Detective Masters is on a street-legal dirt bike. I recognize it from her trailer last weekend. It’s a high-end motocross model that looks like it could kick some serious ass. Also, very powerful. So Miss Masters must be a rider. Since her brother was Wild Will—infamous dirt racer who viewed death as a viable alternative to losing—I have no doubt Molly Masters knows exactly what she’s doing on that thing. It gives her confidence.
But maybe she needs a little run for her money? Because even though she gave in to me last night, I’m damn sure that she’s regretting it today. Looking for revenge, maybe? Counting on the fact that I never got off and might be wishing I had? Thinking she might reel me in and I might be the final piece of the puzzle she needs?
I grab my leather off the back of a desk chair as I head to the tunnel entrance and make a promise to myself to deliver exactly what she came for.
Answers.
And she’s not going to like them one bit.
I can hear her yelling my name before I even get a quarter way to the gate.
“Lincoln, I know you’re in there! I know you can hear me! Show your face in the light, you coward! You wanna drug a girl, take advantage of her? Erase her mind? Well, I’ve got—”
“Keep your fucking voice down. I’m right here,” I say, walking into the hazy light coming from the gate entrance. Molly has her fists wrapped around the bars like she’s trying to get out instead of in.
“Well, finally. I’ve been standing out here for twenty minutes. You told me to find you, so I did. Now I want to know what the fuck your deal is.”
I walk up to her, stop less than a foot away from the rusted steel gate, and stare into her eyes. She recoils and I know why. The coldness inside of me pours out. The thirst for revenge, now that it’s so damn close, bleeds from me as if through an open wound. “How can I help you?” I growl through my gritted teeth.
“I want to know what you’ve been doing at night.”
“Do you now?” I sneer. “You sure about that, Detective? Because you’re not gonna like it.”
“There’s been some murders up at Blue Corp.”
“Sucks to be them, I guess.”
“And the murderer has been leaving calling cards. And that anarchy patch on your shoulder makes me wonder.”
I lean into the bars, pressing my head against them so I’m only a few inches from her face. “Is that right?”
She swallows and then sucks in a breath. My eyes drop to her chest as it rises and falls underneath a black leather moto jacket. “Who are you?”
“You don’t want to know that. And I’m gonna need you to go before you get hurt. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“But you’ll fuck me in public? That’s OK?”
“You wanted it.”
“You wanted it, asshole.”
“I’m not the one who got off.”
Her face turns red, her hazel eyes blazing with shame, or regret, or both. “I’m gonna look up this tract of land you’ve got here. I’m gonna find out who you are, what you’re doing, and I’m gonna stop it. Because anyone who does what you did to me last weekend is an evil motherfucker. And I don’t need to be a detective to know you’re connected to those murders. I can feel it. You’re gonna regret ever meeting me, Lincoln.”
“Well, you got that last part right,” I say, a cold wind whipping past my face and making my jacket open to reveal my bare chest.
She looks.
I shake my head when she meets my eyes again. This time I catch embarrassment. “Shy much, gun girl?”
She stays silent.
“You want me to save you the trouble of all that pesky sleuthing? Give you what you came for? Well, get out your phone, Molly Masters, and look up the name Lincoln Wade.”
She huffs out some incredulous air through her teeth.
“Go on,” I encourage her. “I’ll wait.”
“Fine,” she says, setting her jaw and tipping her chin up. And then she grabs her phone from her jeans pocket and types my name in Blue Search. I can see the little earth logo in the top corner of her screen.
Ironic.
Her brow furrows and her eyes squint down as they race across the screen, taking it all in.
“Well?” I ask a few seconds later. “There you are.” I point to the search page. “And now you know.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, looking up from underneath her hair. “What’s this mean?”
“What’s it mean?” I laugh. “I’ve searched my name before and I know what comes up first. So just open it up, gun girl. Read the fucking paper that doctor wrote. It’s spelled out clear as day for anyone who knows what to look for.”