Chapter 5

5

Jordan

T he next morning, I convinced Maddie to come with me to the garage for the day. RJ and I are behind on jobs since we were closed all day yesterday without notice to our customers.

And while Maddie doesn't like talking to the customers because she prefers to keep a low profile, she's actually able to help with a few of the regular maintenance jobs like changing tires and oil. When we first met, she wanted me to teach her everything—not just how to drive a car but how to fix shit on them too.

I was even feeling a little better about everything on the ride to the shop after Maddie and I spent hours last night and this morning fucking like it might be the last time.

That's another reason why I didn't want to let her out of my sight today. Last night, she packed her shit and was actually going to leave me, my worst nightmare come to life. At least in this instance it wouldn't have been my fault. She would've left to try and protect me, which is ridiculous.

So, last night I tried to remind her with every part of my body that I love her and that we belong together.

Some of the panic in her eyes had calmed down after our first round. By this morning when she was riding me, she almost looked like I had done a damn good job of convincing her not to go.

But I can feel all of that progress come crashing down the closer we get to the shop.

There were so many cop cars in the parking lot that I have to keep driving past and pull over on the side of the highway.

"Oh god. Oh god," Maddie begins chanting before I killed the engine. Her grip on my waist tightens, as if she would refuse to get off my bike. "I don't…I don't want to know."

"Maybe they found the guy," I tell her, covering her hand with my own. My remark was meant to comfort her. Instead, it has the opposite effect. Maddie hops off my bike and jogs back toward the shop with her helmet still on like my own as I hurry off to follow.

And fuck I'm so confused.

Doesn't she want the bad guy dead?

I catch up to her at the police tape where some of the Kings have already gathered around.

"Just sent out a message to everyone," Remy says when he glances over and sees us. His gaze goes from Maddie to me again. "This time the corpse wasn't hidden inside; it was left out for all to see."

"What do you mean?" I ask him. "There's been another victim?"

He tips his head back looking up at the green and white Fulton Automotive sign...and the body tied to the top of the pole with coarse rope.

Again, it's definitely a man's body, his eyeballs also missing from the sockets.

"His tongue was nailed to the front door." Remy points toward the entrance where a slab of flesh is in fact nailed near the top, leaving trails of blood all the way down it.

"Jesus," I mutter, unable to believe what the hell I'm seeing.

When I clasp my hands on Maddie's shoulders, she startles before turning around and burying her face against my chest.

Two mangled corpses in two days are too many for her to have to see. Rubbing my palms up and down her back to try and soothe her as her shoulders tremble, I ask Remy, "Who the hell is that up there? Do the cops know yet?"

"Oh, yeah. They know," he replies. "That's Peter Shults, a private investigator from Clayton. Oh, and one of Earnest Ingram's only friends."

Oh, god. Oh fuck.

I swallow down the bile that tries to come up. The panic that filled Maddie's eyes yesterday is no doubt filling mine now. We need to get the fuck out of here.

"Come on, baby. Let me take you home," I say to Maddie as I pull her along.

We make it about two steps before someone, a cop on the other side of the tape calls out, "Is Jordan Robertson one of your guys?" And I know they're speaking to Remy.

I freeze and Maddie looks up at me, her brows raised in question.

"Why?" our president calls back to the man.

"Because he was the last client who hired Peter Shults."

Fucking phone records and receipts! If I had thought for even a second that this would've happened, I never would've hired that man.

"Jordan!" Remy calls out. He comes over just as I turn around, his lips pursed. "Sorry, kid. It's only a matter of time before they would've showed up at your apartment," he says quietly with a wince. "Do we need to get you an attorney?"

"What?" Maddie asks, her red eyes flicking between me and Remy.

"Did you hire this guy for PI work?" Remy asks.

"It was a few weeks ago; it was nothing. We never met, just spoke on the phone."

But Maddie has already figured it out. Her brow furrows as she stares up at me, and then she pushes me away so that not a single part of her body is still touching mine. "You hired a private investigator? Why?"

"I just…I wanted to know that you were safe."

"How? By hiring someone to dig up dirt on me?"

"No, baby. Not on you. I just...I asked if there were any missing person reports from Las Vegas."

Her jaw drops, her normally warm brown eyes looking at me with loathing.

"I didn't tell them your name or the name you use," I tack on since I know for damn certain that Madalyn is not her real name.

"How could you?" she asks in a whisper.

"Because you wouldn't fucking talk to me!"

"This...this is all your fault!" she exclaims, gesturing to the dead man on the pole, and making everyone, including every cop in the vicinity, turn to look at us, at me.

"Oh, hell no," I tell her through clenched teeth. "Don't blame this shit on me. I just asked for a list and nobody matching your description was even on it."

"Because my father wouldn't risk putting my name on a public list when he has enemies everywhere!"

"Then maybe you should've fucking told me that!"

Last night I shouted at her for the first time. Today is another first—swearing at her while yelling. But whatever the hell is happening here isn't on me. Maddie's feeling guilty and trying to pile her shit on me.

"Jordan!" Remy calls out to get my attention and remind me that there are eyes and ears everywhere, including cops who want to talk to me because I know the dead guy hanging from the sign of my employer.

I turn to him and hold up a finger, telling him that I need a minute. When I turn back to Maddie, she's got her phone up to her ear and is already walking in the direction of Greer's bar.

"Maddie, wait. You can't just walk down the road alone, and I have to stay…"

"Celeste is coming to pick me up," she says to me over her shoulder. "I just need…space."

Space. Of course, she does. Space away from me because I finally exploded and blamed her for shit that's not her fault. Not really, even if she knows who the hell is responsible.

"I'm sorry, okay?" I tell her when I catch up to her, stepping in front of her so she has to stop. "This isn't your fault, but you know that it's not mine either."

"I trusted you," she grits out. She may as well have just stomped all over my heart.

"No, you don't. If you trusted me, then you would've been honest with me by now and stopped keeping secrets. I don't blame you for being silent, being careful when we first met. But it's been more than a year, and you know I love you no matter what."

" Jordan !" Remy shouts again, and this time his tone is the presidential kind I can't ignore unless I want to be on his shit list.

"I have to talk to him, but as soon as I'm done helping RJ catch up on jobs, I'll come pick you up at Greer's," I tell her.

"I may need more time than that," she says as Celeste's sedan rolls up in the distance.

Rather than try to argue with her, I let her go. I wait until Maddie jogs over to the passenger side and slips inside the car before I turn back around to the crowd.

Making my way through the growing number of gawkers, I find Remy, who nods his chin toward one of the cops on the other side of the yellow police tape.

"Deputy Little wants to sit down in the shop and talk to you. It's better than him dragging you down to the sheriff's office in the back of his cruiser, right?"

"Yeah, fine. Whatever."

"Colt and your mom should be here any second. Hand over your gun. I'll stow it in your saddlebag."

I discreetly slip him my Smith I have no fucking idea how he ended up dead and hanging from the shop sign."

Unless someone is trying to set me up to take the fall for the murders. The same someone who is here for Maddie.

With a nod like he believes me, Remy lifts the yellow police tape for us to go under, and then we're on the other side. All eyes are on us, making me feel like a criminal.

"Jordan Robertson?" the bulky cop with a close-cut shaved head asks when we approach.

"That's me."

"I would like to ask you a few questions about your business dealings with Peter Shults. You're not a suspect at this time, so it will be a casual sit-down discussion. If more evidence comes up tying you to how he got strung up on your employer's sign, though…we'll have to go to the station."

"Understood," I agree.

"His stepfather and mother are on the way. They'll want to be in the room too," Remy informs him.

"Fine," the officer replies. "But just those two."

Remy nods, accepting that he's not allowed to join us.

A moment later, Colt is leading my mother to us by the hand, his other palm covering her eyes. She shoves it away, finding me, and then throws her arms around me.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"I'm fine, Mom. I just spoke to the dead guy once. It's no big deal."

"No big…I can't even with you," she huffs with a shake of her head. Glancing behind me, she says, "Hi, I'm Josie Fulton, Jordan's mother." She holds out her hand for a shake. The man takes it while looking from her to me, our more than a foot height difference, and her young appearance, as if wondering if I'm her biological kid and if so, how damn young she must have been when she had me. Very young, thanks to my asshole father.

"How about we go inside where it's quieter? RJ told us there's a meeting room in the back that we can use while the forensics team…cleans things up out here."

As we turn toward the front door, the tongue nailed to it feels like a taunt, daring us to go near it.

"Oh, my lord!" my mom exclaims. Again, Colt slaps his palm over her eyes and steers her forward. The officer opens the door as far as it will go for us to slip past it. The coppery scent hits me like a ton of bricks, forcing me to swallow my pancakes and sausage breakfast down again.

Through the garage and into the meeting room added to the back of the shop when it was rebuilt after an arson, the four of us select our seats. The cop puts his hand on the back of Remy's chair at the head of the table, then reconsiders before going around to the chair on the left of it. Me, Colt, and my mom sit on the side across from him.

"So, let's start at the beginning. How do you know Peter Shults?" he asks as he removes a small notebook and pen from his front uniform pocket.

"I don't," I answer. "I looked up local PIs several weeks ago, maybe a month ago. He had decent reviews and was nearby in Clayton, so I gave him a call. I left a message on his voicemail. He called me back the next day. We talked for a few minutes. He called me again a few days later, and that was the last time we spoke."

"What did you call him about?"

Fuck. I can't drag Maddie into this, but I can't full out lie to a cop either. After all, the sheriff's office might have the PI's computer and shit by now. "I wanted him to look into finding my wife's family."

"Your wife's family?" he repeats as if he doesn't believe I'm married or that I'm telling the truth about the reason I called a private investigator.

"She left a bad family situation, and I was curious about them."

He jots down a few notes in his little notepad, then asks, "What did Peter find out?"

"Nothing. He did a search but couldn't give me any specifics. He wanted more money than the two hundred dollars I had paid him by credit card over the phone to keep looking, and I told him no thanks. I thought maybe he was lying or just wanted more money, and I gave up."

"So, you were angry at him when he raised his prices?" Deputy Little asks.

"That's not what he said!" my mom jumps in to defend me.

"I wasn't angry, I just didn't have the money to keep throwing at him for possibly a lost cause."

"What's your wife's name?" the officer asks, his pen poised to write it down.

"Madalyn Robertson."

He lifts an eyebrow at me. "What was her name before you married her?"

"I, um, I don't know."

The deputy looks at me, then to my mom, and back again. "You don't know the last name of the woman you married?"

"It was a shotgun wedding in Las Vegas," my mom tells him, making me wince.

But too late. The cop's eyes widen with interest, putting more pieces of this fucked-up puzzle together. "Vegas, you say."

My mom looks to me, then to Colt, who keeps his jaw clenched tight.

"What's wrong with Vegas?" my mom asks.

"I guess the men didn't tell you, ma'am, but the first body we found in Greer's bar yesterday just so happened to be wearing a Las Vegas shirt. A clean, new one, with no blood on it despite what had been done to him."

"Oh," she mutters, slumping down in her seat as she realizes that she just fucked me and Maddie over.

"When did you marry her? Where did you meet? Was she from Vegas?" He starts firing questions at me like he knows he's on to something here.

"It was last summer."

"You don't remember the date of your marriage? I doubt that unless you like to live in the doghouse."

"June eighteenth,"

"So, you've been married for…fifteen months, and you don't know her last name?"

"No, I don't. She wanted a fresh start, so I don't bring up the past because I assumed it's traumatic for her."

"And is she from Las Vegas? Is that where her family still lives?"

"She was living in Vegas when we got married, but I don't know anything about her family."

"I think I should speak to this wife of yours. Call her and tell her to come join us."

"No."

"No?" the officer repeats in surprise.

"Maddie doesn't have anything to do with this. She doesn't know the PI or the other guy."

"I didn't say that she did, did I?" he replies. "But I think she may know who it was who killed them, maybe one of her family members sending her a message."

"If it was her family, wouldn't they just walk into the bar and say hello rather than murder two men?" my mom asks.

"One would think so, Mrs. Fulton, but we don't know anything about this family of hers, do we?" Turning back to me, he asks, "Where were you last night, Jordan?"

"Oh great, we've reached the accusation part of this little interview," Colt mutters. "Jordan didn't kill anyone. I would bet my life on that."

But the cop ignores my stepfather. He doesn't even spare him a glance while waiting for me to answer him.

"I was with Maddie all night. We went back to our apartment after the Savage Kings meeting ended."

"So, there's no one else who saw the two of you at the apartment complex?"

"One of our neighbors probably saw us, I don't know. Ask them. Or can't you just look at my cell phone records and see what towers were pinged or whatever?"

"Not if you left your phone at home while you went and killed the man before hanging him from your employer's sign."

"I didn't kill him or anyone else! I barely spoke to the man a month ago, and that was the end of all communication."

"What does your wife look like?"

The random question catches me completely off-guard. "Huh?"

"Do you have a photo of your wife?" Deputy Little asks.

"Yes, but why?"

"May I see what she looks like? Or should I have another deputy round her up and bring her in to join us so I can see her in person?"

Clenching my jaw tight in annoyance, I remove my phone from my jean pocket and pull up the photos on it. Of course, I have photos of Maddie. Tons of them. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I take pictures of her when she's just sitting beside me looking so gorgeous it hurts.

I pull up one such image intentionally of her not looking at the camera and turn the screen around to show the cop.

"She is a very beautiful girl," he says, but his face doesn't show a hint of surprise at her stunning attractiveness even in profile view. I realize why when he says, "Isn't it strange that there were photos of her on the victim's phone too?"

"What?" I ask quietly. Shaking my head in denial, I tell him, "I never sent any photos of Maddie to the PI."

"No? Then I wonder how he got the photos of her."

"I don't know, but he didn't get them from me."

"Right. I didn't think so, because these photos were dated rather recently. One of them was of her sitting on the beach with you, another of the two of you getting on your bike outside of Greer's bar one night. Oh, and I can't forget the one of you and her walking out of your apartment over on Lakeview Circle."

"Are you fucking serious?" I ask him.

"Did you find out Peter Shultz was following you and your wife, and decide to confront him?"

"No. I didn't know any of that until you just told me!"

"What the hell is going on, Rick?" Colt asks. "Why are you springing this photo shit on the kid? If he found out the man was following him and her, the worst he would've done was kick his ass and you know it."

"How could I know that, Fulton?" the deputy replies. "How could you when nobody seems to know the name of his own damn wife?"

"This meeting is fucking over," Colt growls. He slams his palms on the table, pushing his chair back to get to his feet. My mom does the same. "If you have any more questions for Jordan or his wife, you'll have to contact our attorney to set up a time for you to ask them."

The officer chuckles as he returns his pen and notebook back in his front shirt pocket. "Suit yourself. But if Jordan fails to answer my questions or cooperate in this investigation, then he's going to be considered a suspect, our only suspect at the moment for a double homicide, which doesn't look good for him."

"Get out!" Colt shouts at him, pointing at the door behind us.

The officer finally looks a little nervous as he shuts up, stands up, and leaves the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

"Jordan!" my mom whispers as she turns to me. "What in the world has that girl gotten you into? I never trusted her…"

"No kidding, Mom," I say when I stand up, towering more than a foot over her. "You've made your opinion of Maddie perfectly clear from the day you met her. You don't like her or trust her, I know that. But you can't blame her for whoever is out there killing people and apparently trying to set me up to take the fall."

"You really didn't know the PI was following you and her?" Colt asks me quietly as he wraps his arm around my mom and pulls her to his side.

"No. I had no fucking clue. That cop blindsided me. I thought the PI would forget about me as soon as I refused to pay him any more money."

"So then why follow you two?" Colt asks. "What was in it for him if you weren't going to pay him? Somebody must have been willing to hand over some cash, right?"

"I don't know. Maybe it was whoever killed him and the other guy who hired him."

My mom sighs and frowns at me, her face full of disappointment and worry. "That girl is going to end up getting you hurt or killed, I just know it."

"No, you don't." Despite the fact that Maddie is pissed off at me and probably won't speak to me for days for going behind her back, hiring a PI, I can't help but jump to her defense. She would never do anything to hurt me, at least not intentionally. Whatever the reasons she had to keep secrets from me, I know she thought she was doing what was best for me.

"I do know it, Jordan! It's a mother's intuition. Maddie is trouble and now she's dragged you into a huge mess! We can't afford an attorney, but we sure as hell can't not hire one and let the sheriff's office steamroll you into prison because they're too stupid to figure out who the real killer is!"

"The Kings will sort this shit out, lil mama," Colt promises her, soothing his palm up and down her arm. "It'll be okay. We won't let them charge the kid with a damn thing."