Page 64 of Making His Bones

Yes, we saw an empty bottle of Flexeril. Why do you ask?

“That’s it!” I bellowed. I nearly slammed my phone on a desk, then realized I’d need it. So, in a more graphic demonstration of my rage, I whipped out my Glock and violently pulled back the slide, chambering a round. I did the same with my other piece—I now had a macho pair of six-shooters. I paced like a pent-up leopard.

“That’s it! How much more evidence do we need that his he/she is a fucking murderer? Let the bodies drop! If her fucking grandmother took the DNA test for her, why? To get out of a murder rap! So the whole family covered for her, too!”

Lytton held out a hand. “Hang loose, bro. This is way beyond your wheelhouse. We need to bring it to the table in chapel and pass a vote—“

“You’re kidding me?” I shouted at the Bare Bones Veep. “This crazed half-woman possibly has kidnaped Tiago and we’re going to sit around voting?”

“Brothers don’t turn on each other!” Lytton snapped. “The first round out of your gun that hits anyone will be followed by a hell you don’t even want to know.”

We stared each other down. I snarled, “Who the fuck knows what can happen in three hours while you guys are debating the finer nuances of whichever stick is up your butt at the moment? We all know stolen kids have a half-life of about two hours, and he’s already been missing since last night.”

Lytton jerked his chin. “Ford and the seniors are never going to forgive you for not running this by them first.”

“Here, I’ll make a deal, bro. You go downtown and call together a sit-down. Meanwhile I’m on my way to Seeker—“

“With me!” chirped Wolf. “May I go?”

“—and wherever I find little Tiago, some heads are going to be blown off. Deal?”

“I can’t stop you,” Lytton seethed. “So I guess it’s a deal. But you wait until you hear a call from us.”

“Can’t guarantee that,” I said honestly. “Depends on what I see. Come on, Wolf.”

“Figure it out, grunt,” suggested Lytton, not unkindly. They just called Prospects like me grunts.

Wolf left without an official approval, so I guessed he was taking his risks, too. I wished we had more manpower, but I couldn’t exactly call a brother, even Knoxie. After all, his old lady was still cleaning hagfish slime from the undercarriage of her Dodge Dart. That would be asking him to break the code of the club, so it was just me and Wolf Glaser who peeled down the driveway of Lytton’s Mormon Mountain home.

After I texted Galileo, we’re going to look for Tiago in Seeker, Wolf and I nodded officially at each other and blazed on out. I knew Galileo would tell Elektra. All I could do was hope she didn’t try to follow. I didn’t say where in Seeker, but the Flexeril question probably narrowed it down. I should’ve texted her to tell her to stay put, but it’s a bitch texting while riding a scoot.

We roared past many day trippers driving at a standstill pace around the lake. Images of my woman—my woman!—floated around in my head. She had some orgasms, that was for sure. I’d never met a woman who was so consumed by one. Had she been . . . exercising those muscles a lot with her device? Well, as long as it was only for me, that was all that mattered.

Elektra had to go back to Illinois next week and arrange for her new office, meet with her higher-ups and the few people she planned to bring with her. I wanted to cement our relationship before she went. It might be surprising, but an LA glamor boy like me shuddered with insecurities beneath. I know it was my dodgy childhood, never knowing where your next meal was coming from or who was going to hit you. My mother had a glamorous lifestyle with Tony Tormenta, but she left my brother and me to fend for ourselves. That’s how we’d hooked up with The Bare Bones.

Now Lytton was adhering to club rules. He’d be running to Ford crying that I was breaking them in my attempts to save Tiago, avenge Delilah’s death, and bring closure to the woman I loved. Well, what the fuck was closure anyway? Did anyone ever really feel it? I’d always struggled with that. Believing my dad had died in some Mexican desert didn’t put a final pin into our up and down relationship. Would nailing Narcissa Whitman to the cross make Elektra feel any better? They said Delilah had been raped by some object. How do you ever, ever feel “better” about something like that?

Wolf and I carved it north on the back roads to Seeker. When my phone buzzed, I dared looking at the text, worried it would be from Elektra saying she was heading to Seeker too.

But it was from Tobiah. Now Tiago’s phone has pinged in Seeker. I couldn’t believe that woman was stupid—or high—enough to not throw away Tiago’s phone.

I led the way into the mobile home park, stopping around where Elektra and I had stopped the night before. Wolf obediently pulled up alongside me and we cut our engines.

Wolf asked innocently, “Wasn’t that Elektra’s rental car we passed a block back?”

Oh hell no.

“Better not be,” was all I said, curtly. “I know it’s her daughter, but this is a job for men.”

“For men,” agreed Wolf. And like men, we sauntered down the asphalt as though we didn’t have pistol grips sticking out of our pants. This time, we brazenly wore our cuts. We wanted these crazies to know who we were, and why we were doing it.

I motioned to Wolf to peek inside one of Narcissa’s windows.

There was no sign of Tiago, but Elektra was there, screaming. It was difficult to get oriented, to figure out what was going on. Who was the aggressor, who had the upper hand? Elektra didn’t have a piece or weapon of any kind, and the weird thing was, as she screamed, she wore only a bra and panties.

I focused to hear what she said.

“ . . . you took my daughter, you flaming whackjob! You took my daughter, the love of my life, the only person who gave me comfort from the hell on earth my life had become! You took her and abused her and murdered her and tossed her into a fucking pond for fuck’s sake, and no one ever suspected you because you were a woman and what sort of woman would do that to another woman’s child?”