Chapter 4 #2
He tosses his pen down on the desk. “You weren’t joking about her gettin’ to ya. You’ve been moonin’ over her this whole time,” he states gleefully.
“Don’t start being an asshole about it now,” I grit out. “I warned you it was more of a situation.”
“I’m not startin’ anything. I’m just sayin’ that I ain’t never seen you this messed up about a one-nighter before.”
“I’m not fuckin’ messed up. Stop being dramatic. I’m not the one who came to you for help. You’re the one who practically interrogated me and offered to dig up information on her, remember?”
“Alright, brother. I’ll stop razzing you.” Turning back to his desktop, he says, “Let’s find out who this woman is.” He starts typing away at his keyboard. I wait patiently, watching him do his thing.
“The Tipsy Spirits bar has four cameras. They hold footage for ninety days as required by California law,” he explains. “I set up their security, so I don’t even have to hack anything to access their feeds.”
My mouth drops open. “That’s an amazing fuckin’ coincidence.”
Striker’s eyes lift from the computer to me. “Not really. Cedar Falls is a small town. I’m one of the few reputable digital security consultants in the area. I have forty-eight contracts with local businesses, which is about thirty percent of the businesses in town.”
“Of course, I knew you did shit like that. I just never realized you were so fuckin’ successful at it.”
“Well, I fuckin’ well am,” he mutters as windows open and close on his screen faster than I can read ‘em. Suddenly, there’s a grainy security feed of Andy, Ed, and me walking through the front door of Tipsy Spirits.
“Goddamn, Striker. I didn’t even tell you the exact day, and you found it with no messin’ about.”
“You said this happened six weeks ago and the most logical time for you to go bar hopping with a couple of prospects was the night of the break-in. I was right.”
“Yeah, bro. Don’t you ever get tired of being right all the damn time?”
He chuckles. “Never.”
Striker fast-forwards the feed. He’s moving so fast that the timestamps are a blur. He stops the feed when I’m walking out of the bar, with Nora a half step ahead of me. I remember walking her out with my hand on the small of her back.
Her bag is slung crossways over her body, and she is facing forward. He stops with a good shot of her face showing. “Is that your girl?”
“She’s not mine but that’s her,” I tell him.
He cracks his knuckles and gets to work, narrating it the way he always does, half to me and half to the screen. “Nora isn’t a common name. I’m not finding any social media presence for anyone called Nora in the Cedar Falls area. You know her friends’ names?”
“I guess I could ask Ed and Andy, but I don’t wanna let them know I’m getting’ soft over a woman,” I mutter.
Striker goes back to his computer.
“That’s strange, right? Not having an online presence. I thought everyone did nowadays, especially Gen Z.”
He’s still scrolling through social media feeds.
From what I can see he’s narrowed it down to women around her age who have public profiles and he’s scanning their friends’ lists to see if she’s on there.
He responds, “It could be something or nothing. She might be using an alias. Some people don’t like their faces all over social media and others don’t want to be found by estranged family, or abusive ex-boyfriends.
You gettin’ any vibes like that from her? ”
That’s when I remember what she said about her old man. “She told me her old man was an asshole in so many words.”
“Could be somethin’ or nothin’. Until we find evidence, we can’t assume shit.”
“What else ya got, brother?” I ask, once Striker has given up with the social media sites.
“I hacked into rideshare travel logs. They only show pickup and drop-off locations for customers. There’s a pickup showing for someone just after six the next mornin’ at the gas station less than a mile north of your place.
They were dropped four blocks short of a housing development south of town in the Kildare Hills area.
” He leans in to have a closer look, murmuring to himself, “Why does that area sound familiar?” While I watch, he says my name with quiet alarm. “Jinx. You need to see this.”
I get up and come around to look over his shoulder. “What’s going on?”
He turns to look over his shoulder at me. I can tell by the look on his face that he’s deeply concerned about whatever it is he’s found.
“That drop-off spot is three blocks from Cyrus Rivers’ house,” he says.
I freeze for a second as well, because we talked about Cyrus Rivers in our club meeting three days ago. Striker came through with intel on the Hyenas. Cyrus Rivers, club name Coal, is the club president of the Hyenas MC.
“Fuckin’ hell.” After a slight pause, I repeat Striker’s favorite phrase. “This could mean something or nothing.”
“Exactly,” Striker responds. “There are at least a thousand people who live in that area, including the club president of the Hyenas. Do you think she’s linked to them in any way?”
My best friend’s question sends a chill up my spine. I come clean with him. “I didn’t wear my cut that night because we were flying under the radar, looking for the Hyenas. She mentioned that she heard the whole club went to Sturgis.”
“She heard, not that she knew firsthand, right?”
“Right. She didn’t admit to knowing them.”
“And she didn’t know who you were, right?”
“I don’t think anybody in that bar knew who anybody else was,” I respond. It was just alcohol, music, and chaos.
“We still don’t know if she’s a club girl or a hangaround for the Hyenas, but we should probably find that out, don’t ya think?”
“Hell the fuck yes, we should. I don’t want to start making unfounded assumptions.”
We sit down and start hashing out a plan to find her.
I can’t stop thinking about what if she’s attached to their club somehow.
But then a little voice in the back of my mind assures me that no outlaw club is gonna let a beautiful woman hang around their club without having sex with any of the brothers.
They’re real assholes about things like that.