Chapter Ten: Mystery Unveiled
Mia
“What would happen if a person died of an overdose…” I hugged my arms around my body as I rewound the conversation I had with Doc back in my mind. The devious prick. Now I knew why he wanted to know about that. It made complete sense as the jagged jigsaw of the set-up came together. He was deliberately trying to sabotage the Rebel Saints.
My breathing hitched in my throat as I worked to put distance between myself and the group. I wanted to go home immediately. I felt as if the whole room was spinning.
Naomi didn’t catch the hint of me moving back from the scene, and she floated back with me as my eyes darted around the club.
“So crazy isn’t it?” she mused. “I mean, where did that guy come from? I’ve never ever seen him in the club. Random shit.”
“Super random.” I nodded. Not.
The door to the club stood wide open and the ambulance had arrived. Two men were carrying a stretcher past us into the men’s bathroom.
Numbers was looking for me through the crowd and sought out my eyes.
I camouflaged my anxiety with a weak smile and looked away to the pool tables for a brief moment. It was my way of trying to fix my face, so I didn’t look as guilty as I felt inside. When I looked back up his blue eyes that were normally like warm pools of blue water were icy.
He was frowning at me from a distance, but the distraction of the ambulance officer asking him questions pulled him back into the melee and away from me.
Bear, Hawk and Ink were there too. They were gathered around talking to one another.
My stomach kept swirling, the urge to puke forcing its way up. I had no words for the evil that Doc was doing, and now I was implicated in the whole mess because I knew who was responsible.
“Are you okay, hun?” Harper asked with concern as she stroked my arm.
I wish she wouldn’t, all it did was agitate me further. “I’m fine. Just a little shaken up is all,” I lied. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen drug overdoses before. This was different, however. I wanted out of the deal with Doc but feared the only way out might cost me my life.
I was mad at myself for the whole situation.
Numbers eventually made his way over to me and opened his arms for a hug.
I slipped my hands around his waist, but my efforts were lacklustre. If he knew the extent to which I was involved, he would want nothing to do with me.
“Are you all right?” he whispered in my ear.
“I’m fine. Just nasty stuff to see, I guess,” I said, and part of that was true. The other part would be the end of anything we were developing. I circled my foot on the ground nervously as I looked down.
“Yeah, it is, but everything will be okay.” He tilted my chin up and kissed my forehead.
“I guess so.” I wanted to cry, but I held back the tears because then it would be a dead giveaway something was up. Funny how things come back around full circle. The same detective, Mandy Shepherd, walked through the door, and her eyes zeroed in on me and Numbers.
“Ah shit,” he said. “Mandy is haunting me. I swear she has it out for me. She’s just waiting for me to screw up,” he mumbled under his breath.
“She’s doing her job and she’s the lead detective in Holbeck, that’s why you keep seeing her. Just relax and tell the truth,” I said, slipping into my professional mode.
Mandy, with her hands in her pockets and a smug look on her face, walked over to our little huddle: Naomi, Harper, Hawk and Numbers. “Good evening, good people. We meet again.” She stared directly at Numbers and Naomi.
Harper glared back at her with cold eyes. If looks could kill, she would have been dead.
“Yes, we do, detective. We have to stop meeting like this,” Numbers joked.
I cringed, rubbing a hand over my forehead. I didn’t know if she was the type of woman you could joke with.
To my surprise, she grinned. “Yes, we do have to stop meeting. Unfortunately, we have to investigate when a dead man is found in an establishment hanging over a toilet bowl.”
Behind her, other officers were over at the bathroom roping it off with yellow police tape.