Page 10 of T-Bone
“Yeah. I remember when she roped me into keeping a potbellied pig at my place for a month.” The damn thing had stunk to high hell but Pogo was so damn cute.
Pike laughed. “God, she smelled so bad. But that was Ash, you know?” He posed the question to Faith, who nodded.
“Chloe was definitely a woman in need of help and Ashley sounds like she was an incredible woman.” She studied him again, trying to figure him out. “Do you know anything about a jealous ex?”
“Ash doesn’t date,” he said. “I mean she didn’t date. Not since her last relationship imploded and that was years ago.”
“Chief Maynard says it was a jealous ex, but he didn’t give me a name and there’s no name in her case file.”
I frowned. “He gave you the case file?”
“No,” she admitted as her cheeks turned bright red. “There was a commotion, and I took advantage of it,” she looked away. “He was being an asshole. And a chauvinist pig,” she gave a sigh. “Did you ever see the little girl?”
“No, sorry. I only heard her laughing once from the porch.”
Something like hope flickered in her eyes but she banked it quickly and nodded. “Thank you, Mister, uh, Pike. And I am truly sorry about your sister.” She handed him her still untouched beer.
Chapter Seven
Faith
Even though he was half wasted, my conversation with Pike had given me more breadcrumbs. My mind kept swinging back to the woman that Ashley was helping, specifically the little girl she was taking care of. For who? Had Chloe trusted Gemma to Ashley when she realized something was wrong? Did she know Marcus would go too far that night? “How well do you guys know Ghost Riders MC?” I wasn’t trying to dig into the business of the Steel Demons, but this was important. If they killed Ashley, which I suspect they did, it was for a reason.
“We don’t have mani-pedi nights if that’s what you’re asking,” T-Bone offered with a teasing smile. “But they sell meth, dabble in off-market cigarettes, guns, and girls.”
“Their guns are shit,” Pike offered with a half-grin.
“But no human trafficking?” It was the only thing that made sense, why else keep Gemma alive?
“Not that I’ve heard about,” T-Bone answered with a shrug. “But that’s the kind of thing you know about if you need it and we don’t need it. We have whores of our own.”
I flinched at how casually he used that word. I was no prude, but I knew in the biker world there were two types of whores, the girls at the club’s disposal for sex and other menial tasks and the ones who were sex workers. “It looks like Ashley was a standup woman and without a man in her life, I don’t know who would want to kill her.”
“How did she die?” Pike’s question came out stilted, as if he didn’t want to know but had to know.
I hated this part of the job. Death notifications were always the worst because families always wanted the details when they didn’t need them. “Cause of death was manual strangulation.”
His jaw clenched. “What aren’t you saying?”
I shrugged. “That’s what you need to know.”
“Faith,” T-Bone growled.
I threw my hands up and sighed dramatically. “Manual strangulation was the cause of death but there were dozens of knife wounds all over her body and even a few holes that looked like pinpricks.” It sounded like she was tortured to me, but I couldn’t tell her brother that.
“How’d you get the autopsy report?”
“I still have some friends in the area.” They didn’t need to know about my friendship with the Medical Examiner at LV Metro, but she’d come through for me in a big way with this report. “Her killer wanted something, likely information.”
Pike’s head fell into his hands, his face covered while he tried not to cry. My heart went out to the guy. As someone who lost a sibling, I understand the emptiness he now felt.
The roar of more bikes sounded and drew my attention as a group of seven men rode and parked along a strip of grass that surrounded a willow. Ghost Riders MC. Each man was decked out in the leather vest that identified them as a biker gang, with patches that signified their accomplishments as well as their place in the gang hierarchy. But then I laid eyes on a man with shaggy black hair and a long beard, he watched me as closely as I watched him, but that wasn’t what drew my gaze.
It was the tattoo.
Specifically the skull tattoo on his forearm. It was square and blocky with a blood-soaked mohawk, and a cigarette hanging from one side of the mouth. I’d seen that image in Ashley’s case file but there were no notes on what it was, or why it was there.
The man with the tattoo glanced away, but a second later he froze and stared at me again, so intense I felt it. He looked like he’d seen a ghost except I’d never seen this man a day in my life.
