“Yeah. Do we know any more about Crystal’s boyfriend?” Billings asks, and I shake my head.
“We’re looking at finding him. Crystal didn’t leave a lot of clues about who the fuck she was dating.”
“Talk to the father. And find out why the fuck the car was at a goddamn strip club.”
I nod, and kick Eli’s desk. He’s staring at his computer, his face a little pale. His eyes jerk to mine and then Billings. “Yes, sir,” he says, but it’s got no force behind it. I frown at my brother and Billings eyes him for a moment longer than I like.
He might have given Lijah a second chance, but the Chief hasn’t forgotten just how close to the edge Eli skated before I yanked him back.
I give him a reassuring nod I don’t feel and Billings moves away. I wait until he’s safely away and then glare at Eli. “What the fuck, Eli?” I snarl.
“Dude.” He’s staring at his computer. “Look at this.”
The email is from an address I don’t recognize.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: In Case She Doesn’t Answer.
Yo. She said if she didn’t answer her phone to send this shit to you. Attached, find all relevant shit on one Scarlett Materson—that bitch is some dangerous shit, dirty as fuck. And also, everything I can dig up on Morningstar operation. It’s not much, but I’m still working. She thought it was a person. Not the case. Near as I can tell, she’s looking at an organized ring—drugs, prostitutes, trafficking the works. What the actual fuck is she digging into down there? You’ve got at least three people at the top of Morningstar. It’s a BFD. And they’re dangerous as fuck.
I don’t know what she’s digging up or who this story is for, but I know she’s got a bad fucking habit of getting into trouble. Do me a favor and make sure she doesn’t get herself shot again.
I’ll keep digging into Morningstar and Materson. If you need anything else, call the bar.
J-
Eli’s fingers are shaking as he scrolls over the files, but he stops before he opens them. Forwards the emails to me first. I circle back to my desk and open the files.
File after file after file—I can’t keep up as they stream open, all of this information about Scarlett and Morningstar pouring across my fucking computer.
“Archer, this was my personal email,” Eli says, his voice shaking. I nod. Scanning through.
There’s bank statements, and arrest records and lists of people and clubs—names I recognize, addresses in and around the county, and routing numbers, and—”Jesus Christ, Lijah,” I whisper.
Scarlett is deep. Deeper than I thought, if she’s working this close to fucking Morningstar.
And the bastard found surveillance pictures of her. How the actual fuck did he manage to do that? She’s been off the grid for the past three years, since she ran after Eli exposed her for dirty.
And it’s not from a lack of looking. I’ve looked. I want this girl.
“Archer.” Eli sounds like he did when we were kids and he was desperate to be reassured. Desperate to be told that everything was going to be okay. He sounds scared and plaintive and so damn young. It hurts me, a little, to hear my brother sound like that. “Archer, who the fuck is this guy and what the hell is Hazel doing?”
The brothers told a story that was tragic but had a feel of scurrility to it. A fairy tale edged in horror and the taboo.
Sitting next to Hanna on the dock, I know that her story is different. There is no fairy tale here, and there sure as fuck is no happy ending. She’s sitting still, her bare feet skimming the icy water below and I wonder if she can even feel it.
Spring has hit Green County hard, but it’s still cold.
“You’re gonna freeze,” I say, sitting next to her on the dock, my feet curled under me. Above us, Michael makes a triumphant noise, almost I told you.
Hanna doesn’t respond to that. Or my statement. I glance over at her.
And swallow my gasp.
I haven’t seen Hanna in almost eight years. Since I graduated high school. I remember her, of course. It’s hard to forget the youngest McGrey. She was always quiet and reserved, almost painfully shy and hidden between the shadows of her older brothers.
But I remember her.
A beautiful, almost fey-like creature. Eyes so bright they look like blue shining stars. Blonde hair that is all wisps and fluff, like a cloud around her pale, perfect face and pink rosebud mouth.
She was gorgeous. I remember Eli’s fascination with her—hell, most of the boys in our school were.
And she floated through it, completely oblivious, and happy with her brothers.
There was a lot of talk, a lot of bitchy speculation about the nature of their relationship.
Funny, because it’s too true.
My stomach turns at that.
But the girl sitting next to me. She isn’t a fey pretty girl floating through life anymore.
Her hair is a sleek, harsh line around her face, her eyes cold and remote, her lips a sharp line.
Something has gone very wrong, to turn the girl I knew in high school into this cold, hard woman I see today.
“It’s good to see you,” she murmurs.
“Wish I could say the same. Your brothers are—” I glance back at the twins. “Well, honestly, they’re scary motherfuckers, Hanna.”
She laughs, a quick sharp noise. Gives them a fond smile. “Yes. But they have good intentions, which helps.”
“They killed four people,” I say, softly.
Hanna’s smile dies, and her eyes go cold. Stares at me like I’m a bug on the bottom of her shoe. “You’re here to listen to a story, Hazel.
The girl was always different. It’s something she hated about herself, until she realized how ridiculous the rest of the world could be and then she took some pride in her difference. But as she grew older, and her tempers flexed and changed, she knew that it worried the only two people who mattered.
It was for them that she became desperate for a way to settle the demons that seethed inside her, the restless energy and the fury and the voices that whispered to hurt, to run, to bleed out everything.
Drugs quieted the voices. For a time.
Later a doctor listened to her and her brothers, and pronounced it bipolar disorder. Personality disorder.
Obsessive compulsive disorder.
All names that said what the girl had always known.
She was broken, in ways that couldn’t be fixed.
And maybe that was true. Maybe she would be broken forever. But now that she was broken.
She took what she wanted.
And she wanted her brothers.
And to punish the mother who was so bent on ambition and power and never on her children.
The girl knew exactly what she was doing. Joining the Morningstar organization was not done by chance or accident, no matter what her brothers believed.
At first it was merely moving drugs. Her brothers were good at it and no one would ever suspect the girl, with her wild moods and dreamy smile.
They would never suspect that she was ruthless behind that smile. That she climbed the ranks quickly in a Morningstar, quickly enough that three heads of the organization sat up and noticed her.
That is when it went to hell. Not because she was good at her job.
Because she was too good at it.
For three years the girl and her brothers fucked and dealt their drugs and climbed through the ranks of Morningstar. The oldest was brilliant and ruthless, and where he faltered, his sister was there, cold and logical, that perfectly broken mind seeing the best way to make corruption play.
And their brother, their wild, impetuous middle brother was the violent shield that made every insane, dangerous idea they had play out.
Together, they were a bright shining star in the criminal organization.
And then.
They were called in by the Board.
Because Mornings
tar was too vast, too well organized and profitable, and big for it to be one man at the top. There was a network. A group of bosses who ran various illicit trade and vice. The ones who, at the end of the day, the girl and her brothers answered to.
There was debate. The twins thought they’d be given a new territory.
The girl had no idea what to think.
But none of them expected to sit down with the Board and find themselves face to face with their absentee mother.
They walked out. She walked out.
I won’t work for that bitch, she snapped.
And the twins, who had given her what she wanted her entire life, fell perfectly in line behind her.
You need us. That from the man they had been working under for the past three years. His eyes flat and unamused as he glared at them.
Lars Browning. A businessman--a salesman--who happened to make his business on the wrong side of the law.
But the girl wanted nothing more to do with him.
It would have been easy. If it had ended there.
I stare at her, at the harsh line of her lips and the tears glittering on the edges of her eyelashes.
“If it didn’t end there, where?” I ask, quietly.
She smiles, then. This bitter edged thing that tells me, finally.
I’m finally asking the right questions.
“That, Hazel is the story you need to tell.”
Eli is trying to get Gabe to answer the phone.
I’m doing the same with Hazel. Neither are actually doing what a normal fucking person does, when they’ve got a phone.
Like answer the damn thing.
Eli curses, and tosses his phone down, and I glare at him. “Let’s go,” he snaps.
He’s got this urgency about him that has my hackles rising and my hand reaching for my gun even without considering what the hell I’m doing.
But I do what he says. I grab my files and phone and he snatches up his computer.
“We’re supposed to interview her father,” I say as he shoves out of GCPD headquarters.
“That isn’t going to give us answer. Hazel is gonna give us an answer. What the fuck, man. She’s got the fucking breakdown of a fucking mafia. In Kansas. Why the hell do we have a fucking mafia in Kansas?”
That’s actually a good question. The better question is:
“You think she’s hiding things from us?”
Eli slides into the car and lets the door slam shut behind him as I turn the engine over with a low rumble.
“I know she’s hiding shit, Archer. You do too. If she weren’t, we wouldn’t have this shit in our inbox.”
“Scarlett is tied up in this. You good with that? With what it means?”
He’s silent for a long moment, and then, “Scarlett brought this shit on herself. I don’t give a fuck what happens to her. I want my sister and I want to know why the fuck Gabe isn’t answering his goddamned phone.”
I slide a glance at him.
“Dude, what the hell is going on with you and Delvin?”
When did that change? It wasn’t noticeable—I mean, I knew there was tension and flirting and teasing. Everyone knew that. But so much of it was just Gabriel, who made every fucking thing a joke and damn the consequence. But when did it change to something that Eli gave back.
It was after Eli went to rehab.
After all the shit with Scarlett, and he was clean and trying to put his life together again.
There was a six-month span, that he didn’t live with me.
He wanted his space.
Nora said he needed the space to get over fucking up. Said that he couldn’t face me and my constant disappointment, and so he retreated. Moved into Hazel’s big empty farmhouse.
That’s when.
“Eli,” I start and he growls.
“You wanna talk about Gabe and me? Why don’t you tell me about what the fuck you’re doing with Hazel?”
I suck in a breath, because there is a comparison there.
And—
Fuck.
How serious is this thing with Gabe, this thing that I’ve ignored and pretended not to see?
I shove that thought away. Because it’s occurring to me, sudden and undeniable, that I fucked up somewhere.
I made Eli think I don’t trust him.
“Remember when I came home from the Corps? And she punched me in the nose?”
Eli freezes, and stares at me, his eyes wide and confused. “Yeah. Wha—”
“That was when. When I fell for her. Before that, she was just my best friend, the third spoke in our wheel. She was just Hazel. The girl who helped me keep you and Nora happy and healthy. But then—fuck, Eli. She grew up. Four years is a lot of growing up. She’s gorgeous.”
“If you want to fuck up our entire family because Hazel is hot, I swear to god—” Eli starts.
“Shut the fuck up and listen to me,” I snap.
And, surprisingly. He does.
“Hazel—she’s always been special. You know, I’ve always had a different kind of relationship with her.”
“I know you and her have always felt this absurd need to take care of me and Nora.”
I nod. “Yeah. But what you don’t know is that Hazel—she was fucked up man. We both were. A lot more than we let on and for longer. She had nightmares until she was almost sixteen—she was still having them when I left, and the only reason I thought she’d be okay was because Delvin was there, and he knew how bad it could be. But she knew how dark I could get—and I knew how fucked up she was. And it didn’t matter. I didn’t care. Her baggage? My damage? It wasn’t hard to carry, when we were doing it together.”
“You love her,” Eli whispers.
I can hear the worry and the fear and something else.
Something that sounds, impossibly, hopeful.
I look at him.
And nod. “Yeah, man. I do.”
He’s quiet after that, and stays that way until we reach Gabe’s house.
Because of course, that’s where we’re going.
“It’s gonna take me some time,” he says, softly as I pull up behind Gabe’s ridiculous sunshine yellow VW bus. “But if you’re both happy. Just. Gimme some time to get used to it.”
It’s better than I could hope for and I nod as he slips out.
He unlocks Gabe’s door, while I sit in the Roadrunner, watching, and that alone tells me—whatever the hell is happening between Gabe and Eli, it’s serious and I’ve been blind.
When Eli explodes out of the house, his face his pale and he’s running, almost stumbling as he does.
He looks terrified and sick and furious. And I know. I fucking know.
This is all tied back to the slaughterhouse, and Morningstar. To Scarlett and her whores.
And Hazel.
I know, before he says it.
“Gabe’s fucking gone, Archer.”
After I leave Michael and John and Hanna, I need the familiar. So I head to Mama’s, and if I’m pale and shaky, I have almost thirty minutes to get my shit under control before I’m there and she’s demanding to know what the hell is happening.
Halfway back to town, I turn on my phone.
The twins parting words are still chasing around, like fucking taunts, in my head.
Tell the rest of the story.
And
Gabe is fine, but what happens next is on you.
And
We don’t mind dirty hands. Don’t test us.
The thing is that I don’t think they wanted to kill anyone else. Hanna, sitting on the edge of the pier, had looked more tired than anything.
My phone lights up, going crazy with messages and I feel my heart drop as I get the gist of them.
Eli and Archer are furious and worried and Jase has clearly sent them more info than I have.
The last message stops my breath.
Eli: Where the fuck is Gabriel?
So the cat’s out, then. They know Gabe is missing and that I’m keeping secret
s.
I feel a flash of gratitude, for that.
I should tell them I’m fine. Have them meet me.
But. There is one last person to talk to, before I can tell this story. So I swipe the screen, dumping the messages to be dealt with later, and dial the number Michael sent me before I left.
“King,” a crisp, whiskey warm voice almost purrs.
“Seamus King,” I say and I hear the way he shifts, on the other end of the line. “I’d like to sit down and talk with you.”
“And who is this? Why should I give a shit what you want?”
“Because right now, I’m a journalist writing an expose, and all I’ve heard is the shit the McGreys have to say. I thought I’d give you a chance to defend yourself, first.”
“And why should I not kill you and the story?”
I breath a laugh. “King. You aren’t that stupid. And you aren’t who I want. So meet with me and give me who I want.”
There’s a moment when I think he’ll refuse. But King is a businessman.
“Who are you going after?” he asks, instead of agreeing.
“I want Scarlett Materson.”
A low laugh ripples across the line, and I shiver. The twins didn’t tell me enough about King to make me comfortable. They told me just enough to know he’s dangerous and I need to be very careful.
“I’ll meet you in forty-five minutes.”
“The Central Green,” I interject and he hums an acceptance.
And I hang up.
My fingers are shaking when I dial Archer’s number. Because I’ve lied to them. I’ve hidden so damn much.
The nature of secrets is to come to light.
“Where the fuck is he, Hazel?” Eli snarls, and I swallow.
“Put me on speaker.”
He spits a curse, but I hear the roar of the engine, and I say, clearly. “Archer, pull over and turn her off.”
There’s silence from both of them, and then the rumble changes, as the Roadrunner slides to side of the road and he kills the engine.
And then there’s silence, so deep and sudden it’s almost an ocean, something I can drown in and I want to.
I want to drown in it, because I don’t want to say this.
He will hate this.
Dirty Sexy Secret (Green County Book 1) Page 14