Page 31 of Creole Kingpin
I want to believe she’ll show up. I want to trust she’s at least curious enough about what I might have to say and why I’m back. But Magnolia Maison has never been the predictable type. She’s as Machiavellian as I am. She’s got angles and motives most people would never guess—just like me. I want to clear away all the bullshit between us and lay it all out. No games. No lies. Just the truth.
“Let’s hope you’re right,” I tell Jules as Trey opens the door of the bathroom, wiping his hands on his shorts.
“That john might need a priest.”
I laugh and shake my head. “Jesus Christ, man. Really?”
He waves a hand in the air as he makes his way over. “Maybe I should try your beet juice, because that shit was pure evil. Now, let me tell you what I found out while you two meatheads were pumping iron.”
I straighten. “You got a name?”
Trey shakes his head. “Nope.”
“Then what do you have?”
Trey returns to his seat, taps a few keys on the laptop, and spins it around to face me. “Not a fucking thing. He’s a ghost.”
I bend over to look at the screen. “What am I looking at then?”
“Prints that aren’t in any system. ID in his wallet was fake. Facial rec search is still going, but I’m telling you—this guy doesn’t exist.”
“What the fuck,” I say quietly. “You mean ...” I glance up at Trey to find him nodding.
“Yeah. It’s likewemade him disappear and covered all our tracks like the pros we fucking are, but we didn’t do this.” He scratches the back of his neck and crosses his arms.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jules says as he lumbers from the kitchen. “You’re saying someone else erased him?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” Trey meets my eyes, his gaze dead serious. “Whoever this guy was, he didn’t want to be found. Which, in my estimation, makes him a hell of a lot more interesting than he was last night.”
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath.
Of course this can’t be simple. Nothing to do with Magnolia ever is.
I tap the tabletop and then point at Trey. “Keep digging. There’s gotta be something. You know all the places people usually fuck up when they wipe someone. No one is as good as you, Trey.No one.Figure out who the fuck he is. That’s the only way we’re going to find out why he went after her and if there’s more coming.”
Jules’s expression is somber, but for good reason. We all know the consequences of digging up graves, fake or not. The dead don’t like being found. And the living dead will kill to prevent it.
“I don’t have a good feeling about this, man. Not at all.”
At least our instincts are still working on the same wavelength. “Yeah, me neither.”
Nineteen
Magnolia
The reading left me shaken. There’s no doubt about it. I was also left with a hell of a lot more questions than answers.
And the one at the top of my mind?Do I meet Moses tonight or not?
Celeste’s words follow me as I amble back to my new place. “Let him show you.”
Easier said than done, because letting someone show you requires trust in its own right—and trust is one of the only luxuries my lifestyle hasn’t afforded me.
“Hey,stranger. Fancy seeing you again. Two days in a row.”
The unfamiliar voice jerks me out of my head—back to the here and now—and to the All-American blond guy from yesterday.
How did I not notice him?Jesus Christ. I’m usually a lot more aware of my surroundings, but Celeste’s reading and the past twenty-four hours have me all out of sorts.
