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I grin and shovel another handful. “Isn’t it a moviegoing tradition to scarf all your snacks before the credits?”
“True.”
We settle into a comfortable silence as the movie starts. Keys picked just what I’d asked for, a supernatural horror flick, and to my surprise it’s one I haven’t seen yet. The studio logo is unfamiliar as well, so I guess he found an indie movie for us to watch. Cool.
For an independent film, the effects are top-notch. I lean forward in my seat, eyes glued to the screen, as the Jersey devil rampages through the small town. The blood, the guts, the lighting and creep factor are all phenomenal. It’s almost an immersive experience, and the devil itself is a novel take on the classic urban legend.
When the room lights come on during a crucial scene, Keys and I both turn to scowl at Kendrick, who’s leaning red-faced against the door frame with his arms crossed over his broad chest like one of us did something wrong. Bunny stands next to him, her sexy lips turned down in a pensive pout. I notice that Kendrick has something in his right hand, something that looks like a destroyed laptop. The once-rectangular device now is a chaotic mess of wires, circuits, and screen shards. At first, I think it’s one of Keys’ devices, but then I recognize what’s left of the stickers on the back of the monitor.
It’s mine.
Before I can react, Kendrick storms into the theater room and drops the demolished laptop in my lap. I jump as a jagged piece of circuit board jabs me in the thigh.
“What the fuck is this?” he asks, though how I’m supposed to know is beyond me. I haven’t been home since I left for the club, and my computer was in one piece when I left it. Whoever did this, it wasn’t me.
“How am I supposed to know? Jesus, man, I thought you were just going to grab my stuff, not trash it.”
Kendrick leans in close, close enough for me to see the vein pulsing in his bald head. “You think I did this shit? That apartment was a fucking disaster zone before we got there. Someone ransacked your shit, and I’d like to know why.”
I swallow hard as I feel the blood drain from my face. “Someone ransacked my place?”
I sound like a fucking parrot, but I just can’t believe that I’d be on anyone’s radar enough to be the target of vandalism. Did Cobra’s men do this?
Bunny frowns and bites her lower lip. “You didn’t know?”
“No! How the fuck was I supposed to know? You guys have had me since I got my ass beat. When the fuck would I have been home to know this happened?”
To her credit, Bunny doesn’t shy away from my yelling and cussing. If anything, she looks sympathetic. “We’re just trying to figure out what happened, Neil. It’s not like Ramsey to toss some random guy’s apartment unless he is looking for something specific. From the look of your laptop, he didn’t find it and kind of flew into a rage. See these holes here and here?” She points to some thin holes in the case. “Someone stabbed the damn thing. That’s not like him at all, unless he’s really pissed, and I can’t imagine he’d get this angry over you flirting with Candy. Something else is going on here.”
Kendrick grabs the collar of my shirt and yanks me up out of my seat. What’s left of my laptop falls to the floor.
“What do you know that’s worth this kind of violence?”
Chapter 8
Keys
While Kendrick grills poor Neil on what info the ransackers may have been after, I dig through what’s left of his computer to see if I can pull any data off the mess. It’s useless, though; I may have pretty decent hacker skills, but I can’t get anything from something with this much damage done to it. Whoever tossed Neil’s place seems to have brought an industrial magnet with them; this thing is toast. The physical damage is probably a cover to hide the fact that they wiped the whole thing.
The problem now comes down to who the fuck they were and what the fuck they were looking for. If it’s something they think Neil knows—and I doubt he does—they might hunt him down here for answers.
I think that’s what has Kendrick most upset. He doesn’t give a fuck if Neil’s in trouble, but if that trouble drags Bunny or Doc down with it, he’ll go on a rampage to stop it.
Like he does with Neil, Kendrick has a stick in his craw when it comes to me. He doesn’t like that Bunny took me in, and he doesn’t like how it altered the dynamic he had with Bunny and Doc. Kendrick likes being in charge, and even though neither Neil nor I are directly challenging his authority, just our presence here is enough to bring it into question. Despite his alpha-Dom tendencies, though, what Bunny says goes, and so far Bunny wants us here.
Once I’ve gotten all I can off the destroyed computer, which is basically nothing, I go find Kendrick, Bunny, and Neil. They’re still in the theater room, and my boy Neil looks like he’s about to shit his pants if Kendrick doesn’t back the fuck off. I lean against the doorframe and clear my throat, partly to announce my entry but partly to distract Kendrick before he hauls off and punches Neil.
Neil’s had enough of that in the past couple of days to last him a while, I think.
Kendrick growls and glares at me, but most importantly he stands up straight and stops looming over Neil. Some of the tension leaves the smaller man’s shoulders, and I silently curse Kendrick for being enough of a dick to put that tension there in the first place. It’s not Neil’s fault somebody went apeshit on his apartment.
“What did you find?” Kendrick asks, his voice more gruff than usual.
I hold up a bag full of useless computer parts and toss it at Kendrick’s feet. “Jack shit. There’s nothing left. Whoever did this knew what they were doing. Not one byte of info to grab off that mess. I couldn’t even guarantee it was Neil’s computer.”
That seems to catch Bunny’s interest. “Do you think it’s a fake?”
We all turn to look at Bun, who has perched herself on a reclined theater seat, the picture of relaxation despite her disturbing thought.
