Ozzie saw the indecision in Samantha’s eyes. The journalist part of her didn’t want to give away anything that would jeopardize her ability to scoop the story. But the Samantha part of her—the part that valued justice, honesty, and integrity above all else—won out in the end. “He told me the Black Apostles are getting their weapons from a group of motorcycle mechanics who have a shop here in the city.”
Christian made a rude noise. “And obviously that had to be us, yeah? Because in a city of nearly ten million people, we’re the only motorbike mechanics.”
“No.” Samantha gifted him with a dirty look that would have put a lesser man in his place. Christian simply raised a brow. “Marcel also said these motorcycle mechanics used to be in the military. Which made sense to me, since the whole reason I asked him to do some digging was because the gun that was recently confiscated after a Black Apostle drive-by shooting had a serial number matching a weapon that was supposed to be in Iraq. You lot”—she waved a hand in a circular motion toward Ozzie and Christian—“have military backgrounds and likely military connections both foreign and domestic. So I figured it was a sure bet that you were the motorcycle mechanics Marcel was talking about, getting your guns from some contact you kept after leaving the armed forces. I added two and two and got four.”
“More like negative four,” Christian insisted. “The opposite of the correct answer.”
Ozzie agreed with Christian but held his tongue because (a) he liked Samantha too much to pile on, and (b) while he was shocked that she would actually think for one minute that he was capable of running black-market guns and offing one of her sources, he could sympathize with how much those conclusions must have shocked her…hurt her.
The look of betrayal he had seen in her melted-chocolate eyes suddenly made sense. And that gave him hope. If she cared enough to feel betrayed, then maybe she cared enough to stick around.
Washington stood up. “Hang on.” His back was ramrod straight, a testament to his military training. “How the hell do you know about that Glock, Miss Tate?”
Ozzie turned from Washington to Samantha. He could see her mentally backpedaling. “Oh, uh…” She rolled in her lips, then offered a smile that brought to mind images of a cat after it’d been caught in the cream. One look at the sliver of space between her two front teeth had his jeans feeling tighter and the torn muscles of his thigh twitching.
Great. Just great.
“Don’t bother.” Washington shook his head. “I should’ve known you had a source in the evidence department. You’re too quick to get details, stuff the other newshounds have to wait to read in the press releases.”
“Hey.” Samantha sat up straighter. When her sweater slipped off her shoulder again, revealing that wonderfully intriguing bra strap, Ozzie had to adjust his position in his seat or risk injuring himself. It was like his damn prick was trying to make up for those days and weeks and months of zip, zilch, nada all at once. “Have I ever printed anything that sidetracked an investigation?” She hoisted up her sweater—on the one hand, a crying shame; on the other hand, a blessed relief—and answered before Washington could. “No. I have not.”
“All the same,” the chief harrumphed. “Might be time I cleaned house over there.”
When Samantha started to sputter, Ozzie figured he might as well jump in and get the conversation back on track. “So let me see if I have this right. A Glock that was recently used in a drive-by shooting was found to have a serial number that matched that of a weapon supposed to be in Iraq.” It was no secret that the American government had armed the Iraqi military and police to the teeth in the hope that they could impose some sort of rule of law over their own fractious population.
“Yes,” Washington admitted through pursed lips. “The number had been filed off just like all the others we’ve confiscated from various Apostle crimes. Usually, we can use acid to read scratched-off numbers. But these guys are no amateurs. They use a stippling machine to… Never mind. The point is that, for whatever reason, the machine wasn’t used on this one weapon. We were able to read the number, and when we ran it through the databases, we got a hit. A hit that, like Samantha said, led back to a weapon that had been shipped to Iraq. As far as the Department of Defense is concerned, it should still be over there. We’ve been trying like hell to figure out why it isn’t.”
“And what does the DOD say?”
Washington sent him a look, soldier to soldier. “They don’t seem all that concerned. It’s just one gun. Their explanation is that a contractor or a soldier or, hell, even an Iraqi delegate could have gotten their hands on it, brought it back to the States, and either sold it or given it away. And in the usual course of events for undocumented weapons, it found its way onto the black market and into the hands of a gangbanger here in Chicago.”
“But you’re not buying it.” Ozzie leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing Washington. He admired the man not only for his service to his country, but for his continued service to the good people of Chicago. And for a moment, he wondered if Washington might offer him a job once the Black Knights realized he was physically as good as he was ever going to get and decided to—
He stopped the thought right there. It hurt too much to let it reach its inevitable conclusion.
“Maybe they’re right,” Washington said with a shrug. “Maybe they’re not. I have enough firefighter friends to know that where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.”
“Mmm.” Ozzie nodded his agreement before turning back to Samantha. “And this Monroe character—”
“Marcel,” she said, something flickering in her eyes. It looked a lot like regret…or maybe recrimination. No doubt she was blaming the conversation she had with Mr. Monroe this morning for his death this evening.
“Marcel,” Ozzie repeated, softening his tone and hoping she could read in his face the sympathy he felt. There was nothing worse than shouldering the blame for someone else’s death. And he would know. The memory of the bombed-out hotel room, of Julia Ledbetter’s charred corpse, flashed through his head. It was followed by the memory of his father wailing his mother’s name over and over again as the paramedics took her draped body from their home on a gurney. The flashbacks made his stomach somersault, caused the ache in his leg to increase tenfold. Reaching down to massage his mangled flesh, he continued, “He’s a Black Apostle?”
“Recently joined.” Samantha’s throat worked over a hard swallow. “His mother worked the streets over in Englewood. I used her as a source a couple of times before…” She trailed off and looked away, her jaw sawing back and forth.