I had more time than I anticipated.

Not at the airport, though. I had barely gotten to the terminal on time, especially since I got picked for a random search, and my bag didn’t just go through the scanner, I had the glory of the contents being spread all over the conveyer belt. There were some looks at the stack of chick literature from other people in line, but one of the security guards was apparently a fan and went on and on for about ten minutes about how good the series was.

I didn’t fucking care, I had to catch my flight. It was important not only to get to Atlantic City, but to get to the jail before Melody Kessler was released. If she disappeared again, I didn’t know if I would be able to pick up her trail again. She’d already gotten pretty far in such a short amount of time, I couldn’t trust she wouldn’t continue going once she got out of lockup.

It was the right Melody Kessler, I mean, for the most part. She didn’t seem anything like the nice girl Angel had described, and she certainly didn’t look anything like the social media profile picture I had to go on when I was searching for her. I was glad Angel wasn’t with me to see the shell of this person she had thought she was saving.

I was in and out of that detention center in a half hour. It wasn’t even worth the rental car fee, much less the time I took to fly out there. Melody Kessler was a junkie who stole the money and ran as fast as her boyfriend’s car would take her. She made it as far as Atlantic City before her boyfriend, Ron, caught up with her, and before she could come up with an excuse, he had taken that money right out from under her nose and disappeared with it. I highly doubted he had gone back to Malone, or maybe he had. Chaz wasn’t under any obligation to inform me of his money’s return. That girl, though, she was a mess and had zero remorse for what she had done.

She’d sat there in that visitor's cube holding that sad black phone receiver and staring sullenly through the glass. When I told her what her little stunt almost did to Angel she finally cracked and showed some emotion, but instead of remorse, she laughed.

“It’s not my fault that chick got into it with Chaz. I never asked for her help. She should have minded her own business.” Melody paused to brush a clump of her stringy brown hair behind her ear. “You know what that girl's problem is? She’s too nice. She thinks everyone is her friend, but she doesn’t take the time to get to know anyone. She didn’t know shit about me because if she did, she would have known I could handle myself and I was going to take what I wanted and go. She just takes everything at face value. I wonder if that dumb bitch actually has any real friends at all.”

I’d gotten up and left then, without another word. I didn’t need to stay and collect any more information. I certainly didn’t need to sit and listen to her assessment of Angel. She didn’t get to make comments like that about Angel. What Melody Kessler could do, was sit in her cell and wait for her trial date. I’m pretty sure prostitution was a misdemeanor, but that burglary charge hanging over her head was a class two felony. But it didn’t matter, it wasn’t any of my business. Melody Kessler was none of my concern. Angel Jax, however, was very much on my mind.

I was just getting back to my hotel when I got a text from Dino.

Tweak isn’t going to be a problem for Angel anymore.

How do you figure? As long as he was in the Toledo area, Tweak was going to be a problem for Angel, unless I was lucky enough to get my hands on him.

The next message was a link to a news article in the Blade, showing that a body identified as Bernard Hopper had been recovered from the Maumee River, assumed to be a jumper from the High-Level Bridge downtown. That happened every once in a while. Sometimes people jumped from the bridge on a dare, most times people were jumping for a lot more depressing reasons. There was no way I thought Tweak made his way over the side of that suspension bridge without help from a second or third party.

And there were drugs in his system. Well no shit.

Chaz wants to assure you that your continued satisfaction with his service is of the utmost importance to him.

That was creepy on several levels, but in my line of work…okay, in my previous line of work, it would probably not be a bad thing to have a crime boss in your pocket. I didn’t like that he thought of me as his VIP customer, but if that got me favors in the future, maybe I would let it lie. I really didn’t want him advertising any more of his merchandise to me either, but maybe I would burn that bridge when I got to it.

I didn’t answer Dino, and he didn’t text me again. I wondered if Chaz even knew Dino had sent me that message. I still wasn’t sure what game Dino was playing, but as someone who had ties to this community, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigations, I figured he had his own agenda. Part of how well we worked together revolved around us not sticking our noses into each other’s business. What would be would be, although I probably owed him a few favors for how he had saved Angel. A couple of times. I really hated owing Dino favors.

My flight didn’t leave until the next morning. There wasn’t much else to do. I was not a gambler, which was probably why I was able to hang on to my money a lot better than some other people. I also didn’t feel like going out and dealing with every high dollar hooker on the Boardwalk when all I wanted to do was go home and see Angel. It was the middle of the day, I didn’t want to bug her. Hopefully, she didn’t have a bad hangover from all of those margaritas yesterday and was able to get some work done, whatever it was that she did. Or clean that living room, holy shit.

I was lying on the bed flipping through the shitty hotel television channels, thinking about ordering room service for dinner, when the white plastic garbage bag poking out of my carry on caught my eye.

What the hell had the old lady been talking about, read a book? It aggravated me that she thought I didn’t know certain things about Angel. Sure, there was a huge chunk of time that had passed so I was sure there were a ton of things that would be new to me, but pink roses? No way. Angel had loved them since she was a little girl, and I knew how much she liked them because I had bought them for her for her birthdays and every special occasion. I knew they were her favorite, she told me so.

Out of simple curiosity, and not because some old lady told me to, I picked the first book of the series out of the bag and flipped to page one. Samantha Ice. Why did that name sound familiar? I don’t think I knew any Samanthas, but that last name was peculiar. Not as a surname, because I was pretty sure that was a pen name, but it jogged something else in my memory. It flirted just on the edges of my awareness, the answer so close I could almost touch it. One of those things that you couldn’t think of no matter how hard you tried, but the answer would wake you up at two in the morning without fail.

I started to read, and it was a really well written and humorous book. It was a romantic comedy for sure, but the beginning was kind of sad. I ended up staying up all night reading. I read all the way until it was time to leave for the airport the next day. I only made it through the first five books out of the eight, but it was the first one that stayed in my mind. The first one that answered any questions that I had about Angel, about what happened my senior year of high school. About what Jolene had tried to tell me in the hallway of The Washington Arms. I was so crammed full of information my stomach ached from it, and my eyes burned as I kept reading on my three and a half hour flight home.

I needed to see Angel. We needed to fucking talk.