AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He’s not under house arrest,” Hutch explained. “Karl can come and go as he pleases but the initial purpose is to keep track of his location while he’s on suspension. He can go anywhere he wants and do whatever he wants as long as he doesn’t come within a hundred feet of whatever path your shiny high-heeled feet are walking on.”
“But what if Karl refuses?” I asked, ignoring his remark about my feet.
“It’s in his best interest that he doesn’t. I don’t think Chief will let him back on the force otherwise.”
Which meant Karl would be out of a job for good.
Fuck.
Now I had to go work some magic to ensure that exact thing doesn’t happen.
eleven
Phoenix
“Explain to me why we’re here again,” I said when we parked in the sanctum’s parking lot, releasing the yawn I’d been suppressing when I got out of the car.
I was dogshit tired. I’d hardly gotten a wink of sleep, and the coffee I drank—aside from it being scolding fucking hot and searing the skin off the roof of my mouth—didn’t do shit to help wake me up. If anything, it only heightened my exhaustion and left me with an unbearably sore mouth.
Fuck I needed a real day off.
“Research,” Spike reminded me, rounding the vehicle and matching step with me as I approached the building. “I think I may know how Bull Mask was able to evade the cameras.”
I stifled back a groan, not really in the mood to deal with anything else pertaining to those damn cameras. In the last forty-eight hours, those tapes and this damn club had done nothing but suck every ounce of energy dry from my poor body.
But fuck it.
We were already here, so I suppose I may as well nibble on the bait.
“What are you thinking?”
Felix came storming out of the door then, holding an empty beer bottle box in each hand, sighing with a look on his face that was more ridiculous than his royal blue shirt covered with festive dancing pineapples, gray sweatpants, and rainbow crocs.
“Well…” Felix gaped unimpressively at me but had no problem whatsoever winking and provocatively clicking his tongue at Spike. “I doubt you two dropped back by for an early morning peg session, so what do you need from me now, Detectives?”
“We’re not planning to be here any longer than we have to be,” I spoke up before Spike could dare fire back with an insult or worse, strangle Felix to death with his fancy pineapple shirt. “We just need a few minutes and then we’ll be out of your hair.”
Felix rolled his eyes but didn’t refute. He dropped one of the boxes and flicked a hand toward the entrance. “The door is unlocked. I’ll meet you at the bar.”
Spike literally launched himself at the door, bolting through it and leaving me standing there scowling when it slammed in my face before I had time to catch it.
Asshole.
When I walked in, the door behind the front desk was closed, but the one leading inside the bar and lounge ahead of me was cracked open. I walked in to find Spike pacing in a circle, mumbling to himself.
“Our perp somehow managed to ghost his way through the club without being detected by a single security camera.”
“You talking to me, or to yourself?” I asked just to be sure.
“It’s impossible though,” he carried on, shaking his head. “There’s no goddamn way in hell me, you, and Charlotte failed to find his ass. There’s just no fucking way.”
Oh, so he was talking to me. “Again, what are you thinking?”
“We’re missing something here. We have to be. Give me a minute and let me look around first. I need to be sure.”
I was way too fucking exhausted to argue, so I let him do his thing and made my way over to the bar, plopping down on a barstool in the middle. The TVs weren’t on, and I could hardly convince myself to summon the strength to play hide and seek with the remote, so I just got back up and wordlessly trekked around the lounge so I wouldn’t make the mistake of falling asleep.
I’d never paid it any attention before but without all the extra bodies covering just about every inch of the place, it amazed me how big The Flirty Sanctum actually was. It wouldn’t be a true sex club without the Red Room, but still, even without it, the space from the bar and lounge combined was immaculate all on its own. Hell, if you knocked down a few walls and had the money to make the plumbing and electrical adjustments, this place would make one hell of a three, maybe four-bedroom apartment. Shit, it was probably big enough to split into two two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments, but that was only if you were damn good at your job and could manage to divide the space evenly with two separate entrance and exits.
