Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck #8) - Emilia Finn Page 0,37

smeared with egg yolk and toast crumbs. The drinking glass empty but for the juice pulp that dries against the side. My coffee cup sits on my bedside table, also empty, but beside it is a steaming hot jug of coffee with at least four more cups’ worth of caffeine left in it.

I sit up in fresh jeans and a mustard yellow shirt, baby my shoulder as I turn my torso, and with my eyes still on the email, I pour more coffee and inhale the scent that permeates the air.

Zeus’ is a dance club, according to the information Soph sent. And not the disco kind of dance, but the tits-out kind that makes me grind my teeth. It once belonged to a man named Sylvester Tracey – better known as Sly. Sly’s club was sold to a man named Evan McGrady – though Soph made a note that McGrady’s name is nowhere near the deed documents on the club. Instead, an umbrella company, a hidden trust account, a little more red tape, and eventually, if you skip-hop from one trust to another, you end up with his name.

The purchase was made a little less than four years ago, not so long after Cam and Will arrived in my town for that year’s Stacked Deck tournament. McGrady pumped money into the club, upgraded the poles, renamed the place Zeus’, and not so long after that, Sylvester Tracey was found belly-up in the river with a missing eye and a finger in his ass.

His own finger.

Detached from his left hand.

Who the fuck thinks to do things like that?

Soph was intuitive enough to include the police file on Sly’s death; homicide, death by gunshot wound to the back of the head, he’d been floating for no more than two days before his body washed up on the riverbank, and a couple of kids riding their bikes discovered him and bought themselves a lifetime of therapy.

There have been no arrests made in relation to his murder. The file has been deemed cold and put aside in favor of newer, juicier cases, because nobody cares about the death of a gangbanger with a shitty club.

McGrady was questioned once… He was promptly thanked for his time, his ass was kissed, and he was let go without a single follow-up question.

Soph felt the need to add her own little notes in the margins. “McG totes did it!”

Aside from Zeus’ – which, according to Soph, is where “Victoria” makes most of her money – she also happened to research Mr. Han’s grocery store just five blocks away.

It burned down on New Year’s Eve, less than a week after the last time I ever saw Cam. Han’s insurance policy had somehow lapsed just days prior, renewal was apparently lost in the kerfuffle of Christmas, and without that settlement coming his way, he was unable to rebuild.

Goodbye, Han’s grocery store. Goodbye Cam’s main source of income.

Not that she would have been able to return to work anyway, seeing as how the cops were close, and the Quinns were once again back in hiding. New names, new jobs, new home, new lives.

Soph copied in all of the communications about William Quinn; everyone knows it’s not his real name, but no one has been able to match either of the Quinn siblings to their actual birth names. No one knows where they came from, who their parents are, where they were born, or their actual birthdays.

Soph ran a fast scan of missing teens and children for the last two decades, since they have to be someone, and those someones must now be reported missing – unless, of course, no one cared enough to report them – but her first pass over the data came up with, according to her, “sweet fuck all.”

She’s going to keep looking because, “this is like a fun game of Where’s Wally,” and she’s not gonna be done until she knows what’s up.

Her notes have been nothing if not entertaining.

Sitting back on my bed and holding my breath as I rest my shoulder blade against the wall, I bring my mug up and take a sip of hot coffee. At this point, I guess my plan is to decide how and when I’ll reveal myself to Cam. At the studio? At her home? At Zeus’ during her next shift?

Or, hell, not at all. Because she made it abundantly clear she’s done with me.

I wish I could let it go. I really, truly do, but I can’t. She