only if it didn’t require a personal sacrifice. It was an attitude that had expanded and protected the club, but it was one that still nauseated Carter when it made an appearance. When it painted tragedy in black-and-white figures and dispassionate edicts.
“It was going by that house that did it,” he said, before he could catch himself, and lifted his head to find that the whole table had fallen silent, Ghost cut off mid-sentence. “We took him to the house they were dealing out of, and now he’s dead. They must have seen us.”
“How?” Briscoe asked – demanded. He was rattled and angry that Jimmy had gone missing on his watch, Carter suspected. “Were you not watching for a tail?”
He’d checked his mirrors periodically, but maybe not as carefully as he should have…
“There could have been cameras in the house,” Fox said. “We followed them the whole way, and there were no tails.”
“Cameras would be smart,” Mercy said. “Then you’ve got dirt on your buyers.”
“Look,” Ghost said, impatient. “It’s nobody here’s fault. In hindsight, we shoulda been keeping the kid here overnight under lock and key.”
“Yes, because that worked so well in Texas,” Albie said, and his gaze, when Carter glanced toward him, was harder than he’d ever seen it. It left him wanting to recoil.
Ghost nodded. “Yeah. I don’t like the idea of keeping civilians here, especially not ones with targets on their backs.
“Right now,” he said, rerouting. “We’ve got to minimize the fallout. And we need to find who did this. We need to find them yesterday.”
“I’ve got a call in to my lab guy,” Ratchet offered. “He’s got access to the sketch Nicole’s boss gave us, and he’s running it through all the databases.”
“That could take forever,” Ghost said with a wave. “I want boots on the ground.”
“If Fred and Ricky were at Jimmy’s party, then some of the other kids there will have seen them,” Walsh pointed out. “Maybe even bought product from them.”
“Right,” Ghost said. “Let’s go back to Allie Henderson’s parents – Eden can be the go-between, since they’re familiar with her, now, and she–”
A soft knock at the door interrupted him. Evan poked his head meekly through the door. “Sorry, boss. But there’s a guy here who wants to talk to Carter. He says it’s important.”
Carter felt his brows go up. “To me?”
“Yeah. Said his name was Elijah.”
~*~
Leah slept terribly, but in a happy sort of way, too giddy with new excitement to settle into a proper REM cycle. She woke every time she rolled over, but would find herself remembering the feel of Carter’s lips against hers, her mouth tingling, and she would smile into the dark. It had been too long since she’d felt this way – about anything – and she wasn’t going to feel guilty for this schoolgirl rush of endorphins and fledgling emotions.
She finally quit pretending around six, and got up, fixed coffee and toast, and watched the sun come up through her living room window.
She was headed toward the bathroom to shower when she heard a knock at her door.
Leah wasn’t, by nature, the most cautious person. But the last few days talking to Carter about threats and missing girls had taken a toll, apparently, because an immediate bolt of fear shot through her when she realized there was someone at the door.
“Don’t be stupid,” she told herself, tightened her robe, fluffed her hair, and walked to answer it.
She paused, though, with her hand on the latch, and stood up on her tiptoes to peer out the peephole. An unfamiliar woman stood on the welcome mat, pretty, dark blonde. She offered a smile and a wave, as if she knew Leah would be looking.
An unfamiliar man stood behind her, and with the peephole’s distortion Leah could only make out tawny hair, and sunglasses – and a Lean Dogs cut.
An imposter? she wondered, full-on paranoid now. If someone wanted to harm the Dogs, committing crimes in ripped-off cuts would be an excellent way to do so.
Her hand tightened on the latch, and a tremor rippled up her arm.
But then the woman called through the door: “Leah? Hi, I’m Kris, and this is Roman. I live downstairs.”
Kris. That was the old lady Maggie had mention. Reese’s sister, Carter had said. Now that she looked closer, she could see the resemblance, in the shape of her nose and brows. The cool blue eyes, warmer on Kris, lit up with her kind, shy smile.
She unlocked the door and opened. “Uh, hi.