Ignited (Most Wanted #3)(70)
Author: J. Kenner

“Deep in,” I repeated, looking at the lines that represented streets in neighborhoods I’d never seen, and wasn’t sure I wanted to. “You mean gang areas?”

“That’s what I mean.”

I told myself not to freak, but I can’t say that I was doing a very good job listening to myself. “Well, okay, then. That’s where I’m going.”

“That’s where we’re going,” Sloane said, and started the car.

“Tyler?” I asked, and in response she tapped the button on her steering wheel to connect the speakerphone.

His voicemail answered, and she glanced at me with a shrug. “He’s mingling,” she said. “And, no, he’s not going to be happy about us going into gang territory without him. But I have years of homicide under my belt and a Glock in the glove box. Your call, though. If you want to wait, we wait.”

I shook my head. “As far as I’m concerned, we’ve already waited too long.” I couldn’t shake my growing fear that something had gone horribly wrong. I just couldn’t understand what.

“Then I’ll deal with Tyler later.” She shot me a grin as she floored it out of the parking lot. “If he’s pissed, that just means I have great make-up sex to look forward to.”

“Since you put it that way,” I said, then grabbed for my seat belt, figuring that would up my odds of surviving our quest to find Cole.

Even with Sloane behind the wheel it took more than forty-five minutes to reach the Fuller Park intersection where we found Cole’s Range Rover smashed into a newspaper machine that may or may not have already been battered in a crumpled metallic heap.

“Shit.” Sloane reached into the glove box for her gun, then tucked it into her small beaded bag. It didn’t fit, and the grip extended from the flap of the bag.

I raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged in reply. “In this neighborhood, I’m not worried about having it concealed. Come on. Let’s go take a look at the car. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’s sleeping off a bender in the backseat.”

I didn’t believe it, but it was something to hope for, so I followed her out. Across the street, two heroin-thin guys called out from where they sat on the curb in front of a battered brick building that I think was a bar, though I wouldn’t swear to it. Their words were slurred and they seemed less than interested in approaching us. Frankly, I considered that a good thing.

There was a bench a few feet down from where the Rover had plowed into the newspaper machine, and I realized this was a bus stop. A burly guy in a filthy wifebeater with an arm covered in gang tats sat there, taking long sips from something concealed by a brown paper bag. He was turned toward us, but I couldn’t see where he was looking because the black shades hid his eyes. Even so, I was certain that we were the object of his attention, and I kept a cautious eye on him while Sloane peered into Cole’s vehicle.

His head never moved, his position never shifted. But he smiled slowly, revealing a row of gold-capped teeth that glinted in the fading light of the setting sun.

Honestly, I was glad for the gun.

“Anything?” I asked, hoping Sloane heard my silent plea to hurry it up.

“Not a thing,” she said. She tried the door and found it unlocked. She tugged it open, peered in, and looked at me. “Whatever the messenger brought him, he either has it on him or he left it at the wedding.”

Our gold-toothed friend got up and sauntered toward us. “You need help, Goldilocks? What’s the matter? One of the three bears stand you up for prom?”

I made a face, scowling down at the formal dress I still wore. “Something like that,” I admitted.

“Kat.” Sloane’s voice held a note of warning, and I knew that she was reminding me that this guy might just as soon kill me as look at me.

I straightened my shoulders and cocked my head, forcing myself to appear confident as I looked at him. “You offering to give us a hand?”

“Depends. I’ll tell you this much on the house—if you white bitches be looking for the motherfucker who trashed that nice set of wheels, you be looking in the wrong place.”

“You know where he is?” I asked.

“I know where he ain’t. He ain’t around here no more, that’s for damn sure. But the mo-fo did some serious damage to my block here before he kicked it into gear.”

“Damage,” Sloane repeated. “You mean wrecking his car into the newspaper machine?”

“Fuck no. That car barely tapped it. I mean taking his tire iron out and beating the shit out of that thing,” he said, waving at the crumpled hunk of metal that once had dispensed newspapers.

I caught Sloane’s eyes. I still didn’t know what had worked Cole up, but if he’d gone postal on the machine, I knew that it was worse than I’d thought.

“Did you see where he went? Did he walk away? Call somebody? Catch a cab?”

He laughed, and it wasn’t a nice sound. “Shit, bitch. You think this be fucking New York City? Folks just step into the street and wave down a cab? You need to go back to the fairy tale you came from.”

“Maybe I do,” I said. “So you tell me. What happened? Where’d he go?”

“Why should I tell some blond bitch comes asking around about a brother?”

“I’m his girlfriend.”

“The hell you say. Your tiny princess ass couldn’t handle that motherfucker.”

“My tiny princess ass has mad skills,” I said. “Now where the fuck did he go?”

“Lady got balls,” he said with a nod that might have indicated respect. “No idea where he blew off to, but he tossed three grand at my boy Kray and bought himself a nice new bike right out from under my boy. Sweet set of wheels. Could be anywhere by now.”

“He’s right,” Sloane said. “Without the GPS, we’re flying blind.”

“So where would he go?” I ran my fingers through my hair.

“I don’t know,” Sloane said. “Why did he come here? Because it was home?”

“Maybe. Let me think.”

We took a moment to thank our informant, who actually pulled the gentleman card and told us to get our lily-white asses out of there because it was getting dark, and the next mo-fo we met might want more than to talk about my crazy-ass boyfriend.

Since that seemed like a good idea, we got back in Sloane’s Lexus and headed back toward the highway.