Page 44 of Wrath

“Yeah, I went to your room, but you weren’t there.”

“No, I wasn’t. Was there something you needed?”

He studied me for a second, then shook off whatever he was thinking. “Just gonna let you know that we got access to the security feed at Miguel’s place, so we now have eyes on all locations.”

“And? Have you seen anything?”

“Afraid not. Seems all three locations are mostly deserted—just a few men keeping an eye on the place, but we’re monitoring things. We’ll know the second someone shows up.”

“Good... What about the journal? You get anywhere with that?”

“Afraid not. The damn thing turned out to be a dead-end.” Bones sounded disappointed as he announced, “We checked each of the locations listed, but they were all abandoned.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, I was hoping it would give us some answers.”

“So nothing?”

“Just that it looks like there’s about a three-week turnaround.”

“I’m not following.”

“The list of names and dates are in groupings. The list comes in, and a week later, the list goes out. Three weeks after, the new list starts.”

“So maybe there’s a connection between those three weeks and the disappearance of the Demarco brothers.”

“That’s definitely a possibility.” Stitch cocked his brow. “Might explain why they’d been gone for as long as they have, but only time will tell.”

“Which means more of the whole ‘wait and see’ bullshit.”

“Maybe.” Stitch glanced over at Bones as he said, “I have a feeling it won’t be much longer.”

“We can hope.” I looked over to Clutch as I asked, “So, with all that’s going on, are you and Liv still planning to go to Willow’s birthday party next weekend?”

“We’re gonna try. You?”

“As long as the Demarco brothers don’t fuck it up.”

“Ah, Hadley would give us both all kinds of hell if that happened. Liv, too.”

“You’re telling me.”

Clutch stepped closer and leaned towards me as he asked, “So, you’re good?”

“Yeah, I’m good.” I didn’t understand his concern, so I asked, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. Can’t really explain it.” He shrugged. “You just seem different or something. I just wanted to make sure you’re good with everything.”

“I’m good, brother. You don’t gotta worry about me.”

“I didn’t figure so, but it never hurts to ask.” Clutch turned to Stitch as he said, “Heard we got the bid on the hotel remodels.”

“It’s still in the works, but yeah, it looks like we’re gonna get it. Guardrail should get the final word by the end of the day.”

“Sounds good.”

Stitch glanced down at his watch, then turned his attention to me. “You ready?”

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