Page 4 of Justice for Daesha

“Which is?”

“Detective work. Investigative work. I love it.”

“Yeah? So how are you different from the FBI or the state police?”

God, Amos loved talking about his job! It would’ve taken him years to become a sheriff’s detective, but that’s all he did with the department. “We don’t handle every kind of crime. We handle three specific kinds. One of them is drug investigations that pertain to illegal prescribing or dispensing of prescription drugs, you know, like doctors who over-prescribe or nurses stealing and selling pills. We do a lot of work with the DEA on that, and on a task force in Appalachia. We do cyber crimes, mostly sexual in nature. We’ve got our own cyber lab, or we can do it wherever the technology takes us. We also help with cyber crime investigations for departments that can’t afford their own lab or equipment, like sheriff’s offices and things like that. And we do public integrity and special investigations, which includes sex trafficking investigations. That part, though, was originally intended to investigate public officials and government employees who’ve broken the law or done unethical things.” When he finished the last sentence, he noticed she was barely breathing. “You know, like elected officials and legislators, people like that.”

Her eyes were wide and she looked like she might cry. “Really?”

Amos nodded. What was wrong? Had he said something he shouldn’t? “Yeah. That’s a hard job. They’re not very cooperative.”

Daesha blinked twice. “Do you know about my sister?”

Amos shook his head. “Um, I guess not. Did I investigate her in something that led to her going to jail? Because if I did, I’m sorry, but I was only doing my job and?”

“She was murdered.”

Amos stopped cold. “What?”

“She was murdered. Fourteen years ago. And her murderer has never been caught.”

Oh, boy.Thatwas what Jack meant when he said Amos needed to hear her story. “That’s not the kind of thing we handle.”

“You might if you knew who murdered her.”

Uh-oh.That was a wrong turn. “So you think you know who it was?”

“Yes.”

Amos wanted to roll his eyes and shake his head. “Oh? And who was it?”

“I can’t say here. It’s not safe.”

Oh, for the everlovin’ fuck, Amos wanted to yell. “So would you like to meet sometime and tell me about this?” What a way to get a date.

“I could. I’ve got all the information, the case files, everything. Our numb nuts sheriff isn’t doing anything about it, and we could use some help. And I think you’d be interested in some of the things I know about.”

What the hell? It couldn’t hurt anything. “Sure. Where and when?”

“Um, maybe tomorrow? At noon? At the German restaurant over on DixieHighway near the JoePrather Highway?”

“Sounds good. I’m game.” Amos couldn’t believe he was agreeing to that. He’d just made a lunch date with a crazy woman who thought of herself as a super sleuth. Boy, he’d have to remember to thank Jack for that.

“Thank you. Most people don’t want to hear about it. I haven’t been able to get anybody to listen.”

“I’ll listen.”And let it go in one ear and out the other, Amos thought. Oh, well. He had a lunch date to hear about a case that wasn’t his from a woman who wasn’t law enforcement. How bad could that be?

* * *

He’d told Daesha goodnight,then told the bride and groom and his parents goodbye before heading to his car. It was late and he’d gotten up early to help with all the wedding arrangements, so bed sounded like a good place to be.

When he got home, he just dropped his keys in the bowl and started undressing. By the time he got to the bedroom, he was down to his boxer briefs, and he slid under the covers and turned out the lights. He’d thought he would just drop right off because he was so tired, but instead, he lay there awake, thinking about Daesha.

Something about her… She wasn’t flaky. She didn’t seem like somebody who got wild ideas. There was purpose in her words, and he could tell she’d given a lot of thought to what she was saying. He’d also noticed no sense of desperation, and that meant she wasn’t telling every Tom, Dick, and Harry she met about the case. She probably wouldn’t have mentioned it if he hadn’t told her what he did for a living. But he had to admit, he was intrigued. It took him longer than he’d thought it would to relax because he kept thinking about those eyes.

When he woke on Sunday morning, he did the same thing he did every morning?started the coffeemaker before grabbing a bottle of water and heading out the door to run. He loved running. When he was pounding the pavement, he didn’t think about much. The rhythm of his steps was hypnotizing, and he enjoyed the feeling of stressing his body to the limit before he got back to the house. By the time he ran through the back door, the water bottle was empty and the coffee pot was full. In Amos’s way of thinking, that was the perfect beginning to any day.

As soon as he’d had some frozen waffles and a piece of fruit, Amos showered and got ready for the day. Jeans? Slacks? Jeans?definitely. Polo? Tee? Button-down? He picked out a tee he loved, one he’d gotten at a distillery in Frankfort, and then put on his favorite pair of athletic shoes. This lunch date was going to be a bust, he just knew it, so why go to a lot of trouble? It dawned on him that he didn’t even have her number or she his, so if she wanted to cancel, she couldn’t even call and tell him. Worse yet, he was having second thoughts about the whole thing, and he couldn’t call her. AmosFletcher was a lot of things, but a son of a bitch wasn’t one of them. He didn’t stand women up. That just wasn’t his style, and certainly not part of his reputation. That meant not going wasn’t an option. He had to be there.

---