Ian wished whoever had tried to kill the fucker had been better at their job. He sighed and leaned forward. “Why don’t you go and join your crazies in the conference room. Alex and I will be right out. I want to take one more look at that footage before we talk to…god, I hate even saying his name…Hoover.”
Sully stood. “Yeah, his parents had more money than sense. I often think they named him after the vacuum cleaner, which is oddly appropriate since he sucks the intelligence out of any room he enters. But damn that kid’s got a million-watt smile. And if you can solve this case without Hoover dying, I can use all of this as a storyline for next season. If the kid dies, so does the show. But you aren’t going to let that happen. I know you, Ian. You’re going to solve this in no time.”
Sully was smiling as he left the office. At least someone was happy.
“I say we set Si and Jesse up on this case,” Alex said. “Phoebe and Chelsea won’t mind a couple of months in LA. I’ll estimate the project at roughly six to eight weeks. We’ll need to interview everyone involved and get a feel for what the victim’s life is like. I’ve already been on the phone with LAPD. Derek has a friend in the Threat Management Unit. They’re overtasked and apparently Brie and Hoover are difficult to deal with. What a surprise.”
Ian flipped a button on his computer and looked over the footage again. The shooter had been roughly five hundred feet away, in a cluster of trees. The shot would have taken off Hoover’s head if he hadn’t caught sight of his reflection in the bottle of champagne. The dumbass actually picked up the bottle and started to admire himself. His narcissism saved his life.
The cops had found the spot where the shooter had likely stood, but they couldn’t determine much. The spot was a hiker paradise. There had been too many footprints to make any kind of guess.
“I’ll talk to them. Maybe we should send one of the new guys, too.” He’d recently set up a close-cover bodyguard unit within McKay-Taggart. His operatives were almost all family men, and that didn’t seem to go well with twenty-four seven close cover. So he’d talked to a friend of Sean’s and allowed him to run his business as a subsidiary of McKay-Taggart. “Do you find any of Fisher’s men annoying? Because I want to set someone annoying on this guy. Jesse and Si will be too nice. Hey, maybe Chelsea can do some of that rat bastard stuff she used to do to me.”
Like putting him on a no-fly list and subjecting him to body cavity searches for months when he flew. It had been a complete dick move and one he respected. He didn’t fuck with his sister-in-law much anymore. She was mean and he could understand that.
Charlie could be mean, too, but when she was he would spank her sweet ass and show her who was boss. Well, she was boss and he damn well knew it, but in the bedroom there was no question who topped who.
God, he wanted to top her. Lately, he was too worried to. He looked at that big belly of hers and worried things were going to change again.
“Stop.”
Ian looked up. “What?”
“You’ve got your ‘worried dad’ face on.”
“I do not have one of those.”
“You do. It’s a little like your ‘I’m going to murder someone’ face but slightly less happy. You’re going to be fine, Ian.”
He hated this. Hated all this touchy-feely shit. Still… Alex was kind of his go-to guy. If he couldn’t talk to Alex, he couldn’t talk to anyone. “I have no idea how to raise girls. Why couldn’t they have had penises? I know what to do with a boy. Shove ’em out in the backyard and let them free range for a few years. They’ll build their own cabins and become self-sufficient. I don’t think I can do that with girls. Speaking of complaints. Why two? One I could maybe handle, but now it’s a freaking girl gang at my house. Do you think they’re pulling a fast one on dear old dad? Maybe they’re hiding their penises and laughing their asses off in utero.”
Alex laughed, the sound lightening the mood. “This has been a fun nine months for me, brother. I can’t wait for the rest because there are no penises and that gang of girls is going to be so much fun for me to watch when they get to be teens.”
Ian shuddered. He didn’t want to think about teens.
Alex leaned forward, that sensitive I’m-about-to-give-you-words-of-wisdom-because-I-watched-a-lot-of-Oprah-in-my-time look on his face. “You’re going to be fine, Ian. I know you think because your dad walked out that you won’t know what to do, but Sean would disagree. Sean would tell you you’ve already been a great dad. There’s only one rule.”
“Don’t kill the children. Charlie already made me promise.” He didn’t like the fact that Alex was right. Or that the idea of Sean thinking he was going to be good at the father thing made him a little soft on the inside.
Alex rolled his eyes. “God, you’re a pain in the ass.”
“What?” He wanted to know. “What’s the one rule?”
“Be there. And let me tell you, Ian Taggart’s got that one down. So relax. You’re going to be a pro at this in no time. And I think you’re going to look good in the pink sling Eve bought you.”