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“Come on, let’s go.”
“Remember, you do not go outside by yourself after dark. Ever.”
“Okay.”
The kid looked a bit nervous. He should be. I hadn’t forgotten that one of the murders had taken place less than twenty feet away from where we stood. I nodded and helped him take his helmet off.
“This place gets rough late at night. You are only working day shifts, you got me? Text me every hour, on the hour.”
He nodded and tugged on his shirt. He did that when he was nervous. I had learned all his tells. The kid would make a terrible poker player.
I slapped his shoulder and he practically fell over.
“Come on, kid. Let me introduce you to Mase.”
Mason was inside, leaning against the bar and talking to his long-time bartender, Jaken. I guided the kid over there.
“This must be Parker.”
The kid nodded and shuffled his feet. He turned to the bartender.
“Parker, this is Jaken. Parker’s going to be helping out around here.”
“How old are you, kid?” Jaken asked him.
“Nineteen.”
“You strong?”
He shrugged and I smiled.
“He’s getting stronger.”
“That’s good. We’ll see if you are better at bar backing or bussing to start. You’ll probably do a bit of both.”
“That sounds good. Thank you.”
Mason met my eyes with a smile. The kid was painfully polite. He still shrugged a lot when I asked him something he didn’t want to answer, but he wasn’t shrugging now.
The kid played his cards even closer to the vest than I did.
“Come on back here and I’ll get you an apron,” Jaken offered. I nodded at Mason and walked to the front.
“Don’t let anyone mess with him.”
Mason shook my hand.
“I won’t.”
I left with a quick backward glance and a wave. Parker waved back distractedly. The kid didn’t need to know I was worried about him. And he did need a job. Not for the money. I had plenty to take care of whatever he needed. He was going stir-crazy rattling around in my cabin out there.
And I had a killer to find.
I’d ridden aimlessly for well over an hour before staking out a burned-out warehouse across the street from Smith’s house. It was as if the entire neighborhood had turned industrial, springing up around the tiny cottage like giant weeds. It had sat there for at least a hundred years with industry exploding and then fading all around it.
I stood in the shadows and watched the outside of Smith’s house.
There was something odd about it. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It wasn’t falling apart, exactly, but it wasn’t well-kept either. It was just . . . there. Totally unremarkable in every way, other than its surroundings. Its very existence was the only thing special about it. It was so completely out of place.
It was the perfect place for a murderer to hide out. No one for miles. No nosy neighbors to say ‘but he was such a nice man’ on the evening news when the guy was inevitably brought in.
Of course, this particular motherfucker wasn’t going to be brought in.
A loud buzzing made me look up at the sky. The ceiling was mostly caved in, with a few beams still leaning haphazardly. It wasn’t remotely safe in here.
Goddammit Cain.
From the second I saw the drone overhead, I knew what had happened. I’d thought I finally shook Hunter and Vice. They hadn’t been following me lately. But it wasn’t because I’d gotten better at shaking them. It was because they’d bugged my fucking ride.
I cursed as the drone circled overhead and then settled on the floor a few feet away. I saw that it held a rolled-up piece of paper in one claw-like appendage.
I took it out and unrolled it.
He’s my number one, too Dickface.
I scribbled something on the back with the tiny pencil they’d included.
You’re my number-two, Shithead.
P.S. Maybe try and be a little less fucking obvious next time.
I bent down and stuck it back in the claw. I smirked and went back to looking out the window. I gave the drone the finger as it took off.
It was a little too fucking obvious. There was every chance they would tip Smith off with that thing flying around, even at night. I was starting to get obsessed with the guy. I still didn’t have proof, but I was seriously thinking about going forward without it.
The guy was creepy as fuck. I’d asked around at the club, but not many had been willing to talk. In fact, they’d mostly turned white. It said a lot that my guys were more afraid of a weird loner than of the Club Prez. In fact, only Doc had really told me anything of substance. But he’d been the one to clean up a lot of Smith’s messes over the years. Apparently, he was extremely handy with a blade. Doc said he knew how to hurt but not kill with surgical precision. And how to kill quickly with a quick flick of a small knife. Dante had covered up multiple homicides within the club over the years. Doc only knew about it because he’d tried to save a few of them.
