Page 5 of Clean Hack
I would have liked to tell you that this was not normal for me. That it was just this man that made me go all spastic and blank. But sadly, it wasn’t. Well, okay, he made me more so than normal. I could handle little bursts of conversation with certain people. I could count those people on one hand, using three fingers.
My delivery boy, who not only fed my pizza addiction, but has also taken so much pity on my pasty, closed-off self that he had offered to do my grocery shopping for me once a week. I paid him extra for his troubles, of course—I wasn’t a bitch and I never wanted to feel like I was taking advantage of someone. So I could make with the ‘how is your day going?’ conversations with him just long enough to not seem rude and whatnot. I really was grateful for the guy. He was a little older than me and seemed to have a decent head on his shoulders, from what I could tell. I could see him doing something more with his life. Sad to say that I might hate that day because he will spread his wings and fly far away from his hot, greasy pie delivery duties.
Then what will I do?
Make friends with his replacement?
No, that was something I didn’t want to think about.
Then there was Nadya. I could actually talk to her like a human, mostly. Though, she sometimes didn’t seem like one. She was calculating most of the time. The type of person that didn’t let her guard down for anyone. That included me. I had a feeling that I was slowly working my way around it though. One day she’d let me in. I just had to believe that there had to be some reason she kept taking my calls and texting me back. Maybe she was as lonely as I was. But not like I’d ever know because she wasn’t one for the touchy-feely stuff.
And the third just so happened to be my parents, I still talked to them occasionally. But that was strained at best. They hated the hole I fell into after what happened to Allison. They still loved me because I was their daughter. But because I wouldn’t go to them on holidays—or ever, really, then the distance just seemed to keep piling up as the years went on. So, I’d call. I’d ask how things were going. I’d take interest in my mom’s latest craft. I’d even attempt to talk sports with my dad. More like, listened to him as he went on about the season.
That was pretty much it in a nutshell. I had people I shared information with, just rarely talked to them other than fingers-to-keys kinda way. I tried to keep my talk time to a minimum because I felt more comfortable that way, but sometimes it couldn’t be avoided.
I may not have kept things simple, but I did like the lack of communication I had with the outside world.
So, I knew I was fucked up. And not for the ways one might think. See, I was fucked up because as I watched the muscle of the MC—or Enforcer, these guys like their titles—work over this guy that they had tied to a chair, I was almost smiling. That wasn’t to say that I was enjoying the violence because I honestly didn’t really have the stomach for it. In fact, I wasn’treallywatching. I didn’t have to in order to know what was going on and how it was going to end. Hence the reason that I called Clean in the first place. So back to why I was fucked up. Because I knew that this would end with me actually getting rare eyes on said man. Mr. Clean. The Cleaner. The man you called to clean up a crime scene and disappear a body. A man that was amazing at his job. I knew because I’d seen it. And also seen, or not seen, how well those bodies stayed disappeared. I didn’t get many chances to get a glimpse of him. Usually only when he was on a job that had cameras in areas that were less than smart. He never seemed to mind, even tossing a glance at them a few times. Just a flicker, but it had been enough for me to catch sight of his whole face for a brief second. Then there were the times he dumped his phone and picked up a new one. There were five places he did that at. Cycling through each one as he moved around. I could only assume that he had places nearby because it was always the same. Or maybe he just trusted those shops.
How was I able to track him, pin down his number, and get in touch with him even when he used burner phones? Well, it was me. Come on. I wasn’t about to get all cocky and tell you that I was the greatest out there, because I wasn’t. I was just really good. And better in certain areas. I was also smart. He had a separate service set up to collect his voicemails. It was quite genius. A number that never changed and wasn’t really connected to him. It wouldn’t ring through to his phone. Instead, whoever called would get sent to an answering service he had set up. They would leave a message, something about needing their pool cleaned or something, which made sense because the business Clean advertised was just that—a pool cleaning service. Strange as all get out. But then again, the chemicals and things he used could be passed off as that if he ever got pulled over. Especially if one didn’t really know about such things. Well, most of them anyway. I imagined the bone saws would have been a little harder to explain.
With every new phone he got, the first thing he would do was call into his voicemail service and program his new number in. So that when he got a new voicemail, it would push it through to the new number. And that was where I caught on. I was able to hack the service and get that new number every single time. Easy work. The first time I did it I think I actually rolled my eyes.
He never questioned it.
I never let on to how I got the number.
It was all magical in a way.
Right?
Remembering the first time I called him almost made me chuckle. It took him a few good calls and locations to get him to even think about trusting me. Sometimes I wondered if he was still leery. Or maybe he just wanted more answers. He’d taken my calls on faith for a long time now, in a way, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he did start pushing for details about me and asking questions. But then again, maybe he didn’t really think about me beyond the call. And perhaps, that would have been the best thing.
I didn’t really watch as they beat the guy to a bloody pulp. I occasionally flicked my eyes to that screen as I continued to work on other things. Like, look into the guy that was about to breathe his last breath. There was a story there and I just wanted to piece it together. I knew this MC pretty well. The Dogs of Wrath were on the coast of North Carolina and took in shipments of guns and smaller shipments of drugs. Nothing hard, from what I could tell. The guns were handed off to various other organizations, with one particular MC taking the bulk of it. That MC, the Steel Paragons, were larger but didn’t have a chapter in the coastal city. They were also on my radar. I kept an eye on all of their chapters, mainly focusing on the head one located in Moon Hill, NC. As far as outlaws went, the Paragons and the Dogs were not that bad. Sure they ran guns, but with the things I’d seen, that was nothing.
Yes, I spent the majority of my time and focus on motorcycle clubs. I was looking for some sort of connection to Allison. Or the man that took her, rather. I knew he’d been a part of one. I had a good idea that he’d taken over one by force and I currently was looking for where he’d moved his organization to now that he’d caught some heat. In a way, these people were his people. I just kept hoping that he’d cross paths with one of them eventually and I’d be there to catch it.
Then there he was.
No, not the evil man.
The guy that was such a mystery to me. The one with the clean shaved head except for a dark slicked back mohawk. The man that always wore white button-up shirts and black slacks. Which I never did understand, given that his work was very messy. But I guessed that was his thing, his ritual or whatever. Maybe it was just that he felt most comfortable in button-up shirts, though I didn’t get how. Whatever it was, it was always the same.
I watched him work. His muscles flexing under his clothes as he moved around. Every move steady and precise. The few times I’d seen him, he looked like a man at ease. Like a man that didn’t have a care in the world. I could tell that he took his jobs seriously but didn’t get enjoyment out of them. And I also noticed that his work was never rushed.
He carried the limp body effortlessly and laid it out on a clear, plastic tarp. One that he’d already covered in baking soda. Yes, it was his thing, from what I could tell. The way he did it every time. How I wanted to call and ask him why all the time, but I knew that would be dumb. I wanted to know his reasons behind why he did it like that. And why he seemed to do it the hard way, when I knew there were much easier and less messy ways to do his job. But he didn’t. His methods almost seemed…old school, in a way. I had no idea what I was talking about, honestly, because I wasn’t well versed in how to cleanup a crime scene. Then he brought out the bone saw and I had to look away. I’d seen all of him that I could stomach for the night. Somehow it wasn’t enough.
I was going crazy.
Or seriously sleep deprived.
Or maybe I was just subconsciously desperate for some kind of human contact.
Who the hell knew?
But there was something when it came to him that just caught me. I wanted to know more, yet I couldn’t let myself go there. So like some crazy stalker, I sat back and jumped at any chance I got to watch him.
