Page 24 of Cryptic Curse (Bellamy Brothers #7)

HAWK

E agle’s eyes go wide, his lips trembling. “What the fuck are you saying?”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t stutter, Eagle. There’s no body.” I tug the bandana out of the dirt. “You recognize this?”

He cocks his head. “It’s a fucking bandana. I’ve got one just like it myself.”

“You might want to keep that to yourself.”

“What you mean?”

I wave the bandana in his face. “What I mean is, Diego Vega—or whoever that dude was that night—didn’t wear anything like this.”

“He didn’t?”

“No. That night is seared into my memory like a fucking brand. And if Diego did have a bandana on him, it would’ve been tucked inside a pocket.

But Diego Vega—or whoever that was that night—would have been a big drug kingpin.

He might have a silk handkerchief in his pocket, but not something as common as a bandana. ”

Eagle wrinkles his forehead. “So?”

“So, someone else was here, Eagle. Someone was here and already dug up this damned body. And whoever it was left his bandana behind.” I widen my eyes. “Or it was planted.”

“So we just need to find whoever is missing a bandana,” Eagle says.

I laugh. A cackling laugh. “Every cowpoke and ranch hand in Texas has a bandana like this.”

Eagle nods. “Yeah, I know.”

“Who the hell got in here and took the body? And why the hell didn’t we know about it?”

“It’s not like we ever came back here,” Eagle says.

My brother’s right. Once in a blue fucking moon he is.

Falcon, Eagle, and I stayed far away from this place. We’ve been back once or twice, but we certainly never looked hard enough. We never would’ve noticed if anything was amiss.

Indeed, nothing was amiss.

Whoever did this covered their tracks perfectly.

“It must’ve been Dad,” I say. Then I shake my head. “But he never knew about it. No one knew. Only Falcon—and he hasn’t been here—me…and you .” I glare at my brother.

He widens his eyes. “Me? Are you serious? You think I did this?”

I sigh. “I don’t want to think it, Eagle.

But I’m the only one who knows everything that’s happened to you during the past eight years.

I’ve kept it from Mom and everyone else for their own good.

Hell, I’m the one who’s cleaned up your messes.

And there might’ve been one mess you didn’t come to me about.

” I take a step toward him, glowering. “So if anyone should suspect you, it would be me.”

“I suppose I could see that point,” Eagle says, “if I didn’t just spend hours blistering my hands digging up what’s apparently nothing.”

Yeah, he has a point there.

Damn.

Eagle has never been one to get his hands dirty for no reason. He let his own brother go to prison for his crimes.

“All right. Who else knows?”

“Vinnie does,” Eagle says. “And Raven.”

“No way Ray had anything to do with this,” I say. “But we really don’t know Vinnie very well.”

“We know Savannah,” Eagle says. “And we trust her and Falcon.”

“Right, Savannah.” I rub at my forehead. “She knows, too…”

My mind races.

How well do we know Vinnie and Savannah? We know they come from the Bianchi family. But Vinnie had most of them effectively taken out. His grandfather has disappeared, and his rival, Declan McAllister, is dead.

Vinnie was gone for seventeen years, though. Raven loves him, and so does Savannah.

What do we really know about him?

Fuck. I’ve got to give Vinnie the benefit of the doubt. After all, he was as surprised as we were that the EPA was already on this.

The EPA contact. Maybe she would know something. I’ll get Vinnie to check that out.

“Then there were the other two,” Eagle says.

“What other two?”

“You know. The two goons that brought Vega. The ones who escaped to the border. Who were never heard from again.”

“Right.”

This doesn’t sit well with me. None of it does.

As I look at my brother once more, I’m not so sure it wasn’t him.

I grab his shoulders, shake him. “It had to be you, E. There’s nobody else. You’ve been fucking with me all night. That way I wouldn’t think it was you. Who did you sell out? What for? A quick hit? One of those times I bailed you out?”

He tries to wiggle out of my grasp. “Let go of me, Hawk.”

“I’ll let go of you when you tell me the fucking truth,” I grit out.

“I swear to God it wasn’t me. I’ve been clean since my last stint in rehab. I swear to God.” He swallows. “But I could sure use a fucking hit right now.”

“Stop lying to me,” I say through gritted teeth.

“I’m not lying.”

I let him go and push him to the ground.

He’s not lying.

And the reason I know he’s not lying?

It’s because if he had done it, he would’ve gone straight for the drugs. Certainly he wouldn’t have dug up a body and then left the drugs if he was looking for a hit.

No.

Eagle kept his promise.

He stayed far away from this place.

Even when he was gunning for a hit and he knew where a huge-ass stash was.

It wasn’t my brother. It wasn’t Falcon, and I don’t think it was Vinnie.

So who the fuck did this?

Whoever did it wanted to remove the evidence of the fake Diego Vega, but not the evidence of drugs being planted here on Bellamy property.

“Sorry,” I say to Eagle. “It wasn’t you.”

He rolls his eyes. “You think? Did it occur to you that if I wanted a hit that badly I would’ve just unburied the drugs and not the body?”

I nod. “Yeah, I know.”

He scratches his arm. “I’ve got to tell you. Looking at those bags right there. I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a hit more.”

“These are going down the toilet,” I say.

He kicks at the dirt. “I know.”

My cellphone vibrates in my back pocket.

I pull it out.

It’s Daniela.

I haven’t heard from her since the dinner at our house the other night.

Despite the situation Eagle and I are in at the moment, my heart races.

“Hello,” I say into the phone.

“Hawk, hi, it’s Daniela.” Her voice is breathy.

“Yeah? Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she says, “but I just didn’t know where else to turn. I mean, I suppose I could’ve gone to Vinnie. I’m not sure he’s home yet. But he and Raven are so happy right now. I don’t want to?—”

“What’s wrong?” I interrupt.

She gulps audibly. “When I got home after cooking school tonight, there was an envelope taped to the door.”

“The front door?” I ask.

“No. To the door to my private entrance. Vinnie calls it the mother-in-law suite. It’s actually at the back of the house. You get there by this little cobblestone path.”

I’m not familiar with Vinnie’s house. It was his parents’ house until his father got sent to prison for life for killing Miles McAllister and his mother died of a heart attack several months ago.

“Okay,” I say.

“It had this really creepy valentine inside. It said Be Mine , but the Be was crossed out and You Are was written in its place. The valentine itself was creepy. The heart was dripping blood.”

“Real blood?” I ask, my stomach dropping.

“No, of course not. It was marker. On the picture.” She pauses a moment. “But when I opened it, it said, You locked the door, but you forgot—I have the key. I always have .”

My heart races.

“You say it was taped to your door?”

“Yeah. When I saw it, I thought it might be from you.”

“No,” I say. “It’s not from me.”

“I know that now. After I read the message.”

“Does someone have a key to your door?”

“My door has a passcode. No key.”

I grab my keys out of my pocket and charge toward my car. “Change your passcode right now. I’m coming over immediately.”

“Hawk, you don’t have to.”

“Daniela, no arguments. You called me for a reason. I don’t want you to be alone right now. I’m coming.”

I end the call and look at Eagle.

Then I start schlepping bags of cocaine into one of the black trash bags, along with the red bandana.

“We’re leaving.”

Eagle bites his lip. “Should we throw dirt back in the hole?”

“No. I don’t have time. If you’re worried about it, you do it.”

“I came with you. Don’t have a car. It’s a day’s walk back to my house.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “Then come with me. We’ll come back and deal with this tomorrow. There’s somewhere I need to be.”

We gather our shovels, and I drag the garbage bag full of cocaine and stick everything in the back of my truck.

I drop Eagle off at his place, and then, with a shit load of cocaine in my truck, I drive to Vinnie’s.