Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Midas
All the color has bled from her face as she reaches with a shaky hand for the iced tea. She struggles with the lid, so I open it for her and hand it back.
“What was in the parcel?”
“Ah, it was a black bag filled with dead dandelions.”
She looks up at me. “The ones you sent me?”
I nod, confirming it was me.
“They went through my trash,” she summarizes.
“That’s what I thought, too, until we tipped the bag out and found what was in the bottom.”
She swallows, and I can see she doesn’t want to ask, but she does anyway. “What else was in the bag?”
“All the panties you assumed I’d taken.”
She looks a little green, gripping the counter as she tries to suck in much-needed air.
I pick her up and carry her to the sink, knowing she’s gonna puke. I hold onto her, murmuring words of support as I hold her hair back with one hand. “It’s gonna be okay, Legs. I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you, I promise.”
She cries, her tears dripping into the sink with a tiny splash, but she doesn’t make a sound.
Once I know she’s done, I take her back to the bathroom so she can brush her teeth and wash her face. “Better?”
She nods as I lead her back out to the living area. I walk her to the sofa, figuring food might set her off again. I sit on the coffee table and take her cold hands in mine.
“When the cops took me in, they wouldn’t tell me shit. I thought something had happened to you, that this fucker had snatched you, and they were wasting time fucking with me when they should have been looking for you.”
“That’s why you reacted the way you did?”
“Yeah. Never been so fucking relieved in my life to see you whole and in front of me.”
“Did you go inside my apartment?”
“No. I won’t lie and tell you I didn’t watch you sleep from the fire escape a few times on the nights I was struggling, but I never crossed that line.” Yet, I think, but don’t say. It was only going to be a matter of time.
“Someone did,” she whispers.
I squeeze her hands tighter as she looks up at me, a tear slipping down her cheek.
“Someone was inside my apartment.”
I tense, a snarl building in my chest that I just about manage to swallow down. “Start at the beginning.” My voice comes out sharper than I intended, but she’s too stuck in her own head to notice.
“I felt like I was being followed for weeks, well, months really. But I assumed it was you. The dandelions I knew were you. I could smell you, and sometimes, stupid as it sounds, I could feel you.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all. I can always tell when you’re close by, too. Shit, you wrote off the danger because of me.”
“To be fair, even if it weren’t you, I’d have assumed it was.
Plus, we women have a way of downplaying danger as paranoia because there are many times in our lives when we were just paranoid and felt stupid that we overreacted.
Then later down the line, we remember the embarrassment we felt when we got it wrong, and we stop listening to our instincts so we don’t become a nuisance.
Why do we do that? Who cares if we get it wrong six out of seven times?
Especially if that seventh time is the difference between being raped or murdered, you know? ”
“Legs,” I say softly, stopping her before she starts berating herself.
“I knew someone had been in my apartment, but I wrote it off as paranoia,” she admits. I grit my teeth so hard I hear my jaw crack.
“There was nothing really wrong, just a cup in the sink that shouldn’t have been there, and a feeling of wrongness.”
“Nothing that the police could use, and you didn’t feel comfortable calling the MC because of me.” I let go of her hands and grip my hair.
“I ignored it because I felt stupid. Then my underwear went missing, and I thought it was the guy from next door getting me back somehow. When my basket of clean washing was put outside my door, I thought it was him.” She shook her head.
“That was me. I followed you up and down, not liking you being in the basement alone when it was late. That’s when I took your thong,” I admit.
“So while you were watching me, someone was watching you and taking advantage of the openings you created.”
I grip the table, feeling like destroying the room.
“Don’t,” she says, knowing my turmoil. “Maybe you being there made things easier for them, but it also made it harder for him to get to me. Mostly.”
I cock my head. Waiting for her to explain. She bites her lip.
“How often did you watch me sleep?”
“A couple of times a week. Mostly, it was enough being next door.”
She smirks. “You killed a guy and moved into his apartment? I don’t even know what to say to that.”
I shrug. “While I was acting president, I spent more time at the clubhouse and got one of the prospects to help me clean this place up.”
“I’m guessing this other guy was watching you and knew that, which is how they were able to set up the wall of photos.”
“They probably thought they would set me up and get rid of me, leaving the path open to you.”
“Maybe. But why not just strike while they had the chance?”
“Perhaps the chance never came.”
She looks at me, and something in her gaze makes my eyes narrow. “Did you get to see many of the photos?”
“Not before the cops got there. I know they were all of you, though.”
“I knew it wasn’t my neighbor because he’s in the background of one of the photos. I wonder if that was intentional so that the police might ask questions. Could this stalker know you killed my neighbor?”
“I want to say no, but I never saw anyone following me, not even once.”
“Shit. You need to warn the MC.”
I swallow and nod. “I’ll let Havoc know after this.”
“There’s something else you need to know. One of those photos was taken of me sleeping in bed.”
I shake my head. “They copied me and used my spot on the fire escape.”
“No. The photo was taken from inside my room.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I lose my ever-loving mind.
When I come around, I’m lying on the floor with my head in Legs’s lap. She runs her fingers through my hair, whispering to me.
“What happened?” I croak out.
“You got mad and blacked out. I’m glad you uncuffed me before you trashed the place.”
I look around and groan. “Shit.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s all fixable.”
“You didn’t leave.”
“Don’t read into it. I didn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
I reach up and take her hand, sliding it down until it cups my cheek. I cover her hand with mine and stare into her eyes. “This is what I’m talking about. Why the fuck would a woman like you want to tie their star to a fuck-up like me? I could have hurt you, Legs.”
She snorts. “I’m probably the only person safe from your wrath. If you remember anything, you snapped when you realized how much danger I was actually in.”
She pulls her hand free and presses against my shoulder when I try to get up. “I have more to tell you, and I want you to stay where you are because you’re less likely to flip again while touching me.”
I let my eyes drift close and nod. “Tell me.”
“I came home yesterday from work to find my place had been broken into. The whole place had been trashed. Cushions were slashed, cupboard doors hanging off their hinges, and food was scattered all over the floor. They’d even piled my clothes on the bed and pissed on them.”
I feel myself vibrating with fury, but she strokes her fingers down my face, distracting me.
“I called Del, my boss. She came and picked me up and took me home with her. She was the one who called the police, because at that point, we didn’t know who we could trust.”
“No matter what, you can always trust me, Legs.”
“It’s not that simple, Midas. You broke my trust along with my heart. A couple of ‘I’m sorries’ don’t fix that.”
“I know.”
“Anyway, cops came. They were kinda dicks about it all. Implied it was probably my fault, given the company I keep. They sure do have a hard-on for the MC.”
“I’ll talk to Havoc about it. We have a few local cops in our pocket, but the police station we went to isn’t ours.”
“Doesn’t explain why they hate you all so much.”
“Don’t usually need a reason. Cops see things in black and white. MCs are criminals as far as they’re concerned, and that’s the end of it.”
“Anyway, I didn’t expect to hear anything else, but a few hours later, I got a call saying they’d arrested someone and wanted me to come in and see if I could ID them, and the rest, you know.”
“They told you they arrested me?”
“Not you specifically, but yeah, why?”
“Because they keep changing their fucking story, and I don’t like it. It shows either a level of incompetence or they are making deliberate moves, for which we don’t know the reason yet.”
“Well, all I know is that asshole at the precinct made it clear to me that the police will never be on my side, so I’m not holding out much hope that they’ll find this guy. What I don’t get is, why me? I’m no longer part of the MC, haven’t been for months.”
“Here, let me up. I promise I’m calm.”
She lets me go so I can sit up and tug her into my arms. She protests, but I hold her tighter.
“Shh, just let me hold you for a minute. I need this.”
She sighs but relaxes. “Maybe we’re looking at it all wrong. Originally, we assumed that Lil had picked up a stalker from the center because that’s where she experienced most of her encounters. Notes were left on her car and she was followed from there.”
She nods as I talk things through. “After that, the tone of the notes changed a little, and it made us question if the MC might be the target. And the delivery confirmed that. But does it? What if the target is club girls?”
“Why club girls though? And I’d just like to point out I’m not a club girl anymore.”
“I don’t think that matters. Plus, if he sees me following you around, he’d assume you’re, at the very least, connected to me. As for, why club girls? You’re easier to get to than old ladies, who usually have a prospect on them.”
“You need to find out if the others are having any issues.”