by Hope Stone
“Hey,” I said. “How are ya after the other night?”
“Better than ever,” Kim said. “But I think Claire was the one who got lucky that night, right?”
She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. I chuckled and gave her a casual shrug.
“Are you just guessing or have you talked to Claire?” I didn’t want to beat around the bush. We were due to take off on the ride any minute.
“Claire did text me thanking me again, but I wasn’t going to pester her about you,” Kim said. “But I mean, I have eyes.”
Kim was using her eyes to study me up and down. “Did you want me to pester her about you?”
I studied the pavement of the parking lot and willed my voice to stay calm. Like it was no big deal. I didn’t care either way.
“She’s cool, I’d be down to hang out again,” I said. “I thought maybe you two had plans or something.”
Kim was silent for a moment, her smooth brown face utterly still. Then her eyes widened so much I thought they were going to fall off her brow. “Oh my god. You are so smitten.”
“Ok, come on,” I said. “Don’t be such a girl.”
I turned away as if to head back to my bike. I knew it was a low blow to call Kim out on her gender; we were friends in the first place because I didn’t nag her about being a girl. But I didn’t like the way she was bubbling over with excitement. As if the thing between me and Claire was way more than just sex.
“Fuck off, Pin,” Kim said.
She wasn’t angry though. Kim was too excited to be angry, and her hands were clasped in front of her chest. “Claire is, like, the coolest. You should totally go for it. She’s way better than the bimbos you usually hook up with.”
I shrugged off the insult to my history of bimbos since Kim wasn’t wrong. Who cared if someone had brains if I was only fucking them for a few nights?
“I dunno,” I said. “We haven’t talked since the other night.”
“Ok, some advice,” Kim said. I rolled my eyes but nodded to indicate she should continue. “Claire is a straight shooter, she’s not gonna play games with you. So don’t fuck around, Pin. Ask her out.”
I was saved from answering by Raul hollering that it was time to ride. I was glad of it. I didn’t want to tell Kim that I had no intention of asking Claire out on a real date. Now that she had gotten rid of Trey, I didn’t want her to give me an “All Men Are Trash and Claire Deserved Better” speech.
If Claire wanted something better, I knew she was more than capable of telling me. I would respect her wishes. I would make it clear that I could only commit to something casual. If she was down for that, then we were great.
As I pushed down on my bike pedal and the engine roared to life, I avoided thinking about what I would do if Claire wanted something more than casual. If she wanted to do the whole relationship thing. If she asked for commitment.
I let the world blur by as my bike picked up speed, and I focused on the feeling of riding in a pack. I belonged here. I knew who I was when I rode with the Outlaw Souls. And I was a guy who couldn’t commit to Claire. I would never fully trust any relationship. It wouldn’t be a safe haven for me; it would be an Achilles Heel.
I was willing to bet that Claire didn’t want a relationship either. Or, if she did, she wasn’t the type to move too fast. She would be willing to keep things trivial to start. As soon as I sensed her getting too clingy, I could slam the brakes.
That still didn’t solve the issue of how I could reach out. If I buttered Kim up and promised I would be Mr. Good Guy, she would probably be willing to arrange another night out. But I didn’t relish the idea of using Kim as a middleman. She was way too much of a meddler.
After we had gone all the way over the section of the territory and found nothing too out of the ordinary, we pulled into another gas station lot to discuss moves. Raul and Hawk wanted to go grab some food, and I was about to agree when I pulled my phone out. And saw a text.
From Claire.
I grinned and opened it up.
Hey Pin! I had fun the other night.
Was wondering if you wanted to hang again tonight?
I resisted pumping my fist in the air. It was my lucky day. And it was just like Claire to not be awkward or beat around the bush with stilted conversation or vague questions. She wasn’t asking for a date either, I noted. If she wanted to go out, she would have said that. She wanted to “hang.” That was for sure my speed.
I pulled off my riding gloves with my teeth so I could type my response:
I’d be down, I’ve had a busy few days, does take-out and TV sound good to you?
I told the guys I had to head home to take care of some things and leapt back on my bike. I purposely avoided eye contact with Kim. I was scared she would read something in my face. Now that I didn’t need Kim to communicate with Claire, I didn’t really want her big nose in my business.
By the time I had made it home, Claire had texted back:
Sounds perfect! Wanna come to mine around 7?
Claire
Daniel had not been kidding. It was a giant case.
The parents had chosen our firm and I had officially been assigned the case only two days ago, but I already had a dozen pages of notes in my leather-bound notebook. I liked to keep all the information in one place and write it down by hand.
It helped me parse through the details and figure out how everything connected. Veronica said I had aggressively neat architect handwriting, with each letter defined like the way engineers write on their diagrams.
I checked my watch. I had an hour before Pin was supposed to arrive. I took a breath and read through all the information I had gathered. I needed to let it soak in, so I could be on high alert for anything Pin said about Outlaw Souls. But I also couldn’t overstudy. I had to act natural around Pin and not ask strange questions. Not until he trusted me more, anyway.
The runaway teens in question were named Zoe Hammond and Hector Elenes. The Hammonds and Elenes hadn’t been friends, but when both their children packed bags and fled in the night within a month, the parents had found each other. Their stories had shocking similarities.
A few months before running away, Zoe had started dating a new guy. Someone older, according to her friends. The Hammonds had no idea. They only knew that their sixteen-year-old daughter was growing secretive and coming home late and telling lies about where she had been. They were concerned, but figured she was just going through a bit of a rebellious phase.
Mrs. Hammond had teared up when I met with her. She blamed herself. She should have noticed something was wrong with her daughter. Her husband had displayed more anger. Like he wanted to get his hands around the throat of the guy who had seduced Zoe and somehow convinced her to run away from her home.
Hector had always been a bit rebellious. Nothing serious, but he was a jovial guy who liked to stay out late with his friends. He broke his curfew a lot. Got in trouble for going to parties with alcohol. But it was all normal high school stuff, his parents assured me.
Until he got into bikes. He started hanging out with a new crowd. Bikers. He would be out at all hours and come home wasted. His parents had yelled and tried to discipline him, but that only made it worse.
Both kids had packed their bags and left notes. They had taken money and IDs which was why the cases were unlikely to be kidnappings. Zoe Hammond and Hector Elenes had walked out of their own homes, of their own volition.
To be frank, it wasn’t exactly a situation that would have stirred the police into action. There wasn’t much they could do. They could ask questions, dig around a bit, but if a sixteen-year-old didn’t want to be found, it was easy to disappear. And then in two years, that runaway wouldn’t be a kid anymore. It was their life to mess up if they wanted to.
The Hammonds and the Elenes, however, were convinced that something was wrong. They knew their children wouldn’t have run away. Even friends had come forward to say that the kids hadn’t intended to stay away for goo
d. Even more concerning, no friend had received texts or calls from Zoe or Hector. The police had tried to track their phones, but both of them had been turned off and discarded.
That sent off my alarms more than anything else. A runaway who was angry at their parents was one thing. A teenager who tossed their phone and didn’t so much as text their friends? That was quite another.
I had one whole page that listed Hector and Zoe’s closest school friends according to their parents. I was going to want to chat with a few of them, especially Zoe’s good friend Liz. Girls that age told each other everything. If Zoe was involved with a biker, Liz was going to know details. I was willing to bet that I could get more out of her than the police had.
All Liz had told the police was that Zoe had been seeing an older guy. Zoe had told Liz she was thinking of running away on one occasion, but Liz had never thought Zoe was serious. Liz was concerned for her friend, so I doubted she was trying to hide information. But she probably didn’t even know how much knowledge she had. She had probably figured the police wouldn’t care about the random gossip from a teenager’s sleepover.
I would chat with some of Hector’s friends too. Perhaps a smile and a wink from me could get some overeager kid to give me all the information he could think of. But something told me that Liz was the key to this case.
All my other notes were about drug activity in La Playa. The Hammonds and the Elenes had been convinced that bikers were drug dealers. There were rumors of course, but also some compelling evidence and even a few arrests. I would want to push on my contact at the police department to see if there was a high number of biker dealers, or if that was a stereotype.
I hadn’t realized it, but Outlaw Souls was fairly well-known. It hadn’t taken the parents much to dig up the name of the club.
“These bikers, they know how to avoid getting caught,” Mr. Hammond had said. “And they know how to use young girls to move drugs. No one suspects a pony-tailed teen.”
I felt the man was a bit dramatic, but I had to admit he had a point. If the bikers were on the radar for drug activity, it would make sense that they would want to recruit some impressionable helpers. Not to mention it wasn’t unprecedented to use teenagers.
There had been a big drug bust in LA a few years ago in which a detective discovered cocaine being moved through a college sorority house. It had gone on for years because no one had bothered to look past the shiny pink facade of Beta Kappa Gamma.
On my final page of notes were two other names: Grace Vasquez and Phillip Harding. The Hammonds and Elenes’ had explained that those two had also attended West La Playa High School and had run away about a year before.
The parents had reported it, but the investigations had fizzled out. I would have to check, but according to the Hammonds, Grace’s parents had pretty much given up on her. She had been a wild child and got involved with a bad crowd. Rumor had it she had been dating a biker dude before she dropped out of school and vanished.
Grace and Zoe had been on the same volleyball team. It was a tenuous connection, but the Hammonds clung to it. Zoe could have been introduced to her mysterious older boyfriend by Grace. Once again, I figured this was something Liz could confirm or deny.
As for Phillip, the only connection was bikes. He had been a known bike-lover. He had even fixed up his own Harley during his senior year. He had been a month away from eighteen when he left his home. His mother, a single mom with three other kids, hadn’t even reported it. The name only came up because Hector’s friend had mentioned Hector getting in touch with Phillip at some point in the last year.
I sighed as I came to the end of my notes. Between the random dates, lists of names, and theories based on local gossip, it was a tangled web indeed. It’s what I had asked for though. By solving this case, I could actually make a difference.
Instead of one cheating scumbag getting his comeuppance (which was satisfying in a small-ball type of way), I could be extricating some poor kid from a drug ring. I could be saving them from jail, addiction, or death. I could be ensuring that the streets of La Playa stayed a little cleaner.
Plus it would feel good. I smiled as I pictured myself busting a drug ring and sending a bunch of no-good guys to jail. I hoped whatever pervert had preyed on a sixteen-year-old girl got the longest sentence.
I had a photo of Zoe taped to one page. She was cute, but visibly young. It was a school photo, her brown eyes wide open and she wore a bashful smile. Zoe was cute, but not the type to get a ton of attention from boys. Her mouth was too wide and she hadn’t quite grown into her looks. Her parents had said she could be shy as well and desperate to please others. The exact type of girl that older guys could manipulate.
I tore my eyes away from the photo and snapped my notebook shut. I had thirty minutes until Pin’s arrival. I shoved my book into my desk drawer and headed to the bathroom. I ran a hand through my hair and swiped on a layer of pink lip gloss, then surveyed the results in the mirror. I was wearing leggings and a cream cable-knit sweater. My feet were bare.
I wanted to look good, but not like I tried too hard. Pin clearly wanted a hook-up. I had figured he would, but he was the one who came out and suggested a night in.
I hadn’t decided if I would sleep with him again. It was a tricky line to walk. For one, I had already slept with him and it had been good. Definitely good enough that I was not averse to repeating the experience.
But would I just be sleeping with him for the case? When it was put that way, it all sounded a little bit grimy. Then again, who cared what methods I used as long as I got results? Plus, there was no guarantee that Pin was involved.
I tried to picture Pin approaching a teenage girl and giving her drugs to carry. It seemed totally out of the question. And I had difficulty imagining that Kim would be cool with that kind of behavior.
I considered Moves or the other guys I had met at the Blue Dog Saloon. I hadn’t spent enough time with them to get a gauge. Moves had been friendly, and he did have a certain self-aware charm. Would he use that charm to manipulate a younger girl or perhaps a kid who looked up to him?
As for Kim and Pin, they could be ignorant since it was a bigger club or they could be in denial. It was amazing how people could justify crimes in their heads. People could be so blind when it was convenient. Like maybe Pin hadn’t looked too close at a brother’s new girl. Maybe he hadn’t noticed she was super young because noticing that kind of thing would only keep him up at night or lead to him having to question his friend.
It was possible. If I had learned anything in my time as a PI, it was that anything was possible.
And as a PI, I had to use every resource I had access to. Which was why I hadn’t even hesitated to text Pin once I had all the information about the case. He was an easy way into the Outlaw Souls. I could ask around for months before I got intel that Pin could give to me in a day. He had already told me plenty about the club on our fake date.
Pin had said that Outlaw Souls were above dealing drugs or any other illegal activities, but he would have said that no matter what. He handled the money after all, so he was definitely going down if it turned out they were running a drug ring.
I felt a strange prickling at the back of my neck. If a biker club was running a big-scale drug operation, they would need a good accountant. Someone to keep the books looking clean. Someone smart who understood how to make the money disappear, go somewhere safe. Someone to make the books look legit.
Someone like Pin.
I flipped open my notebook and jotted down a few more notes. So far I had interacted with Pin, Moves, and Kim. Pin had mentioned there were almost twenty members in the club, not to mention pledges and family and friends. That was a lot of unknowns.
I put my notebook back into my desk. This time I wouldn’t take it out again. I needed to be light and easy around Pin. All the unanswered questions concerning Zoe, Hector, and the others had to disappear from my face. Pin wasn’t going to want to spend an evening with a PI haunte
d by a multilayered mystery.
He wanted a chill girl. A girl who wouldn’t ask him to define the relationship or act too clingy.
I’d gathered that much from our night together, but his leaving in the dead of night had confirmed it. For whatever reason, Pin didn’t want to be the morning after guy. That was just fine with me. As long as he didn’t suspect that I was investigating his beloved bike club.
Pin came off as a pretty mild and even-tempered guy, but I had no doubt that if he sensed for even a moment that I was prying into biker business, he would be furious. To be honest, I didn’t have a plan. I had to own up to that as seven o’clock drew nearer. I was going to have to play it by ear.
The fact of the matter was that Pin might not want to have any sort of conversation with a chick he was hooking up with. And I wasn’t sure I could make him pursue me in earnest. I had a healthy self-esteem, but even I knew when a guy didn’t want a girlfriend.
Besides, becoming his girlfriend would be going way too far. I just needed to be peripheral. I needed to hang around Pin as much as I could, maybe even go out with him and Kim and other bikers. I needed to drift on the sidelines, cute and approachable, but not a threat at all. I needed to keep my eyes and ears open.
That was the only semblance of a plan I could come up with. All great investigators knew that plans always went to shit anyway. Veronica had a favorite saying: I make a plan, and God laughs.
I would just adapt and think on my feet. To prove my point, I bounced on the balls of my feet and shadowboxed, just to pump myself up.
As if on cue, there was a knock on my door. Pin had arrived.
“It’s showtime,” I whispered to myself. I put a smile on my face and headed to my door.
As I gripped the door handle in anticipation to see him, the smile started to feel genuine.
Pin
