But would I just be sleeping with him for the case? When it was put that way, it all sounded a little bit grimy. Then again, who cared what methods I used as long as I got results? Plus, there was no guarantee that Pin was involved.
I tried to picture Pin approaching a teenage girl and giving her drugs to carry. It seemed totally out of the question. And I had difficulty imagining that Kim would be cool with that kind of behavior.
I considered Moves or the other guys I had met at the Blue Dog Saloon. I hadn’t spent enough time with them to get a gauge. Moves had been friendly, and he did have a certain self-aware charm. Would he use that charm to manipulate a younger girl or perhaps a kid who looked up to him?
As for Kim and Pin, they could be ignorant since it was a bigger club or they could be in denial. It was amazing how people could justify crimes in their heads. People could be so blind when it was convenient. Like maybe Pin hadn’t looked too close at a brother’s new girl. Maybe he hadn’t noticed she was super young because noticing that kind of thing would only keep him up at night or lead to him having to question his friend.
It was possible. If I had learned anything in my time as a PI, it was that anything was possible.
And as a PI, I had to use every resource I had access to. Which was why I hadn’t even hesitated to text Pin once I had all the information about the case. He was an easy way into the Outlaw Souls. I could ask around for months before I got intel that Pin could give to me in a day. He had already told me plenty about the club on our fake date.
Pin had said that Outlaw Souls were above dealing drugs or any other illegal activities, but he would have said that no matter what. He handled the money after all, so he was definitely going down if it turned out they were running a drug ring.
I felt a strange prickling at the back of my neck. If a biker club was running a big-scale drug operation, they would need a good accountant. Someone to keep the books looking clean. Someone smart who understood how to make the money disappear, go somewhere safe. Someone to make the books look legit.
Someone like Pin.
I flipped open my notebook and jotted down a few more notes. So far I had interacted with Pin, Moves, and Kim. Pin had mentioned there were almost twenty members in the club, not to mention pledges and family and friends. That was a lot of unknowns.
I put my notebook back into my desk. This time I wouldn’t take it out again. I needed to be light and easy around Pin. All the unanswered questions concerning Zoe, Hector, and the others had to disappear from my face. Pin wasn’t going to want to spend an evening with a PI haunted by a multilayered mystery.
He wanted a chill girl. A girl who wouldn’t ask him to define the relationship or act too clingy.
I’d gathered that much from our night together, but his leaving in the dead of night had confirmed it. For whatever reason, Pin didn’t want to be the morning after guy. That was just fine with me. As long as he didn’t suspect that I was investigating his beloved bike club.
Pin came off as a pretty mild and even-tempered guy, but I had no doubt that if he sensed for even a moment that I was prying into biker business, he would be furious. To be honest, I didn’t have a plan. I had to own up to that as seven o’clock drew nearer. I was going to have to play it by ear.
The fact of the matter was that Pin might not want to have any sort of conversation with a chick he was hooking up with. And I wasn’t sure I could make him pursue me in earnest. I had a healthy self-esteem, but even I knew when a guy didn’t want a girlfriend.
Besides, becoming his girlfriend would be going way too far. I just needed to be peripheral. I needed to hang around Pin as much as I could, maybe even go out with him and Kim and other bikers. I needed to drift on the sidelines, cute and approachable, but not a threat at all. I needed to keep my eyes and ears open.
That was the only semblance of a plan I could come up with. All great investigators knew that plans always went to shit anyway. Veronica had a favorite saying: I make a plan, and God laughs.
I would just adapt and think on my feet. To prove my point, I bounced on the balls of my feet and shadowboxed, just to pump myself up.
As if on cue, there was a knock on my door. Pin had arrived.
“It’s showtime,” I whispered to myself. I put a smile on my face and headed to my door.
As I gripped the door handle in anticipation to see him, the smile started to feel genuine.
Thirteen
Pin
She was even prettier than I had remembered. Or she had gotten prettier in the last few days.
Either way, I couldn’t help but grin when she opened the door. She was wearing an oversized sweater, her hair loose and slightly tousled. She was ready for a comfy night in, and I loved it. My stomach warmed at the thought of how nice it would be to skip the whole awkward dating phase and get straight to the cuddling on the couch phase.
“Hey,” she said.
“I,” I said. “I got wine.”
She quirked an eyebrow and gave me a saucy grin as she ushered me inside. She shut the door behind me. “I had you pegged as a beer guy.”
“Well, I assumed you were a wine girl,” I said.
I stood still once I was inside. Memories of the last time I was there rushed to the forefront of my mind. The heat and the tension and how I had lifted her up while she wrapped her legs around my waist. We had both been too tipsy for any awkwardness then, but now I didn’t quite know how to stand or where to put the wine I was gripping in one hand.
