Chapter 21 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
I double checked the slip of paper I’d written the address on so I wouldn’t forget it.
This was definitely the place. The small L-shaped shopping plaza near the northern ridge of Thorn Valley had already emptied for the night.
Only a single car remained in the lot, an older model Ford truck with rust around the wheel wells and a cracked side-mirror.
I really had no idea what I would find here, but this was the break I’d been waiting for.
After Grey left the ladies room, I locked the door behind him and prayed his phone wasn’t solely fingerprint enabled or I would need a lot more time, and a computer, to bypass it.
I almost had a panic attack when it came up with the print scanner, but swiping across the screen brought up an alternative option. Not a code, but the option to draw a password shape.
I couldn’t make out the finger smudges, so that was out. I had three tries before it locked me out and he’d know it was messed with. It’d been a hot minute since my pickpocketing days, but I still remembered the three most common shapes.
Grey didn’t strike me as a basic bitch, so I threw out the first two options and went straight for the third. A simple enough swipe path, but not so common that just anyone would be able to get in. I got in on the first motherfucking try.
I wondered if Rook’s or Corvus’ phones would be equally simple to break into, but once I was inside of Grey’s, I realized the reason it wasn’t as protected as I assumed it would’ve been.
It wasn’t a burner. Not exactly. But it was clear they did change phones semi-regularly. There were only three numbers stored in the device. Corvus. Rook. Diesel.
Every other call came in as an unknown number.
And aside from a few useless messages between Grey and Corvus (it was obvious he wiped the phone clean daily) there was absolutely nothing save for a single text message from an unknown number that was sent to all three of them.
Unknown
Billy Parker. Strike Two. 2248 Fletcher Street, Unit 4. He works late. Doesn’t get home until after midnight on Fridays. Accept?
The only reply was a single word from Rook in the group chat.
Rook
Accept.
That was it.
I had a date and an address. A place where they were going to be tonight. I wasn’t sure who Billy Parker was, but I was glad I wasn’t him.
Strike two?
I had to assume it was something to do with a debt owed to the Saints.
That they were going to collect or take payment in blood.
If I could get something on camera, then maybe it would be enough to buy my freedom.
Or at least, it would be a good start. I had no illusions that they wouldn’t just as easily kill me if I tried to blackmail them, but if they took me down I’d make sure whatever footage I had of them went absolutely viral.
Dom once explained to me how to do that, because this one time the Kings did it to her dad.
They blackmailed him with footage of Dom getting double teamed by two college guys at a frat party she’d snuck into.
They told him exactly what they were going to do with the little movie they bought from the two dickwads at Theta Kappa Nu. Down to the minute details.
Dom never forgot because dear ’ol dad never let her live it down.
Her father saw to it that they got off on all charges like they asked, even though the mess they’d gotten themselves into should have wiped them off the face of the planet.
Fucking gangs.
I’d offered to castrate the little fucklets for their crimes, but Dom made me promise not to, something about not wanting me involved.
I crept around the back of the building, careful not to be seen. A single security camera watched over the parking lot from the southern corner of the plaza. Easy to stay out of view. Around back, in the wide alley between the plaza and a closed down pharmacy were the back entrances to each shop.
Big green dumpsters lined the alley opposite the back doors. There were no windows back here. None at all. No cameras, either. Fuck.
How the hell was I supposed to see what was going on inside without straight up peeping into the front window?
I settled next to one of the dumpsters, wrinkling my nose at the smell, but at least I was out of direct sight here, tucked away in the shadows.
The text message from the unknown number insinuated that Billy Parker would be here until midnight. It was just past eleven now. No sign of the Crows.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I quickly drew it out and tapped the side button to silence the sound. The screen flashed with two messages.
Becca
Hey, you asleep? Want to watch bad horror movies and get high?
Kit
Are you ever going to call me back?
Stage four clinger alert.
I swiped ignore on Kit’s message for the moment, re-upping my promise to myself to get back to both him and Dom ASAP. Knowing that might not happen for a while. I really was complete and utter shit at being a friend.
Ava Jade
Out for a run, sorry. Raincheck?
I didn’t wait for a reply, toggling my phone to silent and slipping it back in my pocket. I didn’t run twelve fucking miles out to this sketchy ass plaza all the way on the other end of town for nothing. I was getting in there. One way or another.
Resolving to check the front again for a good vantage point, I stood only to drop back to a crouch as the door at the back of Parker and Sons burst open.
I tucked myself into the shadows, the cool nip of the metal trash bin biting even through my long sleeve black shirt and joggers.
“I can’t tonight,” a man said, speaking over a garbled voice on the other end of a call. He chucked a bottle into the bin I was hidden beside and it shattered. The smell of stale beer wafted to me on the cool breeze.
“All right, all right. Look man, borrow the truck, I’ll leave the keys under the visor, but if you score, I want a cut.”
A pause.
“Be back by midnight. You walking over?”
Another pause.
“All right. Yeah, yeah, I’m going.”
Keys jangled, and Billy Parker cursed as he dropped his phone and fumbled to pick it up, angrily striding around the back of the other shops toward the parking lot at the front.
The instant he was out of sight I sprinted across the alley to the door he exited and stepped through into the dimly lit shop.
The space was narrow. At the front, a long bank of refrigerated displays poured their blue-tinted light toward the front window.
That must have been the ambient light I was seeing from outside.
Nearer to the back, to the right of where I stood, was a large structure built into the wall.
I crept to the front of it and found the door slightly ajar, leaking icy air out into the main shop.
A side of beef hung from a hook in the ceiling, all vivid red meat and yellowed fat and bone.
Several stainless-steel shelves held long slices of aging beef along the back wall.
More hooks dangled from the metal sliders in the ceiling, waiting to hold more mangled cow bits for Billy Parker to cut down to size.
Okay, think Ava…
Kicking myself into gear, I rushed for the front counter, digging in a low shelf between two display cases until I found what I was looking for.
I began folding down a paper bag, my fingers working deftly until I was left with a good size chunk of paper.
Peering over the display cases, I could see Billy Parker slamming his truck door shut to make his way back inside.
I let out a breath of relief when he veered left across the lot, going around the back of the plaza to the rear entrance.
Once he was out of sight, I hopped the counter and unlocked the front door, stuffing the wad of paper into the lock slot. There were no bells or anything else I’d have to worry about. If I needed to make a quick getaway, I should be able to slip out undetected through the front.
I padded to the right of the display case and sank into a crouch in the nook between the edge of the case and the wall just as the back door banged back open and Billy re-entered the shop.
The exhaust fan from the display case pumped warm air around my ankles, but at least the soft noise of it would mute any sound from my shuffling feet as I maneuvered myself into place.
From where I crouched, facing the back of the shop, I could see the rear entrance door and the door to the massive walk-in cooler.
If the Crows tried to come in through the front, I might be seen, but if they went around back I would be safely hidden from view by the metal cart piled with stickers and pre-cut butcher paper in front of me.
I was banking a lot on them taking the back entrance.
And this was only going to work if they attacked Billy Parker here in his shop. If they waited for him to leave to snatch him then this whole thing was just a total waste of my fucking time.
But it was the first bit of useful information I’d gotten. It would have been idiotic of me not to at least try . The Crows poked the wrong fucking bear and they would see what happened when the bear hit back no matter how long it took me.
A taste of their own medicine wouldn’t kill them.
They tried to blackmail me first, after all.
The wait was longer than I hoped. Twice, Billy wandered too close to the front of the shop, taking breaks from sawing apart the massive cut of beef hanging in his cooler.
Twice, I’d had to disappear into a tiny ball of black fabric and dark hair to avoid being seen.
If he wasn’t at least six beers deep, there was a good chance he’d have spotted me by now.
The guy liked to talk to himself, I’d learned. Though maybe mutter was a more accurate word since I couldn’t really tell what he was saying beyond a word here and there. Something about little bitches and that hoe.