Page 39 of Vile Bastards
If he touched a girl, if he slept with one …
“Excuse me.” I stand up again and hear Widow groan as I storm back over to Ash Kelly. Bro-rista is mopping up the coffee from the floor as Ash stands there with his arms crossed over his chest, watching apathetically.
“Been frequenting the strip club, eh? While I was still in the hospital, or did you wait until I was out before getting started?”
Bro-rista very quickly takes off as Ash slips his hands into his pockets, allowing his head to fall back as he groans.
“Scarlett,” he murmurs, and then he drops his chin back down. “I’m ecstatic at your level of concern, but I can assure you: it wasn’t a fucking pleasant time for me either. But if I stop going to strip clubs all of a sudden, people might think I had a brain transplant.” He taps at the side of his head with a single finger.
“Did you fuck any of them?” I ask, and he goes very still.
“You might hear that around.” I stand there staring at him until he finally meets my gaze. “I’m doing what I have to do to get by, as should you.”
“You fucked hookers at the strip club? That’s what I’m going to hear around?” I ask, because my girls know those girls, and it’ll make its way to me sooner or later. I need to know if it’s true. Either Ash is being purposefully vague in order to get rid of me or else he’s stupid enough to think that I won’t kill him if he cheats on me.
I’m as dangerous to date as any of these boys.
I might appear marginally more sane on the day-to-day, and I can fake it better, but nobody that’s normal feeds off of adrenaline and danger the way that I do.
“I’ll see you on Saturday.” He picks up his second round of coffee from the counter and turns away, heading for another table and putting his back to me.
I want to kill him.
Instead, I force myself back to Emma’s table for the last time. I will not go over there again because if I do, it’s homicide in plain sight. I will spatter these walls with Ash Kelly’s blue blood.
I pick up my corona or Furtado or whatever this drink is called, and sip it. Bitter, but with some milk to soften it up. Not bad. Also, three times the price of Wesley’s coffee and not as good. Maybe I just miss the Styrofoam cups?
“Are you ready to listen to me?” Emma asks as I peer at her over the rim of my cup. “Okay, fine, I’ll just talk and hope you’re listening.” Mostly, I am. Partially, I’m fantasizing about what Ash Kelly’s insides might look like. “Alexei and Pavel Borisov are missing.”
“I’m fucking Alexei; I already know that.” I take another sip of my drink as Emma gapes at me. “Try something else. I need gossip, Emma. I can’t keep giving and giving without getting anything in return.”
“Did you know that Chet Archer is on the board of directors for the Borisov Group?” she asks. I set my drink down and sigh.
“That means what to me?” I ask, and she leans in conspiratorially, her short blond hair falling forward to frame her face. But maybe it does mean something, and I just don’t want to show it.
“Did you also know that the state of Oregon requires a builder to have operated for at least five years before they’re allowed to construct anything over three stories tall?” Emma Jean taps her shell pink nails against the side of her glass. “Archer Realty—as it’s currently structured—has only been operating for two years. Yet, they were in charge of finishing construction on the now defunct South Prescott Gardens. Doesn’t that seem odd to you?”
It does seem odd to me. Follow the money trail, right? I recall Alexei peeling back the top layer of that sign, the one that proudly announced Archer Realty as being in charge of the site. Underneath it, the Borisov Group’s logo.
“How does that work then?” I query, but Emma simply shakes her head and leans back against the bench cushion. Guess she was hoping I’d know something about that. If I told her that the mayor and his buddy Chet had Pavel murdered, would that help?
Only, I have to keep some things to myself, now don’t I?
“Do you know where Alexei is?” Emma asks, but I play dumb and just shrug my shoulders. “Damn it, Scarlett. If you know where he is, I want to talk to him. That’s it. We can even do it over burner phones or something. I could publish his story, whatever it is, bring it to light.”
I tuck that favor away for later, just in case. For now, I decline.
“Let’s keep talking politics. I’ll tell you what I know about a cop that very possibly might be dead, and you tell me what the police chief is up to.”
