“Yes, he told me that you could help me with a case. My friend has been wrongfully accused of stealing a car, and now he’s going to be put on trial. He’s desperately in need of representation and I’m hoping that you will be willing to represent him,” I said, searching his expression for any sign of apprehension.
“Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about the details,” he said, and I followed him into the little office, immediately hit with the scent of week-old air freshener, lukewarm coffee, and printer ink. It certainly didn’t feel like the kind of promising opportunity that we were looking for, but with the money we had, we just couldn’t be too picky.
Keith probably recommended him because he believed it would be our best bet versus using a public defense attorney who wouldn’t care about Chalupa in the slightest.
I have to keep an open mind and believe that this guy is going to get us one step closer to bringing Chalupa home, otherwise I’m going to go insane with the amount of worry that’s coursing through me right now.
Fourteen
Lacey
My head is killing me.
The minute my eyelids fluttered open, I blinked away the blurriness of my vision until I was able to sit upright in bed again. My entire body ached like I’d just been hit by a truck, and I was starting to wonder just how much fun I’d truly allowed myself to have when I was supposed to be gathering information on Ortega’s Autos.
I couldn’t think straight, dragging myself to the bathroom to splash some water on my face before heading into the kitchen for some pain medicine.
My stomach turned at the thought of eating anything, but I didn’t want to go through the rest of my day feeling weak, so I opened up the fridge to find something edible. I made myself a cup of tea, filling a glass of water alongside it so I could stay hydrated and get back to feeling like myself again.
I looked over at the couch to where Mona was still sleeping, and I decided to fix breakfast for her as well, to thank her for going out with me last night, even if I didn’t get as much information as I would’ve liked.
I cracked two eggs into a pan, stirring them around briskly before popping some bread into the toaster. I heard Mona start to stir on the couch, kicking off the blanket that was around her feet before sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
“Someone slept in rather late,” I teased, and she looked just as confused as I was.
“We did have a wild night after all. I needed my beauty rest,” she said, and I couldn’t agree more. If there was one thing I remembered, it was putting away drink after drink, trying to get out of my head for a little while, and prove to everyone in the room that I was capable of enjoying myself. I needed to blend in if I was going to get information.
I only hoped that Mona would’ve been able to tell me more about what happened last night, because my memories were all fuzzy and I couldn’t tell what was real from what wasn’t anymore.
“Come here, eat something. We both have quite a lot of recovering to do,” I said, and she nodded, joining me at the small breakfast nook, where we attacked our plates, trying to get down as much food as possible without feeling the urge to puke it all out.
“So how wild exactly was last night? I don’t even remember how we got home,” I said, biting into my toast.
“I hooked up with one of the guys in the parking lot, and his friend gave us a lift home in his truck. He was quite nice, though I can’t seem to remember his name,” Mona said, and I laughed. It was then that I remembered that I’d almost had a similar experience, though the man I’d met wasn’t a stranger. He was someone that I’d met before, and as I pictured his face, the memories all began to flood back in.
I remembered that we had almost kissed, and that I rushed into the bathroom, only to come out to find that he was gone. There was something strange about our last interaction, and I couldn’t stop dwelling on the fact that he looked like he’d seen a ghost the moment I told him that I was a lawyer.
“We’re going to have to go back to get my car,” Mona said, gulping down her glass of water before she reached over for the pain medication herself.
“We will, don’t worry,” I told her, lost in thought about the interaction I’d had with Moves. I knew that the only people who would run after hearing that I was a lawyer would be someone who had something to hide.
I still had no idea what was going on down at Ortega’s Autos, but Moves seemed to know quite a bit about another place on the other side of town where cars went to be dismantled and destroyed. I had to believe that Moves knew more than he was letting on, and I was determined to find out exactly what that was, but I didn’t have any way of contacting him.
I don’t even know if he’s going to see me now that he knows I’m a lawyer. He might be deliberately trying to stay out of sight so I don’t catch on to the fact that he and his buddies are hiding something.
Mona looked up at me like she was starting to remember more about her night too.
“What’s that look?” I asked her.
“I believe that guy I hooked up with had told me that he was a patch for a club called the Outlaw Souls,” she said.
“The Outlaw Souls?”
“They’re a biker gang, and their favorite stomping ground seems to be the Blue Dog. That’s why we felt so out of place when we were there. We were probably the only people there that didn’t own a shiny hunk of metal,” she said.
“Did your biker friend tell you anything else about the club he belongs to?”
“He told me that a bunch of them work down at Ortega’s Autos,” she said, and I could see her starting to put the pieces together in her head.
