Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“Answer him,” King snaps. “If we have people going rogue I need to know about it.”
“Um, not the ones he wanted me to identify, but… I think so.”
“You think so?” Arturo asks.
Closing her eyes for a second, Kaylee nods. “I saw one that I know was there, and a couple others I wasn’t sure about. It isn’t anyone I’ve seen here, I swear.”
“Could you describe them?” I ask. “Get me some shit to draw with.”
Doing her best, Kaylee describes what she remembers, and in the end, we have six sketches with greater or lesser detail. Four of them are shit. They could be just about anyone, but the others are pretty clear. Especially the guy who almost found her. She gave me a real good description of the scars criss crossing his face and crawling down his neck. I spread the sketches on the table and all the Screaming Eagles members gather around to examine them.
“Pretty sure I’d remember that guy,” Nitro says, pointing to scarface.
King nods. “I don’t recognize any of these men. Did you point any of them out to the cops?”
“No, but…”
“But what?”
“But I think Detective Harris noticed when I saw the guy with the scars. That’s when he took the book away and just gave me the six photos.” Kaylee looks like she’s about ready to collapse. She’s leaning against Nitro, and Tank has his hands on her shoulders.
“Maybe we should see if anyone recognises these pictures?” I suggest.
King nods. “Unless you’ve got more questions. Let’s call it for the night.”
Arturo leans back in his chair. “This isn’t much to bring back to the Family. Cazzo. Those who already support our cooperation will continue to do so, those that do not won’t find this new information particularly compelling.”
“That’s nothing new. The same people who called me a biker whore when I met my men and had Izzy will never be happy, but their prejudices don’t get to force us into a new war,” Alessa says.
Viking growls. “But if they want one, show them my way. We’ll put them so deep in the fucking ground that when the archeologists dig them up they’ll think they found the fucking missing link.”
Luca nods in agreement. Good to see there’s at least some cooperation left.
King stands and hands the sketches to Quickshot. “Make a few copies so they have something to take with them.” He nods to Arturo. “We’ll do our fucking part to keep trying to figure out what happened, you do the same, because if we find out your men weren’t just there by random chance, we’re going to have some hard fucking questions of our own.”
13
KAYLEE
I wake up tangled in blankets and not knowing where I am. Pure panic shoots through me before my brain kicks in enough to understand that I’m not in police custody anymore. I’m in the Screaming Eagles compound and they must have brought me back to that empty room after the meeting.
Yesterday feels like a dream. I feel like I’ve been asleep for years, but still not quite long enough. Sunlight comes through a high, narrow window on one wall, illuminating what looks like a bullet hole in the ceiling above me. Right, bikers. I’m going to pretend it was from a hook for a hanging plant, but either way it’s still a thousand times less scary than a camera staring down at my every move.
Alone for the first time in days, I throw the blankets off and slide out of bed. I haven’t eaten in so long I’m not even really hungry anymore, which can’t be a good thing. But even worse than that is how insanely grubby I feel.
The room is as bare as I remember it, but on the table, someone left a towel with the logo of a popular hotel chain on it, an extra large t-shirt advertising a motorcycle company, and one of those five in one bottles of shower wash that claim to be good for absolutely everything and smell like mountain fresh carbon power.
The stylist in me cringes, but the girl who hasn’t been clean in days wants to marry whoever was thoughtful enough to leave it for me. I head straight for the little box of a bathroom which is about as barebones as it gets. There’s a toilet, a sink with a cracked mirror and a showerhead on the wall with a drain in the floor and a track on the ceiling to pull the curtain closed.
Looking at myself in the mirror isn’t easy. There are bruises up and down my arms and over my shoulders and collarbone. Harris was good at keeping his abuse out of sight after that first slap, but his anger left its mark. Ugh. I turn away from the ugliness of it all and get into the shower.
The first spray of hot water over my face makes me want to cry in joy. I scrub myself from head to toe twice, not caring that I smell like a male body spray commercial and that my hair is going to be a crunchy, frizzy disaster. I’m going to be clean.