Chapter 32 Exquisite Monsters #2
To tell the truth, I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do, or how to make this better.
Years of isolation on the ranch have done jack shit for my social skills.
I spend more time watching people than interacting with them, if you can even count what I do as interacting.
Still, when I look at her, it all seems to come so naturally.
I gingerly wipe her tears away with my calloused thumb before pressing a kiss to her lips.
“Every damn word.”
I hid the car in some brush near the edge of the property, somewhere if you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t ever know it was there.
I was going to junk it and sell it for parts in a few weeks.
There’s this mean old motherfucker who works at an autobody shop about half an hour away from here.
He’ll buy almost anything, and anything he won’t take gets spread out and ditched.
Flashlights in hand, Ripley and I root through the vehicle, trying to find anything that looks like it might be a tracking device.
In under an hour we’ve already torn apart the glove box, stripped the back seats, scoured the floor, and even torn the steering wheel off, but still nothing.
I slit open the front seat, pulling out as much of the foam as I can to look for anything that could give me a clue as to how the fuck his cop found us.
We can’t stop until we have results, or this thing is nothing but a metal frame.
“I’m starting to think we should have done this in the morning,” I grumble.
Ripley snorts.
“Are you kidding me? You would have stayed up all night stewing about it.”
I glance up, catching her bright blue eyes in a flash of blinding light.
“Could’ve had a real good angry fuck though.”
She slits open the passenger seat with her knife, stripping the fabric and tossing it to the side.
“Who says we can’t?”
I grin.
That’s my girl.
I watch as she tears recklessly into the seat, going wild with her bare hands.
I’ll need to change that bandage again after this.
She’s still got a ways to go, healing-wise, and she’s not making it easier by going so rough all the time.
Every time I think about it, I’ve got to admit, cutting off your own finger is some serious dedication to the craft.
“Find anything?” She asks as she tosses some foam aside, digging in for more.
“No,” I growl. “This is starting to feel like a dead end. Let’s check the trunk.”
“I thought you said you checked it when you found all of my shit.”
“Sure, but I wasn’t looking for a hidden tracking device, now was I?”
I pop open the trunk to find it practically empty, just as we left it. Everything that was in it we already moved or destroyed: the bloodied clothes, the knife, the zip ties… anything that could connect her to Gabriel’s death or who she was.
Ripley lets out an irritated sigh as I shine the flashlight around the empty space.
“Okay, well it was worth a shot. I’ll get under the—”
“No.”
I scan the space, slowly dragging the light across the back of the trunk until I spot a small black tab sticking up from the very back corner. My gut told me there was a chance.
“And bingo was his name-o.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ripley asks, flashing the light back onto me.
I grin, pulling the tab with a grunt until the entire bottom comes loose. Buried in the darkness underneath is a large green duffel bag. Not exactly what I was expecting, but…
I open it up and my goddamn jaw almost hits the dirt.
“Holy shit,” Ripley whispers.
Stacks upon stacks of cash.
This is what they’re looking for. This is why they think she’s still alive.
I start digging through it, and of course, at the very bottom of the bag, I find a fucking cellphone. Looks like one of those older Nokia bricks from the early 2000s.
It’s dead, but it might not have been when I dragged the car over here in the first place.
“Fuck.”
There’s no doubt in my mind the cop would have been able to ping cell towers in the area, and triangulate her location. At the very least, he’d know to look in the only place with a living soul in a ten mile radius.
“What?” Ripley asks. “What is it?”
If he was using a police computer to search for this, if this is official business, we’re up shit creek without a paddle. I have to hold out hope that he’s doing all of this for someone else, and that it’s all under the table.
“That’s your tracking device, probably just took our cop friend a while to figure out the exact location.
My guess is Gabriel was planning on having the cash, along with you, delivered as an apology before he got the hell out of dodge.
The phone was an insurance policy to ensure it got where it was going. ”
Ripley stares at the duffel bag for a moment, and I can see the fury building behind her eyes. The next thing I know, she’s kicking in the tail light with one foot, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Fucking Gabriel! You stupid fuck!”
I let her rage, soaking it all in as she continues to kick at the car, making dent after dent in the fender, the trunk, and all over the back. When she’s finally finished, she stumbles backward, her chest heaving and her cheeks aflame.
“Alright. Alright. So what do we do now?”
For the first time in my goddamn life, I have no fuckin’ idea.
But I do know there are only two people in this world I can trust, and one of them is 10 seconds away from a full-on meltdown.
“It’s time to call Raphael.”