“That’s it? They’re leaving?” Nola asked.
“You sound surprised.”
Nola’s eyes narrowed. “Mrs. Mint’s head was bleeding when I left. Her son, Huck . . . he was the one who—” She cut herself off. At the very least, they should be questioning everyone for the next hour. “How’d you do it?” Nola asked.
“Charm and stunning looks. My alpha and omega.”
“You told them it was federal.”
“It is federal,” Waggs shot back, pointing to the FBI badge on her waist. “This is an ongoing investigation with clear Bureau jurisdiction. But I also told them the truth. Tessa Mint just went through the very worst week of her life—she buried her husband, the father of their children—and she was so distraught, she blacked out, gashing her head on the edge of their workbench. Thankfully, I was there to stop the bleeding,” Waggs explained as both police cars rolled past them.
Nola turned her head just enough so the officers wouldn’t get a good look.
“Plus,” Waggs added, “y’know how much paperwork you have to fill out to grab a complex case like a federal officer who might’ve knocked out a civilian? In cop terms, this whole thing is a bag of shit. And they’d much rather it be my bag of shit than their bag of shit.”
As the cops disappeared around the corner, Nola was still glancing at the rearview. On the Mints’ front lawn, two buff EMTs rolled an empty stretcher. Behind them was Mrs. Mint, following them to the open back doors of the ambulance.
Her forehead was bandaged, but she was walking on her own, leaning on her son, who had an arm wrapped tightly around her waist, his head dipped down toward her. Even from here, lit just by the streetlights, Nola could see them clutching each other like they’d never let go.
“They cleaned her wound and stitched it up,” Waggs explained. “It’s probably overkill, but since she blacked out, they want a CT scan, just to be safe.”
Nola nodded, though she still hadn’t made eye contact with Waggs. “I thought you’d take them out in cuffs,” Nola finally offered.
“Isn’t it nice when people surprise you?”
Nola didn’t answer.
“To be honest, I thought about it—about the cuffs,” Waggs explained. In truth, she was still thinking about it. Yet the more she played it out, the person who actually shot Lieutenant Colonel Mint and Rashida—a drug dealer named Zion Lopez—was already dead, no longer a threat to anyone. Could she still arrest Huck for hiring him—and making sure he, his mom, and his sister were all out of the house on that night when Zion came? Absolutely. Based on what Huck had said inside, he knew Zion was no angel.
For years, Zion had been selling K2 and cheap cocaine to the wealthy kids in Huck’s high school. Yet as the students there knew, Zion’s real specialty was his ability to move in and out of the school’s hallways—in the middle of the day, with dozens of security cameras—without being seen. He’d be sitting at lunch in the cafeteria, right under the teachers’ noses. That’s what had caught Huck’s eye, especially after he heard his mom crying one night about a flirty text that had popped up on Mint’s iPad. Forget drugs. Huck wanted stealth—someone who could shadow his dad and Rashida to confirm Huck’s suspicions.
Still, as every drug dealer knows, the best business is repeat business, so when Zion brought back that photo of Mint and Rashida leaning close and eating dinner together, it didn’t take much to convince Huck that maybe there was a way to get his dad to end the affair. You really think you could scare him off? Huck had asked.
Waggs could bring him in just for that. Part of her was wondering if she’d wake up tomorrow and regret not bringing him in. But at this exact moment, based on everything she’d seen, Huck was a kid who’d made a horrific mistake . . . an unforgivable mistake . . . one that would alter and haunt him for the rest of his life. But at the heart of that mistake—at the core of this entire investigation—did this seventeen-year-old boy ever—even once—want his father dead? Not a chance. Waggs would bet her life on that. Indeed, as far as she could tell, all Huck wanted was the same thing every teenager in that same situation would want: for his dad to stop causing his mom—and his family—so much pain.