to the office door.
It was locked, but Reese picked it easily, and they swept inside, shutting it behind them.
Carter set the ladder down and took a second to get his bearings. The alarm was overpowering; he couldn’t stop wincing, whole body jerking each time the whoop sounded. He gritted his teeth, and his eyes started to water.
Reese appeared in front of him, something held out in offering – earmuffs. High quality shooting over-ear hearing protection. He wore another pair himself, the headstall hooked behind his neck so he could leave on the hardhat.
Carter nodded his thanks, and snapped them on. He could still tell the alarm was going off, but it no longer felt like the sound was drilling holes through his eardrums. He took a breath, and gathered himself.
The office was large, with wide windows, and a massive wooden desk modeled after an antique. Bookshelves dominated the walls to the left and the right, full of leather-bound tomes Carter assumed were mostly for show. The rest of the wall space was given over to plaques and diplomas, awards, and photo ops. The family photos were in frames on the desk, the mayor with his wife and two children.
Reese was already at the computer, had already plugged in the flash drive Ratchet had given him, and was clicking through programming screens.
Carter saw a leather-bound day planner at one corner of the blotter and picked it up. It was clear that Cunningham kept his own appointment book, the handwriting slanted and dark and obviously masculine. No doubt the receptionist had a digital schedule for him synced to all her devices, but these were Cunningham’s personal notes.
Carter flipped back through the last few months: lots of lunches and dinners; a ribbon-cutting ceremony or two. Conference calls, and golf games, and dentist appointments.
A date circled in red in February caught his attention. The note read: Abacus Call 4:00. Two phone numbers were listed, one labeled A, and one labeled R. The R had a Knoxville area code – the A, however, had a Manhattan area code.
Carter punched both into his phone as a note, and kept searching. Abacus, whatever it was, popped up again and again, as did “meeting with R.” The meetings continued regularly for about six weeks, and then halted.
Ricky? Too much to hope for, probably.
He snapped photos of the planner’s pages and put it back. The idea was that Cunningham wouldn’t immediately realize his office had been tampered with.
While Reese finished up with the computer, Carter searched the desk drawers, sorting through files and papers that didn’t seem to have much to do with anything illegal or immoral, just regular bureaucratic bullshit. He didn’t honestly know what he was looking for, and it frustrated him.
Then he got to the bottommost drawer, and found it locked.
He tapped on Reese’s arm to get his attention, and pointed, tugging on the handle in demonstration.
Reese pushed back the chair and the lockpick set came out again. He had it open in moments.
Inside was a bottle of Scotch and a sticky tumbler. And an envelope – full of photos. They’d all been taken at a distance, with a long-range lens, and all of them were of the Lean Dogs.
A cold chill took hold of Carter’s gut as he paged through them. There were Ghost and Walsh talking in front of the under-construction Bell Bar. There was Aidan pulling out of the main gate at Dartmoor. Ava and Mercy’s house, Ava’s truck in the driveway. Maggie coming out of the grocery store with Ash in the seat of the shopping cart. The Dogs riding in formation down the center of town, when they’d done their childhood cancer charity run back in January. He spotted himself, walking across the parking lot of Leroy’s toward his bike.
He didn’t see any photos of Leah – and maybe that was because she’d only recently gotten back to town; maybe there was a chance no one had associated her with the club yet…but they would.
He slid the photos back into their envelope and glanced up to find Reese studying him. “You ready?” he asked, and could only hear the faint vibration of his own voice inside his skull.
Reese nodded, and held up the flash drive. They tucked the chair back the way they’d found it, and straightened everything.
Carter took the photos, though; tucked them away in his toolbelt. Cunningham would realize they were missing when he went for his first Scotch that evening, but some evidence, Carter thought, was too offensive