Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“Thanks for letting me up. Wasn’t sure you would.”
We were dangerously close to discussing the whole… incident. But I suddenly found myself not wanting to drudge it back up.
“Well, you sounded kind of serious,” I said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Brooks sucked in a deep breath.
“I can’t think of a delicate way to put this, so I’m just gonna give it to you straight, alright?”
“Alright,” I agreed, setting back down my wrap, something in his tone telling me that maybe eating wasn’t going to be a good idea yet. “What is it?”
“It’s about Clay,” he started, watching my face for a reaction.
“What about him?”
“I don’t think he wrecked by accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been working on a… suspicion,” he told me. “So today I went out to the junkyard to check out his car. Lucked out that they hadn’t crushed it yet. I found his brake lines were cut.”
“What? How? It was a new car.”
“Deliberately cut, Cal. But since there was no way Clay wouldn’t have known something was wrong with them, I suspect he was trying to get away from someone. There was even some red paint on the bumper.”
“Who would be chasing Clay, though?” I asked, shaking my head.
“I don’t know yet. But I suspect the answer is on this,” he said, reaching into his pocket to produce a flash drive. “I found this hidden in the first aid kit in his trunk. But it’s password-protected. And I can’t get in yet.”
“Are you saying Clay was involved in something, like, illegal?” I asked, dubious.
“I never would have thought it of him, honestly, if it weren’t for you telling me about the ‘vette. There’s no way, no matter how frugal he was, that he could afford that car. Not on a payment plan, let alone outright.”
“Clay never did anything illegal. He once called the electric company to tell them they’d undercharged him on a bill.”
“Yeah, that sounds like Clay,” he agreed, nodding. “Look, I’m not saying Clay was some fucking kingpin or some shit like that. I’m saying… sometimes we make choices,” he said, waving at himself.
Normally, I would insist that there was no way. That Clay was too straight-and-narrow to ever make that kind of choice.
But Brooks was right.
Years back, if you asked me who was least likely to become a criminal of any sort, I would have told you Brooks. Without hesitation. And not because I’d been in love with him. Just because, well, it was Brooks.
He had an extremely strict father who forced him into things like ROTC, even though Brooks hated it. He wanted him to be tough. Mind and body. So he also pushed him, even from a young age, to workout, to join sports, to get good grades, to always work harder, be better.
While my parents were hardly ever around thanks to crazy work schedules to ask us to do anything around the house, Brooks’s dad was always on his back, giving him a list of chores every single day, keeping him busy from sunup to down in the summers. And when he came home from work, he would do a white-glove-type inspection to make sure it was done meticulously. If it wasn’t, he was forced to redo it. But this time with his father breathing down his neck.
Brooks got good, even as just a kid, at having a meticulous eye for detail, a knack for anticipating needs, and handling them before someone even thought to ask for it to be done.
It was expected that Brooks would go to college and make something grand of himself. Or, in lieu of that, he would join the military, and have some illustrious career there.
Then he shocked everyone, it seemed, by becoming an outlaw biker.
So if perfect Brooks had gotten himself involved in something illegal, who the hell was I to say that Clay hadn’t? Especially if Brooks had suspicions. Ones that seemed to be backed up based on things like the brake lines, the hidden flash drive, even his watch on the wrist of a guy who had ‘bad news’ written all over him.
“I can write down a list of possible passwords,” I offered. “In case there’s something you haven’t thought of.”
“That would be good. I tried a few things I could think of. But no luck. Seems to have a twenty-four hour max out. So it might take a few days to get in even if we do have the right passcode on our list.”
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding. “Should we… talk to the police?”
To that, Brooks hesitated.
“That’s gonna be up to you,” he said after a moment. “But I think we should see what is on the flash first. And maybe… I know you might not feel ready for this, but maybe we should check out the safety deposit box. See if he saved anything in there with more clues.”