Page 37 of Defender
“Aw, come on, Mikey. Give me something exciting to do. And maybe we’ll make a dent in my case. If not, no biggie.”
“So we talk to your friend and what?”
“Let’s just see how they run their garbage routes. Get a feel for how they operate.”
Finn hadn’t said Michael couldn’t help Dani out on her investigation. And he had to admit, the threat when she’d been poking around was hinky. “All right. Where do I go?”
“Thank you!” She leaned over and squeezed his arm.
It was nice to see her excitement. Maybe it would rub off on him. After so many dead ends, he needed something good to come his way.
Michael followed Dani’s directions and turned at the next street. He drove to Renegade Waste Management, but before they pulled in, Dani pointed to the curb.
“Park on the street, not in the lot.”
“Whoa-kay.” He parked and got out of the car. They stood on the sidewalk outside the business’s main gate. “Anything else, Princess?”
She smirked. “Thought you’d never ask. First of all”—her eyes squinted as she studied his chest—“do you have a T-shirt under that button-down?”
“Yesssss?” Something about her direct gaze on his torso had his neck flushing hot. Sure, she’d mentioned once in a giddy haze that she liked him, but that had been a long time ago. She’d been a college kid. And drunk.
So very drunk.
“Good.” She came close, yanked his shirt tails until they were untucked. Then she removed his tie and unbuttoned the shirt. “You gotta loosen up. Bend your head down.”
Why, he couldn’t say, but he found himself bent at the waist, following her commands. Her fingers combed through his hair, mussing it up and then combing it back down.
“That’s better.” She smiled as she took off her own white blouse, revealing a cute tank top underneath. Digging again into her bag, she pulled out a bright-orange sweater. She threw the button-down shirt into the back seat of his car and ruffled her own hair so it was…fluffier?
Whatever it was, clearly she was not a kid any longer.
“Let’s go.” She wagged her eyebrows and walked toward the building.
“This is your plan? Look like a slob and go through the front door?”
“No, silly. We look like normal, everyday folk and not like a cop and a federal agent. And we don’t go through the front door. We go out back.”
Of course Dani Kim would think that would work. And for lack of a better idea, or maybe morbid curiosity, Michael followed her.
They skirted around the building and through an opening in the chain-link fence. The machinery noise was louder back here. Dani scouted the area and headed toward what looked like a hangar, where a couple of guys in hard hats and high-vis yellow vests were standing around a forklift, smoking.
Dani walked right up to them. “Hey, do you guys know Matt Dempsy?”
“Why do you wanna know?” The shortest man in the bunch tugged on his saggy jeans and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“We went to school together. Back then, we called him Slick because he was so good at getting out of trouble.”
The group laughed and relaxed.
“That’s Dempsy all right. But he’s not here. He works on the other side of town.” An older man with a missing tooth and the name Cooke on his shirt took a puff on his cigarette.
“Does everybody have their own routes?” Dani asked.
Saggy Jeans nodded. “The truckers do. They stick to the same route for the most part.”
Dani bounced on her toes. “Since Dempsy’s not here, maybe you could help me. Do you do the oil disposal as well as the regular trash management here?”
“Nah, they do the oil recycling at the facility north of town. We only run the regular garbage trucks here.”
