Maria

 

“Hey, Bobby, you got a minute?” I asked while the kid was clocking out for the day.

 

He looked around nervously. “I don’t know, Miss Kelly, what’s it about?”

 

“Come on, don’t act like that. You’re a Twisted Ghost, for crying out loud,” I told him.

 

“I-I don’t know about that anymore,” he said, his eyes still shifting back and forth to make sure no one else was in the office with us.

 

“Look, no one else is here. My dad took the day off. Everyone else is still working. No one has to know we talked.” I grabbed a chair and pulled it over in front of me for him to sit down.

 

“Oh, okay.” He sat down and kept looking around.

 

“No one’s going to jump out and surprise you. I promise.”

 

“Okay,” he said again, nodding this time. He smiled a little.

 

“Now, I know you’re a member of the MC, Bobby. What do you mean, you don’t know about it?” I asked him.

 

“After, you know,” he nodded and looked at me like I was supposed to know what he was saying.

 

“You mean after what happened with Brawn?” I asked.

 

“Yeah. I don’t think they’re going to let me stay in,” he said, looking down and furrowing his brow. “I didn’t mean for him to get in trouble, but I think the whole thing was a setup.”

 

“You think?”

 

“Yeah. I think I was supposed to see Mr. Kelly in here with Carlisle so I’d go back to Brawn. Mr. Kelly knows I’m skittish, so he had to know I wasn’t going to go talk to anyone but Brawn, since I worked for him. Dammit, man.”

 

My father had no business hiring people like Bobby. He only hired him because he knew Bobby had been working for Brawn, and he wanted someone with the inside scoop. Bobby was probably how my father knew so much about the MC.

 

“Listen, I think I can keep you in the MC if you help me out,” I said.

 

“Really?” The boy’s face lit up like I’d just handed him a puppy on Christmas morning.

 

“Kid, you’ve got to man up if you want me to help you, though. Man the hell up,” I told him.

 

“Okay, I-I can do that.”

 

“No more talking,” I laughed. “Not unless I ask you a question. Got it?”

 

“Got it.” He nodded emphatically.

 

“First, did you tell my dad anything about the MC?” I asked him.

 

“Yeah, he asked me to tell him everything I knew.”

 

“Did he threaten you?” I hoped he did, and I hoped it was worse than making him work overtime.

 

“He did. He told me he was going to turn me over to some of his mob friends,” he said.

 

“No one’s turning you over to the mob. But good. That’s the kind of information I need. So you told him everything you know about the MC?” I asked again, just to be sure I understood him.

 

“Everything.”

 

“All right, that’s very helpful, Bobby. Do you think you can help me more?” I asked, catching myself using the same tone I would have with a child.

 

“What do you need?” he asked cautiously.

 

“I need you to keep your eyes peeled. Let me know if you see or hear anything else, like that meeting with Carlisle. Can you do that for me?”

 

“I think so. And if I do that, you’re sure I can stay in the MC?” he asked eagerly.

 

“That, and grow a pair.”

 

It was like watching a balloon deflate, the way his face and shoulders sank.

 

“Now get out of here and go home,” I told him.

 

He hurried out the door, slamming it behind him. So, Bobby wasn’t actually in on the setup to get Brawn arrested. My father had manipulated him. That was a relief. I just needed something concrete to help me take my father down. I needed a list of some of his clients, some of the shell businesses setting up in his business parks.

 

“Carlisle,” I said aloud as I turned back to the papers on my desk. Why hadn’t I thought about it sooner? Carlisle was a great place to start. There was no one to call to talk to about what I was thinking. I had told Brawn to keep out of it, and I certainly wasn’t about to drag anyone else from the MC into it. It was bad enough I had little Bobby out there playing detective.

 

But Carlisle. Cory had told me about the gambling ring. Everyone knew the story, apparently.

 

“If Carlisle’s back, and he’s not running another gambling ring, what else could he be doing?” I asked the empty office, as if the paperwork strewn across the desks could speak and give me the answers I needed. But I already suspected Carlisle was behind some of the office suites. I just had to find proof of it.

 

My phone buzzed. I picked it up and looked at the screen. It was Elissa. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. Or better, depending on how I looked at it.

 

“Hey, Elissa,” I said, answering the phone.

 

“What’s up? You sound tense. How’s school going?” she asked.

 

“It’s not. I’ve had to put all of that on hold,” I told her, looking around the office for where to start digging for information on Carlisle or the companies he was running.

 

“What’s going on? You really sound stressed out,” she said.

 

“I am. Um, I’m at my dad’s office right now. Something has come up, and he needs me to cover for him,” I lied. I felt like that was all I had been doing lately. I was either lying, telling half-truths, or just omitting information altogether.

 

“Is everything okay?” She sounded concerned.

 

“Yeah, everything’s fine. He just had some business to come up out of town. I’m watching the office until he returns, and man, it’s a train wreck.” I talked absently as I got up and rummaged through paperwork on every desk in the office.

 

“You sound distracted,” she said.

 

“I’m trying to find paperwork on a guy I think my dad is doing work for. I think his name is Carlisle.”

 

“Carlisle? Is that all you have to go on?” she asked.

 

“Yeah. I don’t know if it’s his first or last name, but it’s what everyone calls him,” I answered her.

 

“Sounds like someone who would have criminal connections,” Elissa mused.

 

“Funny you’d say that. That’s why I’m trying to find his information,” I told her.

 

“What the hell is going on in your life, Maria?” she asked, astonished.

 

“I have no idea anymore, Elissa. I really don’t know.” I laughed.

 

“You’re living with a biker. You’re digging through your dad’s office trying to find information on a criminal he’s doing business for. What in the world? I thought you’d been kicked out of your dad’s house. I thought you said he ran you off.” Her tone switched like she suddenly shifted gears.

 

“Yeah, but he decided he needed me, so he called me out to work for him,” I said, covering myself.

 

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

 

“Google Carlisle. See if you can find any information in our area about a man named Carlisle who may have mob connections,” I told her.

 

“Are you serious?”

 

“Yeah, and thanks. You know, you have perfect timing,” I joked.

 

“Something told me not to bother you while you were at work tonight. Give me two seconds and I’ll have something for you.” I heard her clicking away at her laptop keyboard on the other end.

 

Meanwhile, I kept flipping through papers. “This office really is a mess,” I remarked. “I never noticed it before, but it’s a disaster.”

 

“At least you have an excuse if you get caught going through stuff. You can always say you were trying to straighten up,” Elissa said, offering up the excuse.

 

“I guess so. You’re a genius.”

 

“I know, thanks. What exactly am I looking for over here?” she asked.

 

“A name or something else to help me find this guy. And I mean it. You’re a genius. I’m going to organize the paperwork as I go through it.”

 

“Good idea. Okay, here you go.” She paused for a moment. “I don’t have a real name, but I think I’ve got another alias here – Edgar Banks. It says here he is tied to this person, who is a real estate developer.”

 

“Carlisle’s name is Edgar Banks?” I asked. “Where does Carlisle come from then?”

 

“Carlisle might be part of his real name. This article makes Banks sound like another alias.”

 

“Excellent. Thank you so much, Elissa.”

 

“You’re not about to let me go, are you?” she asked. “You can’t. I want to be on the phone when you find this guy. It says here Carlisle was the head of a gambling ring a few years back until he was taken out in a dispute with a local motorcycle club? Are you kidding me? Isn’t your boyfriend a member of The Twisted Ghosts?”

 

“He’s not my boyfriend, but yes, that’s the name of his MC. Was that in the news?” I asked, suddenly distracted from my search. I grabbed a pen and wrote down the name she’d given me before I forgot it.

 

“Yeah, it says here that ‘members of the MC, The Twisted Ghosts, tipped law enforcement off.’ I guess they led the cops to them?”

 

“I guess so. I mean, the story is legendary in the MC, but they make it sound like they just convinced him to retire,” I said. “If they got him locked up, that explains why he’s been out of the game.”

 

“That also explains why he’s suddenly back around. Be careful in there, Maria. Let me know if you find anything interesting or if you need more help,” she said.

 

“Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon,” I told her, hanging up the phone.

 

The paperwork stacked up around me was overwhelming. There was no way I was going to find his information in anything in the office. I knew what to look for, though. I checked to see if anyone was still at work. There were a few people still working on the lot. I cut the lights out in the office and put a note on the trailer door to let the workers know I’d adjust the time cards the next day to make sure they got paid for the time they put in.

 

I got back in my car and drove to the house. I had a name, and I knew some of the addresses of the other buildings my dad had built. It occurred to me on the way home that I could pull up the county records and see if any of my father’s properties were owned by someone under Carlisle’s other name, or by someone named Carlisle. If those names were connected, it would have been easier to find them that way, I supposed.

 

I thought about calling Brawn, but I didn’t want him to get mixed up with my father again. I wanted to keep him as far away from my father as possible. It wasn’t safe for him to get too close. I didn’t want to call anyone else in the MC either. If I reached out for their help, it needed to be to Brawn. That would have been the respectful thing to do.

 

I got home, parked my car in front of the garage, and went inside. I went up to my room and pulled out my laptop. I had been surprised that none of my things had been touched since I left. My father hadn’t looked through anything. He’d left me alone while I was gone.

 

I opened the laptop and pulled up my web browser. I went to the local county records and started searching by owner name and addresses. If there was any information available, I was going to find it.