Doin' a Dime - Vale, Lynn (epub read online books .TXT) 📗

And when I say ‘well over’ I mean he was going fucking thirty over. In a fifty mile per hour zone. While pulling a trailer.

Jesus.

“I think I have an idea where your head is at.” I paused. “Likely, this pissiness has a lot to do with me. But, just sayin’, if you kill us before we get wherever you’re going, it won’t matter.”

He grumbled something under his breath, but my words worked and he slowed down to a more manageable level.

“We’re going to see Lynn,” he answered grumpily.

When we arrived, the first words out of Six’s mouth upon seeing us was, “I have tequila!”

• • •

I was so drunk.

Like, so drunk.

If I had to write a scale of my drunkenness, it would be wayyyyyyyy over there.

That made no sense.

But whatever.

“Another glass?” Six asked me.

I pursed my lips, then held the glass out to her.

“Move it a bit to the left,” Six urged, a laugh in her voice.

“Why aren’t you drinking?” I asked. “Are you pregnant?”

She rolled her eyes. “You know I am, moron.”

“Oh, yeah.” I giggled. “I remember. I want to have babies, but not for another couple of years. At least until I have my schooling done. Or maybe when I get some good work under my belt. Maybe next month.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Next month?”

I sighed and pushed my hair out of my face.

A lot had escaped my ponytail, and I was to the point where I should probably redo it, but my hand-eye coordination was a bit off with all the tequila I’d partaken of.

“Hey, what’s that?” I asked, flicking my chin in the direction of a couple of canvases.

“I’m going to try to paint something.” She paused. “I was bored. And they had those canvases on sale. And the paint. And you know how I like to try new things. I also thought it’d be fun to do like a time lapse kind of thing and post it to my social media accounts for a bit of a change, you know?”

I did know.

With Six being a nature videographer, she posted a lot of wildlife, flora, and fauna videos on her social media.

The only problem was, they also liked to see different things that weren’t just ‘nature.’ And they absolutely loved when Six posted videos of herself, what she was doing, and things along that nature.

I had a feeling they’d probably love the time lapse of her painting.

Even if she couldn’t paint.

“I can help,” I found myself saying. “I aced art in high school.”

“You aced art because you banged the professor,” she disagreed.

I gasped and turned to her, wielding a paintbrush. “I did not! That was you!”

She was shaking her head. “It was not me! I didn’t bang him!”

I frowned as I slowly started to trail the soft bristles of the paintbrush against my cheek.

“When he got fired, I always thought it was you,” I said.

“It wasn’t me. I always thought it was you,” she objected. “What are you doing?”

“It’s so soft,” I breathed, then turned the paint brush to rub the bristles on her cheeks. “See?”

She leaned into the touch. “Oh, you’re right. It is soft. Do it on my nose.”

• • •

HUNT

“You think that she has a hit out on her?” Zach asked, placing his half-filled drink onto the counter behind him.

“I don’t think,” I said as I pulled up what I was talking about. “I know. This right here is an order. Upon completion of the hit, the first person to show proof will have money deposited into their account.”

I turned the computer around to show them the order.

“Shit,” Sin said. “That’s fucking wild. How do you even find shit like this?”

“The dark web,” I answered. “I’ve already deleted the order, but I’m sure that someone’s already seen it. They don’t need the order up any longer to follow through. They have the contact information, and that’s enough. I’m busy running anything I can find, but someone on the other side of this has a computer person exactly like me. They can do the same shit that I can, and with a lot less guilt than I would have.”

“What do you think we should do?” Trick asked. “You could stay with one of us for the time being.”

“No.” I shook my head. “As much as I appreciate the offer, I don’t think it’s a good idea to be bringing any other people into this. I wouldn’t have brought her here, but she’s best friends with Six. They would’ve already known her friends. Neither Six nor Wyett hides their friendship with the other.”

“I’ll make a few calls,” Lynn said. “In the meantime, I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to go to work. Maybe you can call, say that she hurt herself while on vacation, and won’t be in for a couple of weeks. Give us a bit of time to work through what we need to work through.”

“Agreed,” I pinchedthe bridge of my nose. “For the million-dollar bounty, it’s enough to make the really shitty assholes who don’t know what they’re doing, as well as the professionals that do, consider it.”

“She won’t get caught unaware, Hunt,” Trouper promised. “Between all of us now being aware of the hit, plus the way your place is wired, and your skills at a computer, they won’t even get close to her. You can go right now and look at who all got the ad, who responded that they would try. And from what I can see, you literally got to it within eight hours. How many people could really see it in that small of a time frame?”

The answer was forty-two.

Forty-two people saw it. Eighteen responded and accepted the contract.

Meaning, I had eighteen people that I needed to find.

And now.

So that was what I did for two hours.

I found each and every person that’d taken up the contract.

And then Lynn helped me call their information in to authorities.

Fifteen of them were apprehended within an hour.

One was at large. One was