Sinful Nights: Sinful Longing Part 20

"Listen, Marcus," he said, as a car pulled up to a gas pump in the lot. "I want to see your dad. I need to talk to Luke because I really want to get some info about the affair and about the pregnancy, and see if it played into why my mom killed my dad." Those words-they tasted like dry stones on his tongue. For so long he'd believed his mom might be innocent, but he'd been coming to terms and to peace with her guilt. Still, he was determined to help solve the case, and do everything he could to help find the other men involved.

Or at least to learn what had motivated his mother. The better he understood that, the greater the chance the cops had of nailing the other guys. T.J. and Kenny Nelson hadn't been found yet, and John had said he was still gathering evidence. By all accounts those two had left a trail of destruction behind them over the years, and Ryan's chest burned with rage over the fact that two killers-as far as he was concerned, they were killers-were walking free.

If it were up to Ryan, he'd have knocked on Luke's door already, banged hard with his fist, and demanded some f.u.c.king answers from the man who'd screwed his mother behind his father's back then hid the kid he had with her. But he couldn't do that now. It wouldn't be fair to Marcus.

"You want to talk to him?" Marcus repeated.

"I want to see what he knows. But to do that," Ryan said, gesturing from the kid back to himself, "I'd have to let him know I know about you."

Marcus shook his head. Adamantly. "No. Please no."

Ryan tilted his head, his radar going off, detecting fear in Marcus's eyes. "Why? He told you about your mom. You said it wasn't a secret."

"I know. But he doesn't know I talked to you guys."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"He would freak."

"Are you sure?" Ryan was asking for himself, but for Marcus, too. He didn't want to see this kid heading down the path of secrets like Ryan had done.

"I just don't think he'd be happy about it. He was worried for so long, and I didn't tell him I was going to meet you guys. I haven't seen him much since I moved out."

"Why not?"

Marcus shoved a hand through his hair. "We don't always agree. That's all I can say. If he knows I'm talking to you, then he's going to worry about Stefano's friends. About Kenny and T.J. He's going to think they'll come after my sisters and my mom."

"But is that a real threat? If it is, maybe we need to deal with it, rather than ignore it," Ryan said in a calm voice. "I can help you with that, you know. That's the business I'm in."

Marcus leaned forward and placed his palms on the counter. "See, I have no idea. All I know is he's terrified of Stefano's friends. I heard him talk to my stepmom when I was younger, telling her those guys threatened him-that if he said anything they'd go after him. He's made them out to be the bogeyman. h.e.l.l, the other day some dude with a goatee came in here chomping on potato chips and b.i.t.c.hing about not having an iPhone, and for a split second, I started thinking he was one of them."

"Because he didn't have an iPhone?" Ryan asked, knitting his brow.

"No," Marcus said, shaking his head. "Because he was...I don't know. He just seemed the type of guy who'd stir s.h.i.t up. That's all."

"Fine, I hear you. He set off your radar, and you gotta listen to that. But you really should talk to the detective. Are you going to?"

"I will. Soon. I was supposed to, but had to cancel because I got called into work, and then my car was in the shop. I know I need to see him."

"Are you worried your dad doesn't want you to talk to him?"

"I don't know," Marcus said, barely audible.

Ryan had no choice but to relent. He didn't know Luke Carlton well enough to understand how he affected Marcus. But he'd have to work with this wrinkle, not against it.

"Hey, do you want to come over for dinner sometime?" he asked, his voice dry and crackly. It was an awkward request, and he wasn't honestly sure what to do with it. But Sophie had insisted he ask, so he was doing it.

Marcus's eyes lit up. "That'd be cool."

"I'll make sure to invite the whole crew. Michael, Shan, Brent. We can have Colin and Elle, and Alex, too. If you'd like."

"I would," he said with a smile.

He had the sense that Marcus had been missing something his whole life, and it wasn't his biological mother. It was a connection to the rest of his family. That was easy enough for Ryan to give. He left as a new customer walked in to pay for gas.

After the customer left, Marcus dropped his forehead to the register. His heart beat furiously as if he'd been sprinting. His hands were clammy. That was what talking about his dad did to him.

Freaked him the f.u.c.k out. d.a.m.n near set off an anxiety attack.

He couldn't tell his dad that he'd found the Sloans. He just couldn't take the chance yet. He'd already taken a big enough risk meeting them. But knowing they existed had gnawed at him for years, and he'd longed to know them, especially since he'd never been close with his father.

He didn't agree with the decisions his father had made. At the same time though, his father had raised him and taken care of him. He'd been a decent enough dad.

His phone buzzed and he looked up. His stepmom had texted. How did you do on your math test? Any results yet? Fingers crossed.

His heartbeat turned more regular as he wrote back. Got 'em earlier today. Aced it!

An emoticon-filled reply landed on his screen. Sundaes at Baskin Robbins to celebrate with the girls?

He replied with a yes, reminding himself that he had to think of her and his sisters. It had been one thing for him to reach out to his family on his mother's side, but it would be entirely another for him to try to arrange some sort of a reintroduction of Ryan to his father.

Nope. Couldn't do it. Couldn't go there. His dad didn't want to revisit the past. Besides, there were too many people who wanted a piece of his dad, like Stefano's friends. His father had taught him to fear them. To keep quiet. They were rogue, uncontrollable men.

The bells rang and he raised his face. A hot blonde wearing tight shorts wandered in. She bought a cherry Slushee and started drinking it as he rang her up. Her pretty lips on the straw made him stop thinking about his family for now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

"Good thing we don't have a dog. Or a cat," Alex said as he pulled up a stool to settle in at the kitchen counter on Monday morning. He shot her a gotcha stare.

Elle quirked up her eyebrows as she served him eggs for his first-day-of-school breakfast. "Why is that a good thing? Because you'd have pet hair on your new T-shirt?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Because if we did, Fido would be all happy right now." Alex plunked half a pill on the Formica, and her heart leapt like a ballet dancer.

She wanted to kiss the d.a.m.n pill. "Oh, thank G.o.d," she said, exhaling in relief.

"That we don't have a pet who nearly ate your Percocet?"

She smiled so broadly she couldn't contain it. She trembled with relief. "Yes. Exactly. Where did you find it?"

He pointed at the couch. "In between the couch cushions."

She flashed back to Friday night when she'd hurt her thumb. She'd reached for the bottle to take the second half-pill, but she must have dropped it right before she fell asleep. She grabbed the pill from the counter, tossed it in the sink, and ran water over it, washing it down the drain. Though she'd already chosen to believe Colin hadn't pilfered it, seeing evidence that he was on a steady path was a relief.

A huge one.

Now if only she could figure out who had texted her. She had no clue, so after she took Alex to school, while waiting in her car until she saw him walk through the front doors and safely inside, she called Colin and told him about "WJ's" creepy text from Sat.u.r.day night.

"Come to my office. Let me see the text."

Twenty minutes later he was studying the message at his desk. Hey, pretty lady. Don't you be messing around with that new guy. WJ.

"It doesn't even have my name on it. Is there any chance it was just an error? Maybe it was meant for someone else?" she suggested, as she clasped the hope that she wasn't the target of some strange stalker, calling her a pretty lady and warning her to stay away from her new man.

"That would be great if it was just a mistake," he said, but his tone was completely pragmatic and she could tell he didn't think "oops, that was meant for someone else" was a likely scenario.

Nor did she. "Except I got a strange Facebook comment, too," she said, then told him about the hazy memory from the other night, including how odd the name was on the post. "It was gone as quickly as it was posted."

"Who was it from?"

"I can't remember. I was loopy on pain meds. But it wasn't a real name. It was like some weirdly menacing roller derby name, but for a guy."

He nodded and listened intently, her phone in his hand. He'd shifted into all-business Colin, and she sensed this was the newest challenge he was about to take on. He opened a browser window on his computer, and tapped the number into a reverse phone search. It showed up as unavailable. "Pretty sure this text came from a burner phone. If I looked up your number, it would show the wireless carrier it's registered to. A burner phone isn't registered, so it's hard to trace. Let me see what I can do, though." He set down the phone, cupped her cheeks, and met her gaze once more. "I promise, Elle. I'll fix this for you."

She didn't know how he could, but she loved that he wanted to. Loved, too, that he pulled her close and brushed his lips on her forehead. Loved that he wanted to take care of her. No one had taken care of her in years. She wrapped her arms around him and breathed him in-his clean, freshly showered, morning scent. She stayed like that for several minutes, there at his office, curled up with him. This was where she wanted to be when times were good, and this was where she wanted to be when times were tough.

The next day, he stopped by the center to tell her he'd tried to apply an IP tracer, then a prototype for a new phone security app, then even a silly app that let users spoof friends with anonymous text messages. None revealed the sender's info.

"Do you think it's about us?" she asked him, worry in her tone. That was all she could figure. That someone was trying to stop her from seeing him. "Do you think it's from your ex? That woman you said sent you angry messages?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't think so. I haven't heard from her in a year. That's so over it's beyond over."

"Who do you think is sending these to me?"

"I don't know. But I'm not going to stop until I find out."

All the f.u.c.king technology in the world at his fingertips and no one could trace a G.o.dd.a.m.n burner phone?

"Tell me, La.r.s.en. Tell me when you get a pitch for a company that has that tech, and we're getting in on the seed funding round," he said, frustration thick in his voice as he sifted through app stores, past pitches from sc.r.a.ppy startups and app makers, and all the presentations he'd ever heard on new technology, with La.r.s.en by his side, hunting, too. The two of them were parked on the couch by his coffee table, furiously searching for any startup, any technology they'd ever been pitched that could help their cause.

Were the drug dealers who used them really so far ahead that they'd found the one fail-safe method of covering their tracks?

"I'm on it," La.r.s.en said with a crisp nod. "My ears are peeled. Or is that eyes?"

"Eyes are peeled. Ears are open," Colin said, tapping his temple, then his ears. "But none of it's working. My brothers don't even have tools to do this, and that's the business they're in. Security."

"Isn't that the point though? Not to go all Internet privacy on you, but isn't that why burner phones exist? Because people feel like they have no privacy. Facebook won't even tell you who sends you creepy messages because of privacy guidelines."

He sat up straight. "What did you just say?" The cogs whirred in Colin's head.

"Facebook won't even tell you who sends you creepy messages because of privacy guidelines?" La.r.s.en repeated tentatively, furrowing his brow.

An idea hit him-it was out of left field, but sometimes the best ideas were born there. He latched onto something Detective John Winston had said.

The gang culture, oddly enough, loves social media. They post pictures of themselves online, on Instagram and Facebook, holding wads of bills from their drugs, or showing off phones they stole.

"You're brilliant," Colin said to La.r.s.en, then flipped open his laptop, logged into Facebook, and started hunting. There were many ways to solve a problem. You could tackle it point by point, or you could go wide and surround the problem.

He'd had no success tracing the number, so rather than go from number to name, he'd have to ama.s.s a list of possible names and see what matched. He rolled up the cuffs on his white shirt-nothing ventured, nothing gained-and spent the next few hours digging into Facebook and Instagram for images of the Royal Sinners.

Don't mess with the Royal Sinners.

That was what they said about themselves.

Those were the words used in Elle's messages.

Don't you be messing around...

Whoever WJ was, he had effectively identified himself as a gang member in the text. Gang members had nicknames-weirdly menacing ones. WJ wanted to own his intimidation, and Colin was determined to find him.

Colin had something these gang guys didn't have.

Ingenuity. Resourcefulness. And one h.e.l.l of a brain. He knew how to use his head to solve a problem. As he hunted, he unearthed a braggart's den. He found a treasure trove of images, just as John had said he would. Young guys holding wads of cash. Guys aiming guns at the camera. Others pointing to the ink on their arms. Protect Our Own.

He captured screenshots. He saved images. He took notes. He checked geotags on Instagram. He studied the pins on the back of images.

He did it again the next day.

And the next.

And the next.

He didn't have an answer, or a name, or a number. But he had a database now. Soon, WJ would tag something. That was what these guys did. Then he'd zero in on him.

Two Elles.

Over the next few days she returned to her split self. Only this time she was Happy-Go-Lucky Elle, and she was Sleeping-With-One-Eye-Open Elle.

Her schedule was packed with work, and school pick-ups, and the start of Alex's first history project of the year, and cooking dinner for her son. It was stuffed with Colin playing a few rounds of State of Decay with him, and then basketball with Rex, Tyler, Marcus, and Alex at the center. Tomorrow was jam-packed, too-during the day she had a board meeting with the center's directors over the remodeling progress, and at night Ryan was proposing to Sophie. He'd planned a surprise family celebration for Sophie afterward.

Life was almost too good to be true.

Almost.

Because there, in the background, slinking over her shoulder was her phone stalker. WJ.