––––––––
The gas station on the corner had an attached Mexican restaurant. The dozen or so Skull Kings brothers were inside, spilling out of every booth. The whole place smelled like leather, smoke, and sweat.
Aspen rushed ahead of me when she spotted Liam. He stood up from his seat beside Noah and met her in the aisle, hugging her so hard she rose two inches off of the floor.
Noah’s gaze was steely. “I thought I told you girls to stay put.”
I slid into the booth across from him. “We snuck out. Shayna tried to talk us out of it, so don’t blame her.” I folded my hands in front of me and drew in a deep breath. “I just had a horrible feeling, like something was just really wrong. I couldn’t just sit around.”
Noah made a low, growling noise. “Well, I can’t say I’m going to hold that against you.” His neck stiffened as he gazed out the window. “I know exactly how that feels.”
Liam returned to his seat while I scooted over to make room for Aspen.
“So,” I began, “now what?”
“Now, we wait,” Noah said plainly.
“We wait?” I said incredulously.
Noah shook his head. “By the time we showed up, the police were already there. Logan told us it was in the law’s hands now. I mean, what else are we going to do? We have no idea where they’re taking her. I can’t just dispatch our crew to every corner of the state hoping to get lucky.”
I wracked my brain, turning over every conversation I’d ever had with Lisbeth. “Well, not every corner...”
Noah quirked an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“Before Lisbeth came into town, her last contact with True North was in Las Vegas. I mean, it’s a long shot, but...”
“It sure as hell beats sitting around on our asses, waiting for the FBI to take care of our business,” Liam finished, making a fist.
Noah’s jaw clenched. A vein rose out of his temple. He was thinking really, really hard. “It’s barely anything to go on,” he said.
“All I’m saying is we’ll just let the FBI chase their leads.” I drew in close. “And we’ll chase ours.”
* * *
It seemed as if Liam never got off his phone the moment we got back into my car. Aspen and I were forced to listen as he received call after call in the back seat. The desert opened up around us as we left Phoenix behind. Liam said, “Thanks, bye,” for the fifth time and hung up. An uncharacteristic two seconds of silence followed, and I sensed my opening.
“What’s the plan?”
“Noah got a hold of our Laughlin chapter. The have an envoy on the road as we speak. If the True Northers are trying to take Lisbeth into Nevada, we’ll be able to close in on them from both sides.”
“Gotcha.”
“I don’t suppose you could take me home so I can pick up my Harley?”
“So you can jet off while Aspen and I play cards? No way. We’re coming with you.”
I could practically hear Liam smiling. “I figured. So, what’s this I hear about you breaking up with Logan?”
I instinctively flashed a glare at Aspen in the passenger seat.
“Logan was the one who told me,” Liam said quickly. “He seemed pretty bummed about it.”
“Well, he did leave a passive-aggressive note on my windshield earlier today, so that doesn’t surprise me.”
“He did?” Aspen said. “You never told me that.”
I sighed loudly and summarized the main points of Logan’s letter, finishing off with, “The nerve of him, right?”
Aspen and Liam remained silent.
“What?” I said.
“I mean,” Aspen began cautiously, “he does make a good point. Uh—not that—you know—you don’t have your own good points.”
Liam interjected, “The biggest issue I see is that you’re focusing a lot on the fact that he called you out for abandoning Lisbeth. But what about the rest of what he said? I gotta agree with Logan, I think you really are scared.”
I studied the billboards flicking past us just to have something to look at. “But he lied to me.”
“Because it was his job,” Aspen said. “He finally told you the truth, even though he could get into tons of trouble for doing it. It should count for something.”
I bristled, and my grip tightened on the steering wheel. “When did this become an interrogation? I thought we had a rescue mission to carry out.”
“Fine. No more talking about Carmen’s love life,” Liam said. He reached from the back seat and took Aspen’s hand. Their fingers laced together so quickly it looked natural. “But you should know that the two of us know what we’re talking about.”
I only pretended to puke when they kissed, but my stomach began to feel like a rotting, sick mass. I questioned whether or not I’d made the right decision by ending things.
But then, I remembered that cold look he gave me when I showed up at the crime scene. It would’ve made sense if there had been hate or resentment in his eyes, but there wasn’t any emotion at all. Just indifference.
Somehow, the indifference was worse.