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I feel so different now than when I went in. To be honest, some days I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore. I know who I was before I went into prison, and I know who I was inside prison, but it is an entirely new man that has come out. It’s unnerving but also liberating, because I can make this man whatever I want him to be.
I shut the fridge door, deciding at that moment, that the man I want to be will not live off other people’s charity.
I’d get my own food.
My own truck.
I just had to get this current situation behind me first.
I wait until Billy is deep in conversation with a customer before slipping out the back door. While I’m grateful for his offer to hideout in his shop all day, I have no time to waste. The gossip around the latest headline is only going to increase, the accusations will get more brutal, and the only way I can shut it down is by finding Sylvia.
Before leaving the shop, I pocket the cell phone and slip a fifty dollar bill in its place.
I sneak back to the construction site and Juan’s truck, where Detective Stroud is waiting on me. He is leaning against the hood, arms crossed with a cocky expression on his face that makes me want to slam my fist into his nose.
My heart rate increases. I feel my entire body shift to defense-mode. Ihatethat he can do this to me.
The silver lining is that the mob is gone. That’s the funny thing about mobs. They are ruthless, unyielding, until they become hungry, or tired, or bored, or find something else to hate. The motivation to leave this time, I guessed, were the gray storm clouds swirling overhead.
“Get off my truck.”
“Your truck?” He spins a toothpick between his lips.
“Yep. Look familiar?”
His eyes narrow. “Can’t say that it does.”
“Think harder.”
“I don’t have time for games, Cohen.”
“You did last night, didn’t you?”
Stroud pushes off the truck. “Where you going with this, Cohen?”
“I saw you late last night at Deep Shadows.”
Stroud’s jaw twitches.
Yeah asshole, you’re busted.
“You’re mistaken.” He spits the toothpick into the bed of the truck.
I shake my head, savoring the fact that I’m getting under his skin.I’mgetting tohimfor a change. “No, I’m not mistaken. I was visiting an old friend of mine. Gloria.” I tilt my head to the side. “I think you might know her, actually—and oh, that reminds me… I heard she was part of that sex club everyone’s been talking about.”
I watch the blood move up his neck, his cheeks.
He takes a step forward, fists balled. I’ve hit a nerve. Good.
I push harder, taking a shot in the dark. “I also ran into a woman named Crystal Cheri…I think you might know her, too.”
His eyes flash, round with shock.
Bingo.
Crystal had done more than just watch the late-night activities in the abandoned house. She was part of it. And so is Stroud. The pieces are slowly coming together. Harris and Gloria, Gloria and Stroud, and Crystal and Stroud, each part of a screwed-up secret society.
I step forward, closing the inches between us. “Imagine what everyone would think if they heard the detective in town was part of a satanic sex club.”
