DA Wachowski leaned back in the chair again, crossing his legs so his pants rode up and showed his multi-colored socks. “You do realize, even if we do authenticate this, we’re going to need something to go after this Reggie the Gap character? I didn’t hear anything that was hard evidence of an admission of guilt in that conversation. Did you, Sheriff?”
Sheriff Peak glanced at him, his eyes searching for the correct answer in the DA’s face. Finally, he must have found it, and he nodded a little. “No, I agree. Not any hard evidence or admission of guilt. Not necessarily.”
Wachowski’s eyes shifted back to me. “At the same time, it does make this whole case with Zeke Rogers look a little iffy. Please understand, I don’t necessarily think this would be enough for you to lose in court. But what always got me about that case was that we’d never seen any real motive. We only had the evidence that pointed to him, and all this talk of his seemed so pie in the sky, like he was grasping at straws.”
“So, what you’re saying is,” Rebecca said from beside me as she leaned forward in her chair a little, “you don’t think Zeke did it?”
Wachowski shook his head. “No, I don’t. In fact, I’ve had trouble believing it since the beginning. But the nature of crime, Ms. Stokes, is that sometimes the motives don’t make sense, but the evidence stacks up and points to a perpetrator. And that’s who you charge.”
“So you’re dropping the charges, then?” I asked, trying to keep the note of hopefulness from my voice.
“I believe that’s what I’m saying,” he replied as he went to stand. “I’ll get my clerk to draw up the papers and send them over to the court.”
Rebecca and I both stood with him and took turns shaking hands before the three of us left Peak and Glick sitting in the Sheriff’s office.
Rebecca had her phone in hand and was dialing Zeke’s attorney the moment she was out. Meanwhile, the DA pulled me aside.
“Good work, Mr. Jones,” Wachowski said. Then, in a lowered voice, “You’re definitely taking a load off my conscience with this whole thing. I knew something was fishy from the get-go, but the sheriff and his deputy had the evidence laid out neatly for us.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m not necessarily up for reelection every few years, sir. I don’t have to worry about my constituents or what they’ll think, just my client’s interests.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card holder. He thumbed through it and pulled out his card. “Look,” he said, “I know Peter Frost, and I know he’s a good man. But if you’re ever looking for a change in career, my office can always use a good, dedicated investigator. We’re competitive, and you’d stay in county. Great benefits, too.”
I was honestly a little shocked, and a little flattered, too. I’d never had anyone try to poach me off the job before. Well, not by anyone except Peter. I took the card from him. It was funny how a potentially life-changing thing could weigh so little in my hand. I just shook my head. “Sorry, Mr. Wachowski, I’ve got a job.”
“Well, hold onto it,” he said, readjusting his glasses on his nose, “in case you change your mind, or if you hear anything of interest about this Reggie the Gap character down in Durango. If you have anything that can be passed up the chain to state or the feds, I’d like to know about it first.”
“Will do, sir,” I said, pulling out my wallet and putting the card away. “You’ll be the first to know, Mr. Wachowski.”
He nodded and, briefcase in hand, stepped out. He stopped at the plate glass door leading to the front entry. “Oh, and Mr. Jones,” he said as he turned back to me, “you can call me Andrew. I think we’ve hit that point, don’t you?”
“Sure thing, Andrew.”
Rebecca hung up the phone just as I was turning back to her. “Well, my uncle’s attorney is ecstatic.”
“I would be, too. Probably the easiest money he’s ever made.”
She grinned. “All thanks to you. My hero.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “Team effort.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said as she took a step closer. “I just rode around in the truck with you.”
“No, you helped to shovel ash around in the fire, remember? Couldn’t have done it without you.”
Our bodies inches from one another, she reached down, a little spark popping between us as she slipped her hand into mine.
This was what it was meant to be like. Her uncle’s case closed. Me with Rebecca, with my mate. My one, true, and only love in the whole world. Now we could finally go on a real date. I lowered my lips to hers as she raised hers, reaching up on her tiptoes. Our mouths came closer together.
Closer.
Her sweet aroma engulfed my whole being. My thoughts were filled with the name Rebecca Stokes.
We kissed.
Her lips were softer than I could have imagined, and tasted of sweet coffee and vanilla.
Like magic, the world seemed to melt away around us. I’d never felt so charged, so wonderful in my entire life. It had never been like this with a previous woman, even the times we’d kissed before. It was like every part of my brain and body was snap-crackle-and-popping. Every synapse was alive and surging with energy and dopamine.
And then my phone fucking rang.
We pulled apart, the mood broken as I groaned in frustration.
“You should take that,” she whispered. “You’re still on the clock, right?”
“Yes,” I nearly spat. “Yes, I’m still on the clock.” I yanked the phone from my pocket, saw it was the office, and put it to my ear. “Jones.”
“Matthew?” Lacy asked on the other end of the line. “Matthew, I have to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Zeke’s computer.”
Shit. We’d had her working on that thing non-stop since Monday night. “Hey, don’t worry about finishing up on that,” I said. “Peter told me he wanted to keep having you dig through his search history and files, but I’ve already got the DA to drop the charges based on the evidence I got yesterday. You can stop–”
“It’s not that,” Lacy said, her voice trembling a little as she cut me off. “You need to come into the office right now. I think I found something you’re going to want to see.”
Chapter Thirty-five – Rebecca
The moment Matthew took the phone from his ear, it was like a switch was flipped somewhere. His face changed entirely, his hands entwined in mine seemed to stiffen, and he seemed to take a half-step back.
Even after the events of last night, of having my entire world torn apart and put back together in the space of just a few hours by learning that shifters were real, I hadn’t experienced so profound a shift in the way he looked or acted. I mean, here he was, only seemingly human, but I still knew him. He was still Matthew Jones to me, no matter what he was or could do. Nothing had really changed in the way he looked or sounded, or the way we interacted. Because his heart, his true essence, was still the same as it had have ever been.
But after just one phone call, he seemed different. He seemed colder, more distant.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, searching his face for clues as to the sudden change in his composure. I didn’t like the looks of this. Not at all.
He licked his lips unsteadily. “Let’s talk outside,” he said, his voice nearly a whisper.
I narrowed my eyes, continuing the hunt for anything that might tell me why he was acting this way. “Uh, sure, Matthew,” I replied with a little nod. “Let’s go.”
Together, hand-in-hand, we headed out to the street. The sun and warm air were like a spa as we slipped outside from the comparatively chilly sheriff’s office, the door banging behind us.
He spun on me as soon as we out on the street. “Okay, Rebecca. I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be completely honest.”
“Uh, sure,” I said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Nostrils flared, he pressed his lips together. His eyes grew darker. “Is there anything y
ou’re not telling me about your uncle? About this fire?”
I nearly gasped at his nearly accusatory tone, and took a step back like he’d just slapped my face. “What?”
“That was Lacy on the phone, and she needs me in the office ASAP to show me something on Zeke’s computer that she found. Do you have any idea what it could be?”
“His computer?” I asked, eyes wide. “I really don’t.” I looked down at the sidewalk, touched my hand to my cheek where that phantom slap would’ve been, and just gaped as a thousand thoughts marched through my mind in a storming whirl of chaos. What could he have on there? What could he have been hiding from me that would make Lacy call Matthew into the office to see it for himself?
“So, now,” he said, his voice metamorphosed into something low and serious, “tell me again whether or not there’s anything about Zeke I need to know. This could be serious, and I don’t want to walk into a meeting blindsided. Because I want to protect him, and I want to protect you. But I can’t do that if I don’t know what I might be walking into. Do you understand?”
I did. At least, I thought I did. “I…I really can’t think of anything. Zeke’s like a father to me. I can’t imagine him doing anything awful or wrong. But, Matthew, I hired you to prove he was innocent, because I…I knew he was innocent. I just know he is. If something’s there, it has to be a plant. It has to be a fabrication or something. There’s just no other way. Zeke’s a good man, you know that.”
He seemed to contemplate my words for a long moment, his eyes searching my face, his nose sniffing.
Now, as I watched him up close like this, all the little strange clues from the previous days began to fall into place. No wonder he always seemed to rely on his smell more than the average person, or why Frank had been sniffing around my house like a bloodhound trying to pick up a trail.
God, it was weird dating a shifter. Especially when you didn’t even know if you were really dating.
He nodded, his body seeming to relax. “I believe you. Now come on. Still need to keep you under protective detail for a while, even if it’s just at the office.”
We hopped in his pickup and pulled out, heading over to the Frost Security office.
“What do you think it is?” I asked as we drove. “That they found?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice husky. “I really don’t know. But from the way Lacy sounded, whatever it is, it’s not good. I guarantee it.”
Chapter Thirty-six – The Hunters
The man in black stepped out of the back of the Mercedes, his dress shoes crunching on the gravel of the Crossroads parking lot. It was late morning here, but the day was already getting warmer in Yellow Rose than he was used to, the sun hanging high in the sky and beating down between the mountains on the thin valley where the small town sat. He set his briefcase down and wiped a cloth handkerchief across his high, damp forehead before refolding it and putting it back inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket. Briefcase back in hand, he made his way up to the cinder block building the locals affectionately referred to as a “dive bar.”
How quaint. Such a more appetizing name than the more fitting epithets that sprang to his mind: hellhole, pit of despair, heap, pigsty. Furthermore, he had no doubt the kind of men that inhabited this place. Bikers. More like trash, thugs, common criminals, or troglodytes.
He sat for three hours in the car, just to be brought to such a place as this. He doubted very seriously that any of the dining establishments in this small town would even pass a health inspection, let alone be fit for him to consume a meal within its confines.
He pulled the door open and stepped inside the darkness of the little watering hole, and sniffed the air delicately. Stale smoke and beer, that trash whiskey Americans referred to as bourbon, and sweat. It always smelled like sweat in a place like this, even during the winter months. It was like all these heathens could do was rut, sweat, grope, and eat their horrendous fast food. Burgers, tacos, and, of course, hot dogs.
How odious.
Although, he had to admit he was quite fond of nachos. Those were delightful in an odd, trashy way. All the cheese over tortilla chips, the ground beef and sour cream loaded on top so high that you sometimes wondered how they fit all the delectable accouterments on top. Just something about the mix of salty, savory, and crunchy made his mouth water even at the thought.
He stopped in the entryway, his heels clicking on the concrete floor, his briefcase hanging down at his side.
A big, heavy barkeep with a burly beard and even more burly body turned his attention from wiping down the countertop. “Hey buddy, we’re closed. Ain’t open till noon on Wednesdays.”
“Oh, no, you misunderstand,” the man in the suit said as he made his way to the bar, “I am not here for libation, good sir. I am here to speak to the top men in charge of this little establishment.”
The barkeep gave him a queer look. “What?”
“I’m not here for a tipple, sir, nor am I here for a dram.”
“What?”
The well-dressed, proper man sighed and shook his head a little. Good help was so hard to find, especially in the backwoods of nowhere. He looked back at the barkeep and gave him as warm a smile as he could muster for one so far below his station. “I’m not here to drink. I’m here to discuss business.” He paused. “With your bosses.”
“The manager, you mean? He ain’t here till tonight. He’s got the evening shift.”
“No, no, I believe I spoke inaccurately. I’m not here for the manager of this–” he hesitated, looking around the room in disgust as he spoke, “–fine establishment. I’m here to speak to the managers of the so-called Skull and Bones Motorcycle Club.”
The barkeep looked at him, blinking so that his eyes fluttered like the wings of a moth or butterfly in distress.
“May I speak to them?” the well-dressed man asked, giving a tight smile that he wore like it was the most unfamiliar thing in his closet. People in this part of the country seemed to enjoy a smile every now and then from their counterparts in society. So unlike New York, or in the East. There, he could be as uncomfortably unfamiliar with people as he was in his own country of birth.
“Yeah,” the barkeep replied, setting the towel he’d been using to polish the counter aside, “lemme check, okay?” The man trundled out from behind the counter, huffing and puffing, and headed to a door that clearly led into the rear of the establishment.
The suited and well-appointed man looked around the dive as he waited, ran the tip of his finger over the filthy counter, and held it up for inspection. He made. It didn’t pass muster. No sir. In his day, such poor work would have deserved at least a dressing down by the supervisor on staff. In fact, if it had been during his prep school days, a switch would have been taken to his backside. No questions asked, protests only noted. And the noted protests would only serve to increase the number and severity of the quick switch strikes you would receive on your backside.
The world had changed since the 1920s, though.
That was, of course, not to say that the man had. No, he hadn’t aged a day since his thirtieth birthday, when he was initiated into the upper echelons of the organization.
The barkeep came bustling out, giving a low whistle. “Hey! Spike said he’ll see you, but it better be worth his time.”
“Excellent,” the gentleman said as he methodically walked to the rear entrance, briefcase swinging in his hand.
The room was small with a table set roughly in the center. Both walls adjacent to the door were tightly packed with cardboard packages of beer and liquor, stacked high to nearly the ceiling. As the man in the suit stepped inside, four sets of eyes, each set embedded in the heavy features of men of rough repute, turned to him. All were clearly shocked to see a well-heeled man of the gentleman’s caliber step through the doors, almost so shocked that they seemed to have never seen a man of such character before.
“Who the fuck are you?” slurred one of them, a larger thug with a
perfectly shaved head and what looked to be a freshly tattooed Jolly Roger on the right side of his neck. “You selling Bibles or some shit?”
The man in the suit smiled for the first time, and it was like death grinning out from beneath his hood.
The bikers shifted uncomfortably under his sweeping gaze as he looked over them, clearly unsettled by the stranger’s countenance. Somehow a smile of that peculiar tone, they knew, did not belong anywhere on the visage of a man who looked to have no more than three decades on this earth.
“No, no, gentleman. I am your salvation.”
“So…you are selling Bibles?”
The stranger threw his head back and laughed. Though they were clearly dim, they were still good for a laugh every now and then. Just like a dog chasing its own tail, a cat missing its mark on an arching jump, or dead baby jokes. The last one always got him to grin.
“Oh, you do slay me, sir. Am I assuming correctly that you are the one and only Spike? The leader of this little band of merry men?”
The bald-headed man, Spike, looked back and forth between his comrades, eyebrows raised. “Dude, man, I don’t understand half of what you’re fucking saying.”
Ignoring the lack of an invitation, the man in the suit went around the table and pulled out one of the empty chairs at the table. As he went to take his seat, he laid his briefcase onto the table in front of him. After settling in, he ran a hand with manicured nails over the ebony leather top of his case.
“Ah, fuck,” mumbled one of the other men, “he is selling fucking Bibles. Goddammit.”
“No, no,” he said, grinning that hideous grin of his again. “I’m not here selling Bibles. I, my dear Bonesmen, am here regarding a group for which you and I have mutual animosity.”
“And what group might that be?” Spike asked. “The Hell’s Angels or some shit? Cause we’re cool with them now. Feud’s over.”
“No, no,” the stranger said as held up a single finger, waggling it back and forth. “Frost Security. The wolves of Enchanted Rock. Bane of your existence, and the most feared creatures in all of western Colorado.”
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