Page 22 of Finn (Dirty Misfits MC 6)
He’s more than just a bad boy, and you know it.
“So, I’ll be escorting you to a hotel after breakfast?” he asked.
He turned to face me and my heart fell to my toes. The pain rushing behind his eyes was unmistakable. The way his body shook with fury caused my heart to stop in my chest. That name had triggered an emotion within him, and it certainly wasn’t guilt. Guilty men didn’t look the way he looked. But, I knew that look. I’d seen it many times throughout my career before I took on cases that other police officers deemed impossible.
It was the look of a man that knew justice hadn’t been served.
There’s something deeper there, and you know it.
“How about this,” I said as I dropped my things to the ground, “if you go with me to find a decent hotel tomorrow morning, I’ll get you a room so you can fulfill your promise to your guys and I’ll listen to your side of the story with Melody.”
His eyes fell down my body before he turned and headed for the front door. And when those words fell from his lips, I knew I had sealed my fate.
I knew I wouldn’t be leaving Santa Cruz until I had everything figured out.
“You have yourself a deal, Detective.”
As I laid in bed down in the basement staring up at the ceiling, I couldn’t get my altercation with Finn out of my head. And the more I thought about it, the truth started to become clearer. The truth was that Finn most certainly didn’t kill Melody.
How did I know? Well, I’ve interviewed killers, that’s how I knew, and this man didn’t react the way killers usually did whenever I mentioned the victim.
“What I need is proof,” I whispered.
I read through the file. I saw the evidence from the crime scene. I saw the pictures on the beach of that poor girl, beaten and battered and face down in the fucking sand. I saw the autopsy report. I knew exactly how many hands had been in this investigation. And if it was a cover-up to protect some bullshit, abusive cop, then there were a lot of hands that were dirty in this.
Then, my thoughts shifted. The more I thought about Finn, the more I thought about that pouty lower lip of his. The more I thought about how it felt like he towered over me sometimes and, oddly enough, how good that felt. I thought about his voice and how it gave me shivers. I even thought about how wonderful and comforting his body heat radiating toward me had felt against my bare skin. I closed my eyes and imagined his face coming closer; his lips slowly gravitating toward mine.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to push thoughts of Finn off to the side. He wasn’t someone I could get involved with for multiple reasons. One, my job. Two, my sister. Three, my current living situation. Four, my sanity.
I counted all of the reasons why Finn and I wouldn’t work as I finally slipped off into an effortless slumber.
And because my brain hated me, I dreamt about him all night.
Nevertheless, when my eyes ripped open the next morning I swung my feet off the bed. I packed up my shit, ignored my sister as I made my way out to my car, and watched as Finn prepared his motorcycle to follow me. His eyes caught mine, and I could see the anger that still lingered under the surface. I tried to ignore his broodiness as I got in my car and started the engine.
As I drove out of the driveway, I breathed a slight sigh of relief. At least in a hotel room, I’d be able to have some space.
But, I had to make a pit-stop first.
“Finn?” I asked.
His voice came through the speakers of my car since I had my phone plugged into the auxiliary input. “Yeah?”
I turned on my left-hand signal. “I need to run by the police station really quickly. I’ve got some files I need to put up, but I also need special permissions to access a couple of things.”
He grumbled. “Fair enough. We’ll zoom by there. In the meantime, I’ll look up hotels in the area.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. There’s this cute hotel over by the ocean that has a few open hotel suites. I got us a side-by-side, with a door we can lock that leads straight into each other’s little living areas.”
“Ok. How long do you think you’ll be in the station?”
I pulled into a parking space. “Uh, I’d say at least thirty minutes. Possibly an hour? I want to ask around about a couple of things that came to mind about the Black Flags last night before I fell asleep. So, maybe you could go get us coffee? Or some groceries to take up to our hotel rooms?”
