I’m just wandering, without direction or aim.
I really need to sort my shit out.
• • •
It’s a few days later when I see something on the previous night’s camera footage that has me on alert. I pause the recording, then rewind it. Grabbing my phone off the table, I hit Faye’s name and wait for her to answer.
“I feel like we need code names,” is how she answers the phone. “Can we call each other Mulder and Scully?”
“No,” I reply instantly. This chick is so random sometimes. “I found something I want to show you. Can you come to the clubhouse?”
“Give me an hour,” she says, hanging up without saying ’bye.
I take a quick shower and dress in jeans, a black T-shirt, my black boots, and my cut—my standard attire—then grab some coffee from the kitchen, thinking about everything I just saw on the video. When Faye arrives, loud and full of life, I show her the footage and sit back, waiting to see if she picks up on the same thing I did. She watches until the very end, then pauses it and turns to look at me.
“What makes you think there’s anything suspicious about the girl getting into the car?” she asks me, eyes locked on mine.
“The car had no license plates.”
Her eyes widen. “I didn’t notice that. How did I miss it? Shit. How can we track it down if there’s no plate?”
She sounds annoyed with herself, which makes me smirk. Looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t like to lose.
“Maybe we should find out if there’s another girl missing,” I suggest, running my hand down the stubble on my cheeks. “Put the cop on it. If there is, at least we now know where the pickup point is. We’re going to have to have someone there, making sure it doesn’t happen again, and twenty-four-hour surveillance.”
“You think that they think they got away with it when they took Elizabeth, so they tried it again two weeks later?”
I nod. “Must be. Pretty bold move, don’t you think? Just how big is the operation? If this girl has also been kidnapped, Elizabeth’s disappearance obviously isn’t a random act.”
Faye picks up her phone and starts typing out a message. “I’ll get Jo on it. Maybe this is even bigger than we thought.” She sighs heavily, presses SEND, and then turns those eyes on me. “Just what are we getting into here, Ranger?”
Her phone beeps almost instantly. She reads it, then says, “You’re going to have to meet the cop. I have to be at Clover’s school in thirty minutes. I’m going to text you the address.”
My jaw tightens at the thought of meeting and working with a fuckin’ cop without having Faye there as a buffer. “Can’t we go after your school thing?”
“No,” Faye says, amusement flashing in her gaze. “You don’t have to sit there and have a deep and meaningful conversation or anything. Just hand over the video footage. And we don’t want to bring a cop to the clubhouse, hence a random meeting place.”
“Probably a police station,” I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest. “Where they proceed to arrest me afterward.”
“You’re not going to get arrested,” she says, rolling her eyes. “There’s only room in this clubhouse for one drama queen, Ranger.”
With that parting line, she grins, waves, and exits the room.
My phone beeps with the address to meet this cop.
Better get this shit over with.
• • •
I don’t know why this dude wants to meet at a café. Not very inconspicuous if you ask me. I’d have chosen a parking lot, or a dark alley. Fuck, maybe Faye is right—am I overdramatic?
I arrive ten minutes late, because I had to find the fuckin’ place, then glance around the café. I don’t even know what this Joe looks like, probably something I should have asked Faye but forgot to. I can usually sense a cop a mile away—I just look for someone who gives off an air of entitlement. I’m not wearing my cut, because that would just be stupid, and I have no idea if he knows what I look like either.
I’m scanning the café when something catches my eye, or should I say someone. When our eyes catch and hold, and she continues to stare at me expectantly, I walk over and sit down opposite her, hoping I’m wrong.
I have to be wrong.
“I thought you were just going to stand there all day staring at me dumbly, because that’s not obvious, right?” she says dryly, pressing her plump pink lips together. Even her voice is appealing, husky, and sensual.
I open my mouth, then close it.
Why does she have to be the one working on this? And she’s Elizabeth’s cousin?
Her short blond hair is slicked back today, but it suits her. Fuck, she’s beautiful. What a shame. A waste of beauty. There’s no way in hell I’d date a cop. Hell fuckin’ no.
“I had no idea who I was meeting today,” I say, finding my voice. “So you have me at a disadvantage.”
“You didn’t know that was me next to you at the biker bar?” she asks, raising her brows. “Why exactly do I need your help again?”
Of course she’s rude.
A rude cop. Are the two mutually exclusive?
I grit my teeth and reply with, “Probably because you still haven’t found her.”
Her eyes narrow, and she looks down into her coffee. “Tell me what you have.”
That must have been hard for her to ask, after her previous comment, or maybe she has no pride at all, who knows. I pull the disk out of my pocket and slide it over to her side of the table. Just as I pull my hand back, she reaches for it, causing our fingers to briefly touch. I retract my hand as quickly as I can without knocking over the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table.