Page 12 of Connor's Claim

“See ye up here again sometime,” Cassie called to me.

With my only source of information being them, she could count on it.

Chapter 5

Connor

The slight, short father-of-two drug dealer shook his head at me, his arms folded in an attempt at bravery. “I can’t tell you that.”

In the tiny residential car park behind his house, no streetlights revealed us to nosy neighbours. He had a lock-up garage, too small to fit any decent car but fine as a base for his less-than-legal operations. By day, Marcus worked as a rep for a pharmaceutical company, and by night, he put on his big boy pants and dwelt in the darkness with the rest of us.

It was him I bought my narcotics from, but so had the person who’d killed Natasha.

I angled my head. Slowly. Menacingly. “I’ll ask again. Who else in this city bought propofol from ye recently?”

He swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing. “Would you trust me again if I gave up another customer’s details?”

“That buyer murdered a woman.”

“And you only need it for a good night’s sleep.”

My temper surged. Already, I was rattled by what had happened at Everly’s house, and the fact I’d gone running there in the first place. I was usually pretty chill, but an evening of headfucks left me in danger of losing it with the man I relied on for my supply.

He didn’t give a shite what I did with the drug. Convincing him that my activities were somehow more noble than any other gangster was a lost cause. Which left me only my charming skills of menacing persuasion.

I moved in on him, forcing him back against the breezeblock wall of the garage. “How about a process of elimination. Have ye had a new buyer?”

He hesitated. I drew my hand to his throat. Pushed so my fingers scraped the rough surface of the wall either side of his slim neck and his pulse thrummed under my palm.

“N-no one new,” he choked out.

So the killer was already on Deadwater’s scene. I continued my gentle interrogation. “And ye supply both the Zombies and the Four Milers?”

He pressed his lips together but at my light squeeze gave a jerking nod, his cheeks flushing. We were getting somewhere.

“And just one person each in those gangs?”

Another nod, prompted by the tightening of my forearm muscles.

“Anyone else?”

This time, a refusal.

I wrapped it up, because I didn’t want to lose this man as my supplier as much as I had no real desire to terrorise him. “To confirm—the only people you’ve supplied that product to are me and those gangs, correct?”

A swift nod was my answer. I dropped my hold, and the dealer scrambled away, his hand at his throat.

“I never promised you exclusivity,” he spluttered.

“Did I ask ye to suck my dick?” Disgusted, I turned away and stalked back down the alley, my mind twisting over what I’d learned. The killer wasn’t some random, they were gang affiliated else they wouldn’t have been able to get hold of the drug from the contacts Marcus served. Then I frowned, because there were other sources. Hospitals used propofol for knocking out surgical patients. Their supplies were a lot more tightly controlled, though.

Either we had a rogue doctor or, more likely, someone in the city gangs was behind the murders. The bigger question was why.

I left the suburb where the dealer resided and took the road out to a leafier part of town, the houses getting bigger and the streets emptier. Everly’s neck of the woods. A glance at my car’s dash told me it was close to dawn, and I didn’t want to be sneaking around the mayor’s mansion in daylight or when any staff came in. Which meant a fast turnaround.

Parking up in the same spot as earlier, I curled my lip at the broken glass on the tarmac from where I’d tipped Riordan’s bike then repeated my steps to slink along the neighbours’ access path. On my first visit, I’d gone in hard and fast. This time, I was more cautious. The warning Genevieve’s brother gave played over in my mind. The Four Milers wanted Everly and they wouldn’t give up easily.

The big house was as silent as the grave. The back door had been closed, presumably by Riordan, but I took a different route. Directly up. At sixteen, I’d worked out how to use the drainpipe to scale the building and climb to the railed balcony of Everly’s room, evading her father whose bedroom was right across the hall.