Epilogue
Gemini
Leaving her during this critical time is pulling me in the opposite direction of where I need to be headed.
There’s an anger simmering within me because my day started out so well and now it’s gone to shit.
The last thing I want is for Sutton’s memory of our first time together to be overshadowed by what happened to her best friend.
Yet, I know it has been and that bothers me more than I want to examine right now.
“She’s going to be fine, Gem,” Orion says as we walk out of the sliding glass doors and head over to our rides.
“Who are you referring to?” I ask him. “Skippy or Sutton?”
“Both,” he rumbles. “They’ll both be okay.” His words dip into a whisper by the time he wraps up his statement.
“Is there something going on between you and her that we’re unaware of?
” I ask, knowing something’s been eating at him, but he hasn’t come to us to talk about it.
Which is odd, we tell each other everything—well, almost everything.
But usually, he’s a blabbermouth when it comes to his conquests, which tells me if there is something happening between them behind the scenes, she means more to him than a simple hook-up.
“It’s complicated, Gem,” he answers.
“Well, uncomplicate it, Orion,” I order. “If it affects Skippy, then in a roundabout way, it affects Sutton. And since she’s my old lady, it rebounds back onto me.”
“My personal life doesn’t affect you, Gem,” he harrumphs, straddling his bike. I’m not touching that because it most certainly does affect me more than he’s admitting. However, right now, he’s tied up in his feelings and isn’t seeing all sides of the situation.
“Orion, you know you can come to me about anything without judgment, right?”
“You’re so full of shit, Gem. Y’all see me as nothing more than a class clown. Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”
“We don’t laugh at you, Orion. We laugh with you. If you don’t make a joke out of it, then we won’t either,” I retort.
“My entire life feels like nothing less than a joke, Gem. If I don’t make things lighthearted, then everything falls into a steaming pile of shit and I’m not a fan of walking on landmines.”
“Then walk over them instead of through them, cuz. Just keep in mind, we’re here for you, no matter what.”
He gives me a side-eyed look before revving his engine.
I guess this conversation is done and over with, at least on his end.
I plan on pestering him until he spills the beans because he can’t continue living like this.
His moods are all over the place and once his plate becomes too full and spills over, nobody will be safe from his wrath.
Orion comes across as playful, but he’s also got another side to him, one that is hard to control once he loses his temper.
I’ve seen him take on a cluster of men when one of them does something he doesn’t approve of or badmouths him or his family.
When that happens, there’s no reckoning with him. He gets lost in a red haze of anger.
He rolls his wrist at me, growing impatient with me as I sit here and ruminate over his different personalities.
I start my Harley up and lead him out of the parking lot.
It’s time to meet up with Mercury and see what he’s managed to find out.
I have every faith in him that he’s managed to finagle information out of law enforcement so that he can start his own investigation.
One thing is for sure—his background in tracking combined with his analytical mind will ensure that we get to the bottom of what’s going on.
Because not only do the other families need answers, but Skippy deserves justice.
And we’re the men who are gonna make that happen.
* * *
“What do we know?” I ask Mercury.
We went to the site only to find out he had been and gone.
The message we got while there was to meet him back at the house, which is where we’re at now, crowded around the monitors that Orbit already has set up.
Several are running what I presume is code, although I couldn’t tell you what he’s searching since that’s not in my wheelhouse.
“I’m questioning the integrity of our police department,” he tells me as we watch Orbit’s fingers fly across his keyboard. He’s moving so fast it’s hard to track him.
“The reason for that is?” I ask, leaving my question open-ended.
“They were squirrelly,” he answers, his eyes scanning from left to right on Orbit’s monitor as letters and numbers flash across it.
“Care to expound on that?” I probe, because that’s a broad statement.
“I asked the normal, pertinent questions, ones that are easily answered without giving away the investigation, and they rocked from one side to the other and refused to look me in the eyes.”
“So they either know more than what they’re saying or they’re somehow involved,” I conclude, my brain going through all possibilities. “What does your gut say, Merc?”
“It says they’re knee deep in this,” he conveys. “They may not be part of the hunting parties, but they know who is and they’re covering these fucker’s tracks.”
I toss my hands up in the air and growl, “Sonofabitch!”
“It’s deeper than you guys think it is,” Orbit mumbles, which has Orion leaning over his shoulder, his eyes penetrating our tech’s. “Dude, personal space.”
“I’ll give you personal space once you tell us what the fuck you’ve uncovered,” Orion says, seething.
Orbit leans back in his chair, trying to put some distance between himself and our furious SAA.
“It’s mostly Montana involved, they’re keeping things in house so to speak.
But I’m talking, the Chief of police, as well as members of the department, the state senator, the governor, a few judges, the list is endless, man,” Orbit announces.
“But here’s the kicker, they have a person good enough to rival me on their side. ”
“So they’re covering their digital tracks too,” Mercury muses. “You said almost as good, but not better, right?”
“Fuck no they’re not,” Orbit brags. “He or she thinks they are, and I’m gonna let them believe that until I’ve dug deeper and uncovered all of their secrets.”
“Is that what you’re doing now?” I ask, pointing at the monitors that have the numbers and letters constantly going.
“Yep,” he replies. “One of my searches is going through financials, another is digging for missing persons, and that one there is doing a deep dive on every single person in the local police department. By the time it’s finished, we’ll know where all their skeletons are located, as well as how many times a day they take a shit. ”
“I don’t need to know when the fuckers blow their noses,” Orion grates out.
“But I do want to know about every member of their family, I want to know how far back this organization goes. This isn’t something they started over night, it’s been building for years.
They’re too coordinated for it to have begun in the last few years. ”
A thought pops into my head and I ask, “Can we check the gun stores to find out who has purchased the guns that were used once we have an idea of what to look for? And with the arrows, are we able to determine if they’re specially made or run of the mill?”
Orbit jots down my requests while nodding.
“Got it, pres. I’ll start those once we have info on what was used on your woman’s friend.
They may be hiding shit, but ballistics will be run on the bullet used, because they can’t completely fuck it up since she survived.
I suspect any other bodies out there weren’t given the same investigation. ”
“What are you saying?” Orion asks.
“That they’ll probably run a relatively clean investigation. What we need to figure out is how to get that bullet and at least one of the arrows, which should be logged into their evidence room,” Orbit replies.
“They can purposefully mislabel things and lose the evidence,” Mercury points out, which has us all freezing in place because even though we didn’t consider that, he’s right.
“That’s true, Mercury, but they don’t have me,” Orbit emphatically states, his eyes now honed in on one of his screens.
“Okay, here’s the lab where they sent the bullet and arrows,” he adds.
“Seems to me we need to get in there and snag them so we can use our own lab, which, before you say a word, I have on speed dial.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I question.
“Look, I’ve done a lot of work for a lot of different people, so I have some fucking awesome contacts and connections. Now that I’m with the Kings, I plan to utilize the ones who walk the gray line when we have a need.”
“That’s gonna cost us, I’m sure,” I mutter, dollar signs flashing behind my eyelids.
“We’ve got it to spend since I trade out with them,” Orbit says. “My expertise for theirs, in a manner of speaking.”
I mentally think about sending LoneStar a case of beer, maybe two, for his recommendation about adding Orbit to our brotherhood.
Because he might be the secret weapon we need to get the information necessary to break this thing wide open.
“Any contacts within the alphabet agencies?” I query.
“Because if the corruption is throughout the local LEOs and shit, we’re gonna need outside resources. ”
“What do you think?” Orbit jeers. “Of fucking course I have those as well, and once I have all the pertinent information needed, it’ll be forwarded, anonymously of course, to the right parties. It probably won’t be tomorrow, of course, but it will happen.”
Make that a fucking pallet. Because I know Sutton isn’t going to rest until we find out who did this to Skippy, although my bet is on that fucker, Allen Jeffries. Time will tell.
The End… for now.
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