Unleashing Sin - A. M. Wilson Page 0,16
in order to destroy any evidence he might have had on them. Probably didn’t dig much deeper than his back pocket.”
“Right,” I grunt. “Just like them shootin’ him in the head was a coincidence? Do you really have a clue what’s going on with Gutierrez, or is it nothing more than ‘your guess’?” With everything going on and my own reckless behavior, I haven’t taken time to talk to Richard about our failed mission.
A look of frustration shadows his face. “Our information came from a trusted source and even he can’t figure out how Gutierrez knew we weren’t who we pretended to be.”
“Maybe you need some new sources.”
“Dwelling on this will drive you crazy. We do our best to weed out the facts from the bullshit, but sometimes things go wrong. I wish I had a concrete answer for you, but I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.”
The old man claps me on the shoulder and opens his mouth. Before he says what’s on his mind, we’re interrupted.
“Sir, I wanted to let you know the Red Cross is on their way.”
My head swivels around, and I fix him with a glare.
Before I can kill the guy, Richard steps in. “Get out of here, Davis. I’ll take care of it.”
“Is he kidding?” I growl.
Richard shrugs. “It’s the way we do things. You said you were the owner. Any normal person would be out of a place to sleep.”
I know he’s referring to my many outings of late. I haven’t slept in my own bed in probably a month. Letting his comment slide, I prepare to leave.
“Deal with the charity. I’ll take care of the insurance. Once they clear the place, call me. Doubt there’s anything salvageable, but I’d like to look.”
“Will do. Hey,” he calls as I start back toward the crowd.
I stop and give him my attention over my shoulder.
“How’s the girl?”
Just the thought of her makes my body respond in several different ways. Anger wars with curiosity, and they both mingle with stress.
Snap out of it, asshole. Her well-being is not your priority.
“Fine. Elias has her.”
Richard gives me a look I can’t quite interpret, and it pisses me off. His shoulders sag, and he glances down at his sneakers for a second. “Good,” he responds when his eyes meet mine through my shades.
After another chin lift, I walk back through the onlookers and straddle my bike. With one last long look at the remains of my childhood home, I start the beast and pull away.
Back to Elias’s, back to the girl with the haunted look in her eyes, back to everything that symbolizes the life I don’t have, don’t want, and don’t fucking need.
After swinging by the bar to see what paperwork pop stored there, I grab a bottle of liquor from the storage and head back to Elias’s. The place is silent when I walk inside, so I set about fixing myself a double and plant my ass on the sofa. I reach for the remote and flip through the channels until I find some sports highlights on ESPN. The TV is nothing more than a sound barrier for anyone else who may be home. My mind is too consumed to pay attention to the screen.
I can’t even comprehend the fact that every last bit of my missing sister went up in smoke and flames early this morning. My stupid ass doesn’t even have a picture of her in my wallet. And I was too proud to display her angelic face at my own place. I felt like building her a shrine would solidify the fact she was gone and dead and never coming back. I was too much of a man for that. Too big and proud to give up on finding her and accept that Molly was dead and gone. That the only thing I had left was a memory in a frame.
Now I’m kicking my own ass through half a bottle of scotch.
It couldn’t be more than fifteen or twenty minutes after I sat down and started my path to drunken oblivion when I hear a door creek down the hallway. Of course it’s the little princess because Elias doesn’t walk like a goddamned fairy.
I pretend I didn’t hear her through another swallow when her tiny, scraggly head peeks around the entryway to the living room.
Even ignoring her, I don’t miss the way her body relaxes, and her shoulders droop when she sees me.
“Sorry to bother you, Sin. I just heard someone come in and wanted to see