My stomach clenched.
“She was from East Texas,” he continued. “And as I was looking into it, I realized that there were a whole lot more that’d gone missing from my neck of the woods… and I didn’t like it. So I’ve made it my personal mission to clean up my streets. And I need a few good men like you, and the others that you’ll meet in a few days, to help me accomplish that. All of you have a special set of skills. Ones that are needed to make this undertaking successful.”
I closed the laptop and handed it to him.
“You can continue doing whatever it is that you want to do. I just ask that you help on the cases that I need help with. And…” He paused. “There’s a bit of a catch.”
I knew there would be.
“You’ll have to pose as a member of a motorcycle club. To give reason to why you are all together in the small town where I’m based,” he continued. “It’ll give you a logical story to explain to people. And I have a feeling that you’ll blunder if you don’t have a prepared story. It makes it easier, I believe, in the long run if we have a devised plan.”
A motorcycle club?
“I guess,” I admitted. “I mean, I’ve never even ridden a motorcycle.”
Lynn’s eyes sparkled as he said, “You’ll have to learn. It’d look mighty odd if you didn’t do that when you’re posing as being a part of one.”
With that, he stood up.
I stood up, too, realizing that it was time to do some thinking.
“I’m married,” I said. “And I have to explain this to my wife. Is that okay?”
His head tilted slightly, as if he was a cat who’d just found something interesting. “My sources didn’t tell me that you were married.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t tell anyone before I went in, if you’re talking about my family talking about me. And if you’re not, then you are more in need of my services than you even realize. I didn’t try to hide my actions before I got into this place.”
Lynn flashed me a quick grin. “The information gatherer is me. And since you’ve so kindly offered…” He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket. “This is a list of names of men that I’m considering. I would like you to do a thorough background check on all of them before I talk to them. Is two days enough time to do that with?”
Two days.
Easy.
I could have it in ten minutes if he gave me a decent computer and watched my back for enough time.
“If you give me time to access the information, I can have it all back to you pretty quickly, depending on what I find,” I said, sounding as cocky and arrogant as I knew myself to be.
Lynn’s brows widened. “Then, by all means, use this computer and get that information.”
“What’s your email and I’ll forward it all to there. And” —I slid around the desk to the computer behind it— “how far do you want me to dig?”
He wrote his email down on a Post-It note and handed it to me. I took it and pressed it at the corner of the desk.
“Seeing as these men are going to be leaving prison early along with you, I’d like to be a hundred percent sure that I’m making the right decision before I bring this same offer to them. So, in that case, go as far as you think you need to go. I don’t care about moral lines and boundaries. I want to know everything.” He took a seat in the visitor’s chair all over again and pulled a phone from his pocket. “And you have two hours to get me as much as you can. That’s as long as the warden takes for lunch.”
With that last comment, he got to work on his phone, typing things out, answering emails, and generally staying busy as to not disturb me.
First things first, though.
I did my own research on the man.
Seeing nothing of importance to indicate that he was a piece of shit or anything, satisfied that I wasn’t working with a murderer or immoral killer, I went back to work on the list of names.
There were eight of them, and I narrowed his list down to four solid, trustable candidates and sent the information to his email.
Then, because I could, I went ahead and checked up on Wyett to make sure that everything was okay on her end.
Her bank accounts looked healthy, there didn’t look to be anything wrong with her, and she was up for peer review soon at work. A hospital that was only an hour away from Souls Chapel, and thirty minutes away from my warehouse loft.
I then entered into my security system to make sure that everything was okay on the home front.