Holding Out For A Hero. HelenKay Dimon

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ for a self-destructive jackass.” Kane grabbed the empty beer bottle out of Josh’s hand and shook it. “And, look, here you are.”

      “Is the hearing over?” Derek asked.

      Talk about a relaxation kill. “We’re not discussing that part of my life today.” As far as Josh was concerned they should never talk about it again.

      “I am.” This time Kane took Derek’s bottle and drank. “It’s over.”

      “My beer?” Derek asked.

      “The hearing.”

      Derek let his chair drop back down to the deck. “Now what?”

      Josh grew less interested in this topic by the second. “Don’t want to hear the play-by-play.”

      Derek smiled. “Then stop listening.”

      “Might try a little thinking while you’re at it,” Kane added.

      If they wanted to work off some extra energy, Josh would oblige. “You feel like going headfirst into the ocean, warrior boy? It will get your pretty uniform all wet.”

      Kane snorted and walked past them into the house.

      Derek waited until Kane disappeared to lean over and whisper. “He hates it when you call him that.”

      “Why do you think I do it?” Josh figured out early in the friendship “Kane” meant warrior in Hawaiian and had tortured his friend with the knowledge ever since.

      “Kane’s going to shoot you,” Derek said.

      “No, he won’t.”

      “I wouldn’t bet on that.” On the way back out to the porch, beer in hand, Kane smacked Josh in the back of the head with the end of the bottle.

      “Hey!” Josh rubbed the spot.

      “See.” Kane re-took his position against the railing. “I’m thinking you need something to wake your ass up. Maybe a bullet will do it.”

      “You were less uptight before you got married,” Josh said.

      “No, he wasn’t.” Derek laughed until he glanced at Kane’s serious expression. “What? You weren’t.”

      Kane shook off the unrelated topic. “The panel took your case under advisement pending additional testimony. Seems they had some trouble locating you this afternoon and got a little panicky.”

      “Why not just make a decision now?” Derek asked before sliding a look in Josh’s direction. “No offense, man.”

      Josh nodded in understanding. “None taken.”

      “This is pretty high-profile. They’re trying not to blow it,” Kane explained.

      Josh knew what that meant. It would be a few days of talking with lawyers and going over options before the government bureaucrats dropped the courthouse on his head and took his job away. Fine. He considered himself terminated anyway.

      And he knew the truth behind the hearing and what really happened to put him there. His boss had set up a bad mission and illegally used a local helicopter pilot as a lure for some drug runners. The idea was to shut down a huge meth supplier who worked back and forth between Nevada and Hawaii. Would have worked except that the helicopter went down, the pilot died, and the guy’s sister would not stop investigating the incident until she found the truth.

      The disaster of a job blew up, leaving Josh to shoot the sister in order to free her from the bad guys. During the resulting mandatory check-in from internal affairs, Josh told the truth about the actions of his boss, Brad Nohea. Brad fought back by shifting the blame and rigging the paperwork to support his position.

      All that ass-covering by the department convinced Josh he was done rescuing other people for a living. The grief just wasn’t worth the effort. He could handle paperwork. The constant lying and questions about his character were different.

      Kane hesitated a second. Someone who didn’t know him wouldn’t notice. Josh could tell his friend was waiting to drop a bombshell. “You’re blocking my view, so just say whatever you have to say and then move.”

      Kane didn’t even bother to deny it. “Deana Armstrong was there this afternoon.”

      The beer sloshed around in Josh’s empty stomach. “What?”

      “She came looking for you.”

      Josh swore. “That woman just doesn’t give up.”

      “Old girlfriend?” Derek asked.

      The thought killed off the rest of Josh’s beer buzz. “Hell, no.”

      Kane shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “She’s Ryan Armstrong’s aunt.”

      Derek dropped his beer but caught it before it hit the deck. “The kid from the huge murder trial?”

      Josh felt like whipping his bottle into the ocean. Now Deana was ruining his good mood without even being near him. “She thinks Ryan isn’t guilty.”

      Kane shook his head. “Now there’s a surprise.”

      Josh understood the skepticism. He tried to remember a time when he arrested someone who didn’t claim innocence. Even with drugs in hand they’d be screaming about a frame-up.

      Ryan had been the same way two years earlier when he had gotten in trouble. Drugs that time. He had insisted he was in the wrong place when a sting went down and nothing more. His family believed him until the drug tests came back positive. The family used their connections and wealth to get Ryan out of the legal system and into a rehab program. They managed to keep Ryan’s name out of the paper and make sure he never took an ounce of responsibility for his actions.

      Eight months later the kid’s parents were dead.

      Josh decided to tell Kane about Deana’s plans. “She wants me to get Ryan out of jail.”

      This time Derek set his bottle down on the porch nice and slow. “Didn’t you arrest the kid a few years ago as part of some private school drug ring?”

      “Yeah.”

      Derek glanced at Kane and then back to Josh before trying again. “And didn’t you testify against him at his recent murder trial?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Let me skip to the end of this discussion,” Kane said. “Why does Deana think you’re the guy for this job?”

      To Josh the real question was why they were still talking about Deana Armstrong and her ridiculous proposal. “With my connections she believes I’m the one who can fix this.”

      Kane whistled. “Guess she hasn’t heard you’re out of the hero business.”

      “Exactly.” Josh snapped his fingers a few times, then pointed at Kane. “About time someone believed me.”

СКАЧАТЬ