Whiskey River, Drown my Soul

Chapter Forty

The cops had cleared out with Gi's return, though Ip knew this was far from over. Andy sent Steve 'home' (to Paige's house) because he was 'getting in the way', and then Andy very directly asked Ip if he would stay and help him protect his family.

Ip was flattered.

"I have no other plans until this is completely resolved", Ip assured him, and was rewarded with an impulsive hug that reminded him so much of Paige, he teared up a bit.

Ip and Andy had scoured the employee files for all departments, starting with the most recent female hires and going back six months. Then they checked the photos of those women and saved all of them that were brunettes.

By the time Gianna came back down from her nap in black leggings and a vibrant purple and green sweatshirt, they only had five women for her to view.

As Andy had her come over to the island to look at his laptop, Ip was once again struck by how much she looked like her aunt. She even moved like her.

Andy snagged her up into his lap, kissed her temple, and squeezed her tightly.

Ip smiled at how Andy clearly loved his family and wasn't ashamed to express it.

"I'm okay, Daddy", Gi said gently. "What is this?", she asked, pointing to the laptop.

"These are women we hired recently. Ip was thinking maybe the woman who took you works for me, so we pulled the brunettes to see if any of them are her".

Andy slowly flipped through the pictures. On the fourth one, Gi excitedly pointed and shouted, "That's it! That's her!"

"Are you sure?", Ip asked her.

"Positive", she said seriously, turning her emerald eyes to him. "Let's get that bitch".

Ip tried very hard not to laugh as Andy scolded her language, and unfortunately ended up choking badly.

"I'm sorry", he apologized to Andy once he recovered, who was shooting him a glare. "I'm going to call Paige and see if she's with Long or Luke. I'm not exactly sure who to call to get an APB, and if I call the station it's going to be forever...".

"Tell her I say hi!", Gi said brightly.

"You got it, darlin'", he winked at her.

Ip dialed Paige, who answered on the second ring, and he heard fear in her voice with the one syllable, 'Hey', she spoke. That plunged a knife of terror into his own heart.

"What happened?", he asked, holding his breath.

"The stakeout turned out...really bad...so bad. Rev and Luke are both shot. We're heading to the hospital now, us three".

"Shot!? But they're alive?", Ip asked urgently, his heart beating hard.

"Luke has a bullet lodged in his forearm that was meant for my head. Rev's...", he heard the quaver in her voice and knew it was really bad but she couldn't say that with him next to her, and Ip felt dread on two fronts simultaneously. He didn't want anything to happen to Rev because he was his friend, but he also didn't want anything to happen to Rev because selfishly he didn't know what that might do to Paige right now, and how that would likely negatively impact the new relationship they had.

"He got shot in the left arm and right thigh, then apparently drug himself out of a bombed building with a head injury, drove himself to where Luke and I were in a shoot off in the middle of a street after rolling two cars, and rescued us before we ran out of bullets. In fact, I didn't even have a gun. Rev brought me one".

"Holy shit", he breathed.

Rev was a bad ass god. The stuff of legends. If he didn't die, and Ip knew he wouldn't, how could Paige ever leave someone like that? He'd been doing this stuff in front of her, and for her, for nine years, while Ip simply rode horses and stared at her anytime she was around.