Page 35 of Wicked Lies Grow Wildflowers
My stomach clenches at his implication and wicked smile. I know I’m going to be in for a long night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
XANDER
Maeren’s outbursthas been grating on me. I’ve never seen her so shaken up before; she was thoroughly scared that someone was after her. I made sure to scan our surroundings afterwards and didn’t see anyone suspicious at the farm, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. When I got Maeren home, I made sure to lock her door as soon as we got inside and glanced around the street in case anyone followed us—still nothing. She was afraid to be alone, even with my reassurance, so I offered to stay the night. She thought it sweet of me, but some of my intentions and motivations were less than noble.
Closing my eyes and envisioning last night, I relive how Maeren’s silky mouth felt wrapped around my cock. How good I felt inside of her. I can’t get enough. She’s an addiction I will never quit, one that might end up killing me if I’m not careful. This attachment I have to her is deadly.Sheis deadly. I can feel myself falling so deep into my obsession that there will never be a way out. She’s engrained within every fiber of my being. Her scent, the feel of her, the sound of her laugh. They are ghosts that follow me whenever I’m away from her.
I reluctantly pull myself from my thoughts of Maeren and focus on my plan for The Skinner. Unfortunately for me, I don’t have much of a fucking plan. My contacts are working their asses off, but nothing of value has come up in weeks, and the clock is ticking. If I don’t come up with something soon, Mark is going to start breathing down my fucking neck. I’m his best, I’ve never let him down before, but for the first time I find myself worrying that I may not meet this deadline. I don’t want to have that conversation with him. Mark and I have a tenuous friendship of sorts, but I’ve never gotten on his bad side and I know it’s not a place I want to be.
This fucker is good. Too good, and it’s that thought that has an idea brewing. Maybe my contacts are just looking in the wrong places, maybe they are scouring too deep below ground when they should be looking on the surface. Maybe The Skinner isn’t so elusive after all, but he’s become a master at blending in and faking normalcy. The best serial killers have always lived double lives, parading around in their suburban homes, living a white picket fence life by day, and luring innocent people into sexual assault, torture, and death by nightfall.
My pulse picks up and I start to feel jittery, my fingers itching for a blade or the trigger of my gun. Soon I’ll feed that urge, but for now I need to make a few calls, ones that are hopefully fruitful.
After spending the next hour updating my guys on where I need their efforts focused going forward, I message Mark, letting him know I’m still working my ass off to find this fucker.
Me: Update: I’m still working on it. Contacts are moving forward in a new direction. Should be on a good trail soon.
His reply comes a while later.
Mark: Thanks for the update. I’ll let Liam know you’re making some headway. Are you sure you can get this done by the deadline?
Me: Yes. I am fully capable. This fucker may be good but I’m better, and I’ll have it taken care of. You have my word.
Mark: Good. You know how important my family is to me, Paxton.
I take the final message for the warning that it is. My time is ticking and Mark won’t fuck around if I fail to deliver. I have three weeks left.
The engineof my car revs outside of Coyote’s as I sit in the parking lot, scrubbing a hand down my face. I can’t believe I’m back here so soon. I could hit reverse and fly out of here faster than I arrived, but I don’t. There’s work to be done and I need to get my hands dirty, put some more skin in the game. Coyote’s is just the place for it, especially in one of the back rooms. People talk when they don’t think that anyone is paying them any mind, saying shit they shouldn’t out loud. Put some hard liquor in them, maybe some blow, get a naked dancer on them and then they screech like a fucking rooster with their dirty little secrets. People get sloppy when they are under the influence of drugs, booze, and women: I’m here to use that to my advantage.
I saunter up to the door with my chin to my chest, hoodie pulled up high over my head, obscuring half of my face inshadow. The bouncer cocks his head as he assesses me before jerking it over his shoulder to let me through. I continue on silently, focusing on all the ways I can kill a man to center myself and block out the shitty music filling the room around me, trying to bite back my disgust at the depravity of this place. I might murder people for a living, but even I have standards, and every time I’m here, I feel a little better about myself. Morally superior to this hellhole, at the very least.
I shove through the crowd of men with their hands blatantly fisting their cocks out in the open, trying to hide the grimace on my face. Again, morally superior. I don’t so much mind the dancers themselves, most of them are here for a multitude of unlucky reasons and at the end of the day we all do what we have to for a paycheck, but these sleazy fucks never fail to make me roll my eyes. I bite my cheek and shake my head, steeling myself for what I’m about to do.
A dancer stands in front of the curtained off section of rooms and greets me, clad only in a mini skirt so small a dollar bill is probably wider. Her eyes drag over my body like I’m just some fucking meat. She bites her lip in a poor attempt to be seductive, but all it does is make her appear desperate. “What can I do for you, honey?” She drawls, jutting her fully exposed tits at me.
I inhale and roll my shoulders back, ready to play the part I need to. “Everything,” I reply.
The dancer smiles, almost laughs. “Ha, are you sure you can afford all that?” she asks, without a fucking clue that I could buy this whole fucking building and everyone in it if I wanted to.
“Money isn’t a problem.” Her eyes go wide as I flash a wad of cash.
“Shit. Well, with all that you can do whatever you want to me, baby. My name’s Tasha. Follow me.” She opens the curtain and leads us to a black door, opening it and ushering me inside. Itake a seat on the small sofa in the middle of the room, knowing that I would vomit if I took a black light to it.
Tasha twirls around to the music that’s playing, running her hands through her stringy, long, blonde hair. She grabs her breasts and massages them before planting her hands on my knees and dropping down to the floor before bouncing back up. “So, what do you want from me? Oh, and I didn’t catch a name.”
“That’s because I didn’t fucking give you one,” I say with a touch of malice to let her know I’m not playing around. I don’t want to be a dick, but it’ll get me what I want.
“Yes sir,” she purrs, not perturbed at all by my aggression. Good. She might be helpful after all.
“What I want from you is information, Tasha. Think you can do that for me?” I grab a length of her dry hair and pull her face to mine. She takes that as a cue to straddle my lap and it takes everything in me to not shove her off. There’s only one woman I’ll ever want on me.
She looks me in the eyes as she rolls her hips before asking, “What do you wanna know?”
I keep my hands at my sides, balled into fists as I fight back my revulsion. This is just a part of the job. I’m not even slightly interested in anyone but Maeren, but at this point, a nun would have more appeal than this woman who’s desperately throwing herself on me. “I’m looking for a man people call The Skinner.”
Her face pales slightly at the name, recollection flashing through her eyes. She realizes her mistake and tries to hide it, but I notice everything. “Who?”
