attention to the signs, He rarely answered it.

Boone believed in God, but he was not a churchgoer. His mother was and every Sunday growing up it was Sunday school followed by being bored stiff through a sermon.

His dad, who did not go to church with them, put the kibosh on that when each of his sons turned fourteen, saying to his mother, “They’re nearly grown men now, woman. They gotta learn to make their decisions about a lot of shit, including how they worship.”

He, nor any of his brothers, ever went to church again.

It wasn’t God.