Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Hugo
“This beats what we did last Christmas Eve,” Quinn says directly into my brain.
I fiddle with the lentil-size receiver tucked deep in my ear canal. It’s odd having voices essentially reverberating through my skull.
Actually, back up a step. It’s odd having other voices involved on a kill night at all, let alone Quinn and Felicity and, for some reason, Pell.
“You didn’t like Thai takeout and a complete chemical and psychological workup of every intake we did that year?” I ask. “I made charts!”
Her scoff comes through loud and clear, which means the zipper-pull mic Pell attached to my fleece is transmitting just fine as I approach the alley behind Lester Timms’s house.
Every bungalow in this working-class South Side neighborhood looks the same, which is a great way to end up in the wrong backyard.
I’m counting garages carefully as I move through the shadows.
“Those were the good parts. It was you moaning about the pretty princess next door that tended to grate.”
“I want to hear everything,” Felicity says.
“No,” I say as Quinn replies, “I’ll fill you in over lunch next week.”
“Y’all are havin’ lunch without me?” Pell asks. “Lemme guess, the Sunny Day Diner?”
“How did you…” Quinn stops herself and mutters. “Creep.”
“I’m starting to regret letting you use the other half of the duplex as your field office,” I tell them all.
“Guys.” Felicity’s voice cuts us off. “Rue just texted.”
“Is she okay?” I melt into the side of a small shed that smells like motor oil. “If she’s not, we call this off right now.” Rue’s role tonight means she isn’t wired with a mic, only an earpiece identical to mine.
“She’s fine,” Felicity says. “But she wants these two to shut the fuck up.”
“Gladly,” Quinn mutters.
I’m at the edge of Timms’s property sixty seconds later. “Approaching the back door now.”
This summons serious Pell. “Essential chatter only,” he reminds us. “And keep it low.”
If a voice gets too loud, Timms might be able to hear it through our receivers. Just another variable that’s stripping away my stomach lining.
“I love you, neighbor girl. Just in case,” I murmur as I let myself in through Timms’s fence gate. I’ve raised my fist to knock on his back door when Felicity’s whisper tickles my ear.
“She loves you too, and she’ll see you soon.”
I exhale. I knock. I wait.
The man who answers the door three minutes later is exactly who I was expecting to rouse from sleep just before midnight on Christmas Eve.
Lester Timms is in a camo-print compression shirt that’s too baggy to succeed at its job, along with shiny silver athletic shorts and black Nike slides.
I’m also unsurprised by the pistol that he’s not bothering to hide in his right hand.
What I wasn’t expecting is the trace of fear in his eyes.
Scared. Sleeping with a gun, or maybe not sleeping at all.
Timms doesn’t need persuasion. He just needs a push.
“Who the fuck are you?” he barks, running his free hand over the small bit of stubble clinging to his scalp as he eyes me up and down.
I’m not Gomez tonight—a man like Timms would see me as competition and start a pissing contest—and I’m sure as fuck not soft-therapy-boy Dr. Mohr.
I keep my shoulders round and down, my hands visible.
“A philosopher, a king, and a disciple,” I reply in a hushed, almost conspiratorial tone. “Here because the unexamined life…”
“…is not worth living,” he responds immediately.
It’s the first test. I passed, but I’ve got more to clear.
“The fuck are you doing here?” He plants his feet in the doorway, despite the frigid air pouring into the house. “How’d you get my address?”
“The forum. And I’m here with a warning that couldn’t wait. You’re in danger.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, the movement not hiding his shiver as another gust of wind hits us both. “My life is danger,” he says with a jut of his chin.
“Don’t I know it.” My expression is serious despite being forced to watch Timms attempt to puff out his chest. “But there’s a female coming here tonight to try to kill you.”
He blinks. Then he tosses his head back, and he laughs and laughs and laughs.
“You’re saying some bitch thinks she can take me out?”
“Trust me, brother, I feel the same.” I loathe the companionable warmth in my voice, especially knowing that Rue can hear it. “But she’s the one who killed Navarro and Whitfield.”
Timms’s laughter cuts off. “You’d better come in.”
Once we’re in his living room, I wait until he gestures toward the armchair before sitting. Timms takes the couch, stretching his arms across the back, the gun in his right hand. He’s making a show of being at ease, but his eyes rove around the room, never staying in one spot long.
“Let’s start with who you are, hmm?”
Nobody special. Just the man who killed your stepbrother five feet from where we’re sitting.
“I’m Joe Hall,” I say a little too eagerly. “We’ve never interacted on the forum, but I knew I had to come here so you’d be prepared.”
He taps the gun on the couch back. “What’s your forum handle?”
Felicity prepared me for this. “DrinkingBitchTears69,” I say with a smirk. Joe is so proud of his clever username. “Been a member for three years now.”
Timms regards me coldly as he pulls his phone out of his shorts pocket and thumbs it open. After a long sixty seconds, which I spend remembering how I sat in this same armchair while Rue-as-Morticia straddled me and almost made me lose my mind, he lifts his narrowed gaze back to me.
“What’s your take on that new documentary we’ve been discussing all week?”
“Shit, hang on,” Felicity whispers in my ear.
I raise my brows, needing to fill the time. Joe is surprised Timms would question a loyal forum member. Joe might even be a little wounded. “What, you want a book report?”
“Yeah. You could say that.” Timms smacks the couch harder with the gun.
“There’s no new documentary and no discussion.” Felicity’s calm murmur hits at just the right time. “He might mean the one about the manosphere that came out this spring. The forum hated it, but it’s mostly died down now.”
I trust that she’s right.
“You mean that streaming one from earlier this year? It’s exploitative trash,” I say in my best disgusted tone. “Total hatchet job. That cuck never once tried to engage with our actual ideals.”
Timms’s face still registers suspicion, so I give a small sigh. Joe may not like it, but he’s willing to do what’s necessary to earn his idol’s trust. “If you want to know what we’ve been talking about this week, it’s the misandrist courts that take kids away from their fathers over the holidays.”
“Shit, Sigmund.” Quinn whispers my code name. “Why are you going off script?”
We all hold our breath: me, the three people sitting at the folding table in Rue’s empty, echoey living room, and Rue herself, I’m sure.
But knowing what the forum’s not talking about isn’t enough; I need to provide what they are talking about.
Given the time of year, it’s my best guess, and it either gets me shot in the face or a shot of whiskey.
“Piece-of-shit activist judges,” Timms grumbles, shoving the gun back into his pocket.
We all exhale. That’s the second test cleared.
“So you’re here to save my life.” His eyes flick to my hair, which isn’t quite Dr. Mohr levels of smashed down but is flat enough that Rue moaned in disappointment when she saw it. “Tell me, Joe, how’d you come to know about this female’s plan?”
I lean forward with my elbows on my knees, my clasped fingers dangling between my legs, waiting to see if he follows.
“Well, first, you know the forums are crazy with conspiracy theories. Navarro’s death wasn’t an accident, Whitfield’s in witness protection, that kind of thing.
One even says they were both murdered, and by the same person. ”
Timms reaches for his phone again. The motion’s too abrupt for him to pull off casual, and I hide my smile.
“So after reading some of the evidence our fellow kings presented,” I continue, “it was on my mind when I visited my gun guy tonight—”
“On Christmas Eve?” He glances up from his phone.
“No better place to be,” I say with a shrug. “But when my guy gets deep into his case of Old Style, he starts yapping like a little bitch.”
A smile crosses Timms’s lips. “Sounds like you need a new gun guy.”
“I’d be grateful for a recommendation.” I practically step on the end of his sentence. Joe would be thrilled to use Lester’s guy. “Anyway, he told me he overheard a couple of females running their mouths at the gun range. You know how it is, brother. They can’t help themselves.”
“Too fucking right.” He’s desperate to be the big man, utterly in control of the situation with his ankle propped on his knee. But his foot’s bouncing madly, his slide slapping against his heel.
“So my guy heard the blond one mention ‘cleaning house’ and the words ‘forum’ and ‘lawyer.’ Then she said that she was going to address the ‘golf club situation’ on Christmas Eve.”
Timms’s fidgeting dies. “‘Golf club situation’?”
“My guy had no idea what it all meant, but brother, I knew immediately.” Dammit, have I gone too hard on the “brother” stuff?
Apparently not.
“That’s because you’re awake, brother.” Timms nods approvingly and drops his foot to the ground, leaning forward like I am.
Gotcha, you maggot: the weakest person in the room subconsciously mimics the body language of the most powerful.
“I can’t say for sure, but between the shit I’ve been reading online and those breadcrumbs from my gun guy, well, I couldn’t not warn you.
” I hold up my hand. “I know you can handle one little girl”—god, forgive me, baby—“but that bitch isn’t playing fair, coming for you in your home while you’re sleeping.
” Joe is disgusted by the very thought of it.
“That’s the only way they can get ahead.
Dirty tricks and DEI and thinking they can lead us around by our dicks. ”