Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Logic told me to go to the police. To tell them about the sounds, the signs of a struggle, the blood on the floor, the men I’d seen and heard, the threat on my whiteboard.
But aside from the whiteboard, I had no proof of… anything. And I imagined the whiteboard could be brushed off as just some neighbor who thought I was watching their comings and goings or something.
This was an area that had a lot of real crimes going on almost right under the police’s nose. They wouldn’t appreciate me bothering them without proof.
Besides, I wouldn’t have to be involved at all if Mr. Booth found what I found in the apartment.
I just had to be patient.
I sat all day, fiddling with sketches for Zayn’s commission because it was silly and fun, nothing that required a lot of concentration on my part as I waited for what felt like ages before I finally heard a knock on the door a floor above mine.
“7D?” Mr. Booth called. “7D, open up. Got a call about some noises,” he called, and I couldn’t help but wonder if his voice was always so loud or if I was just being hyperaware. “I’m coming in,” he called, and I heard a jingle of keys.
Then I heard footsteps walking into the apartment, then back out.
A slam.
Footsteps retreating.
But not… hurried.
Before I could even consider what I was doing, I rushed out of my apartment, taking the elevator down to the main level where I could ‘just so happen’ to run into Mr. Booth again and casually ask if he’d dropped in yet.
“6D,” he said, looking taken aback at seeing me at the mailboxes.
“Oh, hey again, Mr. Booth. Long day, huh?” I asked.
“They usually are,” he said, nodding.
“Did you get in touch with 7D?” I asked.
“No one was there,” he said, shrugging it off. “Maybe you heard noises from another apartment,” he said, turning and walking off.
“Maybe,” I agreed, watching him retreat.
There was no way he would be acting so casual if he’d seen what I’d seen, right?
What the hell was going on?
Before I could talk myself out of it, I was taking the elevator back up to a floor above mine, rushing down the hallway, and reaching for the doorknob, praying it wasn’t locked or I was going to need to look up how to pick a lock to get answers.
But the knob turned effortlessly in my hand.
My heartbeat was pounding in my ears as I moved inside where I couldn’t be seen.
And I stood there, stomach twisting and turning.
The chair was set neatly by the desk. His headphones were set on top of their stand. Some of the wrappers and cans were missing.
More than that, though, the big bloodstain on the floor was gone.
My gaze lingered on the spot, feeling like the ground had been pulled out from under me.
Had it just been a stain? Any old stain? Not blood?
Could I have missed 7D moving around his apartment, cleaning up not only the mess the men had made when they’d tossed the place, but also the chair and headphones?
Was I being paranoid?
Maybe the guys paid a visit just to rough him up. And I’d imagined all the stuff about the men carrying out a body.
I slid back into the hallway, feeling shaky.
But the fear this time had a lot less to do with the fate of my neighbor and the scary guys with their scribbled threats.
And a hell of a lot more to do with my own damn sanity.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Levee
“How’d it go?” Huck asked as Alaric, Kylo, Coast, and I made our way into the kitchen.
Eddie had been and gone, judging by the array of plates sitting on the counter with aluminum foil on top. Though Mackie had climbed down off of his cage, found his way up the island, and was trying to punch holes in said foil while muttering under his breath to himself.
“Oh, give the poor bird some food already,” Kylo said, moving over to the island to find some pasta. He grabbed some, the bird, and brought both back to the cage.
“It was good,” I told Huck. “Riff and Coach scored more than we did. But you said we don’t have that many requests right now anyway,” I said.
“Did you drop them off?” he asked.
Back in the day, the club used to keep the guns at the clubhouse. Once the older guys started settling down and having kids, though, they seemed to want to put as much distance between themselves and the guns as possible.
No one wanted to get locked up. But I imagined that was double so for a parent.
So for a while now, we’d been storing the guns in a facility that had been secured thanks to our hacker friend Arty getting into the system and creating a fake account with fake names and IDs. There was one of those refillable gift cards on the account to pay it with.