Page 58 of Hunt

I heard Ronan knock on my office door, and I alerted him that I was in the lounge room. He hovered by my door holding his phone, “I found a witness,” he announced, “to the rat dump. They want to remain anonymous, though.”

“Yeah? What did they see?” I took a bite of a marinated lamb chop while waiting for his reply.

“They wanted to be paid for it,” he added carefully.

I rolled my eyes. “So they didn’t want to tell us out of the goodness of their hearts,” I mumbled sarcastically. I was unsurprised by this submission as it was a dog-eat-dog world, and in a way, I admired it.

“I took money out of the petty cash to pay him,” Ronan told me. “It was only five hundred.”

“That’s five hundred that could be spent on wages or tokens for the tables,” I argued. “So, the witness’s account better be solid.”

“They saw a van pull up just after five AM,” Ronan dropped his eyes to read the notes on his phone. “White with a launderette logo on the side. It caught the witness’s attention because they hadn’t seen this brand of launderette working this early before. This witness works early in the morning in the delivery business. That’s all the information he was prepared to give me about his identity.”

“What was the name of the launderette?” I pressed because we could follow it up if it were a genuine business.

“The witness believed it said Six oh Six Laundry, so I looked it up, and it doesn’t exist,” he answered as if reading my mind. I kept Ronan around because he was two steps ahead of me and worth his weight in gold.

Ronan continued, “Anyway, he saw the white van pull up outside the front entrance, and it looked like someone opened the door. The witness was suspicious because our laundry was left outside as normal, and the men in the van didn’t pick it up.”

“Has our laundry been picked up?” I was concerned for five seconds because the last thing we needed was bags of dirty laundry sitting out front while our elite members walked past them.

“They weren’t there when I walked in earlier; besides, it’s Betty’s job to organize it if our laundry service failed to show,” he proclaimed. “Lastly, the witness said a man carried a cardboard box inside.”

I groaned. “Yeah, I can guess what was inside it. So, have the security cameras been checked?”

Ronan sighed. “The deeper I dig into this, the more I believe you’re right. That this was an inside job, and the witness statement confirms that.”

“Have you checked the security footage?” I insisted, since he seemed to be avoiding answering the question.

“There was no footage that confirmed what the witness said,” he responded, gritting his teeth.

“Nothing? Not even the white van?” I snarled as my shoulders tensed. “So, the witness lied. We paid five hundred for a fairytale.”

“No,” Ronan protested evenly, keeping his tone steady to avoid alarming me. “I don’t think so. I suspect it was either wiped or turned off before the van turned up.”

Fury shuddered down my spine as I gazed out across the club floor wondering who was fucking us over and why. If the witness statement was accurate, someone was inside to greet the man with the box of rats.

“How many staff have a key and know the alarm code?” I asked him.

“Us, Betty, Freddie, and the managers under them who cover on their days off,” he answered.

“What about the Red Velvet Rooms?” I pressed.

“Freddie oversees it all, and I kinda leave him to it, since he has more expertise than I in running that particular profession,” his reply was carefully worded because he was never comfortable with that side of the business. His objective was making sure the mess was cleaned up afterwards so it was spick and span for the next wealthy client to offload the note in his wallet.

Fatigue weighed down on my shoulders, knowing that someone was walking the floor right now wearing a mask of an essential worker, while betraying us.

I exhaled heavily to relax the rage burning on the inside. “You tell me, Ronan. I was in prison for the last three years, and there had to be someone out there.” I pointed my finger to the floor, “who you suspect was not who they seem.”

“Everything ran smoothly, Mikky, thanks mostly to Betty and Freddie. Any problems that arose were easily solved, and for the most part, were staffing and product issues. Not a stranger emptying a box of rats into the club,” he explained.

I trusted the guy more than anyone. Every time he visited me in prison, it was like a staff meeting in which he updated me on what was happening in the business.

“I can’t look past the timing, Ronan,” I pointed out. “This shit started after I was released from prison, so it had to be the police in an attempt to make my life hell, so I’d overreact by doing something that might get me arrested.”

Ronan pointed his thumb toward the viewing window. “Didshesay anything?”

“She? As in Petra Black or Riley Laws, depending on what day it is,” I answered sarcastically.

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