by Hope Stone
Kim blinked and stiffened. “Sorry, what?”
“Trey is married, and his wife hired my firm to find proof of an affair,” I said. “I’m guessing you didn’t know, but you seem cool so I wanted to tell you the truth.”
“Fuck,” Kim said. “You’re fucking kidding.”
“I wish,” I said with a grim smile. “But I can show you the file.”
“Oh, no, I believe you,” Kim said. “Honestly, I knew his whole wacky schedule was a bit weird – he never slept over at mine, and I sure as hell didn’t get invited to his place.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty classic,” I said. “In my line of work, we see a lot of this.”
Kim pursed her lips and frowned down at her beer. It hurt to hear that you were being two-timed, but as I had predicted, Kim was not about to break down in tears. She did, however, look pissed.
“Ok, so tell me how I’m getting even,” Kim said.
I gave her a devious grin. “I was hoping you would say that.”
Pin returned to the table. He took one look at Kim, who almost had visible steam coming out of her ears and frowned. “So what did I just miss?”
I let Kim take the lead.
“That douchebag Trey is cheating on me,” Kim said. “Or rather, he’s cheating on his wife – Claire’s a fucking PI hired to get proof.”
I almost laughed aloud at Pin’s shocked expression. His eyes widened and his mouth hung open. I needed to reveal myself in more of my cases, it was too fun.
“Sorry,” I said. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s in my job description.”
“No, you’re badass,” Kim said. “And we’re gonna take that bastard down, right?”
“It’s what I do best,” I said. “But I’m gonna need some help from you.”
“I’m so in,” Kim said.
I nodded and hesitated.
“You’re going to have to play nice with Trey for a little longer,” I said. “Just to get him on another date where I can take photos and then, if you’re comfortable, I would love to get some of the texts he’s sent you?”
Kim looked upset at the idea of having to wait even a short period of time before letting Trey have it, but she nodded.
“Ok, wait a second,” Pin interjected. “We just met, this is a lot to reveal, can we get some credentials or something?”
I raised one brow at him. He really was an accountant. An extremely well-muscled and deviously good-looking accountant.
“You’re asking for my badge?” I asked. “PI’s don’t carry badges.”
“Seriously, Pin, why would she lie?” Kim asked.
“I don’t know, maybe she’s Trey’s ex or something,” Pin said.
I scoffed. As if I would ever so much as touch trash like Trey Cook.
“I’m not saying I don’t believe you,” Pin said, holding up both of his hands. “I just think Kim deserves some concrete information before you guys go all Kill Bill.”
Kim opened her mouth, but I held up my own hand. “Fair enough.”
I pulled out my phone and quickly navigated to an article that had been written about Daniel O’Malley a few months ago. It had been a profile piece for the LA Times about an old missing person case Daniel had solved.
It featured a big photo of me, Daniel and Veronica posing in our offices. I handed my phone to Kim while Pin read over her shoulder.
“Shit,” Kim said. “Y’all are the real deal.”
I smiled with pride. Veronica had been unsure about having a photo. She thought it might interfere with cases if too many people recognized us. But in the end, we had been too excited about the article.
“Ok,” Pin said. “I believe you.”
“So kind of you,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
Pin shrugged, but I saw a small smile tug at his mouth. I decided his caution was cute rather than annoying.
Kim recovered with remarkable speed. We finished our drinks while she enumerated all the times she should have seen right through Trey, yet oblivious as he was so doting and into her. But now, she knew better than to be blinded by a crush.
“Don’t beat yourself up,” I said. “Guys like Trey are master manipulators. Trust me, I deal with their wives and those women have been gaslighted all over the place.”
I pursed my lips in disdain. Pin nodded along so quickly that I had to wonder if he had experience with a woman who had been manipulated. An old girlfriend maybe, or possibly a mother?
“She’s right,” Pin said. “At least you’re not the wife sitting at home right now.”
Kim shuddered and nodded. “So true. Is she – do you think she’ll be ok?”
“I don’t really know her,” I said, considering how much to tell Kim. “But I’m sure she’ll be fine. In my experience, these women always get the last laugh once their divorce attorney is done with their crummy husbands.”
“Good,” Kim said.
“I would not suggest you two meet though,” I said as Kim nodded. “Too often the wives take it out on the mistresses. You’ll be ok though. I get the sense you’re pretty resilient.”
“I’ve had to be,” Kim said. “I swear, I have the worst luck in guys.”
I gave her a sly grin and raised my glass. “Now that I understand.”
I glanced at Pin just then, catching just the smallest quirk of his right eyebrow. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it movement, but I’m a PI. It’s my job to never blink.
And the way he moved his eyebrow was as if he was responding to a challenge I’d put forth.
A half-hour later, I said my goodbyes. Kim and I had exchanged phone numbers and agreed on a tentative scheme that we would flesh out later.
Once I was back in my car, I chugged a bottle of water from my purse. Daniel would kill me if I got a DUI while on the job. I didn’t feel tipsy though. I never drank too much when I was on a job, so I had been careful to only drink half of my second beer.
As I turned my car back east towards the other side of La Playa, I pondered this case. It wasn’t quite as intriguing as I had hoped, but it wasn’t as banal as I had feared.
Kim was definitely not the typical mistress. Trey had played with fire when he lied to a biker. I almost pitied him, but not quite.
Then there were the other bikers. I was curious about their club. On the exterior, the leather-clad bikers had fit every stereotype. Tough, manly, a little bit to the left of the law. But they were loyal, that much was clear. Even to Kim, who was new to the club and a woman at that.
And Pin had been so nice. His every move had exuded respect and responsibility. He balanced their books for crying out loud. Although now that I thought about it, balancing the books could still be a bit left to the law. I had seen enough mafia films to know that at least.
But if I was trusting my gut, I would guess he didn’t fudge the numbers. I always made sure to listen to my gut, but never let it make the final ruling. Which meant, for now, I was inclined to consider Pin and the other bikers good guys, but I wasn’t going to make any major decisions. I had seen plenty of scumbags wearing impressive Good Guy Masks.
If Pin was wearing a mask though, it was a compelling one. My thoughts drifted away from Trey and Kim and towards Pin with the way he had leaned forward to talk to me. The way his eyes had scanned my face as if I was the most fascinating person in the room. The way his hand had brushed against mine when he handed me a beer. The way he had never stared, but had totally and completely noticed my slightly bare midriff. The way one lock of his dark hair had fallen over his forehead.
I shook my head and forced myself to focus on the road. It was not a good idea to mix business with pleasure. I couldn’t let a mild crush distract me from the case.
I told myself that my interest in him was because it’d been a while since my last fling. That’s why I was so smitten with Pin after a measly two hours. The last guy I’d been with was an artistic type. An aspiring singer-songwriter, which I had thought might make him interesting. Or at the very l
east poetic.
Veronica had teased me over that one. She had told endless jokes about how she had been down the aspiring singer road, and it led to nothing but endless complaints and guitars taking up space in one’s apartment.
I hadn’t even gotten that far. First, he was a mediocre singer. And second, he could converse on exactly one thing, and it was the unfairness of open mic nights in the greater LA area and how it wasn’t about talent and all about who you knew.
I’m not saying he was wrong, but after three weeks I was done.
Most of my flings followed that pattern. Different guys, different careers, same impatience on my part. I knew it was more my problem than the guys I dated. I wasn’t the type to blame others for my own restlessness.
I also wasn’t the type to sit and mope at home. I liked flirting. I enjoyed that fluttery feeling you get in your stomach when you meet a guy who maybe, just maybe, will be different from all the rest. Someone who will make every day an adventure.
Only that guy couldn’t be Pin. I would tie up this case with a big bow, wish Kim the best, and then go out and meet someone else. Easy.
By the time I got back to my one-bedroom apartment, it was almost midnight. I sighed but didn’t go straight to bed.
Instead, I pulled out my notebook and wrote down all my notes from the night. It was best to record everything while it was still fresh in my mind. I had long since learned that no detail was too small or unimportant. People you thought were side characters could end up being key witnesses.
I wrote down every name of those I had encountered: Moves, Hawk, Carlos, Kim, Trey. Pin. After that, I jotted down physical characteristics and everything they had said, no matter how inconsequential.
Then I turned to a new page and wrote “Outlaw Souls” at the top. I paused with my pen suspended midair. I didn’t really know anything about the club, what they did, or how they even made the money that Pin handled.
After a moment of considering how in the dark I was when it came to this biker club, I just wrote a big question mark on the page.
My main priority was sorting out the Trey business and getting Olivia the proof she needed.
But I wasn’t going to ignore the Outlaw Souls. They might be a good mystery for a rainy day.
Five
Pin
I woke up feeling groggy. It wasn’t a hangover. It wasn’t even that I hadn’t slept well. I got home from Blue Dog Saloon well before midnight, and it was just past eight when I got out of bed. If anything, I hadn’t slept so soundly in a long while.
It was something about the night. I had gone in expecting the usual: a few beers with my brothers, small talk about the club, maybe some light tension over whatever our rival club, Las Balas, were up to.
Instead, it had turned into one of the more dramatic nights I had ever lived through. Although, that wasn’t strictly true. I had endured plenty of more action-packed evenings (it came with the biker territory).
But for some reason, the evening before had felt monumental.
I tried to shake off my melodramatic musings as I hopped into a scalding shower. Nothing had actually happened. Yeah, it turned out Kim’s new boyfriend was a prick, and the cute blonde Moves dragged over being a freaking PI was an interesting plot twist, but none of that involved me.
But it involved Claire, I thought. And maybe she involves me.
I frowned and stared through the steam at the white tiles in my shower. No way. This was not a good path to go down. She wasn’t even interested. She had been pretending for her job. I was just a means to get closer to Kim.
I didn’t blame her for that. She clearly was a skilled PI, and I appreciated how she had been upfront with Kim in the end.
But she had still been using me.
Which meant every little smile, each wide-eyed question, every time we had made eye contact, that all meant nothing. Which was fine.
I reminded myself for the umpteenth time that I hadn’t been looking to pick up anyone the night before, and if I had, I certainly would not have chosen Claire. She was way too complicated for my tastes.
I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, drying myself down. I needed to stop talking myself in circles. I had other things to think about today. I was due to meet a few of the brothers to go over some numbers and discuss a few jobs we had in the works.
Things had been tense with the Las Balas. We had been staying out of their territory and they were avoiding us, but we all knew the fragile peace could never last. It was like the calm before a storm, when the very air seems to crackle with electric tension, sharp enough to sting.
It was all because Balas guys were the worst of the worst. Every negative stereotype about bikers was because of scum like Las Balas. Drugs, sex trafficking, kidnapping. They had their irons in all the worst fires.
I pulled on my clothes and started to throw everything I would need for the day into my backpack. It’s not like a club needed to deal with drugs or create prostitution rings to stay afloat. Outlaw Souls was proof of that. We had steady jobs, sometimes even more than we could handle, working security or doing surveillance.
Plus there was the auto shop a few of the older brothers owned and half the club worked at. Everyone in La Playa knew it was the shop to go to if you wanted quality work from mechanics who wouldn’t cheat you. At the end of the day, we probably had more profits than Las Balas. And a lot less blood on our hands.
Even so, there were always guys who wanted the easy way out. Who thought dipping a finger in the cocaine pot was the ticket to a better life. I had plenty of experience with guys like that before I even joined Outlaw Souls.
Half of the guys my mom dated when I was growing up were shady as hell. A few of them even got my mother involved which drove me crazy. Especially when I was a kid and couldn’t do anything about it.
And the ones that weren’t breaking the law were just plain lazy. They would sit around on our couch, watching TV and expecting my mom, who worked two jobs her whole life, to wait on them hand and foot.
I sighed and banished the unpleasant memories. Things weren’t like that anymore. As soon as I graduated from my accounting program, I’d started doing freelance CPA work. Between that and the club, I was able to get my mom her own apartment. I didn’t necessarily respect her choices, but I did love her.
I surveyed my clean apartment one last time before heading out. It wasn’t much, but it was mine and I had earned it the honest way.
I hopped on my bike and steered it towards the auto shop where the meeting was. After that, I needed to finish up some tax work for a company I was freelancing for.
I frowned beneath my helmet. As the colorful signs blurred by, I felt a twinge of guilt. I hadn’t visited my mom in a while. I knew I should try and find time to swing by for dinner, but it would just mean more irritating memories.
Whenever I visited my mom, I felt about fifteen again. Fifteen and frustrated with her and furious at her boyfriends.
Although when I was fifteen, I had handled it all wrong. I had gone out and done the stupidest thing I’ve ever done: I got a girlfriend.
Her name was Sara Garcia, and she made my teenage heart stop dead in its tracks. She had big brown eyes, always wore those little cut-off jean shorts that high school girls wore, and had the loudest laugh. I think it was her laugh that really made me fall for her. I was so miserable that I was desperate to be around some joy. I wanted just a fraction of Sara’s happiness.
And for a while, I had that happiness. I had all the arrogance of youth, walking down the hallways hand-in-hand with Sara and thinking I had it all figured out.
I cringe when I look back at how idiotic I was. I thought every date with Sara was the best date ever. When we went to the movies and I snuck my arm around her, it was the best evening of my life. Until a week later, when we made out for hours on her bed. We did it all together. We went to school dances and I watched her during her cheerleading practices. After a few months of dating, we took each other’s
virginities.
I thought she was the one. My mom had made mistakes in love, but not me. I had found someone I could trust. Someone who would never hurt me.
Yeah. I was wrong.
It happened right after our six month anniversary, and yes, it killed me that I kept track of shit like that.
There was a big house party hosted by one of Sara’s friends one Friday. I had to work pretty late at my busboy job, but we agreed to meet at the party.
I walked in around eleven, and the first person I ran into was this girl Sara knew. I didn’t even know her very well, but I could tell right away something was off. I asked her where Sara was, and if pity had an odor, that girl would have been reeking. I could see in her eyes, in the way she opened her mouth but didn’t speak, that wherever Sara was, it was not gonna make me feel good.
I wish I had just walked away, but instead, like the stubborn fool I was, I went looking for Sara. I found her in one of the bedrooms, buck naked with another guy.
For a second, I thought she was drunk and he had taken advantage. I was ready to beat the shit out of him for dragging my wasted girl to that bed.
But then Sara looked up. She was not drunk. She was clear-eyed and clearly enjoying it. When she saw me, she had the decency to stop and pull a bed sheet around her chest. The other guy made a quick exit, but took the time to toss me a little smirk and a “Sorry, man.”
Sara said what they always say. She just got carried away. She thought I was such a great guy, but things had happened so fast, and she wasn’t perfect.
And I just stood there with my heart breaking in two.
I wasn’t mad at her though. I was angry at myself. Because I should have known better. How many times had I seen my mom throw herself into a relationship with a guy who didn’t care enough to be loyal?
And I couldn’t be mad at Sara. She was just acting on human nature.
So I decided the next day that my heart wasn’t broken. Love was a hallucination. Love never lasted, and people were always going to act on their own self-interests. Which meant that something as fake as love wasn’t going to stop someone from cheating.