It was a round blue sticker, a nothing little dot that didn’t point fingers toward any one dealer, but that Aidan recognized all too well. Fisher had always marked his product with blue dots. And Fisher had been dead for weeks.
“Maybe it’s old,” Aidan said, meeting his best friend’s sharp gaze. “Maybe it’s been here a while.”
“Nah. A section of the table it was on had been wiped clean, recently, no dust. Footprints on the floor. Fresh mud, still wet.”
“Shit.”
They shared a silent communication. Aidan’s energy spiked, that initial reaction to any club threat.
“What?” Sam asked. ‘What is it?”
“Coke, probably,” Tango said.
“Ugh,” she groaned. “That’s just perfect.”
“Erin hadn’t had any when I saw her,” Aidan reassured. “I woulda been able to tell.”
“That doesn’t exactly make me feel better.”
“I took pics on my phone,” Tango said. “Did y’all find anything in here?”
“Nah. Nothing.”
A last sweep through the front rooms proved the single baggie was the only find, and some of the tension in Aidan’s shoulders eased as they hit the cracked front sidewalk once more. Therewereghosts in that house – his little sister’s lost baby, for one. Being inside its walls made him twitchy.
Sam’s hulking Caprice was parked in the driveway alongside their bikes, and he walked with her toward the driver door, aware that Tango was hanging back, going to his bike and fiddling with his helmet.
“Thanks,” Sam said, when she reached the car and braced a palm on its roof. She turned a look up to him that was almost apologetic. “Again.”
“Just doing my civic duty, ma’am,” he said with a head dip and a fast grin.
She grinned back. “KPD ought to hire you on.” Then sobered. “I’m serious, though. Thank you. Do you think you can do anything about whoever’s dealing?”
He lifted his brows. “You’re onboard with outlaw justice?”
“When it comes to keeping my family safe, absolutely,” she said, without missing a beat.
The wind picked up, pushing against them, reminding him that the season was about to give way to a chilly fall. It caught strands of her pale hair, tugged them loose from her braid, swept them across her face. A strand got stuck in her lip gloss and she brushed it away, still looking up at him.
A dawning awareness overcame him, as she stared up at him. She looked at him – alot. Usually when he glanced her way, her eyes were already on him. Except for last time, at Waffle House, when she’d refused to make eye contact. Had she looked at him in high school? He tried to remember, but that time of his life was a faded blur, dominated by his obsession with breaking into the club, littered with groupies and cheerleaders.
But Sam was looking at him now, and her lip gloss looked like it might taste good, and her brows tucked together with the slightest show of concern as she waited on him to say something.
She was…lovely.
He’d never had lovely before.
“It was really good seeing you today,” he told her.
She looked surprised, her smile small. “Good seeing you too.”
When she opened her door and slid inside, he had to catch himself before he said, “Call and let me know you got home safe.” He had no idea where that impulse had come from; he’d never uttered those words in his life. It was something his married brothers said to their wives.
Instead, he said, “Bye,” like an idiot, and she tossed him a wave before she shut her door.
Tango was waiting for him when he turned back to the bikes, fiddling with the strap of his helmet. “So,” he said in a calm voice, “when did that happen?”
“When did what happen?” Aidan snagged his own helmet off his handlebars, popped it on his head.
