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“I will make sure I’m more careful in the future, but the cops not caring doesn’t mean I’m not going to care. There’s blood on the floor in there,” she said, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the barn. “I don’t know where he keeps the dogs or if he even has any of his own. Maybe he just organizes it, but I’d bet my house that he’s using this barn for fighting. I’m going to find out for sure, and I’m going to put a stop to it no matter what I have to do.” Her blood heated with each impassioned word. Fuck Prick and fuck his connections to the police. That wouldn’t stop her.
Curly opened his mouth, and she raised a hand to keep him from butting in.
“I won’t be stupid,” she threw in for good measure. “I have no desire to go all psycho on him. Don’t worry. I’ll play it smart. Now, I’m sorry to have interrupted your day. I’m gonna get going.”
She stepped away from the barn, headed in the direction of her car, which she’d parked a good quarter mile down the road. As she walked past him, Curly snagged her arm. Why was it every time he touched her, no matter how platonic, every nerve ending in her skin erupted in tingly zings?
“Wait,” he said in that gravelly voice that made her stop and listen even when her instinct was to balk at being bossed around. “Twenty-four-sixty-three Breakview Drive. Seven p.m. tomorrow if you’re serious about this.”
She sucked in a breath. “You want to help?” Maybe he’d be open to Nancy and David joining as well. With four heads to put together, they’d come up with something.
He nodded. “But only show up if you’re serious.”
“I am.” How could he not see that?
“No, I mean serious about doing this without the cops. Because we won’t be involving them. No matter how it plays out. No matter what goes down. I don’t do cops.”
That’d be a no on David and Nancy then. While fantastic friends who’d do anything to help a human or animal, they lived in a world brighter and shinier than Brooke’s. Neither of them had experienced the darker side of the universe yet. Neither had the someone they loved fail them in ways that altered their entire view on the world, and Brooke refused to be the one who dirtied the lens through which they viewed humanity.
“Think about it,” he said, giving her arm an affectionate squeeze before releasing her.
“I will.” Think about it? She’d do nothing but think about it for the next day and a half.
The entire walk to her car, his gaze burned into her back. Wearing her favorite denim shorts and a ribbed coral tank top, she wasn’t remotely dressed up. Over and over, she warned herself to keep her gait as steady and ordinary as possible. Yet her stupid body overrode her good sense, and within seconds, she had her hips swaying in a way designed to draw attention.
“You’re an idiot,” she whispered to herself as she reached her car. A quick peek over her shoulder revealed him standing in the road, watching after her. That weird feeling in her chest was in no way affection for the man who stayed to make sure she made it to her car safely. Nope, it was just adrenaline from the insanity of the morning. For all she knew, he observed her out of distrust, not concern.
Without glancing in his direction again, she started her car, blasted the air conditioning, and flipped a U-turn in the homeward direction. “Dammit,” she whispered, as the temptation grew too strong to resist. She checked the rear-view mirror.
Curly was gone. Wherever he’d parked his bike, she hadn’t seen it.
Halfway home, her phone rang through the car’s Bluetooth. “Hello?” she answered after hitting the button on her dashboard screen.
“Brooke, it’s Aaron. I’ve emailed the background check you requested.”
She frowned. Usually, he just sent it once it was complete. This was the first time he’d phoned to let her know. “Thanks, Aaron. Everything all right with it?”
He snorted. “Wanted to give you a heads up on this one. He’s got a rap sheet, and it’s as long as a football field.”
After speaking with David and Nance, she’d expected it, yet hearing the news officially had her stomach twisting. “I’ll read through the entire report, but do you mind giving me the highlights?”
With a bitter laugh, Aaron said, “That might take all day. But here goes. He patched in as a member of True Outlaws Motorcycle Club at twenty-one, but he’d been hanging around them for years before that. At thirty-two, he took over as president. Did some digging into the club, and they were bad news, Brooke. I’m talking drugs, guns, prostitution. A slew of suspected murders. You name it, these guys had their grubby fingers in it and Travis Bryant, or Curly, ran all of it for a number of years.”
