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)
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“But then why was he driving around a car he couldn’t afford?” she asked, voicing my own questions. “And have that cash in his bank box?”
“Good questions,” I said, clicking through more images of more deals, these ones catching the other faces better.
It could have been something he’d done because he felt he’d had no actual choice, but he’d still been compensated for. And that crisis of conscience had led him to compile all of this information to, I don’t know, one day bring to the authorities. Even if he got himself in trouble as well.
I clicked the second to last image.
“Fuck,” I snapped, whipping the laptop away from Cali.
But not quickly enough, judging by her gasp, by the shocked horror on her face.
Fuck.
I knew I should have looked at this shit ahead of time. Saved her from seeing that.
The last image was of a man on the ground, a halo of blood around him, a hole wedged in his forehead. His eyes open. Stuck in that fearful look as he looked down the barrel of the gun that would take his life.
“Sorry, baby,” I said, reaching for her head, pulling her down on my shoulder. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”
“He was dead.”
“Yes,” I confirmed, knowing there was no good in lying to her at this point.
“Did Clay…?”
“No, baby. No. I don’t think so,” I said, stroking up and down her arm as my gaze slid to my dresser where the gun was resting.
He wouldn’t have left that for us if he’d used it to kill someone. What would be the point of that?
“No, I think he stole the gun as evidence,” I told her, turning the laptop a little further from her, but allowing me to see still as I clicked on the final image.
And there it was.
The proof of my theory.
That guy from the other picture, the one Cali had seen at the fight, Ryder, he was standing with an arm extended, a gun in his hand, pressing it near the head of the man who would become his victim.
Wanting to assure her, I lifted my hand to cover the ugly part of that image, and turned the laptop back, showing her Ryder.
“It wasn’t Clay,” I told her, actually feeling the tension leave her body as she saw what I was seeing.
“How did he get the gun?” she asked.
“Stole it? Or maybe Ryder told him to get rid of it, and he decided to do that by stashing it somewhere safe to work as evidence in the future.”
“You think they found out about all of this?” she asked.
“It would explain why they would kill him. Why they would come after you, looking for whatever Clay had.”
“Why wasn’t his place tossed?” she asked.
That was a good fucking question.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. He’d clearly been prepared for that, leaving the place as neat as possible, with the only evidence hidden in code on his messy desk. “Maybe they’d tossed it more gently, in case there was an investigation of any kind. There could have been street cameras that caught them chasing him or some shit if his death was ruled suspicious.”
“Why be careless with my place then?”
“Desperation? Or not thinking you would link it back to Clay. Crime happens, even in reasonably safe places like Navesink Bank.”
I didn’t have the answers she needed.
What I did have, though, was a plan to figure them out.
One way or another.
But I had to wait.
Until Cali was calm. Until she was asleep.
I closed the lid of my laptop, setting my mind to getting her relaxed, running my hands up and down her, holding her close, feeling the tension slowly seep out of her, and hearing her yawns as she got closer and closer to sleep.
Then, about an hour later, she was out cold.
I waited a few more minutes before sliding out of bed, taking the laptop with me, and heading out to show Fallon and the others what I’d figured out.
“No, sorry, man,” Sully said, shaking his head after looking at the images.
“Didn’t you say she saw them at the fight?” Dezi asked.
“Yeah.”
“Jax should know who they are,” he told me. “If they were there, they were betting. He keeps track of that shit.”
“I know shit has been… tense with Jax,” I said to Fallon.
Years back, he’d pulled some bullshit that pitted our club against the rival club in Navesink Bank—the Vultures—that only managed to piss off both clubs and even the club’s former owner, Jax’s father, Ross Ward.
“That was a long time ago now,” Fallon said, shrugging. “You can talk to Jax if he might have the answers you’re looking for.”
“I’m in,” Perish offered again.
My gaze slid back to Fallon. “Always good to have backup the size of him,” he said, nodding. “Bring the twins, too. I want a report on how they handle themselves in… different sorts of situations.”