Page 8
Story: Wildcard's Wager
I snort. “Think Juliet will see it that way?”
“Nope, which is why I won’t tell her, and you won’t either, asshole.”
“Okay, she was in a cab. I’m tracking it through the city, but tracking cabs is harder. There are just too damn many of them and they all look alike. But I’ll get the cab’s ID and the company. Juliet can access their records if I can’t follow her through the cams.”
“Where is Juliet? She was here earlier.”
“She had to go back to her apartment. Said she was meeting a client this afternoon.”
“She meets face-to-face with clients? I thought she had a condition that kept her indoors and away from people.”
“She does, but she’s working on overcoming it. Hanging out here in the clubhouse has helped her. She’s attempting to put herself out there more and face her fears.”
“What fears?”
“She’s a former FBI profiler. Although, I think she does freelance jobs for them still. She was profiling a serial killer who targeted female college students. The top performers. The ones who made the Dean’s List or were star athletes, for example. He’d grab them and torture them for weeks before he let them starve to death. Real nasty piece of work. She profiled him. While she worked the case, the guy figured out who she was and sent her videos of him torturing his victims. Told her he was coming for her. They wanted to take her off the case, but she refused. Her profile, combined with the evidence they pulled from the tapes, led to his capture and conviction. However, it took them close to a year before they found him. She was in isolation for all that time and it did something to her. She found it difficult to return to the world.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. I think being here with us helps her feel safe without having to be isolated.”
“Is she okay with you telling me this? Seems personal.”
“She’s okay with it. I was with her when she told Puma the story. Dice, Chill, and Viper know, too.”
“So, I’m basically the last to know?”
Spark chuckles. “Probably.”
Leaning against the wall, I impatiently wait for Spark to find something. I need to be moving. Pushing off to pace, I feel the twinge of pain in my shoulder. Fucking Preacher. I guess I should consider myself lucky that he wasn’t a better shot. “You have any pain relievers in here?”
Spark reaches over and pulls out the drawer next to him. He reaches inside and pulls out a bottle, tossing it over to me. I dry swallow three pills and think of Brigit. Why did she choose today to come back to Vegas? After Squiggy’s death, I considered reaching out to her to see if she’d want to come home. I don’t know what stopped me, except maybe the possibility of a refusal. Leaving her in Boston was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Not checking on her or knowing if she was alright, was difficult. I lost count of the number of times I’d pick up the phone to call her or contact Havoc and ask him to check on her. When I left her, I told her not to contact me or come back here. Until today, she’d followed that edict completely. So what changed?
Taking out my phone, I search for answers. Since I don’t know what I’m looking for, I start with the news sites in Boston. I’m not expecting to find anything right away, so when I see Brigit’s name listed as a person of interest in a murder case, I clutch my phone so hard it cracks.
What the fuck?
“Find her,” I tell Spark, rushing out of the room in search of Puma.
“Yeah,” Puma answers as I open the door. “Did you find her?”
“No, but I think I know why she’s here.” I hand Puma my phone and watch as he reads the article.
“Do you think she killed the guy?” Puma asks.
“No! Well, fuck. I don’t know. I don’t think she would. But I haven’t seen her in six years. Maybe she did. If she did, she had a reason.”
“Have you found her?”
“Spark’s tracking her through traffic cams. He’ll find her. Then I’ll have him dig up more about this murder. And Michael Perry.”
Puma picks up his phone and makes a call.
“Puma, fuck man, what did I do to earn a call from the great Maklin Brooks?” I hear Havoc, the President of the Boston Chapter, ask.
“Need some information about a murder in your town. Michael Perry.”
“The hotel guy? Yeah, what about him?”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8 (Reading here)
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
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- Page 31
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- Page 33
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- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
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- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59