16 Rich
I don’t have to ask if Kimber’s mad when I finally get to her house.
There was a massive accident on the highway that delayed things for an extra fifteen minutes, so I hit rush hour traffic too.
Russell told me that Emilio and Laci left a while ago, so I’m surprised to see them leaning on his truck in the parking lot as I pull in.
Getting out of the car, I eye them. Laci looks more annoyed than he does, tossing his keys between his hands. “You two haven’t left yet?”
“We were on our way out,” Emilio says, reaching into the truck to grab something. The driver's door is open, and when he moves I can see the gun tucked into his side. I didn’t even consider that Kimber might see that if he showed up.
Then again… does it matter? Emilio carries all the time, and so do a few of the other guards at the club.
When he turns back there’s a thick yellow envelope in his hands that he tosses to me. I frown as I catch it, flipping it over to read the front, written in black sharpie. Murderer.
Without a word I dig into the envelope and pull out a stack of papers. It takes a moment to realize that it’s court documents. I only have to look at the top for a moment to recognize the name, and my eyes snap back to Emilio’s questioning gaze.
Brynne Kimber Aldridge. She’s listed as the defendant. I shove the papers back in, without reading anything else, still glaring at the couple.
“I didn’t realize Kimber had legal problems,” Emilio says slowly.
“Did you read these? I ask.
“Well I did want to know if the Murderer mail belonged to Kimber,” he tells me dryly. “But she didn’t want us in there, so we hung around waiting for you. Russell said it would be better if you handed it to her.”
I scoff, but to be honest, it’s not like I’m going to hide it from her either. My hand clenches across the envelope, making me wonder who the hell dropped it off here. It wasn’t mailed; someone was at her apartment.
“Well I didn’t read it,” Laci says, uncrossing her legs to stand straight. She balances easily on the uneven concrete, cocking her head as she raises her eyebrows at me. “But I do know two kick ass attorneys. Does Kimber need one of those? Because she sure as shit didn’t want to see me.”
Wincing, I nod. David was already on my mind to talk to, stewing in thoughts about Kimber.
From the way she spoke, I kind of thought most of the court side was resolved, at least as far as she was concerned.
Now I’m not so sure, and it sets my teeth on edge thinking about someone creeping around the halls of her apartment and leaving messages like this for her to find.
She’s torn up about the POS she killed, and as far as I’m concerned he deserved it.
“Why did you think she’d want a girls day again?” Laci snaps, drawing my attention once more. “She looked horrified when we showed up. You didn’t think to give her a warning that you went and picked out some friends for her?”
I bite my tongue before I snap at her. “No. Kimber may have backed out, and I wanted her to be able to do something relaxing and nice for herself.”
Laci looks between us, shaking her head. “If she wants friends, she can come talk to me. Or maybe Anita is more what she needs. I don’t know, Rich. She passed out after staring at me for a while. What’s up with that?”
Meeting Emilio’s gaze, he subtly shakes his head. I glanced at the paperwork enough to know that Jonah was listed, but if Laci didn’t read it, she doesn’t know. I don’t know if she has any idea he might be involved in something heinous with Kimber at all.
“Well,” she goes on, and I drag my gaze back to her, “while you two make secret eyes at each other, I’m getting in the truck. Milo, give me the keys. I want the heated seats.”
I think it’s hot, but I’m not about to try and argue with Laci. She’s another person I barely know at the club, and she seems intense. If she wants the heated seats, she can have the heated seats.
“Something happened with Jonah?” Emilio asks, keeping his voice low as Laci rounds then disappears into the truck with a slam of the door.
He’s several inches taller than I am, and is one of the tallest people I’ve seen consistently at Sins.
I glare up at him, meeting his dark gaze.
“I didn’t read what the pages say, I just saw their names on it. ”
My jaw ticks. We shouldn’t even have this. Kimber is the only one who has any business with her own court papers, and I still don’t really want to hand this over. “It’s not my place to say.”
Emilio narrows his eyes, studying me. “You know, I met Jonah a while back. He used to be a dick to Laci. If it is the same Jonah, and I kind of think it is, he’s an asshole. What happened to him?”
Maybe he didn’t read it after all. Licking my lips, I glance away. “He’s dead.”
A beat passes between us. “Did… did Kimber-”
“You have to ask her,” I say tightly, and I get the feeling, given how this is going, that he won’t. “Did you two just run away?”
He shrugs. “Kimber has a grudge against Laci I think. Or maybe Laci has a grudge against her, it’s hard to tell. Who knows. It could have to do with Jonah.”
I’m definitely going to dig into that later, but right now I have other things to do. “Yeah, maybe.”
Emilio looks at me once more before he turns, and I’m jogging across the parking lot without looking back. At this point, I think Kimber might lose her mind when I finally do get upstairs, and I’m still stewing over too many things when I get up to her apartment and bang on the door.
Russell opens it seconds later, holding the cat that I met last time. He gives me a smirk, wiggling his eyebrows as I walk in. “I’m the favorite.”
“You are not the favorite,” Kimber calls, and as I walk into the apartment I realize that Anita’s standing with her in the kitchen, and they appear to be studying one of her cabinets.
It takes all of two seconds to realize why. There’s a lot of bottles of alcohol in there, and I can see how packed it is as the front door closes. A glass sits on the counter, and Anita’s slowly destroying her lip as she chews on it and looks between the cabinet and Kimber.
For her part, Kim seems to be glaring down at the glass. I’m kind of surprised she opened the cabinet up at all with company over, and it takes her several moments before she finally looks over at me.
Blowing out a breath, she sounds more tired than angry when she speaks. “This is all your fault.”
“Yes it is,” Russell agrees, moving to stand beside me. He’s grinning, and I think he’s having way too fun with this. “Good job inviting a bunch of people to your girlfriend's apartment without her knowledge. What an ice breaker for your relationship.”
“We’re not dating,” Kim snaps.
He chuckles, and when I shoot him a glare he’s busy wiggling his eyebrows. I think things would be fine if he and Emilio hadn’t shown up and the girls had stayed. “Yet.”
She groans, turning back to Anita. “I appreciate your concern and everything about my health, Doc, but this is my house. My rules. I’ve had a really weird afternoon and I need something to take the edge off.”
Anita uncomfortably looks at the counter.
She’s someone else I don’t know well, and really, this whole thing happened because Russell and Tyson are pretty much friends with everyone.
I knew Anita was a doctor, because things just kind of become common knowledge when people are open with their professions at a place like Sins.
“It’s just… it looks like you take the edge off a lot. ”
Eyeing the mostly empty bottles, and the one I can see sitting in her trash, I have to agree. These aren’t little bottles like the ones I saw her slam at the cabin. Some of them are handles, most of the contents gone, and she has everything from cheap to expensive liquors lining the shelves.
“Rich is here now, Lifeline,” Russell says, bending to put the cat down. “Let these two fight it out. Seems like they have all sorts of things to talk about.”
Anita takes the que, holding up her hands. “Yeah, sure. It was… interesting spending time with you, Kimber.”
She scowls. “Let’s not do this again anytime soon.”
The two of them leave, the cat nearly chasing Russell as they go. The doors barely closed before she’s fisting the neck of a bottle and pulling it from the shelf, prepared to pour herself something strong but cheap. I can smell it when she twists off the top.
I move quickly, placing my hand over the top of the glass before she can pour. Kimber hisses, her blue eyes darting to me as she snarls. “Move. Your. Fucking. Hand.”
Instead, I hold up the yellow envelope. Turning it over, I show her the Murderer across the front and set it on the counter in front of her.
Her eyes widen, and she stares down like it might bite her. Tossing the lid away, she tips the bottle bag and takes two big chugs of the thing before I can wrestle it out of her grip. That’s the opposite of what I was going for.
She lets the bottle go easier than I expect, turning to open the envelope. It tears in her haste, and she rips out the papers before dropping it altogether. I didn’t remove the stack the first time, and now that it’s free I notice something about the pages.
There’s black sharpie across the court documents, like someone circled everything that mattered to them.
The first thing my eyes lock on is the word whore scrawled across the first page, and as she begins to rapidly flip through that seems to be the trend.
There’s little jabs and slurs all over the court paperwork that someone spent the time to add to every page.
Her eyes mist as she flips, dropping one stapled stack of papers as she moves to the next.
She’s flipping quicker, and I don’t know if she’s even paying attention to what she’s looking at anymore.
Frantic eyes dart across every page, and I bend down to collect the papers she dropped as she keeps fanning through.