Page 82 of Locke 2

“Would it bother you if he was?” Conor wondered.

I feigned dismay. “I was just really hoping for that follow up.”

Conor chuckled. Jem grinned into his food. Locke stared at me like he was pulling me apart. And he was. I may as well have been naked the way his eyes trekked my body. He settled a plate on the table. “For you,” he told me.

I sat down next to Conor and down at my plate. Locke had filled it to the brim. My stomach grumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten in who knows how long. As I dug into the food, they chatted with ease.

“Has Locke filled you in on Tammy's ex boyfriend?” Conor asked.

I shook my head no and went to glance at Locke. He was already at my side, sliding a coffee to me. I looked up at him, our eyes locking for a long second before he moved away.

“It’s a brand-new development,” Jem said. “That Keenan fuck is hiding.”

“Hiding?” I repeated.

“Yep, Locke sent some of his boys over to question him. Fucker was working in some shelter type shit job, and the second the boys started to ask about Tammy, he bolted.”

I looked at Locke. He was leaning back against the kitchen counter, nursing a coffee, listening with an unreadable look on his face.

“They weren’t obvious about it,” Conor added. “A couple normal looking guys asking easy questions. He didn’t buy it at all.”

I tried to view Locke’s guys as “normal looking.” We had already had a few visits last night. Men with hard faces, dressed in casual clothes, taking orders from Conor and Locke without asking a single question.

I noticed one very interesting oddity they shared between each other. They had numbers inked on their wrist. I glimpsed a 14 and a 21. They were enamoured by Conor, and the way they glimpsed his wrist, and the number inked there made me wonder what Conor did to earn their respect. It was the one thing Charlotte had never been forthcoming to me about. I knew what the tattoos represented, just not what the person did to earn it.

And Locke, with the number 1 inked on his wrist, was the reason these men existed.

“Do you know where he is?” I asked.

“He’s hiding out in some seedy club,” Jem answered. “And you won’t believe this, but you know that complex being built behind Lenny’s house? Guess who owns it.”

He had his brows up at me, he was so chuffed about this. I just looked at him, already guessing. “Ambrose?”

“That’s right.”

I frowned and took a sip from my coffee. “That’s not that big a deal, is it?”

Now Jem chuckled, swinging his eyes at Conor and Locke who were not smiling back. I raised my brows, annoyed. “Is there something else?”

“Guess who Keenan works for.”

The coffee turned to ash in my mouth. “Ambrose?”

“One of his companies.” Now Jem made a thoughtful humming sound. “You know what’s interesting about Ambrose, Kali?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” I replied, dryly.

“He enjoys employing men freshly out of prison.”

Now I bit my lip, already aware of this. “It’s hard for them to find work. They can’t change their lives if they’re constantly being judged for what they did. They’re trying to get rehabilitated, and if you keep stripping their ability to get jobs or places to stay, they’re going to offend again because they’ve run out of options.”

Jem watched for some time, the humour gone. He nodded, and something gentle flickered in his expression. “On this, I agree.”

The boys watched us. Jem was being nice to me. He was agreeing with me. I took another sip of my coffee, and admitted, “The fact two hits have come from Ambrose is not a good sign. I agree with you, too.”

He held my gaze. “We’re trying to find anyone in that little boy’s immediate circle. The fact Ambrose personally made contact with him raises suspicion.”

“I’m open to Ambrose being a suspect,” I said to him. “It’s just hard to learn that someone you thought might be a hero to children might actually be a villain.”

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