Slate was in his usual position behind his bank of monitors with two keyboards, a kind of chaos only he understood. His eyes were bloodshot like he was looking at screens for too many fucking hours. Diesel sat beside him, his grim expression carved from granite. Tension took over as my gaze landed on the other brothers who’d gathered for whatever news Slate had found. Hawk, Rebel, Maverick, Hollywood, Sniper, and Rocky all stared back at me with a mix of worry, pity, and readiness.
“What the fuck is going on?” I spent all night thinking about the trouble I’d put Zoya and Eliana in by taking them to the restaurant. Eliana told me I wasn’t allowed to blame myself. I knew she was right, but that didn’t stop the self-recrimination.
Slate looked up. “We got a name.”
His words ripped me from my thoughts, and I braced myself, for what exactly, I didn’t know. Only that it wasn’t gonna be good. “Tell me.”
“Dave Crow.” Slate’s voice was flat, no sign that this was a name I should know. “He’s been a known associate of Trish’s for years, even before she moved to Vegas to ‘make it big’.” He rolled his eyes hard at that. Trish had big dreams but not the drive or the talent. “He moved in with her about six months after Zoya was born.”
My jaw clenched. Even though it wasn’t exactly a surprise, I still didn’t like it.
“And…” Slate began but he hesitated.
“Go on,” I said, encouraging him even though I could guess what came next.
“And he’s her new husband.”
It was all starting to make sense, and I didn’t like the picture that was coming together. “Fuck,” I groaned, the sound rough even to my ears. “Trish called to tell me she was married. She wanted to talk to Zoya, and I told her no fucking way.” She was up to something and if she wasn’t, Dave Crow definitely was.
“What do we know?” Diesel asked even though it was obvious they’d all been talking about it before I came back.
Slate nodded, talking directly to me, confirming my suspicions. “Former trust fund kid with a long rap sheet.”
“Former?” I asked, desperate to know everything about him.
Slate nodded. “His family is old Texas money. We’re talking nine figures, but Crow plowed through his money inrecord time and then Mom and Dad cut him off. Since then he’s been racking up charges, everything including assault, possession, and selling.”
“That’s it?”
“Nope. He makes money selling designer drugs, paying Ivy League chemists to whip up new shit every six months, and gambling. He sticks to the smaller casinos to avoid getting his ass kicked by the big casino guys.”
That wasn’t much, I mean, it was enough to get him locked up but it sounded like he was Teflon as far as the bigger charges went. Could he be the man that Zoya kept drawing?
“And his name has come up as a person of interest in eight murders, but cops don’t have enough evidence to put it on him. Each time they get close, somebody goes missing or their body turns up.”
“Fuck.”
Diesel nodded. “Yeah, he’s bad news all around.”
That was putting it lightly, goddammit. The words sank in and that old rage I felt—at Trish and whatever life she’d provided for our daughter—kicked in. I hated to admit it, but I hated that Eliana was probably right, and it was time to share it. “Eliana has a theory.”
“No offense,” Rebel began. “But what the fuck does a babysitter know?”
I sighed, biting back the smart-ass comment on the tip of my tongue. “She’s been working with Zoya,” I said. “This is why you guys chose her, remember?”
“Okay, let’s hear it,” Rocky said, his voice firm with just a hint ofshut the fuck upin it.
I nodded, pulling out my phone and handing it to Slate. “They’ve been doing art therapy and Zoya’s been doing these drawings and sketches. There’s always this shadowy figure in the background. I think the man is Dave Crow.”
Every head in the room swung my way, silence hung heavy in the air. “That’s a fuck ton of drawings,” Diesel sighed.
I nodded. “Yeah, she thinks Zoya is trying to tell us what she saw. Either that or she’s just using art to process what she saw.”
“Violence,” Sniper said. “The theme in all the pictures, besides the fact that Trish is a piece of shit, is that the man did something violent in front of her.”
Yeah, I was getting that idea too.
“We need to ask her who that person is.” Maverick’s brows dipped in a thoughtful frown.
