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There were so many cop cars in the parking lot that I have to keep driving past and pull over on the side of the highway.
“Oh god. Oh god,” Maddie begins chanting before I killed the engine. Her grip on my waist tightens, as if she would refuse to get off my bike. “I don’t…I don’t want to know.”
“Maybe they found the guy,” I tell her, covering her hand with my own. My remark was meant to comfort her. Instead, it has the opposite effect. Maddie hops off my bike and jogs back toward the shop with her helmet still on like my own as I hurry off to follow.
And fuck I’m so confused.
Doesn’t she want the bad guy dead?
I catch up to her at the police tape where some of the Kings have already gathered around.
“Just sent out a message to everyone,” Remy says when he glances over and sees us. His gaze goes from Maddie to me again. “This time the corpse wasn’t hidden inside; it was left out for all to see.”
“What do you mean?” I ask him. “There’s been another victim?”
He tips his head back looking up at the green and white Fulton Automotive sign...and the body tied to the top of the pole with coarse rope.
Again, it’s definitely a man’s body, his eyeballs also missing from the sockets.
“His tongue was nailed to the front door.” Remy points toward the entrance where a slab of flesh is in fact nailed near the top, leaving trails of blood all the way down it.
“Jesus,” I mutter, unable to believe what the hell I’m seeing.
When I clasp my hands on Maddie’s shoulders, she startles before turning around and burying her face against my chest.
Two mangled corpses in two days are too many for her to have to see. Rubbing my palms up and down her back to try and soothe her as her shoulders tremble, I ask Remy, “Who the hell is that up there? Do the cops know yet?”
“Oh, yeah. They know,” he replies. “That’s Peter Shults, a private investigator from Clayton. Oh, and one of Earnest Ingram’s only friends.”
Oh, god.Oh fuck.
I swallow down the bile that tries to come up. The panic that filled Maddie’s eyes yesterday is no doubt filling mine now. We need to get the fuck out of here.
“Come on, baby. Let me take you home,” I say to Maddie as I pull her along.
We make it about two steps before someone, a cop on the other side of the tape calls out, “Is Jordan Robertson one of your guys?” And I know they’re speaking to Remy.
I freeze and Maddie looks up at me, her brows raised in question.
“Why?” our president calls back to the man.
“Because he was the last client who hired Peter Shults.”
Fucking phone records and receipts! If I had thought for even a second that this would’ve happened, I never would’ve hired that man.
“Jordan!” Remy calls out. He comes over just as I turn around, his lips pursed. “Sorry, kid. It’s only a matter of time before they would’ve showed up at your apartment,” he says quietly with a wince. “Do we need to get you an attorney?”
“What?” Maddie asks, her red eyes flicking between me and Remy.
“Did you hire this guy for PI work?” Remy asks.
“It was a few weeks ago; it was nothing. We never met, just spoke on the phone.”
But Maddie has already figured it out. Her brow furrows as she stares up at me, and then she pushes me away so that not a single part of her body is still touching mine. “You hired a private investigator? Why?”
“I just…I wanted to know that you were safe.”
“How? By hiring someone to dig up dirt on me?”
