I whipped my head toward the sound of his voice. He leaned against the doorjamb like he hadn’t missed the last hour of conversation. His hair, which normally fell across his forehead, had a muss to it as though he’d run his hand through it repeatedly. A sheen of sweat dotted his hairline and glistened along his neck.
Sweaty Rafferty… yum. Who knew I’d dig that?
“Why are you sweating?” I blurted.
Rafferty shot me a look, while Beast and Tundra ignored my question altogether.
“Let’s check that,” Tundra said, moving to the door.
Five minutes later, we stood in my room, Beast and Tundra had removed the top of the decorative headboard pieces and they frowned.
“Fuck! I thought for sure this would pan out,” Tundra said.
Rafferty twisted a piece of the footboard. “You haven’t checked down here, yet.”
I grabbed the top piece on the opposite side. It twisted easily and I removed it. A roll of cash was wedged inside. I plucked it out and blinked. Another roll sat beneath it.
“Oh, hell,” I muttered under my breath.
Beast sidled up to me. “Get that one, too. I’m gonna guess the whole leg is filled with cash.”
“There’s more here, too,” Rafferty said.
I glanced over at him. “Are you shitting me?”
He shot me a sympathetic look. “Wish that I were.”
Tundra crossed his arms on his burly chest. “You thinkin’ what I am, Beast?”
I shook my head. “Don’t say it. Obviously somebody’s trying to set me up, but I don’t think it was Ines.”
Raff threw another wad of cash onto my bed. “Lex, this is a shit load of money. It might only take us the next five or ten minutes to get it all out of the footboard, but who else had access to your room?”
Logically that made sense, but I refused to believe the worst of a woman I had come to love like a sister.
I shook my head. “You saw Brantley pick the lock on the doorbell camera footage. He could have had access easily. Hell, he and Ines hung out here routinely. He watched me come and go plenty - he’d deny it, but he had the opportunity to figure out my schedule.”
Beast had taken the rubber bands off the rolls of cash. “I don’t like this shit. Alexandra, dig the rest of those rolls out.”
I did as told, adding at least five more rolls to the pile. It might have been six, but Rafferty kept adding along with me and my mental count was muddled.
Beast set a pile of bills to the side and glanced up at us with a grimace. “I’ve gone through five rolls, all of them held fifteen hundred each. That doesn’t guarantee the other rolls are the same, but… we’re at seven thousand five hundred dollars. If those other rolls are the same, it’ll be almost fifteen grand in cash.”
Tundra’s head bobbed in three short nods. “That checks out with what that asshole told us tonight. If Ines sold two kilos and they split the third, two kilos would amount to about fifteen grand assuming a kilo goes for seven to eight grand. We have no idea what the purity is or whether they had a clientele that cared about that.”
Rafferty sighed. “But why hide it in Alexandra’s room? No matter who put the money here, they wouldn’t be able to easily access it when she’s in her room. I can see where Ines might expect people to come after her, but hiding it here doesn’t make sense.”
My mind had been fixated on that problem, too. I had a theory, but they’d probably shoot it down. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. “Brantley blamed me for the accident. Not just behind my back, but to the cop. If he knew the money was stashed in my room, maybe he thought —”
“Alexandra, we can’t work with if’s and maybe’s here,” Tundra said.
Rafferty came to my side. “No, I see what she’s saying. He has access when he’s here with Ines, he has lock-picking capabilities evidenced by the doorbell camera, and after the break-in… Maybe he expected the cops to find the drugs and the money - which would implicate Lex.”
Beast closed his eyes as though seeking patience. “He doesn’t gain anything from her being arrested. Cash is king, Rafferty. Why leave the money behind? He could have implicated Alexandra by leaving drugs behind and taken all this cash for himself.”
I sighed, feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. The more I listened to Tundra and Beast, the more I saw their logic. How could Ines do this to me? How could I report it to the cops? They would never believe me, and something told me Brantley and Tobias would find a way for me to take the blame.
Beast glanced at me, then tipped his head toward the door. “Grab a shopping bag, sweetheart. I’m not sitting around here counting this money. We’re gonna take it. I’ll count it at a hotel—”
