Chapter Nineteen
Lula
I allowed one day.
One day of eating delicious, soft, awful-for-me food while lounging in pajamas and watching movies I pretended to object to but was actually charmed by.
But the questions nagged at me.
About Drake, his past, his current movements, anything else that Arty might have found out about him.
I’d never been good at staying still, at wondering. I liked movement. I liked knowing.
“I sense you’re about two minutes away from demanding I call Arty,” Raff said as he handed me a warm coffee. My gum felt fine, but he was being extra careful about what I ate and drank until I could get in to see my dentist back in Shady Valley.
It was sweet.
And I was entirely too charmed by it.
“You know me well,” I agreed.
“We could call Arty. Or you could have a spa day and eat a giant ice cream sundae.”
“You’re a bad influence. But, no. I don’t need more pampering. I need answers.”
“I’d argue you deserve both, but fine. I’ll get in touch with him.”
“Do you think Drake is still in town?”
Raff glanced up from his phone. “He’d be stupid if he was. Unless he was in the middle of a con, I think he would have headed out as soon as his hitman didn’t check in.”
“How do you think he found out about us being here?”
“We didn’t exactly keep a low profile. It could have been as simple as him seeing you. Or maybe Arty triggered something by looking into him.”
“We have more questions than answers right now.”
“Yeah, but we also have more history, which is helpful to understand Drake. Or at least it helps you feel less alone.”
That was fair.
It felt worse to think I was the only person to fall for his schemes. If dozens of people over many years did as well, it wasn’t about me. He was just good at what he did.
“Do you want Arty to come here, or do you want to venture out?”
My hand went to move toward my throat before I forced it to lower back down again.
Raff was right; there was no reason for me to be embarrassed about what happened to me. But I didn’t necessarily want to deal with people shooting me weird looks either.
“If he doesn’t mind coming here, I’d rather that.”
“Done,” he said, shooting off another text.
“Does he know about what happened?”
“Yeah. One of the guys got in touch with him after, just so he knew what was going down.”
“Is he in danger? If his research triggered some kind of flag?”
“I doubt it. Arty has done digging on much more dangerous people without getting himself in too much trouble. The chance that Drake is the one to bring him down is low.”
“Okay. Good. I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“Arty is pretty protected.”
“By the club?”
“Yes. And he’s really tight with this guy Booker. He does private security.”
“That’s good. You made him sound like a strong breeze could blow him over.”
“Him and his twenty-five coffee cups on his desk,” Raff agreed. “Okay,” he said when his phone dinged. “Arty is on his way over. Don’t panic,” he said when I shot out of my seat. “You look gorgeous as you are.”
I leveled him a look before rushing off to the bedroom.
Teddy had supplied me with a few days’ worth of pajamas, but he’d also included a couple of outfits for leaving the penthouse.
I slipped into an athleisure set in black then made my way into the bathroom to add some oil to my hair to hydrate the curls so they had a little more definition to the ringlets.
I had no makeup, so after brushing my teeth, I made my way out into the main area to find Raff speaking to a tall, lanky guy with dark, somewhat unkempt hair, a messenger bag, and a to-go coffee dangling from his fingers.
“There she is,” Raff said, shooting one of those disarming smiles in my direction. “Arty, this is Lula. Lula, Arty.”
Arty turned, gave me an awkward nod, then clutched his messenger bag like it was killing him to interact with people for just a few minutes.
I didn’t know a lot of these guys, but the general stereotype was that they preferred to be at home with their computers more than in the wild with other human beings.
“Nice to meet you,” I told him, getting an awkward little no in response.
“I was just asking Arty about the murder. He was telling me that the cops suspected Drake almost from the jump because the woman kept a detailed journal. The problem was—”
“He had a fake identity,” I supplied.
“Yeah,” Arty said.
“Where was this?”
“Nevada.”
“Recently?”
“Not long before he probably showed up in Shady Valley.”
So, he’d murdered a woman then came right to me?
“Why is he in Florida?” I asked.
“This is where his father is in prison. And he’s been sick.”
“What about the hitman angle?” Raff piped in. “Do we know if he met him online, in person, how he might have come across him?”
“I don’t have that. But I do have the hitman’s rap sheet. It wouldn’t be hard for someone looking to know this would be an easy person to get to do your dirty work for you.”
“Do you have any idea if Drake is still here or if he’s skipped town?”
“I think Drake must travel by car or some kind of public transit. I can’t find any information about him getting on a plane. Your guess is as good as mine on that.”
So, basically, he could be anywhere. A few blocks away. Already on his way to a new town, a new pool of potential victims.
“Not really my place, but why are you trying to confront him? If the motivation is your money, he’s probably already stuck it in a digital wallet, so it’s untraceable.”
I shared a blank look with Raff.
“Explain your point like you’re talking to two people who go outside and talk to other people.”
Arty’s lips curved ever so slightly at that.
“If you want your money, find his digital wallet, get it hacked, and steal it back.”
“That’s… possible? I thought digital wallets were secure. That’s kind of the point, right?” I asked.
To that, Arty shrugged. “Everything with banking is secure. But people are stupid.”
“Again, I spend my free time partying and fucking. You’re gonna need to be more specific,” Raff said.
“Hacking isn’t like the movies. Most things can’t simply be broken into. It happens. But it takes a long time. Years, sometimes. It’s complicated. People aren’t. They believe anything that looks halfway legitimate.”
“You’re saying to work some kind of phishing scheme?” I asked.
No, I was no expert on them. But I was forever warning the Murphy brothers never to click links in their emails because they could be letting eyes in on their phones and computers.
“Exactly,” Arty said, nodding. “Conmen usually think they’re smarter than everyone else, so they don’t think they can fall for a scam. That works in your favor.”
Something small and bright started in my chest. It felt dangerously close to hope.
Could it be that simple?
He clicks the wrong link, someone gets in, gets my money, and gives it back to me?
Could my life really be that close to being on track again? Could I build a few of the houses, pocket that money, and use it to fund building my own? Could I, possibly, move out of the hotel and into an apartment while all that happened? Go back to the nail salon? The salon? My Pilates class?
I felt Raff’s gaze on me, saw a smile curving his lips. Because he was happy. For me.
“Could you do that for us?” Raff asked.
“Yeah. But it could take weeks. Or months. You can’t do it more than once or twice without him getting suspicious. We don’t want that.”
“That’s fine. The time is going to pass anyway,” I said, that light in my chest growing brighter by the minute. “Thank you.”
Arty shrugged at that.
“Come on. I’ll walk you out,” Raff said.
I knew what he was doing.
He was taking Arty away from me to discuss payment. I made a mental note to figure out exactly how much that would cost, so I could add it to my list of money I owed Raff for everything he’d done for me.
I took my room-temperature coffee with me to the couch, opening up my laptop and getting some work done while I waited for Raff.
I was aware of him coming back. Seeing me busy, he left me alone to work. But I couldn’t focus. My mind kept drifting, kept hoping, kept dreaming again.
I slammed my laptop lid, deciding I could handle that later. It wasn’t like the books were going anywhere. And I had a long flight back to Shady Valley ahead of me in the near future.
Alone.
Since Raff had to do his whole gun show thing on the way back.
At that, my stomach twisted.
I’d gotten so accustomed to having him around that suddenly the idea of traveling solo filled me with something that, if not dread, was a close cousin.
Not to mention going back to our old lives. To working at The Bog and seeing him chatting up pretty girls. Leaving with them.
My hand went to my stomach, where the knot just twisted tighter and tighter.
And then he would disappear, like he always did, for weeks at a time. Driving down South, hitting up all the food joints that suddenly felt like they belonged to the two of us.
Maybe… maybe I didn’t care so much about the guns. Maybe I could road trip with him back to California. Get it out of my system.
Or, at least, that was what I was telling myself.
I got up from the couch, walking through the hotel room to find Raff, to tell him my plan, to see what he had to say about it.
“Hey, Raff, I was thinking maybe—”
The words died on my tongue as I stepped into the doorway of his room to find him standing near the bed, rifling through his duffle bag… completely naked.
The sound that escaped me was something I’d never made before. Something between a choke, gasp, and moan all in one.
Raff’s head whipped over.
But he didn’t move to cover himself up.
Why would he, when he looked like that?
I’d seen him in shorts and in a towel, of course, and had been surprised (and secretly delighted) at how chiseled his abs were, considering he was such a skinny guy. But to see… everything. That was a whole different experience.
The tattoos that went up and down his arms, neck, abs, back, and calves also went up his thighs. His ass was firm, the kind you could dig your heels into while he was buried deep inside you.
Speaking of that.