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But one thing he did know?
I was an outlaw biker.
I was someone who specialized in shady shit.
And, yeah, someone who would be capable, if shit hit the fan, of protecting Cali in his absence.
There was a thread here, connecting things, leading to… somewhere.
I just had to follow it.
Cali was right that I wasn’t blood, but I was a pretty good liar when the situation called for it. And I had a pocket full of cash if the lies didn’t work.
First step was the hospital, but they were sure that all of the possessions of the victim would have gone to the morgue. So that was my next step.
Unfortunately, though, it was another dead end. The possessions would have gone to the next of kin.
And no matter how strong the shock and grief might have been, I was reasonably sure that there was no way Caliana would have missed that.
“Shit,” I hissed at the blinding summer sky as I stepped out of the funeral home.
I was nowhere closer to figuring anything out.
What was the next move?
The car?
A fatal crash might not have meant there was much left of it. And my stomach fucking sloshed around at the thought of seeing evidence of the crash. Blood or… anything else.
But there could be clues in the car.
If he was trying to hide what was going on, keeping shit mobile might have felt like a smart move.
I exhaled hard, climbing on my bike, and heading in the direction of the closest junkyard.
“What were you looking for again?” the guy asked, counting the cash I’d just handed him.
“Corvette. White. New. Totaled.”
“Yeah, think we had one of them come in a while back. Nice wheels.”
“Did you crush it already?”
“Probably not. The crusher was down for a while. Owner didn’t want to spend the cash to fix it. We got real backed up.”
“And if it isn’t crushed, where could I find it?”
“Dunno, man. Out there somewhere,” he said, pocketing his money, and already dismissing me.
I glanced at the junkyard. Just rows and rows of cars, some stacked up in rows that created aisles, others in a giant garbage heap.
This was going to take a while.
“Taking a water,” I said, pulling one out of the glass door fridge, then moving outside, trying to ignore how the heat and humidity had sweat trickling down my back within minutes of stepping out.
I moved pretty quickly past all the shit close to the building, figuring that would have been around the longest, and made my way toward the back of the lot.
I’d drank half the water and nearly sweated through my t-shirt by the time I finally saw the back end of a new-looking, shiny white sports car.
And there it was, the distinct Corvette symbol—the two flags joined at the center, one black and white checkered, and the other red with a gold cross and fleur-de-lis.
I hadn’t anticipated the crushing sensation in my chest just looking at the back of it. I wasn’t even seeing any of the damage.
But this was the machine where Clay had taken his last breath.
Had it been quick?
Had he been in pain?
Did he know he wasn’t going to make it?
I had to take a few minutes, pulling in some deep breaths, trying not to tamp down the grief, but let it move through me without holding onto it.
When the pain had dulled, I moved toward the car, moving around it, and seeing the way the hood was crushed, the roof caved in, windshield gone.
It was an almost shocking amount of damage.
And I suddenly realized I didn’t know exactly how the crash happened. What had he hit? Clearly, he’d rolled.
I didn’t want to have to ask Cali the details, so the best I could do was hope there was an article written about it somewhere. Or a local neighborhood forum where they discussed it.
Taking a steadying breath, I moved around to the passenger side where the damage to the roof wasn’t as severe, then worked at wrestling the door open in its bent frame.
This was the bad part.
Going inside.
Seeing the evidence of Clay’s last moments.
And there were slashes of blood, dried to more of a maroon shade, but I forced my gaze away from that, knowing there was no good in focusing on it.
I went instead for the glove box, then the center console.
The interior was a cramped space, though, and there wasn’t exactly a lot of room to hide anything substantial.
“Fuck,” I sighed, climbing back out, and moving toward the engine instead, looking for anything out of sorts.
I was no mechanic, but my old man was the sort who didn’t like to pay for anything that he could learn to do for himself, so I spent more than a few weekends bending over an engine or sliding under the chassis to learn to fix things at his side.
