Unfiltered & Unlawful (The Unfiltered Series) (3 page)

Once I located the keys, I concentrated on ignoring the sick feeling I had from rifling through the pockets of a dead man.

“You”—I pointed at the jock—”come with me. We’ll make sure we can get him into the trunk. Cass, get the mop.”

“If we’re really doing this, I can get rid of the car,” the hippie girl suggested quietly.

It seemed crazy that we
were
really talking about this, but no one was objecting. The jock said, “I’m Blake.”

I blinked at him.

“I figured if we’re getting rid of bodies together we should know names,” he said.

“Sugar,” I said.

“Joe.”

“And Whitney,” the hippie added quickly.

“Violet and Allie,” said Miss Tiara.

The nondescript quiet guy who didn’t seem much interested in speaking just shrugged, fingers wrapped around the coffee cup he held in one hand. He muttered something that might have been “Max.”

“Lauren.” She had her arms folded like she was going to stop herself from shaking by holding on to her own arms, so I didn’t point out that I already knew her name.

“Hope,” said the praying girl very quietly.

Jess didn’t say her name, but she’d just shot a man so no one seemed like they wanted to push her too hard.

“Someone stay here at the door while we go out,” I said. “No one else comes inside.”

Then Blake and I went out to the lot, pushed the remote until a car’s lights flicked on, and went over to the nondescript blue sedan. We popped the trunk so we could see if there was room for the body and… stopped. Inside the trunk were a bunch of black duffle bags. I had a bad feeling about what that meant, and it only got worse when I unzipped one, and then another, and then one more. After a moment, I breathed, “Fuck!”

“Now what?” Blake asked.

I looked around. The street was clear, and there were no lights anywhere. We were lucky. There was absolutely no way that we should call the cops. We’d already decided that, but this made it crystal clear that our decision was the right one. It was bad enough to get caught up in a murder investigation, but duffle bags overflowing with cash meant that the dead man was into serious crime.

“We take it inside,” I said as calmly as I could.

Blake took four of the duffle bags, and I took two, and we carried them back to the door.

Lauren and Whitney were waiting just inside. I realized that they were trying not to look at the body that Cass and Joe were wrapping in trash bags. I felt queasy, but I didn’t have time for it. Later I could freak out. Right now, I had to focus.

“Lock the door again,” Blake ordered.

“Close the blinds too.” I felt stupid for not saying that before, but no one came while we were standing around the corpse so we were still okay.

Blake dropped the bags on the floor, well away from the blood. “This was in the trunk.” He squatted down and opened two of the bags.

No one said anything at first but then I said, “Look, with this much money, someone will come looking for him.” I nodded toward the dead man. “We split this evenly and no one ever comes back here again. No cops. No talking. Take the money and get gone.”

“I don’t want it,” Jess said. “I don’t want
any
of his money.”

Everyone takes it. It makes us all equally guilty,” Lauren insisted suddenly. “We’re all in this now. We take our share, and we swear not to call the police. Sugar’s right. She’d get arrested for the gun. Jess would for using it.”

“She’s right,” Cass added. “Who knows if the police would believe the rest of us? I don’t want to risk it. We all take our share of the money. We never come back here. Cut ties and stay away from this place. And we don’t talk to anyone else who was here. Deal?”

Blake unzipped the other four bags. Everyone was looking at the money. There was a
lot
of it.

“Deal,” I echoed.

Everyone else repeated it, some more quickly and some in whispers that sounded very reluctant. It didn’t matter though. They agreed. If they spilled to the cops, I’d be long gone. I was already sure of that. They didn’t know the last names of anyone here, and aside from those of us that worked here, I wasn’t sure they others could be traced easily. I didn’t know what Cass or Dillon would do, but I wasn’t waiting around to find out. The only other easy to find members of the group were Joe and maybe the jock. I didn’t recognize him, but I suspected someone here would. Joe had hid daddy’s connections to keep him safe.

As Blake started pulling out stacks of hundred dollar bills, he stopped and pulled out something else. There were two kilos of cocaine in the fifth bag.

“We need to do something with this,” he said, holding up a brick of coke.

“I can burn it, too,” Violet said.

“I’ll take it,” I said in my calmest voice.

“Why should
you
get it?” Dillon asked.

“We can split it, too, if you want,” I suggested, but after a moment of silence, it was obvious that no one else actually wanted it.

We counted the money, and then we divided it equally—$110,000 each—and then we did what we needed. Soon, the body, the blood, the car, the drugs, and the money were all gone.

And we were all a part of it.

Adam walked into one of the local dive bars he’d frequented regularly the past couple of years. Even though it was named for a Prohibition speakeasy, the Blind Tiger was far from classy or unique. It felt like the sort of bar he’d been inside in more towns than he could remember—dark, worn, and comfortable. It was a lot more comfortable when he had Sasha with him, but she was still at work.

He had what his Aunt Grace and mother called “itchy feet.” He liked to roam. Being a tattoo artist made that possible. He packed his essentials, his work gear, and went where the road led him. A few years ago, the road took him west, and his aunt’s worrying took him into Rio Verde to check on his cousin.

The interior of the bar was dark enough that it was easy to blend into the shadows of a corner if you had a mind to do so, and the crowd was a mix of denim, leather, and flashes of color on the short-skirted girls hanging on the arms of the blue-collar guys that clustered here. Places like this felt like home. No matter what state they were in, they were the same. The beer was cold, and the whiskey was a generous pour. When Adam hopped his way from state to state, he always found a few dives that he liked. The Blind Tiger was one of the ones he liked best in Rio Verde. Too many of the rest were co-ed hang-outs or sports bars. The Tiger was more his speed.

He made his way to a table where he could sit with his back to the wall and surveyed the crowd surreptitiously. It was a habit he couldn’t shake. He might steer clear of trouble, but that didn’t mean that he forgot that there was always at least one dumbass in most every bar just waiting for a chance to prove something.

“Johnnie Walker Black,” he said as the barmaid approached.

She smiled in a friendly way, and Adam wondered if he’d slept with her at some point and forgotten. He had spells where he went through far more women than maybe he ought to, but there was only so much he could drink without feeling like he was too near out of control. He didn’t touch drugs anymore, hadn’t in years. That left one good, or maybe bad, choice for getting outside his mind. Sex. No strings, no lies, no promises. He made sure the women he fucked got as good as they gave, or better. If any of them were more into giving than getting, he made sure to get their name and number so he could even the score later. If they gave him pleasure, he owed them the same. It was simple math.

Unfortunately, it had become a little awkward after a few years in the same town. He didn’t usually stay this long, and Rio Verde wasn’t an enormous place. Luckily, there were enough co-eds who were in and out because of ASU Rio Verde that he had renewable resources there.

“You haven’t been around much lately,” the barmaid said as she returned with his drink.

“Work’s been good,” he said as a sort of excuse.

She opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by his cousin walking up behind her and patting her ass. She spun to face him. “What the hell?”

“Bud and a glass of Jack and Coke,” Tommy said. He held out a twenty. “No change.”

Whatever other complaints she was going to raise vanished as she took the crinkled bill out of his hand.

Tommy pulled out a chair, spun it around, and straddled it. It was a leftover habit from their childhood that he never quite gave up as an adult. “Is she yours?”

Adam sighed. “I may have gotten to know her at some point. I’m not sure.”

“Not memorable then?” Tommy looked over toward the bar. “Shame. I’ve been feeling out of sorts without Sugar around.”

At the mention of the girl Adam coveted, he tensed. He didn’t comment though. He was sure Tommy suspected Adam’s interest in Sasha, but he didn’t ever point it out. They were family, and that meant they had a tacit agreement to ignore uncomfortable things when necessary.

If they weren’t family, Adam knew he and Tommy wouldn’t be sitting at a table together. Ever. They were opposites in both the obvious and less obvious ways. Adam was health conscious, believed in hard work, and vowed never to snort or shoot poison again. Tommy was a walking, schmoozing, bad habit. He liked a buffet of toxins—pot, cigarettes, coke, acid, X, speed. If he could turn a profit on it or have a good weekend using it, he was game. He settled into a town like he had roots ready to sprout, and it took a lot to untether him. They looked different enough that no one would mistake them for the family they were either. Tommy was wiry, and Adam had the sort of mass that came from weight training. They both had the family eyes, bright blue that people remarked on regularly. If not for that, there was no resemblance in their appearances.

“Was Sugar working tonight?” Tommy asked in the tone that said he already knew the answer
and
knew that Adam had been by the Coffee Cave.

“She was.”

Tommy nodded. “She seem okay? Doing well?”

And there was the one thing they
did
have in common: They both cared about Sasha. Tommy might be a louse, but he was a louse in love—or as close to it as he could get. Adam didn’t blame him—just the sight of Sasha with her tumble of dark curls and painfully thin frame got him so bothered that he was sitting here instead of home where he should be.

“She seemed fine,” Adam said, sipping his whisky to keep from starting in on the old arguments. He swore sometimes that the more he suggested Tommy let Sasha alone, the more he clung to her.

“It’s been weeks since she came around.” Tommy propped his feet on the table and rocked his chair back on two legs. “Did she mention anyone new?”

Adam wanted to say that there
was
someone new—him—but that wasn’t true, despite his hopes. “I’m not your spy.”

“You
are
my cousin,” Tommy said.

“And Sasha’s friend.”

“So did
Sugar
mention seeing anyone?” Tommy watched him, as if he was actually able to intimidate Adam. It might’ve worked on a lot of people, but Adam outweighed Tommy and had been fighting for a lot longer. He wasn’t intimidated by much of anyone at this point in his life.

“No.”

Tommy nodded. “Then she’ll be back. She’s like a feral cat. She needs some leash, and then she’ll come home.”

Adam drained his whisky to keep himself from saying something ugly to his cousin.

“She’s acting like we’re done, but she’s kept her sheets empty.” Tommy grinned. “It’s like a vacation sometimes when we take these breaks. I get to enjoy all the strange I want without guilt, and then she comes home. This time will be no different.”

The words Adam wanted to say weren’t his right. Sasha was his friend. Despite his patience, she hadn’t acted on their obvious mutual interest. He’d thought she was finally going to admit it the last time she’d come in to get tattooed. Instead, she’d walked out afterward, and she’d dodged his attempts to even sit down for a conversation. No more after work drinks. No lunches. No stopping by the shop with a coffee for him. She had done the exact opposite of what he wanted. He was left feeling like a stalker stopping in the Coffee Cave to see if she was around. It was a business and he liked coffee, so it wasn’t a real surprise that he went there, but she had to have noticed that he came around more lately.

He’d hoped that she’d show up tonight even though she hadn’t agreed when he’d asked, but now that he was sitting here with Tommy, Adam was almost hoping she wouldn’t come. Not entirely. He’d prefer Tommy heading out, and
then
Sasha showing up. The last thing he wanted was to see them end up together again. They were like fire and oil. He’d had to talk bouncers out of calling the cops more than once when they fought. It was different now that Sasha had gotten clean, but she wouldn’t stay that way if she ended up back with Tommy for real. She was too good for him, too good for anyone he’d ever met, like an angel trapped in a human body. She made him want to remake the world just to get a smile from her.

She made him think about things like a real home, roots and mortgages, all of those things that he was sure he’d never want. Even if he couldn’t have them with her, he sure as hell wasn’t going to watch her destroy herself with his cousin. Adam debated how to handle the jealousy and protectiveness that roiled inside him.

“Are you still here?” Tommy asked.

“Yeah. Long week. A bunch of things on my mind,” Adam said blandly. He sipped his drink and looked around the bar. “What’s up with you?”

Tommy shrugged. “Just chillin’ and handling business.”

“You know, Aunt Gracie worries. You should call her,” Adam suggested. “Or at least come up with better lies when you talk to her. She
knows
you’re not really taking any classes at the university. Why’d you tell her that?”

“Slept with a few girls in business classes. They left textbooks on my table.” Tommy shook his head and then flashed a huge smile at Adam. “I wasn’t lying either. I said I was studying some things about business majors… I just didn’t say those things were girls.”

“Well, be a little more realistic with her. You lie to her; she calls my mother, and
she
calls me.”