but a forgotten place filled with forgotten people that no one would miss when it was gone.
There was even a picture of Race’s classic Mustang as it burned to nothing but a twisted scrap heap of melted metal and rubber.
The guy was vengeful and liked to witness the effects of his handiwork up close and personal. Unfortunately he knew how the good guys worked, so while there was plenty of evidence that he had been present for all these dirty deeds on his end, there was nothing on ours that showed him. Roark knew how to avoid cameras, knew how to blend into the background, and knew enough to keep from getting caught while he pulled strings in the background like a demented puppet master.
I flipped through the hundreds of messages that he had exchanged with Reeve over the last few months. There was nothing unusual in the exchanges. They were flirty and fun. She seemed to really like the dirty fed. She told him she missed him when he had to go back into the city during the week. She thanked him profusely for not judging her by her past actions. She told him that he made her feel special and safe.
He responded with flip answers and easy reassurances. He told her she was beautiful, that she was gorgeous, that she was a prize. While Reeve spoke to him like a woman in the first stages of falling in love, Roark replied like a man with a trophy he was eager to show off and flaunt. His title and his badge had done a lot to win her over, her looks had done everything to convince him to break protocol and take her to bed. I understood the temptation.
It was the newer messages, the ones leading up to the fire at the club, that were the most interesting. Reeve had grown up in the Point and had lost a sister to the vicious and unforgiving ways of the streets. She was not only street-smart but also had keen instincts for danger. She started texting him about where he was going on the weekends and why he wouldn’t talk to her about what he was up to. She asked why he was in the Point for reasons that had nothing to do with work. She asked him why his phone was going off at weird times during the night. It wasn’t uncommon for a cop but she seemed to know something wasn’t tracking. She asked him who Zero was and why had he shown up at her place in the secure location looking for him. It was clear she knew something was off and that Roark wasn’t who he claimed to be.
He tried to put her off. He texted that he was in the middle of a top-secret case, that it was high profile, and he smoothly apologized for all the secrecy and double talk. He promised to take her somewhere tropical and warm as soon as the trial for the rest of Novak’s crew was over, and when none of that seemed to pacify her he broke out the big guns and told her that he loved her. That shut her down for exactly one day. She told him she loved him back and then went silent.
After the declaration there were no more messages between the two of them but there were several between Zero and Roark. He had his goons watching Brysen and Dovie. He also had eyes on Spanky’s, the strip club that was now the de facto operating headquarters for Nassir since the Pit was gone. Spanky’s was also where a stripper named Honor danced, and if anyone cared to watch closely enough, they would see that if Nassir had any kind of weakness, it was her. The texts indicated that whatever was driving Roark was amping up to bring the fight right to the heart of those willing to stand sentinel between him and his revenge, and all that could mean was that things were going to get uglier and bloodier before I could put a stop to it.
The texts stopped because it was apparent that the next time Roark saw Reeve she snagged his phone and headed back to the city in order to hand it over to me. She saw his profession of love for what it was, a smoke screen, and had done what she had done since the first time I had met her. She was covering her own ass and