Chapter Eleven
W iping blood from my hand , I watched from my new position across the street as the three black motorcycles exited the parking lot. All Ninjas, all without plates.
I pulled out after them and catalogued the ways I knew how to dump a body without it coming back on me. The variable was the festival. Heightened police presence all over the city, an extra seventy thousand people on the streets, congested traffic—none of my dump sites would work.
I was out of options.
Needing help, I called Ty.
Four rings. Voice mail. Canned voice. I hung up and dialed the main number for work.
The new kid, Thomas, answered on the first ring. “Luna and Associates.”
He should’ve known it was me. “It’s Preston, did you not see my number?” The motorcycles pulled into another parking lot for the festival.
“No, I saw it, but you called the main number,” Thomas answered cheerfully before turning serious. “And you never call. So I didn’t know if you were, you know, in trouble or something.” He emphasized the two words in trouble .
“I’m never in trouble.” Trouble implied loss of options. I glanced toward the back of the vehicle as I drove past the entrance to the parking lot and pulled onto the grass shoulder where other cars were illegally parked.
Worst-case scenario, I could lift a clean vehicle, avoid street cams and dump the body at an ER, using Luna and Associates resources to temporarily scramble the outside security feeds. But I didn’t want to do that unless I had to.
Thomas laughed. “I can see that.” His voice sobered. “So what do you need? Somebackup? Me to come join you? Help with a client?” Papers rustled. “I don’t see you on the schedule tonight though.”
I ignored his questions and his eagerness. “Where’s Ty?”
“He was off today. Something I can help you with?”
Saturday night and Ty wasn’t working or answering his phone. That left one place where he’d most likely be, and I couldn’t drag the problem in the back of the vehicle there. Not until I could neutralize it. A few seconds to kill as I waited for the bikes to clear the parking lot, I decided to warn the kid. “That’s going to get you killed.”
Silence. Then, “What?”
“Don’t always be willing to help anyone and everyone.” The three bikes met back at the entrance of the lot and paused. One of the men lifted his face shield an inch and gestured to the other two as he said something I couldn’t hear.
“Oh, that’s what you meant.” Thomas gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Well, good thing you’re not anyone and everyone. It’s my job to help you.”
It was Thomas’s job to answer the phone, keep track of the schedules, man the front lobby and, if he was smart, stay vigilant. All of which could be summed up in two adjectives. “Stoic and attentive.” The lead biker dropped his face shield and pulled out of the parking lot first.
“Okay.” Thomas drew the word out.
The two other bikes followed, but then one of the bikers cut back toward the venue. “Eagerness will get you killed.”
Thomas chuckled. “Good to know. So, see you tomorrow?”
The smooth transition into getting me off the phone was almost enough to make me respect him. “You should know the answer to that.” I hadn’t missed a day since I’d started working for Luna and Associates.
“Right. See you—”
I hung up and glanced in the rearview mirror at the one biker heading back toward the festival before I pulled out and followed the two bikes that were heading toward downtown. Unlike when the one bike had followed me, the two motorcyclists weren’t weaving in and out of traffic or speeding. Falling in line with the stream of traffic, driving side by side, they scanned cars they passed, but they drove sedately.
Four car lengths behind them, I followed them for twelve minutes before they pulled up behind a club and got off their bikes. Slowing my SUV, I watched as they threw down the kickstands, got off the bikes without glancing around at their surroundings and walked to the back entrance of the club without taking their helmets off.
The rear door was opened before they knocked, and they disappeared inside.
I circled the block and parked across the street in a closed restaurant’s parking lot.
Twenty-two minutes later they still hadn’t come out.
I turned the engine over and drove to Ty’s.
No lights on, the house and garage dark, I pulled in to the driveway and scanned the street and my mirrors before getting out of the SUV. Learning my lesson years ago, I left nothing to chance anymore. I looked through the window in the side door to his garage.
His truck wasn’t there.
Glancing at my watch, I got back in the SUV.
Past dinnertime on a Saturday, I knew where he’d be. Two things I could always count on about Ty—he was predictable, and he was quick to pull the trigger. Both invaluable traits. And pulling the trigger created an aftermath that required follow-through on that skill. Ty knew how to make bodies disappear.
Reversing out of his driveway, telling myself it wasn’t an excuse to see her, I drove to his sister’s house.