But seriously, though. ;-)
—Judas
I crumpled the paper in my fist, mud soaking up to my damn thigh. Rage and relief tangled in my chest like a fist trying to tear its way out of the cage.
He hadn’t killed her.
Of course, he hadn’t done it. But why did he have her here?
Was this…for me?
He had arranged this, left her flowers, the note—but still, he had left her here, alone, in the storm, exposed to the world, all to run away and try to dodge his unavoidable capture.
When I finally get my damn hands around his thick throat…
Shaking my head, I sighed, ready to zip up the tarp and call my guys to pick her up, but then my eyes caught a mark on her body. It wasn’t the bruises or the abuse marks. This was a symbol and one I had heard about on the radio calls.
Sex trafficking.
A huge organization of Russian sex traffickers was making headlines right now, and the force was left chasing its tail. Quinn told me it was his wife’s father who owned the company, and I wasn’t going to stick my nose into that family drama.
Clearly, Quinn was capable, though he was covered in baby spit-up every time I saw him when he’d visited his sister’s place here in Texas.
Pulling out my phone, I snapped a picture of the mark and shot a message to Micah.
Instead of texting back like a normal fucking person, he called me.
“Yeah,” I said with a grumble.
“Hey. Where the fuck are you? That’s definitely the Masks mark. Don’t fuck around with this, King. Send me your location, and we’ll get someone out there.”
I sighed and shook my head. “ Nah. I’m good. This is personal. Can you tell me what it means?”
Quinn was quiet for a moment, and the sound of a baby babbling and a woman shushing could be heard even as he tried to walk away.
“Randall. It’s a club that’s local there. They put their symbol over the club’s Signia. I don’t know what that means, or whether it’s connected to anything, but the Masks Organization has used clubs as fronts to launder money and move girls before. Don’t get any stupid ideas. You’re still young and need to?—”
“What’s the club’s name?”
He ignored me, continuing to drone on about how much potential I had and why leaving the RPD was best because lifeas a police officer was dangerous. While he rambled, I scrolled the internet, matching the stamp-like mark to the local clubs’ symbols.
Bingo.
“Yeah. Thanks, Quinn. Have fun being a human napkin for your brady bunch, bro.”
I didn’t wait for him to respond before ending the call and sending a quick text to Goliath, asking him to pick up my mom and bring her to the private morgue.
I needed to figure out what the hell was going on before I involved the force. Something bigger than any of us realized was going on under our noses.
I cracked my jaw and swallowed the courage I could muster to zip up my mom inside the protection of the tarp. It was all she had now.
She hadn’t died quietly. She didn’t just vanish like I’d thought, even when she never came back to the tent. I knew then, and I know now. Something violent and secret had gotten to her. My idiot fugitive, Judas, had walked into this shit storm after the fact, dragging her body from some very covered corners.
He either found her like this, or more likely, based on his scrawled notes he left behind trying to piece together my scrambled past, he had her brought here.
I have to find him.
I stood up from the mud, giving my mom one last look, my fingers curled around a flower I had taken from her body.
