“What’d need, baby girl?” a low drawl answers, and I smirk.
How the hell a redneck tech head ended up in Boston working as a busboy in a dive bar?
God’s little mysteries, I suppose.
“Hey Jase. Need you to dig for me,” I say. Because it’s been almost six months since I vanished from Boston, and I never explained to Jase. I didn’t need to. If he was curious, there’s very little the hacker couldn’t find out. So there’s literally no reason for me to waste time with apologies and explanations.
“Personal or for a story?”
I smirk, a little. “Both.”
He laughs, and I hear the clatter of keys as he brings his computer to life. Vaguely, I wonder how drunk he is.
A world class hacker and programmer he might be, but the boy spends so much time drunk it’s a wonder he can find his way out of a paper bag much less the NSA’s database.
“Detective out of Topeka. Scarlett Materson.” I spell it out for him, and he whistles.
“How much you want?” He asks.
“Everything.” I murmur, and there’s a breath of hesitation. A quiet demand for more information. I sigh. “She hurt my family, Jase.”
“You’ll have it by morning.”
“Need it sooner than that. And, I need you to find out what the fuck happened to her when she left the force. Pay attention to whose paying her.”
Jase is laughing now. “Damn, Hazel, I’ve fucking missed you.”
I smirk. He always did love a challenge. “Do me a favor? Dig into Morningstar, too. Time’s important, ok?”
“Gimme a couple hours,” he says, and hangs up without a goodbye.
My smile fades as I lower the phone and drop it in my purse as I scoop up my keys.
At least someone is happy with me today.
Chapter 24
It occurs to me, as I twist the wheel and turn onto a small, dirt road, that this is one of the stupider things I’ve done.
I feel like the girl in a horror movie that you yell at as she wanders into the basement alone, like some kind of fucking idiot.
Except, I know there’s a killer waiting, and it’s not a basement—it’s a lake that I used to spend my summers swimming with Archer and Eli. It’s where I lost my virginity, the year after Archer ran off to the Marines.
It’s where Gabe and I would sit and smoke, while Eli made out with Amy and I dreamed about getting the fuck out of the County.
Later, Aidan and Colt would join us here. Remi brooding nearby like an overgrown emo giant.
And now.
Fuck. I huff out a breath, and stare at the shoreline.
They had to pick a place like this. In the middle of fucking nowhere. No one knew where I was. And so full of memories that it’s hard to keep a grip on what I’m doing here.
John is standing on a small pier, where we’d fish and dive off, and lay sprawled out, staring at the stars.
A girl is sitting on the edge, her feet dangling in the water.
Michael is leaning against the rail next to her, ignoring me entirely.
I wonder where the fuck they left Gabe and how they can be so confident that he’ll be there, when they return.
Then I remember that Michael and John murdered four people in cold blood less than forty-eight hours ago.
If they want to hold one reclusive, eccentric baker, it wouldn’t be terribly difficult.
John shifts, and I let out my breath. Shove the door open and climb out of my truck.
“You’re late,” he calls, and I glance at my watch.
“I’m not, actually,” I say, angry suddenly.
“Your pet cops were at the farmhouse a long time, Hazel. Should we be concerned?” “I’m fucking here. Alone. If anyone gets to be concerned, it’s me,” I snap.
John snarls, jerking forward and a cool feminine voice splits the air. “Enough, John. Leave her.”
It draws both twins to a sudden and abrupt halt. Michael straightens away from the dock and exchanges a glance with his twin as Hanna says, her voice soft and musical, “Come sit with me, Hazel. My brothers promised you a story, and I suppose it’s time to deliver.”
Chapter 25
The fact that we’re in separate cars helps. I need a little distance from Lijah, and if I know anything about the kid—I do—he needs the space from me. I’m still refusing to think about that look he gave me in her driveway, just like I’m refusing to think about the way she swayed so fucking sweet on my lap and how close I’d been to sliding into her again, before Eli interrupted. Shit.
I wonder, briefly, if he’s already told Nora.
The fact that my phone is ridiculously silent says probably not.
Good. We both need to focus, and we have this nice juicy homicide to focus on.
Never thought I’d be glad to have four fucking dead bodies and no leads, but if I can use it to distract Eli from the giant elephant in the room, I’ll take just about anything right now.
I’m at my desk, and Billings is on his way toward me, waving a file like it’s got some kind of magic eight ball answer when Eli gets back, carrying two cups from CinSations. He offers me one silently, and I eye him.
“Did you two have a lover’s spat?” Billings asks and I flip him off as I take the coffee and nod at Eli.
It’s not an apology. Not quite. But it’s a peace offering and I’ll take it.
“We found Beth’s car.”
That jerks my attention to Billings and Eli whistles. “Where?”
“A strip club on Victory. The Foxy Lady.” He glances at the file. “Their surveillance is down, of course, but I sent Harrison and Tucker down to talk to the owner.”
I frown and Billings points at me. “Don’t get greedy, Archer. You need help with this. Emery is breathing down my fucking neck—no one likes four fucking dead bodies in a house that looks like Manson let his family loose in it.”
Fair point. “We got the car being processed?” I ask.
“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 in 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 shakin
g 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?”
Chapter 26
The brothers told a story that was tragic but had a surreal feel 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. So listen.”
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 she wanted to punish the mother who was so bent on ambition and power and never once thought of 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 wasn’t 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 Morningstar 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.”
Chapter 27
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 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?
1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve Page 45