Liv snorted. “You want in.”
“I’m going to try not to be insulted by that noise, but yes. If Preston is a predator, I want him exposed too.”
Liv gave him a look that screamed skepticism and distrust. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned on one hip. “You sure about that? Because I saw you with him that night at Savoy. All buddy-buddy, let’s get together. You guys are pals. You expect me to believe you didn’t know about this?”
“No, I didn’t know about this. Jesus.” Mack dragged his hands over his hair. Was that really what she thought of him? That he would cover for a sexual harasser?
“Well, someone had to know. Men like him always have enablers.”
“Well, I wasn’t one of them. I barely know the man.”
“And what if you had heard that? Would you have done anything?”
“Yes, goddammit. I would have.”
Liv tilted her head and studied him as if trying to decide whether she believed him. He noticed for the first time how much she looked like her sister. They had the same eyes. The same coloring. But Liv had a wariness about her he’d never seen in Thea. She looked like someone who desperately wanted to trust people but didn’t know how.
And he suddenly desperately wanted her to trust him. “You know you can’t do this alone, Liv. Don’t be stubborn.”
“You want to help? Fine. Give Jessica a job. I need to get her out of there.”
“Done. I’ll hire her today. How do I contact her?”
Liv blinked. “I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He matched her skeptical tone from earlier.
“It’s not like we were friends,” she said, spreading her hands wide. “I don’t have her phone number, her social media is all set to private, and it’s not like I can go talk to her at work.”
Mack thumbed the screen of his phone. “What’s her last name?”
“Summers.”
Mack typed the name into a Google search bar and added “Nashville” to filter out the results.
Liv squinted. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes, I’m serious.”
“You’re going to offer her a job.”
“I just said that, didn’t I?”
His Google search turned up about two million results. Liv let out a heavy breath and shook her head. “You really think I didn’t try that already?”
When he didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes so hard he could almost hear it. “I’ll let you know when I get in touch with her,” she said.
This time, when she walked away, Mack let her. Because even if Liv didn’t know how to find the girl, Mack knew someone who could.
Mack shoved his phone back in his pocket and dug out his keys. He passed Sonia at her cubicle. She looked up. “What the hell was that all about?”
He ducked the question. “I’ll explain later.”
Sonia shrugged and said something sarcastic under her breath. Mack walked through the kitchen and out the back entrance into the alley behind the bar where he’d parked his car.
He drove across town quickly, making a phone call as he went.
It was just before four when he pulled into the meeting spot—a three-story brick rectangle with the name Dagnabit’s painted in fading green letters on front above the door. It looked like the kind of place where the whiskey was cheap and the cooks didn’t wash their hands. Which made it the perfect place for meetings like this.
Mack walked up the weedy, cracked sidewalk and pulled open the door. It creaked as if offended. Inside the lights were dim and the TV was loud. The place was nearly empty except for a pair of biker dudes who leaned heavily on the bar over half-finished pints of beer, their eyes glued to the baseball game on the TV. Neither glanced his way. Two seats away from them sat a man with stringy hair and a phlegmy cough who looked like he was one minute away from losing his shit and screaming about the CIA.
Mack chose a spot safely in the middle and ordered a beer.
Five minutes later, the door creaked again, and Noah Logan walked in. He had his hands shoved in the pockets of a beaten-up leather jacket and a skullcap tugged low across his forehead. By all outward appearances, he was your average, everyday computer IT specialist. Mack suspected it was a cover for some kind of super–secret agent thing. No one could be that smart and deceptively well built without working for the government on the down low. Mack had hired him several years ago to help set up his network security but realized rather quickly that Noah’s skills went far beyond the standard, and he’d been essential in helping Mack with another sensitive project that had earned him a permanent spot on Mack’s most-trusted list.
“Dude,” Noah said, claiming the stool next to Mack. “What’s the big emergency?”
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Mack dropped a five on the counter and stood. “Let’s take a walk.”
“We just fucking got here,” Noah complained.
Ten minutes later, he was no longer complaining. Noah slowed his steps and shook his head. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “I knew there was something sleazy about that guy. What do you want me to do?”
“To start? I just need you to find Jessica for me. Liv can’t approach her at Savoy, obviously. See if you can find out where she’ll be when she’s not at work or home.”
“What else?”
“I need to find out how many women he has done this to.”
Noah looked skeptical. “I’ll see what I can find, but I need to know right up front how deep you want me to look.”
“How deep can you look?”
Noah’s face went eerily calm. “Pretty fucking deep.”
“Send me a bill,” Mack said, walking away. “Quietly.”
“No charge,” Noah called behind him.
Mack spun around. “What?”
Noah seemed to grow several inches in height. “Fuckers like Royce Preston deserve whatever they have coming to them. This one is pro bono.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sunset turned the horizon orange Wednesday night as Mack exited the freeway and followed the GPS directions out of the city. Gavin hadn’t been kidding. Liv lived on a farm. And not the hipster co-op kind either. This was a farm farm, with pastures and sheep—wait, no, those were goats—and a massive red barn surrounded by other smaller outbuildings. And smack in the middle, atop a small hill, was a soaring white clapboard house with a stone fence that looked like it had been erected sometime during Reconstruction.
Mack turned into the gravel driveway, drove under a canopy of trees, and slowed to a stop by a detached garage. A staircase wrapped around one side of the building and led to what he assumed was an upstairs of some kind. A single window overlooked the driveway.
Mack parked next to a dusty Ford pickup and behind a black Jeep with a faded, peeling bumper sticker that read, “A Woman Needs a Man like a Fish Needs a Bicycle.” Yeah, he was definitely in the right place.
But what the hell? Why did Liv live here?
Mack killed the engine, opened his door, and reached for the bag of Chinese takeout he’d brought as a peace offering. He’d barely slept last night. There was no way he was going to sit on the sidelines while Liv took on Royce by herself. He just had to convince her to let him help.
He slid from the driver’s seat . . . and that’s when he was attacked.
The beast came out of nowhere. Mack heard an angry squawk, saw a puff of black-and-red feathers, and felt a chunk of his shin rip beneath his jeans before he could even register what the hell was happening. The beast flew several feet in the air and kicked its legs out. Talons tore into his skin again. Mack threw himself back into the front seat and slammed the door shut just in time, but the beast simply attacked his car with a screeching cry of vengeance.
Then, suddenly a savior appeared at the top of the garage stairs. She wore floppy rubber boots and carried a broom in one hand.
“You lost?” she yelled.
A clunk against his door made him wince. The fucking thing was going to scratch his car. Mack banged his fist against his window. “What the fuck is that thing?”
Liv held a hand to her ear in the universal I can’t hear you gesture.
Mack rolled down his window. “What the hell is that?” he yelled.
She snorted. “It’s a rooster, dumbass.”
“It’s fucking possessed!”
She shrugged. “Roosters are extremely territorial.”
“It attacked me!”
“They’re also excellent judges of character.”
“Get rid of it so I can get out. We need to talk.”
“If you’re trying to incentivize me, you have failed.”
He held the bag of Chinese food out the window. “Pork lo mein and wonton soup.”
One eyebrow rose. “From where?”
Christ on a cracker. “Jade Dynasty.”
“Fine.” Liv clomped down the stairs and turned the broom on the bird. “Get. Go on.”
The bird puffed up his feathers and went after the broom. Liv swore at him and swept him all the way to the fence line before locking him inside a chain-link gate.
She returned then to the driver’s side. “There. You’re totally safe. Now hand over my food.”
Mack held the bag out the window. Liv snatched it from his fingers, peeked inside, shut it again. “Thanks. You can leave now.”
“Nope.” He opened the door. “We have stuff to talk about.”
“No, we don’t.”
“I’m going to help you with Royce.”
“I’m pretty sure I made myself clear yesterday.”
Mack got out and shut the door. “If you didn’t want me to help bring him down, you shouldn’t have told me what he was doing.”
“God, you’re like an annoying chin hair that grows back no matter how many times you pluck it. You rip the bastard out, and then ploop, two days later, there it is again.”