My ears perked up. I was afraid they’d do background checks. I was just hoping it wasn’t on me.
“We got the ones for the cop and the neighbor back.”
“Shit!” I cried, scaring Sunshine into raising her head to check on me. I patted her soft forehead. “Sorry, girl.”
There was only one neighbor, and that was me.
That meant my cover was officially blown.
That meant I was so very busted.
That meant it was only a matter of time before they were over here asking a bunch of questions that I wasn’t really prepared to answer.
“What do you mean?” Maddy asked. “What did you find out?”
“Well,” Riot began. “The cop, for one. He’s married. About to be promoted to Chief of Police. Apparently, the Astoria Police Department is just a festering boy’s club, ripe with corruption. Officer MacGregor actually has had several sexual harassment accusations from women in the community. All of them have been swept under the rug by the department.”
“Shocking!” Slade said, sarcastically. “So, I’ve been following this asshole all day and he hasn’t done anything but walk around like he owns the fucking town and schmooze people and flirt with women. Seems like a real family man. I even saw him drinking from a fucking flask in his cruiser when he thought nobody was looking.”
“Well, it’s possible he’d had some run-ins with Frannie,” Ryder said, his voice pausing.
“It’s okay,” Maddy said. “I can take it. Maybe Mom was having an affair with him, is that what you’re saying?”
“We have to consider all possibilities,” Ryder said.
“Right.”
“What about the neighbor?” Colt asked.
“You mean Finn?” Maddy asked.
“Yeah, well turns out, Finn used to be someone else entirely,” he said. “He changed his name. Thomas Collins is his old name. He’s from the same small town Frannie is from. In fact, they went to high school together.”
“What?” Maddy said. “That’s insane. He’s never mentioned that. Mom never mentioned that.”
And that was that.
My cover, exploded into thin air.
I stood up and walked out of my office, their voices lingering in the background.
“I think the first thing we need to do is go over and talk to him,” Colt said. “Maybe he can give us some answers.”
“I’ll go with you,” Slade said.
I walked to my basement door and slowly descended the stairs, knowing they were going to be knocking on my door any minute. Taking the key from my pocket, I slid it into the lock, turning it slowly, dreading the fact that my secret was out and that I would be forced to admit and explain everything.
I knew, from that moment on, my life would never be the same.
Slowly, I opened the door, staring into Frannie’s vibrant eyes, staring into the manifestation of my deepest, darkest secret, just as the Gods began knocking on my front door.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
MAC
I’d been driving around all goddamned day. Fury burned my veins, leaving my blood pressure through the roof.
I’d gone by Frannie’s house hours ago, but they weren’t there. I went to the hotel they were staying at, but I didn’t see their bikes. Finally, I ended up at the bar, downing a few shots and continuing my attempt at numbing this anger once I got back in my cruiser by taking sips of whiskey every few minutes.
All it did was make me even more pissed off, only now I was drunk and pissed off, which usually ended badly.
But what the fuck ever.
My phone buzzed on the seat next to me as I cruised up the 101, my eyes peeled for any sign of a motorcycle. I looked down and saw it was my wife again. She’d called five times in as many hours and I’d ignored her calls all day.
“God, fuck off, bitch,” I said, hitting the ‘reject’ button again. I had no time for her shit. My phone buzzed again and I read her text message.
Are you coming home for dinner?
I grabbed the phone and texted her back.
No. Working a case. Might not be home at all tonight…
I had no idea how long this shit might take. The one thing I did know was that I wasn’t stopping until I taught these bastards a lesson. They had no idea who they were messing with but they were sure as fuck going to find out.
As soon as I could find their sorry asses…
CHAPTER FIFTY
FINN
I opened the door to find Colt and Slade standing there. As I’d already decided Colt was the nice one, he didn’t make me as nervous as Slade did. Slade was like a bomb ready to go off. He was all wound up like a rubber band drawn back and just waiting to fling through the air.
It was like a twisted version of good cop bad cop standing in front of me.
“We need to talk,” Slade said, flashing me a menacing grin. I swallowed hard and stepped aside, letting them in. They walked around my living room, taking in all in, before they turned back to me. I wanted to spare them the explanation, I already knew why they were there.
But my tongue was paralyzed.
They were intimidating. I really knew nothing about them, but I had a feeling they didn’t go about their business in the most polite manner. Something told me they weren’t strangers to getting what they wanted. And I was pretty sure they weren’t opposed to incorporating a little violence into their lives, either.
“So, Finn,” Slade said, accentuating the name I’d adopted years ago. “You like secrets?”
“Secrets?”
“Yeah, you know, deep, dark stuff that you do your damnedest to make sure other people don’t find out about?”
“I, um, I guess,” I said, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. He moved close, his lips mere inches from mine.
“What about stalkers? You like stalkers?” His eyes bore into mine. I could smell his breath, feel the heat rolling off of his skin. Colt stood behind him, his arms crossed over his chest, as he watched his partner interrogate me.
“Um, no,” I replied.
“Yeah, me neither,” Slade said, turning away, nodding. “Turns out, Finn, that you aren’t really who you say you are, isn’t that right? You see, we did some digging and we found out exactly who you are. You’ve been lying to the ladies next door the whole time, haven’t you? I wonder —.”
“— look,” I interrupted, finally finding the strength to speak.
Slade spun around, an eyebrow raised quizzically. “Yeah?”
“I, um, I know why you’re here.”
“You do?” Slade asked, looking incredulously over at Colt. “Did you hear that, Colt? He knows why we’re here!”
“Amazing,” Colt nodded, his deep voice booming through my small living room. Filled with their two very large presences, it had never been so crowded in here before.
“Well, I, for one, would love to hear it,” Slade said, looking at me expectantly.
I shook my head, sighing.
“I’ll just show you,” I said. “Follow me.”
I walked towards the basement door, shame washing over me. I’d tried so hard to keep my secret for years, but it was time to shine a light on my darkest thoughts, to admit to my most bizarre obsession…
The shuffle of Colt and Slade’s boots on the wood floors echoed through the house. Sunshine, who I’d locked in my bedroom before opening the front door, barked with frustration that she couldn’t get to our guests.
“What’s down there?” Slade asked, as I opened the basement door.
“You’ll see,” I said. “You want to know my secrets? All the answers are done there.”
We looked down into the darkness together, the three of us silent as we stared down the stairs, the sounds of Sunshine’s whimpering echoing through the house.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
SLADE
This motherfucker.
Is he crazy? Most likely.
He’d have to be batshit insane to think I’m going to fol
low his stalker ass down a flight of dark stairs into the basement of his creepy ass house.
“How about you go first?” I offered, smiling at him. He was eerie as hell. He talked twice as slow as he needed to. He walked slightly hunched over which made him look like an old lady or something. And his eyes. For fuck’s sake! They darted around like a bouncy ball, never stopping on any one thing for more than a second at a time.
“Fine,” he shrugged, shuffling down the stairs before us.
“Colt, you stay here,” I said, flashing Colt a look. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but the last thing I needed was to get locked up in a dank ass basement with Mr. Fucking Creepy here.
“Sure, boss,” Colt said, standing in front of the basement door, keeping it from closing, which made me feel just a little bit better.
“Shit,” I mumbled, shuffling down the stairs. “Don’t you have a fucking light?”
“Sure,” Finn said, pulling on a thin string hanging from the ceiling. The room lit up, revealing a finished basement with a pile of boxes in the corner and a washer and dryer along one wall, with a sink between them.
“Looks pretty fucking normal to me,” I said. But then Finn walked around the corner and over to a locked door. A simple padlock kept it closed and my stomach churned as my imagination ran crazy imagining what was behind it.
“Dude,” I said, my voice a low warning.
“It’s time,” Finn said. “I’m tired of hiding it. I’m exhausted, to tell you the truth.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, pulling my gun off my hip and cocking it, as he slid the key into the lock.
“That’s not necessary,” he said, looking at me in confusion.
“I like to pull it out every now and then for comfort,” I said. “Think of it as my support animal. Some people have miniature horses and peacocks, I’ve got this baby.”
“Right,” he said, pulling the lock off the handle and opening the door.
He stood back and dropped his chin to his chest, a deep pink blush washing over his face.
“What the fuck is this?” I said, looking through the door. It opened up to a small space, but I wouldn’t really call it a room. More of a cubbyhole that he’d walled off.
Pictures of Frannie lined the walls, most of them framed, but they were almost all candid shots, shot seemingly without her knowledge. There were pictures of her working in her garden, driving in her car, shopping at the grocery store. I looked closer and saw a few more in more intimate settings. One of them was even taken while she was asleep. Another while she showered.
Under the pictures were a few small bookshelves, dozens of candles sitting on the top of it, along with a few rocks and dried flowers and even what looked like strings of beads.
“Dude, what the hell is this? It looks like some serial killer shit.”
“It’s the opposite of that,” Finn said.
“Explain,” I demanded, towering over him.
“I love Frannie,” he said. “I’ve always loved Frannie. This is my shrine to her. I knew her in high school…”
“Yeah, we knew that,” I replied. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
“I was in love with her. She was an angel. Just perfect. And we were friends, but she didn’t love me back. Not like that. Not like I wanted her to. After high school, we went our separate ways, but I never forgot her. I tried to move on. I tried to have relationships with other people, but nobody ever lived up to Frannie.”
“And?”
“And well, I thought maybe, you know…all these years later, I thought since I’ve changed so much, I’m grown up now, I’m a real man…I thought she’d see me differently. So, I changed my name and anything else that remained of the old me, and I became someone else entirely. Someone that I hoped Frannie could love.”
“And you fucking moved in next door and started stalking her?”
He hung his head again and I could almost feel the shame rolling off of him.
“You are one stupid, sad motherfucker, you know that?”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice low and quiet.
“Alright, well, where the fuck is she? What did you do with her? Did you kill her?”
His head shot up, his eyes wide.
“What? My god! No!” he cried. I took a step back and looked him up and down. The fucker was telling the truth.
“So you don’t know where she is?”
“God, I wish I did,” he said. “I’m sick with worry. I can’t sleep. I’ve been looking for her constantly. I have no idea where she is. I was hoping Sage would figure it out, or you guys, but it doesn’t look like it, if you’re over here questioning me.”
“You have any suggestions on who else we should be questioning?”
“If I knew who had taken Frannie, I’d have already saved her myself,” he said, raising his chin a little.
Fucker had balls, that’s for sure.
“But I heard that Sage is missing, and Corinne, too?”
“You heard that, huh?” I asked. “How did you hear it?”
“Um, that doesn’t matter, but I think I might know where the girls are.”
“Well, you fuck, why didn’t you say that sooner?” I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upstairs. Colt waited at the top.
“You hear all that?” I asked Colt.
“Yep,” he said, grabbing Finn’s arm and heading for the door. “Let’s take him next door. Sounds like he has a lot of information to give us.”
I watched Colt drag Finn next door with pride. You could see he was pissed and wasn’t about to waste a moment finding his woman. I couldn’t help but admire that shit.
He was my kind of man.
This Finn freak on the other hand was a creature I’d never be able to understand. Hiding in the fucking shadows and dedicating his life to stalking some woman who was clearly not interested in him….that shit’s whack.
A man’s gotta know when a woman wants him. And when it’s obvious, you fucking take what you want with confidence. I thought about my wife, Diana, and how I couldn’t wait till this case was over and I could get back to her and show her exactly what I wanted.
If this sniveling freak wasn’t about to burst into tears in front of me, my dick would probably be hard.
Hell, who am I kidding?
It’s hard as a rock.
Thoughts of Diana always do it to me…
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
COLT
“Spill it,” Slade said, pushing Finn to the middle of the room.
“Okay,” he said, hesitating nervously as he eyed the rest of the Gods, who were now surrounding him like an angry gang.
“I went to high school with Frannie —.”
“— not that part, dumbass! Tell us where Sage and Corinne are!” I demanded.
“Oh, right,” he said. “They took off again this afternoon and they went to the same place they went yesterday.”
“Yesterday?” I asked.
“Yeah, I have the address. It’s an office building. Looks like a couple of therapists do business there, according to the signs.”
“Go on,” I growled, wanting to rip the words from his throat.
“Frannie went there. For therapy,” he said. “I used to follow her.”
“Yeah, bro, we get it, you’re a fucking creepy stalker,” Slade said. “Give us the fucking address. What time did they go there? When did they leave?”
“That’s just it,” he said. “They went this afternoon, separately. Well, sort of. Corinne stayed in the car at first, only Sage went in. But then, he came out and got Corinne. They were smiling and friendly. I didn’t think anything of it. I left…”
“You just fucking left?”
“Well, yeah, it was time to feed Sunshine.”
“Your dog?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
“The dog couldn’t wait until you saw they were safe?”
“She’s on a schedule…”
“Well, I fucking love my dog, too, so I get that,
” Slade shrugged, shoving a piece of paper and a pen under his nose. “Write down the fucking address.”
Finn started writing, his fingers trembling as he handed the paper back to Slade.
“You better not be fucking with us,” Slade warned.
“I would never,” Finn said.
“Yeah, I believe you man,” Slade said. “You’re just a fucking lonely bastard in love.”
“I would never hurt Frannie, or anyone…”
“Alright, alright,” Slade said. “Go back home to your weird shrine to Frannie and we’re gonna go check out this address.”
“Let’s go, y’all,” Slade said to everyone, but I was already out the door.
Ten minutes later, we were at the address Finn gave us. We rushed the place, quickly finding Leo’s locked office. We banged on the door, but all was quiet.
“I don’t think anyone’s here,” Slade said, putting his ear to the door.
“Well, we’re about to find out,” I said, slamming all my weight against the door, easily busting through it. I barreled into the small area, searching every inch, but Slade was right.
It was empty.
Nothing looked out of place, except for the now splintered door.
“Fuck!” I growled, rage and worry mixing through my blood like a flammable cocktail just waiting to explode.
“Where the fuck is she?” I shouted. Slade looked at me, shaking his head.
“I know, dude. Keep it together,” he grabbed my arm, making me look him in the eye. “We’ll find her. But only if you keep your head.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, shrugging him off and storming out of the office.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
LEO
You never realize just how heavy a human body really is until you have to carry one. It surprises me every time. And two of them? Damn. What a workout!
I made sure to grab their phones after I finally got them in the car. First, I texted Maddy from Sage’s phone, because I knew she’d be worried by now and I wanted to delay the inevitable.
CHASING SUNSHINE: GODS OF CHAOS MC (BOOK THIRTEEN) Page 17
