“Or in a gang,” I corrected. “It was his tattoos.” I described a few of them and Knuckles pulled his phone out and started typing out a message.
“What’s going on?”
“Letting my club know that the other potential buyer for the land might have been the Rivera Cartel. We’ve had issues with them in the past. They’re trying to move a pipeline through our area by using another motorcycle club as their go-between. There are other reasons they want to establish more ground near Violence, but it doesn’t matter right now. Purchasing a plot of land so close to the clubhouse and family housing has clear implications.”
“Okay, so what does all that have to do with why my friends aren’t here and why Collette can’t come back?”
“They must have thought that with Tiffany out of the way, it would be easier for them to get their hands on the property they wanted to buy. She backed out of the sale to the other party and was going to go with Bigfoot’s offer. She tried to go talk sense to you again which led to the police report being filed by the security guys the second time. When that failed, we don’t know what happened but Tiffany was found dead in her apartment. Gunshot wound to her frontal lobe.”
“She’s dead?”
“Yes and the police were told that you were in a Phoenix hospital fighting for your life because you were shot, they started to ask questions and dig for their own answers. The way they figure it, Tiffany might have been the one who shot you because some eyewitness said they could have sworn they saw a woman with a gun that night and that she was taken away by a man with short, dark hair. Whoever gave the description was vague enough that they assumed it was Ruiz with Tiffany.”
“What a cluster fuck,” I murmured.
“It gets more chaotic. The asshole in charge over in Violence got it in his head that your friends must have gone mercenary and went looking for revenge. According to his theory, they must be responsible for Tiffany’s death. It was supposedly revenge for you getting shot. All three of them are being watched and were told not to leave town for any reason.”
“Didn’t the security guys give a description of Ruiz? I would think he would have been the first suspect when she was found dead and he wasn’t there.”
“They did, but we have reason to believe that some of the police might have been paid off by the cartel. It was a problem we had before.”
I reached over and grabbed my cup of water to take a sip and James helped to get me adjusted into a comfortable position again. I tried to digest everything I’d been told so far, but it feltlike I had only been given the information sitting at the tip of an iceberg and there was far more beneath the surface waiting to be discovered.
“What about Greg?”
“Who?” James wasn’t fooling anyone. He knew exactly who I was talking about.
“Why hasn’t Greg been by?”
He shrugged. “Maybe because the old man thinks you betrayed him since you were seeing me or something.”
“No,” I said. “Try again and maybe just stick to the truth.”
“When I came with you in the ambulance, I may have told the hospital staff that I was your husband.” I gave him a look. “Don’t. The only way to get information about you was to be family and I played the part so I could stay close, not just for information but because we didn’t know if Simone was working alone, if Tiffany would come here if it got out where you were, or what the fuck was going on. I said what I had to so I could be here for you.”
“Okay. What does that have to do with Greg?”
“I gave a list of names that were allowed in to see you and Greg wasn’t on it.”
“Who was?”
“Collette Rogers, Amberlee Jones, Finch Darkhorse, me - obviously, Jasper Timmons, and Travis Cardwell.”
“Bigfoot?” I asked, confused.
“In case he needed to come here with news or I was needed there more than here.”
“Why would you be needed there?”
“Simone has only told us so much. She was supposedly in Phoenix to talk to me. They know that one of the club girls let it slip that I was on a club run there, and Simone went to try to get to me.”
“So, she really did want to shoot you?”
“She claims it was an accident. Knew when she saw me talking to you that I would never agree to get close to her again. I’m guessing she thought I would have told you the truth about all the times she supposedly went to see and you helped to hide her affairs. Obviously, that wasn’t true and I would have never believed a thing she said after that. In the heat of the moment, she was so angry, she took a shot at me, but you spun around to yell at me just she pulled the trigger and you took that bullet.”
“The doctor said it was a through and through, so where the hell did the bullet go?”
James grinned. She was a horrible shot. Would have missed me completely. The bullet lodged itself into the door of the restaurant after it hit you, about four inches to my left.”
