Page 94 of Broken Skulls

“Do you think it’s someone from her past?” Big Dan asks.

Dirk hands him the record he stole from the dealership. “Don’t know.”

Big Dan scans the paper. “Oh fuck. This is the client that bought every fucking piece of art Jesse had hanging in the shop. I joked with him that he should have just booked with her. He seemed to like her style.”

“Do you think it’s the same guy Billie Rose said hit on Jesse when they were shopping a few months ago?” Elijah asks the group.

Jackson takes a picture of the photo with his phone. “Let’s see if Billie Rose recognizes him. It would be nice to know what we’re walking in on. Maybe he’s just a nut job who’s obsessed with her.”

Dirk’s normally blue eyes turn black. He focuses them on me.

“What do you think?” he asks as we wait for Billie Rose’s response.

“I think he made her nervous,” I answer while picturing the way her hand trembled as she put her knife away.

Jackson’s face lights up as he looks at his phone. “It’s him. That means he’s been stalking her for a while.”

Dirk doesn’t wait for anyone else. He kicks his leg over his bike.

“You can’t just roll up there!” Jackson yells.

“Oh, that’s exactly what he plans to do,” Jacob says, grabbing me by my arm. “Let’s go.”

We pull up to a creepy, dilapidated house on the outskirts of town – if that’s what you want to call it. Dirk jumps off his bike and barrels through the front door, not waiting for backup.

“Stay right here. Don’t leave the bike,” Jacob tells me after handing me his helmet. I watch him follow his brothers inside. My gaze roams over the moonlit landscape.

There is beauty in the dark nothingness of the desert at night.

One of the men walk over to the garage that is leaning to one side. “There’s a car in here!” he yells.

Jacob comes out shaking his head.

They didn’t find her.

Jacob takes his helmet from me. “She’s not here, but it has to be him. He has her drawings and paintings scattered everywhere inside.”

“Wait. We can’t just leave. His car is here. Did you check the basement? The attic?” Panic begins to rise from somewhere deep inside me. Time is running out.

I take my helmet off and begin searching around the outside of the house. Jacob follows me. “What are you looking for?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

Dirk steps on the porch, looking like a demon spit from the depths of hell.

“Can you have your computer guy see if he has any other vehicles registered in his name?” I ask Jacob as I kick at the dusty ground.

“Good idea.” He runs over and talks to a guy with a computer that’s sitting precariously on the seat of his bike.

Dirk hops off the porch and joins me in my search.

“Did you find anything inside? Maps? Anything that would indicate he’d take her somewhere else?”

Dirk growls low, but he answers. “No.”

We search inside and out for hours. Jackson sent most of the men to search in town while Dirk, Dan, Raffe, and Jacob hold out here in hope we’ll find a clue.

Dirk looks up at the moon. “Come on. Give me something!” he yells.

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