Wicked as Lies (Wicked & Devoted #3) - Shayla Black Page 0,72
Madison and her friends at a fucking jazz fest, which sounded horrible, so he’d passed on the invite.
“What do you need?” Walker sounded guarded.
“I want to talk. About Trees.”
“What’s there to say?”
“I want to go over the evidence.” Hopefully, the sniper didn’t interpret that as I want to tear your head off. But Zy did.
The sniper hesitated like he’d rather be doing most anything else on a Friday night. “All right. When and where?”
Zy rattled off the name of a sports bar not far away. “Can you meet me about nine?”
That would give One-Mile two hours to wrap up whatever or whoever he was doing and get his ass downtown.
“I’ll be there.” But he didn’t sound happy.
“Thanks.” Zy hung up and forced himself to find some dinner.
After halfheartedly picking at a piece of chicken and some overcooked vegetables—he’d never understand Southern cooking—he headed to the sports bar and commandeered a pair of barstools under a TV. After turning down a drunk blonde and ignoring some dirty looks from her posse, he hit the head.
By the time he left the restroom, Walker had already plunked his ass on a stool, seemingly big, badass, and annoyed as fuck. Fine. That made two of them.
“Hey, man.” He did his best to make nice, slapping Walker on the back before sliding onto the stool beside him.
He had to give the guy credit. Looking at One-Mile now, no one would ever know he’d nearly died in the middle of a Mexican desert two months ago.
After motioning to the bartender, he got a beer, then turned to Walker. The sniper looked frozen and shell-shocked. What the hell was up with him?
“You okay, man? You look shaken. Friday treating you all right?”
“Yeah,” he finally replied…but Zy wasn’t buying it. Something was going on in his head.
Was he trying to craft some reason he’d pinned his guilt on Trees? Zy had been thinking that One-Mile was too much of a straight shooter for that kind of BS, but he was also a loner and a pragmatist. What if he’d read the guy wrong? What if the asshole was preparing to shit out a big, steaming load of crap to mislead him?
“Hell of a week, huh?” he prompted.
“Yeah,” One-Mile said in a you-have-no-idea voice.
Okay, what was he missing?
“Look,” Zy began. “I know you’re probably not thrilled that I want to grill you about why you decided Trees is the asshole around here but—”
“You hear that Cutter got engaged last night?”
Talk about a subject change. “Um…yeah. I overheard the bosses talking about it shortly after quitting time.”
“Did they say why?”
“Cutter popped the question? No.” Zy clapped his shoulder. “Look, I know you had a thing for the girl but—”
“Not anymore.”
Zy didn’t believe that for a second. One-Mile wasn’t even close to being over Brea. And now that he thought about it, she and Cutter had chosen an odd time to get engaged, while she was here and he was on the coast. And that rumor kept swirling that Brea was pregnant… Everyone knew Walker had spent a night between the sheets with the preacher’s daughter a few months back. Any chance those events were related?
“Walker—”
“Never mind. Let’s talk through the evidence.”
Something was going on in the sniper’s head, but Zy wasn’t here for advice or gossip. He had to help the friend who was his brother in all ways except blood. “I’ve talked to Trees about the night you were taken from the parking lot in Acapulco. He said you told him to leave.”
“Yep. But I expected him to put up a little more fight, bring backup—something. He just drove off.”
“What would you have done in his shoes?”
“Shot a motherfucker or two.”
Zy mentally counted to ten. “You know his specialty is computers and tech. He doesn’t have your gift with a gun. Pretty much no one does, man.”
“Okay, but he didn’t come back or call anyone for hours, did he?”
Everyone said Walker was crazy; no one had ever called him stupid. “You didn’t realize your food had been drugged?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Trees made it to the parking lot of the police station about a mile away and passed out. Some cop woke him up, like, twelve hours later. He didn’t even remember driving there. I assumed you’d figured out that you’d been drugged, too.”
“Since they beat my fucking skull in and I passed out, I didn’t notice. Why didn’t Trees tell me himself?”
“He’s felt so fucking bad about what happened to you, man… He didn’t know what to say.”