Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

take him out.”
    Will felt everything finally coming together. “So, Cayla tells you about the conversation at the doctor’s office. You reach out to a pill pusher named Tony Dell. Tony gets arrested. He flips on Waller two hours later and gives Lena the evidence she needs to go into the shooting gallery.”
    “I know you think I’m stone cold, but I was trying to protect her.” Franklin explained, “Lena busts Waller, she’s covered up in paperwork for the next six months. I figured that’d run out the clock while she’s pregnant, then maybe once she has the kid, she decides she wants to be a mommy and doesn’t come back to the job.”
    Will wondered if there was a single man in Lena Adams’s life who’d ever avoided taking risks for her. “Lena lost the baby.”
    “I know.” Franklin seemed regretful. “Cayla called her, tried to get her to take some time off. She wouldn’t listen. That girl never listens to nobody.”
    Will couldn’t argue with that. “What about Jared?”
    “What about him? He’s writing tickets and sweeping broken windshield glass off the road. He can’t start an investigation.”
    “Lonnie Gray wouldn’t leave that loose end,” Will guessed. He’d seen with his own eyes what a hard-ass the man could be. “You didn’t tell him about the conversation at the doctor’s office, right? Cayla did. And Gray was a lot more convinced than you were.”
    Franklin didn’t answer, but they both knew that Cayla was that malicious. Franklin put a nicer spin on it, saying, “Cay dated Chuck for six years. Stuck by him when he was dying. She got close to Lonnie at the end. She cares about him.”
    Will bet she did. Cayla gravitated toward drama the way the tides gravitated toward the moon. “That’s why you’re here, as a favor to an old friend.”
    “I can’t let her get locked up. I owe it to Chuck.”
    Will knew there was a code, even among criminals, but he had a hard time thinking Cayla Martin was worthy. He said, “Lonnie sent the rednecks after Lena and Jared.”
    Franklin nodded.
    “He had them torture Eric Haigh to death.”
    Franklin’s expression darkened. “Threw him out like a piece of trash.”
    “Lonnie’s trying to clean house,” Will said. “You were attacked outside the theater last night. Somebody took a shot at Vickery. Tony Dell’s still out there. Big Whitey’s not going to stop until you’re all dead.”
    “Lonnie’s not gonna touch me. He was looking for the little boys. He knew somebody found them in the basement. Both kids saw his face, knew who he was. I ain’t saying it’s right, just that it’s something that could come back on him.”
    “Would that be a bad thing, letting all this come back on Lonnie? Stopping him from hurting more kids?”
    Franklin shrugged, but he was obviously talking for a reason.
    Will said, “You didn’t know about the kids until the raid.”
    “And?”
    “And you put the hit on Sid Waller and his team before you knew about the kids.” Will guessed the Big Whitey business model was being franchised after all.
    Franklin said, “Things changed after Chuck died. Me and Lonnie weren’t so close. I thought it was the grief at first, but then I figured it was something else.”
    “Waller and Lonnie were both pedophiles. They weren’t doing it for money. The only time Lonnie ever took a risk was when he was grooming a new kid.”
    “You’re right,” Franklin said. “Only, I found out after Waller was dead that they were doing it together.”
    “Stalking kids together?”
    “Doing everything together.” DeShawn looked like he wanted to spit the bad taste out of his mouth. “Lonnie said it was the most fun he ever had.”
    Will gathered the two men had had several lengthy conversations, none of which had been good for DeShawn Franklin. He said, “It started to fall apart before the raid. You knew something was wrong. You saw that Lonnie and Waller were getting close. You were worried Lonnie would pass on the business to Waller.”
    Franklin snorted a laugh. “I wasn’t worried about it happening. I already knew it was going down. Lonnie told me before the raid. Before Cayla heard Jared. Before any of that shit started, he sat me down and told me it looked like Waller had a better handle on things. Wanted me to be a second to that redneck bastard. Pitched it like he was doing me a favor.” Franklin gave a bitter laugh. “I guess he didn’t love me like a son after all.”
    Cayla Martin asked,