Page 20 of Property of Tacoma

Spinning around with my bag, I find Tacoma closer than I expected. He holds out his hand for the duffel.

A smile pulls at my lips. “Well, aren’t you a gentleman?”

He takes the bag, his fingers brushing mine in the exchange, sending an electric current up my arm. “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.”

I follow him down the steps into the alley—a grimy, narrow passage littered with cigarette butts and empty beer bottles, the brick walls covered in faded graffiti. He unlocks a gray metal door that looks like it could withstand a small explosion.

The moment we step inside, the smell hits me—that unmistakable odor of death and bodily fluids that no amount of perfume or air freshener can mask. I don’t flinch; I’m used to it. This is my job, after all.

A man comes striding down the hallway toward us—tall and muscular with olive skin and intense dark eyes. He’s good-looking in a grumpy bear kind of way, but not as attractive as Tacoma.

“Bash, this is Foxy,” Tacoma introduces us. “The cleaner Viper sent.”

I don’t miss the silent conversation the two men have with their eyes—some kind of warning passing between them. Bash holds up his hands briefly, indicating that the message has been received.

“The room’s this way,” Tacoma says, leading me down a hallway lined with doors marked “Private.” He stops at the last door and pushes it open. I take my bag and step inside, immediately switching into professional mode.

The room is small, with a black leather sofa pushed up against a wall and a single pole in the center. Slumped on one of the sofas is a middle-aged man in an ill-fitting suit with most of his head missing, and blood and brain matter splattered across the wall behind him.

“Damn,” I whistle low. “He must have really pissed someone off.”

“We didn’t kill him,” Tacoma says quickly.

I glance back at him. “I didn’t say you did. Who is he?”

“The mayor.”

I whistle again. “High profile. Someone’s trying to fuck you, and not in a good way.”

I return to my bag and unzip it, pulling out a roll of plastic, a pair of latex gloves, and my meat thermometer.

Dropping all my supplies on the table beside the sofa, I pull on the gloves, then grab the roll of plastic and roll it out onto the floor.

“Do you need help with him?” comes from the doorway.

“No.”

Grabbing tubby under his arms, I use all my strength and hoist him off the sofa and onto the plastic, carefully rolling him to the center.

“Holy shit,” Bash blurts out. “He’s gotta be every bit of two hundred and eighty pounds.”

I’d say more like two-ninety, but don’t comment.

I lift the mayor’s blood-soaked shirt, exposing the pale, bloated flesh of his abdomen. Without hesitation, I stab the meat thermometer into his liver, hearing both men behind me groan uncomfortably.

“What are you doing?” Tacoma asks, his voice strained.

“Figuring out when this guy died,” I explain, watching the digital readout. “Figured you’d want to know since you and your club weren’t the ones who pulled the trigger.”

Tacoma grunts in acknowledgment.

The thermometer beeps, and I read the display. “What’s the temperature in the building?” I ask over my shoulder.

“Sixty-nine,” Bash answers.

I do the mental calculations quickly. “He’s been dead for about twenty-two hours. So sometime yesterday afternoon, between 3 and 4 most likely.”

I stand and dust off my knees. “You might not want to stick around for this next part.”