Page 77 of Ruthless

Chapter 29

Rebel

"Holy shit!" We had just come upon the accident scene. It was a hard, cold fact that if you went head-on with a tractor trailer, the tractor trailer would win every time. I wasn't sure why or how it had happened, but the mangled, twisted, smoking metal that had once been a Camaro was all I needed to see to know that anyone inside that vehicle had been killed on impact, and by the looks of it, the occupants in the car hadn't been wearing seat belts. One of them had smashed through the windshield and been decapitated.

"Jesus," Ace commented low, shaking his head.

He'd been the one to get the call about the accident from one of his brothers. Several of them were here with us, along with a small crowd of lookie loos who'd either gotten out of their vehicles because the road was now blocked and they couldn't get through, or they'd come from one of the nearby houses.

"These the guys you looking for?" one of the Sentinel's asked.

"Hard to tell without a head." I wasn't trying to be funny, it was the truth. There was more than one black Camaro on the roads. I got off my bike and moved closer to the scene. Cops and firemen were everywhere. Someone had already covered up the head. I ran my hand over my lower jaw, trying to see the other body inside the car.

"I heard the trucker tell someone that right before the collision the driver of the Camaro swerved directly in front of him. Said he looked like he was slumped over the wheel."

The speaker was an elderly man, and it looked as if he'd been walking his dog when the accident had occurred, an overweight Lab sitting quietly at his feet. He was talking to another guy.

"He say anything else?"

Thank fuck for nosey old men.

The man with the Lab shook his head. "Nope, said the road was quiet except for some bikers who passed him a few minutes before the accident."

The second man snorted. "Good thing they weren't involved, there wouldn't have been anything left to bury."

"It's a shame they weren't," Lab man said, surprising me. "Those boys cause nothing but trouble when they come around."

I was done listening, coming to my own conclusion as to what had happened. I just needed proof that I was on the right track. I glanced back at the Camaro and the driver inside. He was slumped forward, so fucking bloody that it was hard to get a good look at his features. If my hunch was right, he would have a bullet hole somewhere in his head. Shit, I couldn't tell.

"Tell me it's the assholes we've been looking for," Ace said hopefully, joining me.

I glanced up at the sound of bikers pulling away from the scene, watching as his brothers rode off. "If what I just heard those two old coots saying is true, I'm ninety-nine percent sure it's them." The coroner opened the driver's side door and appeared to check to make sure that the driver was dead before stepping back so the body could be removed from the car.

"You can't tell if that's Daryl?"

I snorted. "Could you? Can you tell if the other one is Jack?"

He grinned.

"Wait a minute!" I heard the coroner order sharply.

We turned our attention back to them. By now the driver's body had been loaded onto a gurney and they were just about to cover him up when they were stopped. The coroner leaned over the dead man, examining him closely, and then I had the proof that I'd tried to find myself.

"Smith!" he called out, looking at one of the cops. "You need to see this!" The cop rushed over and the coroner pointed at something directly at the right temple.

Right away I knew what he was pointing at. I looked at Ace, who'd been observing quietly. "The trucker was heard saying some bikers passed him right before the accident,” I told Ace. “He also noticed that the driver of the Camaro was slumped over his steering wheel before they collided."

"You think one of the bikers shot Daryl on the way by?"

I nodded. "We know the Kings were looking for him."

"They shot him, the truck did the rest."

"Yep."

"I have an idea," Ace said, walking away from me.

I watched him walk up to the cop and coroner, interrupting their conversation. He did all the talking, and after about two minutes the cop called for another officer to come over, telling him to bring the evidence bag. He pulled out a wallet, opened it up, and said something to Ace. Ace dipped his head, as if he was saying thanks, and then he was walking back to me.

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