The Boat Man: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1) by Dustin Stevens

Author:Dustin Stevens [Stevens, Dustin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Dustin Stevens
Published: 2015-09-11T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Kings of The Bottoms.”

“Kings of The Bottoms,” Grimes repeated, looking down at the picture in his hands, the creases in it growing wider with excessive use. “Not a real original bunch, are they?”

“Were,” Reed corrected. “Past tense.”

Grimes looked up from the photo and tossed it onto his desk, the paper landing near the middle intersection and rotating once before resting on a side. “As in they no longer exist?”

There was no attempt to hide the smirk on Reed’s face as he rocked his head back, letting the full effect of it hit Grimes. “If our database is any indicator, they never existed at all.”

The eyebrows on Grimes’s forehead rose a bit higher as he opened his mouth to speak, paused, then started again. “Really? There’s nothing in there anywhere?”

“Not about that emblem or any complaints, arrests, warrants, anything ever associated with them. Like I said, it’s as if they never existed.”

“Yet you’re sure they did?” Grimes pressed.

“Yes,” Reed said, motioning at the photo. “That tattoo proves they existed, the statement of Gale Pearlman confirms it.”

A moment passed as Grimes lowered his shoulders deeper into his chair, his chin receding back into his chest. Thick folds of skin gathered along the bottom rim of it, one layered atop another.

“I feel like you’re taking this somewhere, Detective, I’m just not sure where.”

The question was one Reed had expected when he first requested the meeting with Grimes, knowing full well the conclusion he was fast drawing towards would not sit well with the captain.

“Figuring out what these guys did will enable me to figure out who’s going after them now.”

The frown remained on Grimes’s face as he kept his fingers laced, the pads of his thumbs tapping together above his belt. “But you can’t do that now, because...?”

“Because somebody is hiding something,” Reed said, pushing the words out in one quick breath. “Something happened that made these guys suddenly disband two years ago. And it was something bad enough that now someone has taken it upon themselves to rectify the situation.”

Without even realizing it, Reed had slid to the front edge of his chair, the same one that Brandt had been perched in that morning. His heart rate and breathing patterns were both high, his brow wet with perspiration.

“So you’re saying we’ve got a mole?” Grimes asked, his face, his voice, relaying the displeasure he felt at the mere insinuation.

“That I don’t know,” Reed said, moving back an inch, forcing his hands to remain flat on his thighs. “What I do know is somebody worked damn hard to scrub these guys from the system.”

He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts, thinking of a new way to approach things.

“Think about it, Captain. Have we ever had a gang before, no matter how small, no matter how short lived, that didn’t pop up on somebody’s radar? That didn’t piss off the wrong neighbor, or try to rob the wrong old lady, or something that got them at least a warning?”

On the other side of the desk the look of discontent softened a bit, Reed knowing he had struck pay dirt.

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