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Colt started patting his pockets and reached into his front left. “He didn’t take my wallet,” he said as he pulled it from his pocket. “Let me see if I have cash.” He opened his leather bifold and found a thin stack of ones and fives. He counted it and sighed. “I have eighteen dollars.”
I stepped away from him and raked my fingers through my still-damp, tangled hair to rub my scalp. I had prepared for every scenario but this. Logan has prepared me for everything but this. “I have money in my go bag. I have money stashed under the backseat of my car. I even have a gun with an extra magazine stashed in my car. But none of that matters because I sent all of it with your brothers. I don’t regret it. They needed to leave, and I needed to get you, but I have fucked us. Not only do we not have enough money to make it to the safe house, my only gun is no better than a paperweight because it’s out of bullets. And if we don’t make it to Colorado, your brothers will worry and will no doubt try to find us, or worse, come back here.Andsince I told them to leave their phones behind because they could be traced, we have no way of contacting them.”
“What if you called Logan or Ian?” he asked.
“Logan is exactly who I would call in this situation, but he hasn’t returned my calls. Which means he’s probably dead. But I can’t afford to think about that because I’ll fall apart and we can’t afford for me to fall apart,” I said, my voice turning into a growl. “I don’t have Ian’s number on me. There’s another burner phone in my go bag with two numbers on it. One of the numbers belongs to Ian. I think the other belongs to one of Logan’s ex-Navy SEAL buddies. Logan said I’m not allowed to call those numbers unless he’s dead and I have no other choice.” I let out a humorless laugh and stared up at the night sky. I needed to calm down. Getting upset right now would only make this situation worse. With a heavy sigh, I looked back at Colt. “Logan has always been my go-between with Ian. He thought it was safer that way. Ian’s only ever called me once in the past, to tell me about one of the girls Mr. X had murdered. Logan was tied up with something else at the time and they didn’t want me to be blindsided if I happened to see it on the news.”
Colt was quiet as he stared at me. By the pensive look he wore, I knew he was thinking. “My cousin, Micah, lives a little over an hour from here. We’d have to go out of the way, but he’ll help us.”
I remembered Micah. I had met him at Keelan’s birthday party. “Do you really want to drag him into this?”
His eyes locked with mine and I could see that he didn’t. “What choice do we have?”
3
We were at halfa tank of gas as we pulled up to MAD Mechanics, an auto repair and restoration shop that Micah was one of the owners of. On the drive here, Colt had called Micah. It had been around three in the morning when he had called, so it had taken a few tries to get ahold of Micah. When Micah had finally answered, Colt had tried not to tell him much, but Micah had pressed. Colt had ended up saying we needed help, that I was hurt, he needed a way to get handcuffs off, and he would explain everything when we saw Micah. After asking how badly I was hurt, Micah had told Colt to have us meet him at his shop. As soon as Colt had hung up the burner phone, I’d tossed it out the window as we got back on the interstate.
As we pulled up, the first thing that stood out was that the building was a really nice light gray with black and red accents. The lights were on inside and Micah was standing by an open service-bay door. He waved us over, wanting us to pull in. As I drove up to the bay door, I noticed that there was a motorcycle and two classic cars parked in the lot. One of the cars was hot-rod red and the other was black.
Micah closed the bay door after we pulled in and parked. With a quick glance around, I took in the large garage. It seemed like the right half of it was designated for repairing and the left was for restoration.
Colt and I climbed out at the same time. I had put my wedges back on before heading here. They were the worst shoes to run away in, but it wasn’t like I had other options to help protect my feet. The floor on the driver’s side was covered in glass and it probably wasn’t wise to walk around an auto shop barefoot.
Micah appeared as I remembered. He had raven hair that was shaved on the sides and had a few inches of length on the top. He was wearing a heather-gray T-shirt that tightly hugged his muscled, tattooed biceps. From what I could see, tattoos covered every inch of his arms and the tops of his hands and some of his fingers. His bottom lip was pierced with a small, matte black hoop that he was flicking with his tongue as he watched me climb out of Keelan’s Jeep.
I could feel his aquamarine eyes that were identical to Colt’s and Creed’s roam over me, taking in my appearance. I knew I didn’t look great. The glass from the window had cut me up pretty good across my cheek and neck and both had dried streaks of blood on them. My arm looked horrific. The bleeding had stopped, but what looked like a drying crimson curtain covered my arm from where I’d been shot all the way down to my elbow.
Micah held a schooled look as he did his assessment of me before his eyes shifted to Colt, who had rounded the Jeep to meet me. Micah tilted his head to the right. “Let’s go into my office.”
We followed him into what appeared to be the shop’s front lobby, where customers would wait while their cars were being worked on. The walls were painted in light gray and behind the reception desk was a steel-paneled accent wall with the MAD Mechanics logo mounted on it. Micah led us down a hall behind and to the left of the reception desk. We passed restrooms and an employee lounge until we approached an open door. Inside, the light was on. Micah walked in first, then Colt. I was the last to go in.
Once I was inside, I saw that it was a large office with three desks. I also noticed that there were two men sitting behind two of the desks. I could only assume that they were the other two owners of MAD Mechanics. Both were silent as we entered. By their lack of surprise, I had a feeling that they had been expecting us.
Micah turned to face us and leaned against the front of what I assumed was his desk. He folded his arms across his chest. “This is Alaric and Daxton.” He nodded at the other two men in the room. “Dax, Rick, this is my cousin, Colt, and his…friend, Shiloh.”
Micah, Alaric, and Daxton. Their initials spelled out MAD. Micah didn’t point out who was who, but I finally noticed that there were name plaques on each of their desks.
I came to stand next to Colt and took one of his cuffed hands in mine.
Micah watched as I did that and eyed the cuffs. “Want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Colt opened his mouth to speak, but I squeezed his hand to stop him. He glanced at me questioningly.
I glanced at Dax and Rick, then back at Micah. “I’m sorry to drag you into this.”
“What have you dragged us into?” Alaric asked. His voice was deep and oozed authority.
I faced him, taking in his appearance. He was wearing an Arizona Diamondbacks ball cap over what looked like short brown hair. His eyes were a slightly darker shade of brown than his hair and he was just as heavily tattooed on his arms as Micah. One tattoo in particular caught my eye. It was of a bone frog, and I could see it clearly with how he rested both his elbows on his desk, his fingers laced together in front of his mouth.
“Have you heard of the name Xander Xenos?” I asked.
“The media just gave him a nickname,” Colt started to say.
“The X Killer,” Daxton said. He was the least tattooed of the three and honestly seemed like the most approachable out of them. He had kind forest-green eyes and soft-looking, shoulder-length, golden-blond hair.
Micah and Alaric stared at Dax questioningly.
Daxton looked from one to the other and shrugged. “True crime and serial killers fascinate me.”
