Page 64 of Best Laid Plans

“This all happened around the time Lil realized James was back on the scene. Actually, I don’t think she told us how she figured it out.” G frowns.

“I’ll ask her.”

“The notes,” Kruger muses. “She was getting notes left on her car windshield at the shelter. I think she wrote most of them off, but one or two had her shook. He must have written something that tipped her off.”

“But why send these pictures? We’ve already seen these. I’m not even sure why he’d take them. It makes more sense for it to be Kiki, as she was obsessed with Midas. Maybe he stole them from her.” Toot sighs.

I stare at the pictures and frown. “Hold on.”

I get to my feet and walk over to the wall, studying the images and completely removing Legs from the equation. “Son of a bitch. They’re easter eggs.”

“They’re what now?” Toot questions.

“Pretend Legs isn’t in these pictures. Look at the backgrounds.”

The guys study them harder. G is the first to get it. “Ah fuck, Legs was the decoy. He was testing us to see how smart we were.”

“I guess that means we failed because I’m still not seeing it.” Mack groans.

I point to the photos. “The hospital that Lil worked at. The lilacs in the flower shop, the shelter he just burned down, a boat—I’m guessing like the one the OG Lil disappeared from—” I reel off the first few things that caught my eye. Things all linked to either my Lil or the one who came before her.

“What are those smudges?” Dice asks, getting up and walking over. Sure enough, in a few of the photos, there are smudges, as if something has been removed. Or someone.

“Dammit. I think it was Lil. He erased her from the photos so we wouldn’t figure it out too fast.” I run my hands through my hair, agitated.

“Why, though? Why go to these extremes to show us how clever he is?” Probe questions. “None of us give a fuck.”

“The message isn’t for us. It’s for Lil. He’s showing her how much of her life he knows about. He’s taunting her.”

G’s laptop chimes, drawing my attention back to it.

“The body has been pulled from the car, and a positive ID has been made from his driver’s license. His name is Ben Huges. He’s twenty-seven and says he lives in Connecticut. The plates on the car are from Texas and are registered to Bill Burton—an eighty-eight-year-old retired civil engineer.”

“The car was likely stolen anyway. I’m running his face because I’d bet my left nut that his driver’s license is fake. And boom. His real name is Nigel Harris. He’s a former amateur boxer turned muscle-for-hire. He has two convictions. One for armed robbery when he was seventeen and one for assault with a deadly weapon when he was twenty-one. Served some time, not nearly enough. Can’t find anything that links him to James, but my guess is that’s who hired him.”

“How convenient that he winds up dead before he can be questioned,” I drawl, pissed at always being two steps behind this guy.

“I know you’ve pulled the files from the porn sites, G, but you think maybe this shit needs to be fed to the police?” Ambros asks. “As much as I want to handle this guy myself, we’re getting nowhere. The only advantage right now is that we’re not hiding James’s deeds, unlike all those who came before us. If we start doing that now, even if it is to protect the girls, we wind up giving him exactly what he wants—anonymity.”

Havoc taps his jaw in thought. “Can you get it to the cops without getting into shit for pulling the files? I don’t want you getting arrested for tampering with evidence,” Havoc asks G.

“Let them try to charge me. Lane will have me out in a heartbeat. I have no shame in going to the media, too. Our women are media darlings. If the cops press charges against me for sparing them more pain and humiliation, all while James is still at large, Raven PD will be crucified. And honestly, even if the charges stick, it’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

I nod my head in respect.

Havoc claps his hands. “We have a plan, then. We’ll drop everything we have that doesn’t implicate the MC to the cops and prepare shit for the press just in case. You think they’ll share what they have with us if they see us trying to work with them?” Havoc asks. None of us has a particularly good relationship with the cops, mostly because of the stigma they have against bikers in general.

“Doesn’t matter if they do. While they focus on James, they won’t notice the little worm I’ll slip in the back door. We’ll know what they do, one way or another. If I’m gonna get arrested for shit, I might as well make it worth it.” G shrugs.

Havoc groans. “Amity is going to shoot me in my sleep. I know it.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

LIL

The guys are keeping something from us. I’m used to hearing the words “club business” as an excuse to keep us in the dark, and most of the time it doesn’t bother me because it isn’t my business. This time feels different, likely because it’s about James. And anything to do with that guy affects me.

“You feel it too, huh?” I turn at the sound of Citi’s voice. She walks over to me and takes the empty chair to my left. “The tension every time one of the women walks into the room? I’d assume it was just all this shit going down with James in general if it weren’t for the fact that Neveah is acting oddly as well.”