Page 41 of Archer (Dirty Misfits MC 3)
Her tears broke my heart as I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Angel, this is important. Did you hear anything else?”
Summer stared me down. “That’s why you here, ain’t it?”
I peeked over at her, but I didn’t say anything. “Angel?”
Summer nodded as if she had gotten the message and scurried back to the girls that were putting their makeup on. I wasn’t sure what she was about to tell them, but I knew I could trust her.
So, I turned my attention to Angel. “Please, you have to tell me. The lives of several girls depend on it.”
Angel sighed. “So, it’s true. These really are the kinds of people that have taken over the club?”
“You gotta calm her down, Josie,” Brooks said.
I cleared my throat and made Angel look at me. “Breathe and tell me what you know. You have to be strong for me, okay? Because if you’re strong for me, I can be strong for all of us. And together, we can get our club back.”
“Would’ve convinced me,” Archer murmured in my ear.
I tried not to smile as Angel nodded her head and drew in a deep breath. “I overheard them late last night when I was leaving out in the parking lot. They were talking about the Santa Cruz Wharf.”
“Did you hear anything about a date? Or a time? Anything resembling a schedule?”
She thought really hard. “It sounded like one of the guys was about to say Sunday? But a really big guy shut him up so I really only heard, like, the first two letters or something like that. He could’ve been saying anything, for all I know.”
I kissed her forehead. “You’re magnificent, thank you so much.”
“Hey,” Summer said as I crossed the room, “where you goin’, mama?”
I ripped open the door. “To find answers.”
We still had an hour until the club opened, and I heard all of those leather-clad asshats chittering and laughing bombastically out at the bar. Drinking their stock away, if I had to venture a guess. I pressed myself against the wall and eased down the hallway, checking my corners and making sure I stayed out of range of the cameras that I knew were there.
And once I got to the hallway full of offices, I pulled the key out from my left thigh-high.
“You there, beautiful?” Archer asked.
I cleared my throat softly as I made my way for the first door.
“I’m hacked into the security system,” Cole said.
Tanner came to the forefront. “Got the cameras in the hallway on a loop. It looks all clear, Josie.”
So, I threw the first door open after unlocking it and looked around as quickly as I could.
The first office was pretty barren, so I ventured down the hallway. I dipped into every room and pulled open every drawer to try and find the papers I was looking for. But with every opened and empty drawer, I started to lose confidence.
“They might not leave a paper trail,” Porter murmured.
“They’re not that smart,” Brooks grunted.
Then, I threw open the second to last door in the entire hallway and sighed with relief. “Bingo.”
“What?” Archer asked quickly. “What did you find?”
Brooks chuckled. “Only ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers, man. Like I told you.”
I slipped into the office and closed the door behind me. I locked it for good measure, in case anyone came to check the doors. But then I realized I hadn’t closed any of the other doors. I cursed myself softly as I pulled out drawers, and the sheer amount of pristine file folders I saw told me I was in the right place.
So, I pulled out the small camera phone Brooks had given me earlier in the evening and snapped pictures.
“Are you uploading now?” Cole asked.
I cleared my throat as I continued to shoot pictures off to them.
“Rendering now,” Tanner said.
Cole chuckled. “You can take them quicker. We have software that clears up fuzzy images. Just snap and go. Snap and go.”
I cleared my throat to let him know that I’d heard him, then I doubled my speed. I rip-roared through those files before putting them back together, not even bothering to read them. I mean, even if we didn’t find exactly what we were looking for, this was still valuable information for them.
Then, Archer’s voice sounded. “We got two men in the hallway next to you, beautiful. Wrap it up.”
I sighed. “Just two more files. That’s it.”
“Do what you can, then get out of there,” Cole said.
Tanner sighed. “You didn’t close the rest of the doors, did you?”
I winced. “I’ll handle it. Just buy me some time.”
The guys went dead in my ear and I shot off more information to them. I flipped through things as quickly as I could, but when I heard actual voices through the wall, I froze.
Shit. They’d seen the open doors and knew someone was down here.
