Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(49)
“Hey,” croaked Lytton. “Toby McSmokesalot. Yes, you.”
“Ugh,” Toby moaned from underneath the arm he’d flung over his face. “Is my head still attached to my body?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Tell me something, Toby. Tell me whether I messed around with any women.”
Toby sat up. His sleek bowl haircut was in disarray like he’d just been through the spin cycle. He looked at Lytton blearily. “Hell, I can’t even remember if I messed with any women. Now that’s sad, because that’s something I’d want to remember. The last thing I remember was trying to barbecue a watermelon. Buttlick kept insisting it was a new trend. Oh, so someone else threw some kale on the grill. Said they were inventing a new grilled salad. Where is everyone? Isn’t some Dotard bringing the weed truck up from Phoenix to A Joint Effort?”
“Right.” It was all coming back to Lytton now, and he stood and stretched. He was wearing pants, so that much was good. “Saul should be there at three for his surprise inspection.” Suddenly he couldn’t even feel gleeful about taking down The Bare Bones. It must’ve been the hangover blues, but suddenly he didn’t want to be there to witness the whole takedown. It was enough that he’d helped in the whole scheme, but now he wanted to focus on making The Buddy System the premier dispensary in P & E. He was done with retribution. It was out of his system.
Finding his phone in his discarded shirt pocket, he checked his voicemails. About eight from the same phone number he didn’t recognize. Iso’s name was on one incoming call from eight that morning, so he hit redial on that. “Iso. What’s up? Everything going smoothly?”
“Sure thing, brother.” He sounded sloshed. Lytton didn’t know how that guy got around on his scoot, but he seemed to. Maybe he was a maintenance drinker. Those people drank round the clock and never seemed drunk because they had such a high tolerance for it. “We just wanted to know what time your man was showing up at A Joint Effort. I plan to be sitting out front at the coffee shop next door laughing my ass off, kicking back and watching the drama unfold.”
Lytton chuckled without enthusiasm. He’d been planning on doing that, too. The Bare Bones had probably already noticed the abandoned Staples truck with the skeletons inside, but suddenly it seemed more juvenile than hilarious. He’d been looking forward to rubbing their faces in the fact that The Cutlasses—and him—had jacked the truck full of medical marijuana, but suddenly Lytton wanted to distance himself from it.
June had said Ford had a good reason for killing Cropper. Maybe Cropper had murdered Ford’s mother, who knew? Lytton wanted to back off until he found out more. He didn’t regret planting the bottles of poison in the dumpster. It was still a brilliant plan. The Prospect August had eagerly taken Toby’s Assassin’s Creed flash drive from him. From what Toby said, the nerdy biker was heading right into the back room to insert a stream of nasty viruses into his accounting and security system. Everything was going off according to plan.
“Saul’s going to be there at three,” Lytton told Iso. “I’ll probably join you for coffee and yuks, but I’m going home first. I never made it back there yesterday.”
“Yeah, the place was silent as a grave when I left,” said Iso. “You don’t have guys working Saturday, do you?”
“Just me, Helium Head, and Toby, usually.”
“And no workers on Sunday?”
“No one. Why, was anything suspicious going on? You closed the gate behind you, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. I’m not an airhead. I just saw a suspicious-looking van heading up the mountain while I was heading down. Must be nothing. You’ve got your security cameras working, anyway. Nothing to worry about.”
Iso’s strange talk actually made Lytton worry more. He had no deliveries scheduled for yesterday. He listened to his voicemails, discovering it was Madison Illuminati behind the slew of unfamiliar phone calls. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Madison, what’s—”
“Lytton! Where the f*ck is June?”
“Isn’t she with you? She left my house yesterday morning, same time I did.”
“No. She was supposed to be at my house yesterday at noon and never made it. Not answering a single call or text, either. I would’ve driven up to your house but didn’t know where it is. Are you there now?”
The cold, panic-stricken tentacles of fear were starting to work into Lytton’s heart. He put on his plaid shirt with one arm while holding the phone between shoulder and ear. A disheveled Toby seemed to realize something was up, too. He started snapping his cuffs closed and looking for his boat shoes.
“No. I’m at a friend’s in P & E. Listen, now you’re starting to make me wonder too. Let me text you the address and I’ll head up there right now.”
Lytton’s brain went over every possible scenario as he rode back home with Toby on the back. He saw June as a reliable, stable person, part of her allure for him. He didn’t see her as anyone who would bail on babysitting chores for her own niece. She might’ve crashed that stupid rental car on her way down the mountain, just gone over the edge and nobody noticed. He should’ve bought her a new car. She shouldn’t be paying so much coin for such a dumpy cage. If she didn’t want a Harley, she could at least drive something more stylish, although it would have to be American made, of course.