Page 69 of Rules of Engagement

"Hell, I didn't know that was inside," said Garrett, grinning. "I did know it probably wasn't the ballistics report but Mikey didn't know that. All he knew was, it could be and he was about to lose any hope he might have had for helping himself. That's probably one of the few times he did something smart and tried to save himself."

"You got a solid confession from him," said Damien. He reached out and shook Garrett's hand. "The Solomon family, what's left of us, are very grateful for that."

"He would do the same for me," said Garrett.

"What now?" I asked. I glanced at Mikey, watching him hunch over the pad to write while he sniffled and fidgeted.

"I'm going to convince him to wear a wire before I send him back into that bar to talk to Mooch. If I can get a confession from this Mooch on tape, I can grab another piece of the puzzle. Mooch might give up the next person higher up on the chain if only to save himself from the same fate as Mikey."

"I think the bar he's talking about is a Niners’ bar," said Maddox.

"Flaherty said he was with guys wearing Niner colors too," I added.

Garrett nodded. "They're a low level motorcycle gang. I’ve heard some talk that they're involved in shady stuff but apart from a bunch of misdemeanors and now this idiot, nothing much ever stuck with them. I can't see why they'd want to warn Solomon about anything. Lexi?"

"No clue," I agreed. "We've never been involved with them, at least not to my knowledge."

"How far up do you think this chain of command goes?" asked Damien.

"Not so far. We don't have the kind of organized crime that a lot of big cities do, so whoever ordered this is probably a local, and not far away. Plus, it sounds like Solomon was the warning shot. The ultimate target is someone else."

"Mikey didn't sound like they were warning Solomon away from something," said Maddox.

"I agree," I said. "It sounded like a case of 'this could happen to you.' They must have been warning someone close to Solomon, but whom?" The three men all turned their heads and gazed down at me. "C'mon! Really?" I said, my voice rising.

"You do get into some trouble," said Garrett.

"You're responsible for putting a lot of bad people away," added Maddox.

"You can't blame Lexi for this," said Damien, placing an unexpectedly protective hand on my arm. "She's only doing her job. Don't make her feel bad for that."

"I don't blame you, Lexi, but I will need to look at your recent and current cases. Maybe you shook the wrong tree and upset someone dangerous," said Garrett. "Has anyone contacted you recently? Said anything about what happened that might’ve concerned you? Implied anything?"

"No, not at all. Everyone is just shocked."

"And your caseload?"

"I don't have any current cases. The most exciting thing I've done recently is solve a missing persons cold case, one which you knew all about, then Solomon and I got busy tasting wedding cake samples."

"Anything suspicious about the wedding cake business?" asked Garrett.

"We went to White's Wedding Planning and the owner, Francesca White, asked me to look into something about an employee, which I wrapped up in a couple of hours. It was nothing. Not even interesting enough to pinch someone on the arm for, never mind shooting my fiancé in retaliation."

"Send me all the details. I'll check it out anyway. Actually, get someone to send me over details of every case the agency has worked on over the last six months," said Garrett.

"I don't even know that information!" I threw my hands in the air and turned away, exasperated and mad. Unfortunately, Maddox was in my way and left me nowhere to go.

"I'll get someone to get you the information," said Damien.

"Our cases are all confidential," I said, turning back again.

"And one of them might be the reason my brother was almost murdered."

"We have to respect our clients’ privacy. They come to us because we're not the police. Everything they tell us is held strictly confidential."

"But it's not protected by law! I can get a warrant but I'd rather have your cooperation. I don't need to know the ins and outs of everything," said Garrett. "Just enough to make some educated ideas on who might have become a problem. A name might ring a bell or sound familiar to us."

"Let me talk to someone at the agency," I said. "I'm not obstructing justice. I want whoever ordered this just as much as anyone else, but I don't want to destroy Solomon's business while we’re trying to find them. He left me in charge to look after the business, not ruin its reputation."

---