by Naomi West
But now she had a huge problem. Where would they go from here? She was still investigating him and she couldn’t lose sight of that. He’d given her a few little pieces of information. Nothing major, but it did seem less and less like he was involved. She couldn’t be absolutely sure until she found out who had killed Hugh. And until she talked to Hawk about what happened with his dad. There was a real possibility that she’d just slept with a killer.
She tried to put the hard facts out of her mind and think about how he’d been. Sweet and caring and interested. Or was it all just a game? His way to get her talking, to break her down and make her vulnerable so she’d sleep with him?
She got up and found her clothing in the dining room. She dressed quickly, grabbed her purse from its spot by the front door, and quietly slipped out. She unlocked her own door, feeling like she hadn’t been there in days. Boxes still sat needing her attention. She walked past them and into her own bedroom to think.
Before she could decide whether or not to approach Hawk again she needed to know what she wanted. Did she want a relationship with him? Did she want to sleep with him again? Could she keep watching Damian after this? There were simply too many conflicting desires and questions without answers.
Chapter 13
Hawk shut off the water, standing for a moment in the steam, letting drops fall from his hair to the tiled floor. She was everything he’d hoped for but it had also confirmed his fears - she was the relationship type. He tried to shake it off for the time being and convinced himself he might as well enjoy whatever they had now, in this moment.
He stepped out of the shower and breathed in the scent of his clean towel before rubbing it all over his body. He wrapped it around his waist and prepared to go back into his bedroom. When his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, he saw an empty bed. She must’ve gotten up to check on Damian or get a drink or something. He dropped his towel and pulled on fresh boxers, then walked down the hall. Damian’s door was mostly closed. He stuck his face in, saw his little chest moving up and down, and continued into the kitchen.
The light was off and so was the light in the dining room. “Alexa?” he said softly.
He paused, listening for movement, but there was nothing. He glanced at the front door. Her purse was gone. She’d left. He walked over to the window that faced her house and sure enough, her bedroom was light on. As he watched, it clicked off. Her house stayed dark.
So, she’d decided to leave while he was in the shower and go home. He breathed a sigh of relief. This meant no relationship. Staying the night, waking up together, that was a relationship thing. That was a boyfriend, girlfriend thing. People who only slept together didn’t need to spend the night. That was one of the benefits of not having those strings.
He went back to his bedroom and slid into bed but all the same her absence stung. He pushed those thoughts aside. He’d wanted to bang her and he had. He’d wanted nothing more than to sleep with her and have her be Damian’s babysitter, and that’s all she was. And that’s all she was going to be.
It didn’t matter what she did or where she slept. She was just his neighbor. A nosy neighbor always asking him questions, sure, but one that had become indispensable to Damian.
His phone vibrated on his bedside. He picked up his phone. The text wasn’t from Alexa, though. It was from Jared.
“Hey man. At a gated. Need some help. Got a few?”
Hawk blew out a breath and ran his hand through his damp hair. He loved these types of jobs. Sneaking past a gate in the middle of the night to get a car was the sort of challenge he enjoyed and it always gave him a thrill. But he had the baby and now he had a weird thing with the babysitter.
He punched the bed beside him. “Fuck!” Less than an hour after they were done, and screwing her was already causing problems. He couldn’t call her now. It would seem desperate. It would seem like so much more than what it was. He need the job, though, bad.
He texted Jared back, “Yeah, but I have the baby. If you can sit in the car with him, I can get the car.”
“Fine.” He sent the address.
Hawk got dressed and carefully went into Damian’s room to prepare some things. He grabbed the diaper bag and gently lifted the baby into the car seat. He stirred, then resettled.
Hawk got him into the car and drove to the location. Damian hadn’t woken up. Hopefully he would stay asleep the whole time. He wondered for a moment if Alexa had seen him leaving. When he pulled up, he saw Jared standing against his tow truck.
“Hey,” Hawk said, nodding at him.
“Hey. No way of getting the truck in. They won’t cooperate.”
“That just makes it that much more fun, then.” He nodded to the car. “Damian is asleep in the back. Just stay with him? I’ll bring the car out and you can tow it the rest of the way and I’ll drive my car home.”
“Sounds like a plan. Thanks for coming out.”
“I miss these middle of the night jobs sometimes. Wish I could do more of them.”
Jared turned and pointed. “That’s her, right there.”
Through the gate, Hawk could see the black Dodge Charger. He smiled. “Might have to take that one for a joy ride after lifting it.”
“If you get it out for me, you can do whatever you want,” Jared said.
Hawk looked over the gate. There were spotlights on it, and likely someone was watching, especially if Jared had tried to get in through the gate.
“You have papers?” Hawk asked.
“Yup. Guy at the gate said that didn’t mean he had to let me in.”
Hawk nodded. Sometimes they were jerks like that. Or maybe the owner of the Charger knew what was coming and had paid him. There was a chance the guy at the gate might have called the owner to put him on alert if it was a situation like that. He didn’t see any lights on in the house though which was a good sign.
He checked his pockets for his tools. This car would have an electronic alarm system that would go off. Luckily, he had a device that would jam the signal and stop it from making any noise. Hawk stepped back, then ran at the gate. It was metal bars between brick columns. Easy enough to grab on and get up if you had the upper body strength and momentum. He got to the top, flipped his leg over while glancing around to see if anyone might be watching, then dropped down on the other side.
He ran to the car and turned on the device that would stop the alarm. Then he wedged the door open around the window and stuck his slim jim down to unlock it. He looked around one more time before yanking open the door. When he did, he noticed a sticker on the back window of the Charger. It was round, a black circle edged in white, with a knife blade cutting through it. A bolt of lightning was in the background.
A sudden flashback hit him. The night Hugh died Hawk had gone over to his place after working late. They did this often. The brothers would just sit and hang, drink a beer or two, and maybe watch some crappy movie on late.
That night, Hawk pulled up outside Hugh’s around 3 a.m. after finishing a few jobs. He’d pulled up and seen someone jump into a car parked half a block up the street and take off in a hurry. The speed had caught his eye first, then the car. A Dodge Charger was unusual, especially in the ghetto. Who in their right mind would drive such a fancy expensive car into drug central? As it had driven off, Hawk watched it go and noticed the sticker. It’d stuck in his mind because he’d wondered about it. Was it a gang symbol or something?
He’d gone inside after that and found his brother dead on the floor of his living room, gunshot to his head. Damian was upstairs, crying. He’d gone up and gotten the baby, then called the cops. He sat on the front porch in shock, rocking Damian, waiting for police to arrive. Of course, being the one to find him, he was automatically a suspect. He’d gone through all sorts of questioning and mentioned the car. The person interviewing him, some detective’s assistant, had made a note of it, but he never heard anything again. The gang excuse was bull. Hugh was never into any gang and if they didn’t have a specific pe
rson to pin it to it made it all seem like just another cover up. Or that the police didn’t want to admit they couldn’t figure it out.
Hawk had often thought back to that night and wondered about that car. Now he was staring at it. He snapped back to reality when a light in the house flicked on.
He hopped inside the car and used his tool to get the ignition key casing off, then stuck his screw driver in. The car started loudly and Hawk left the lights off as he hurried to pull out of the driveway. No one came out of the house. Almost like they wanted the car gone. That just raised his suspicion even more. Had they turned on the light to make sure the car was gone?
When he got through the gate he paused and took out the registration. He took a picture of it with his phone. If he ever talked to Alexa again, maybe she could help him out. Didn’t PIs have a way to run plates and that sort of thing? She must have some sort of access to a criminal database or a police hook up. Something that would give him some more information.
This couldn’t be a coincidence. There weren’t two black Chargers in this town that happened to have the same sticker. This was the car that had been outside Hugh’s the night he was killed. And the guy who ran to it might have been the one who killed his brother.
Hawk felt sick and determined at the same time. He pulled the car around to where Jared stood outside Hawk’s car, looking in on the baby. Hawk snapped another picture of the house from outside the gate, then of the license plate. The house was dark again.
“Everything okay?” Jared asked.
“Yup. I just think I saw this car before. No big deal. Thanks for calling me.”
“Thanks for getting it.” Jared fished his keys out of his pocket and started up his truck.
Hawk watched him back it up, placing the lift in just the right spot before raising it. The front tires lifted off the ground. The guy was a real pro at that. Must’ve done it a hundred times a month.
“I’ll cut you a check when I get paid.”
Hawk nodded and watched him drive off. He looked in the car to make sure Damian was still sleeping, then back up at the house. He wanted to climb back over the gate, break in, and strangle whoever was inside for answers.
But he couldn’t do things like that. He had Damian to take care of and a probation officer that would be extra hard on him if he was arrested for anything. Doing his job was risky enough, but his PO was onboard with it since it was steady income, so long as he didn’t cross any lines. Breaking and entering, assault, and murder would obviously send him away for life. And what would become of Damian, then?
Hawk got into his car, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white, and drove off. He’d call Alexa tomorrow. Even though she hadn’t planned to come over to watch the baby, he would suck it up and ask for a favor. After all, he hadn’t been the one to fuck her then run while she was in the shower. He hadn’t done anything to piss her off. In his mind, she owed him.
Chapter 14
Alexa’s phone rang and she picked it up. She glanced out her window. Hawk’s car wasn’t sitting out, but he usually kept it in the garage. It was daylight, so there were no lights on in his house. No way to know if he was home or not. She hadn’t decided yet what she was going to do, but she answered anyway. It could be concerning Damian.
“Hiya,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual.
“Hey. I was wondering if you could maybe help me out with something.”
For a second, she wondered if this was some cheap line. “Okay.” She prepared herself for the answer.
“I know you like to investigate things being a PI, and even though you might not have interest in Hugh’s death, I found something that might point to the killer.”
Her mouth popped open. Whatever this was about, it would give her the license to investigate further and an excuse on top if anything came up. If she did something suspicious, she could just say she’d gotten interested after his request and couldn’t let the case go. But why now, she wondered.
“Alexa? You there?”
She shook her head to bring herself back. “I’m here. Sorry.”
“Is that a no, then?”
“No, no. Not a no. Yes, I mean. What do you have?”
“Well, the night he died, I went over there to hang out after work, like I often did. I saw this car when I pulled up and a guy got in and took off just as I was getting out of my car. I told this all to the cops, but they didn’t think it was too important.”
That wasn’t true. She had thought it was very important, but only knowing the car’s color, make, and model didn’t give them much to go on. There were lots of black Dodge Chargers out there. What they had needed was a license plate number.
“Tonight, I got called to do a job at a gated community. Jared couldn’t get in there with his tow truck.”
So, that’s where he had gone so late. She had seen him put the baby in the car and was surprised he’d take Damian anywhere in the middle of the night. Not like the baby had been sick or anything.
“I climbed the gate and got in, but when I was getting inside the car, I noticed it had the same sticker that the car I saw at Hugh’s that night did.”
Her heart dropped. The same sticker? That was a bit of a stretch.
“Hawk…” She didn’t want to crush his hopes. “I don’t know that a sticker will really be too informative. I mean, how many cars might have the same sticker?”
“No, no. It’s the same car. It’s a black Dodge Charger, same sticker. I know it is. I got the license plate and the registration. Can you run it and see who it belongs to?”
“I can check it out, sure.”
“Great. I’ll text it all to you.”
“I’ll let you know when I have something.”
“Thanks. I really appreciate it.”
He hung up. There was a formality to his voice, almost like a tacit agreement not to talk about what had happened last night, and she bit her lip, wondering if she really wanted him to bring it up.
She sat down at her computer in her living room and logged into the police database. Hopefully, her login info would still work for a while, but they could shut off her access at any point. She’d asked the chief to keep it open, promising that her being a PI would only help them in the end, and he’d agreed. But one bad day and he might change his mind and cut her off, or decide he didn’t like where she was poking around.
For now, it was still working and she was able to get into the DMV database to run the numbers. She looked at the picture from Hawk and typed it in, then sat back to wait. It took several minutes, but a result came up.
Black Dodge Charger. The address was nearby, in a community she knew to be in a nicer part of town. Could be the gated one. She opened Google Earth to check and confirmed there was a gate all around the community where the Charger owner lived. She texted Hawk the name of the owner, Rucker Marshall, along with the address. He probably already had that, but wouldn’t hurt to have it again just in case.
She went to the police criminal database and entered the name. What came back was a criminal record with several entries. Several counts of drug possession. Drug trafficking. Assault. And a pending charge for drug trafficking. This would be his second offense for trafficking. Apparently, ten prior years in federal prison hadn’t taught him anything.
She picked up her phone to text him, but decided to just head over there. Maybe they could go back to how it was before and act like nothing had happened, she was a PI and babysitter helping him out, nothing more. She wanted to see his reaction when she told him about the drug charges and ask him more questions. That couldn’t happen effectively over text.
He pulled open the door with Damian in his arms. “Hey. Thanks for getting the name.”
“I have some more info if you have a minute.”
“Yeah.” He stepped aside to let her in.
As she passed Damian, he whined and reached out his arms for her. She reached back and took him. They sat at the dining room table, and
she tried not to think about what had happened there the night before.
“Turns out Rucker is big on the drug scene,” she said. “Has a pending trafficking charge and served a decade behind bars for one already.”
Hawk took in a long, slow breath. “Hugh was into that scene. Started out like it always does. He was copping some weed, and got talking to the dealer. He decided he could make some serious dough, and since he’d just been laid off his factory job, he didn’t have many prospects. He started small and did well, so they gave him more. His girlfriend started dipping into his supply, though. Maybe she caused some trouble, who knows. She died, not long after.”
“And how you were involved in that scene?”
“Never was. I’d already gotten myself into trouble. I had a decent job. I stayed clear away. Never even really smoked or anything. Just a handful of times. Not like Hugh and Jessica did. He told me that every day, she was high. All day. I doubt it was just weed, too. She was in bad shape from what he told me. Then she OD’ed on heroin. I don’t know how long she was on it. Hopefully not while she was pregnant, but I know she drank and smoked up while she was.”
