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My phone rang, and I picked it up right away to hear Sarge barking in my ear. “Ellison, there’s a body that might be connected to your current investigation. Behind Lucky Lopez,” he barked and hung up.
I turned to Marshall and told him the news. “Let’s go. Beck needs to cool down without the chaos of a crime scene.”
“Fine by me.”
We drove through the Green Zone mostly in silence, which was odd. “You work in Nevada long?”
“Long enough,” he grunted. “I know the players and many of the victims. Have for years. Why?”
“You think Jasper and Sadie are prime suspects in this?”
He shrugged. “Persons of interest without a doubt. But the Ashby beef is with Ronan Rhymer, which is only Mueller by default. Unless somehow Bonnie Ashby figured something out.”
“That’s what I keep coming back to, Bonnie Ashby. She’s the bug in the ointment and her presence at the murder makes no sense. Unless Mueller killed her first. Because with her background in the Catholic Church, she would have figured him out easily.”
Marshall shook his head and killed the engine in front of Lucky Lopez. “Not necessarily. No one knew he was a Fed. Not even the Feds. Ready?”
“Yeah.” Ready was a relative term, I was quickly learning. Growing up the way I did, dead bodies didn’t make me queasy, but doing this job as a cop was a far fucking cry from that.
“Shit,” I groaned when I caught sight of the body.
“Need a minute?” Marshall’s question was equal parts sympathy and amusement. “Don’t puke on my crime scene.”
“I know her. Tits Stepanova. She lives in the Green Zone and works, well worked, as manager at Lucky Lopez.” And she hadn’t just died in an attempted robbery or rape. She’d been fucking mutilated.
Marshall let out a low whisper as he crouched beside her body, her eyes wide open and lifeless. “Somebody wasn’t too happy with her.”
For starters, her left eye was purple and black, she had a big split in her lip, and her jaw looked broken.
“I got a couple of guesses.”
“Any of those guesses Ashby?”
I shook my head. “Nope. This isn’t their style. But she used to date a pusher named Dealio, and he was a real piece of fucking work.”
As far as I knew, Tits hadn’t been abused, but this was definitely a sign, maybe a fucking message.
“Maybe this will help.” The medical examiner had finally arrived on the scene and motioned for Marshall and me to help turn the body.
“Holy fuck.” The fuckers cut her up like a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey, and then carved the Ace of spades onto her back, which meant she was killed by the Black Jacks or copycats of the Black Jacks. “She was still alive when they did this to her.”
“Good eye,” the doctor said, his wide smile showing how impressed he was with me. “The streaks of blood mean her heart was still pumping when they did this. The slit throat is what killed her. This was just for fun.”
Marshall stood with a grunt but his gaze never left Tits. “As tragic as this is, how does it help us nail who killed Mueller and Ashby?”
“The Black Jacks did this,” I insisted angrily. Pissed off for Tits because she didn’t deserve this. She was a cool chick who did what most people in the Green Zone did, whatever the fuck they had to in order to survive. “Until recently, the Black Jacks worked with Brendan Rhymer in his bid to take over the family business. When Brendan failed, they started working with the old man.”
Marshall blinked. “Rumor has it they were behind the kidnapping of Savannah Rhymer.”
“Yep. Kidnapping, drugging her up and gang raping her if you want the whole story. Orchestrated by her own damn brother if you can call him that.” I shook off that thought because Savannah was free, and Tits was dead. Shit. “I honestly thought the Jacks were gone.”
“This case is turning into a pain in my ass,” Marshall growled.
“I need to talk to some people, and it’ll be better if you’re not with me.” I stared at Marshall and waited for him to object, but the guy was old school.
He nodded and I took off to find some answers.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Madison
I didn’t normally answer calls on my personal phone from numbers I didn’t know or even restricted numbers. A lesson I’d learned after too many calls with deep breathing and nasty comments. But when my phone pinged, I answered it without thinking.
“Hello?”
“Maddie? Hey, it’s me. Molly.”
Molly? That was music to my ears. “Molly? Holy shit, I’ve been looking all over the place for you. How are you? Where are you? Just—”
“Madison, stop.” My lips snapped shut, and I closed my eyes and listened. “I’m okay, but it’s not safe for us to talk right now. When it is, I’ll contact you. I promise.”
