SNAP (The SNAP Trilogy Book 1) (12 page)

My head whips to Cady standing behind the bar with a mischievous grin on her face as she prepares for her shift. She winks at me and walks down the bar grabbing her tray and pad of paper.

I snatch the phone from Cash's hand and quickly dial my number handing it back to him. "Bye, Cash."

Jumping off the bar stool, I haul ass around the bar ready to kick Cady's ass while trying to control the blush feverishly spreading over my face. When I reach her, she leans back against the sink and nods looking at something over my shoulder. Cash is smiling as he slides his phone in his pocket then walks out the door.

"When's the hot date?" Her eyes are twinkling as a sly smile forms on her face.

I wash my hands and get myself under control. "Monday."

"I've got a good feeling about him, Hazel."

"Yeah, I've got a feeling about him too. Just not sure if it's good or bad." I busy myself checking bottle levels and inventory.

"Oh, I hope it's
real
bad," she insinuates with a growl making me laugh.

Cash

After spending weeks trapped in a car, the six hour drive back to headquarters is fucking torture. I pull up in front of Rian's Chemical Company and sigh as I shut off the car thankful to finally be here. I rub my hand over my face and cringe when I feel the little bit of growth on my jaw. A shower and a shave are the first things on my list. Getting out of my car, I grab my bag from the trunk and make my way to the employee entrance. It's one in the morning and the night shift wrapped up an hour ago. Sliding my key card into the slot, I grab the handle and open the door. The smell of chemicals assault my nose as the florescent lights blind me. I haven't missed this.

Everything is clean, well as clean as you can get a factory, as I make my way to the locker rooms in the back. I flip the light on as I enter and place my bag on one of the benches. Stripping out of my clothes, I walk over to the first shower setting my toiletries on the shelf. The hot water beats down on me washing away the funk from the trip and loosening my sore muscles. I take my time enjoying the peace and quiet before drying off and heading over to the sink to shave.

As I'm lathering my face, the door bangs open pausing my actions. Joseph appears in his lab coat pulling his respirator off and his goggles. He halts when he sees me, his almond shaped eyes squinting slightly.

"Well, you decided to come back early." He wipes the sweat from his face and pushes his black hair back.

I look back at myself in the mirror and pick up my razor, gliding it over my skin. "I'm going back Monday."

Joseph walks up behind me staring me down in the mirror. "The fuck you are. We will send Carl or Brad, or both. You are not going back up there."

I go back to shaving, ignoring the pissed off glare and flaring nostrils next to my reflection. "Phil is out of town this weekend. I watched him leave with his father and brother. Father-son fishing trip by the looks of the boat they were pulling behind them. I wouldn't be able to get any intel on him while he's gone so I came back with all the information I have gathered."

Joseph, still pissed off, nods his head and starts stripping out of his clothes. He heads to the shower and is back in a matter of minutes drying himself off and pulling on clean clothes from his locker. I rinse the remaining foam from my face then grab clean clothes from my bag putting them on.

"Where's Dale?" I ask Joseph as I tie my sneakers.

"He's in the ingredients room prepping for the next batch. It's in demand. We've doubled our run over the last two weeks. I don't know how we are gonna keep up only running at night."

I take a closer look at Joseph. He's run down with bags under his eyes and body stiff with stress. What the hell's been going on around here? We knew this drug would take off fast, but we've already increased production four times before I left a few weeks ago.

We walk down the hall to Dale's office and enter the hidden door panel in his personal bathroom. It opens up to a secret hallway that has several rooms running the length of the building. Each room has a specific purpose in the process of creating Snap. As we pass, I watch everyone hastily working on their tasks. Some look up and nod toward us, others, so focused, don't even notice as we pass by. It's running like a well-oiled machine.

As we near the makeshift meeting room at the end of the hall, I hear Dale yelling at one of the workers. "I don't give a fuck how long it takes. Figure out what went wrong with this batch. It was too soft and not holding together properly."

"Yes, sir. I'll look into it," a voice quietly says as we enter the room. A young man passes us with his head hung low as he makes his way down the hall.

Dale turns toward us and fire ignites in his eyes. "You motherfucker!" He storms me and grabs my shirt. "Do you know how worried I've been all week? Well, if you'd answered your goddamn phone every once in a while, you'd know."

I pull his hand off my shirt and return his steely look. "Watch yourself, Dale."

He pulls back and puts his hands on his hips shaking his head. Dale's as stressed out as Joseph is.

"Let's talk about the information I have then you can tell me what the fuck's going on around here." I set my duffle bag on the table and slip the memory card out of my phone. I put it in the laptop and connect to the flat screen TV hanging behind me on the wall. Pictures and video load up as Joseph and Dale sit down facing the screen.

"This is Hazel Watson," I say as I flip through photos of her coming and going from her apartment and working the bar. "She's twenty-nine, works as a manager at Maggie Mae's tavern, and lives alone. That is her friend Cadence McDowell. Everyone calls her Cady. She is the only person I've seen Hazel invite into her home and the only person I've seen her out with. In the two weeks I was there prior to this meeting, Hazel worked every single day for at least ten hours."

A whistle escapes Dale's lips when I get to the picture of her in the black scrap of a dress she was wearing the first night I saw Phil approach her. My eyes narrow at him and he shuts up so I can continue.

"This was the first time I saw her and Phil together." I click through the next few pictures until I get to the video I took in the bar that night and hit play. We watch Phil approach the two ladies and can barely hear their conversation. The annoyance on her face, her stiff body language, and the brief flicker of anger when she turns to face Phil is all caught on video. I've played this several times watching as she leans back against the bar with confidence and her face tilts up to him. The hard look in her eyes as her lips move. An image of her in my bed propped up on her elbows daring me to make a move has my pants tightening.

Dale jerks forward in his seat as he watches Phil turn and walk past the camera storming out. "Rewind that," he says standing up and walking toward the screen. This is the first close up shot we've gotten of Phil since he first started working for us. I rewind it and we watch again as Phil turns around. "Freeze it," Dale says quickly. "Click the frames forward one at a time."

I do like he asks until Phil's face is pointed right at the camera. It's the coldest face I've ever seen. Most people would call it emotionless, but most people have never encountered a murderer. Staring into his eyes, I see what Dale notices. Phil's pupils are so large there's barely any color left in them. Same as they were when I came face-to-face with him later that night.

"This isn't a side effect of Snap. It doesn't make your pupils dilate or agitate you like this." Dale shakes his head and sits back down.

Joseph continues to stare at the screen unblinking in deep thought. The wheels turning in his brain are almost visible in his eyes. He's picked up on something Dale and I can't see. The room is still as Dale and I look upon him in silence. If anyone can figure out this mess, Joseph can. He's the mastermind behind the chemical cocktail of Snap. Messing around in the lab one night working on a project for school, he figured out different ways to recreate some pharmaceutical drugs. Always one to push the boundaries, he sat in there all night mixing chemicals until he got it right. At first we thought he was nuts, but when he started using himself as a guinea pig and sharing results with us, it became a no brainer.

We spent months turning the archives of the building into the perfect climate controlled production area. It's not easy to find it either. All entries were blocked off but three. Workers are employed through Rian Chemical Company. Those who are legally able to work in the country, anyway. We offer them a higher wage to keep their mouths shut and the best insurance on the market. They may be making illegal drugs, but they are making the money the legit way doing it. Safety measures are in place in case anyone comes in asking questions. Everyone knows their part, ready to play it out at a moment’s notice. And they do it perfectly every time. Surprise drills have occurred to insure that things run smoothly.

Joseph grabs a scrap of paper and starts writing down chemical abbreviations I don't understand. The intensity of which he's scribbling on the paper looks like he's going to tear through it. He stands abruptly, the chair squealing in protest and almost toppling over as he snatches the paper off the table and sprints for the door that leads to the lab.

Our heads follow him as he rushes off. Dale opens his mouth to say something to him and I shake my head at him. "Don't even bother. We won't know what the fuck he's talking about until he's able to figure it out and break it down into layman's terms for us. Just let him do his thing. I'll fill you in on everything else I have."

Dale agrees and stays put as I show him pictures of Phil doing drop-offs at his dealer houses, sitting out front of Hazel's place, peeking through her windows, and having innocent looking meetings with Dustin at random places.

"Do they ever leave these meeting places together?" Dale flicks through the pictures stopping on different ones and taking a closer look.

"I've seen two different times that they left together. One time they met at a fast food restaurant and parked next to each other. I watched them walk in, they acted like they didn't know each other, and the next thing I knew, I saw them at the stoplight next to me in a completely different car than they came in. They had to have gone out the door on the other side of the building. I couldn't get out of the parking lot in time to follow and lost them. The second time was about a week later at a gas station. Phil pulled up to get gas, Dustin was dropped off by someone, probably one of his lackeys, and he got in Phil's car. I followed and tried to stay a few cars back, but it looked like they got spooked by something. I'm not sure if they noticed me or not, but he pulled over and I had to pass them by. Dustin was climbing out of Phil's car looking around before I lost sight of them in the rear view."

"Is this the building they pulled in front of?" Dale points to the picture of the hair salon.

"Yeah. I've went by there a few times and there's nothing that stands out that something is going on there. I haven't seen either one of them back there since. I've watched Dustin a few times when I couldn't find Phil and he doesn't do much. He's too busy wheeling and dealing from his home. The amount of drugs he peddles, he can't deliver and he won't. I don't blame him, I wouldn't either. I'm going to stop and pay a visit with Gavin on my way back on Monday to see if Phil has increased his supply and what else he's getting from him. He has to be hopped up on something besides Snap. I don't want to have Gavin cut him off yet. I want to see what he's up to. He's the only one that fits the description of the person who tried to break in here that night."

Dale sits quietly fuming at me. His nostrils flare as he grinds his teeth. "Gavin has already contacted us."

"What?" Gavin hardly ever reaches out to us. He knows the rules. He's trying to climb the ladder and is learning how to do things like the big boys, not like nickel and dime bag dealers.

"He called and I sent Brad to meet with him. He said demand has increased in Trinity and Swanson areas. Gavin needed to quadruple his stock because it was pretty much gone before he got his hands on it. He's got five dudes below him, Phil being one of them, and Phil is dealing it out faster than he can recomp goods. Phil even offered him an additional grand if he cut out one of the other guys and gave him his supply."

My brows shoot up. An extra grand? How much is he charging for Snap? There is no way people there can afford those kinds of prices. The drug wasn't that expensive as is, but if he's taxing it like crazy, then he could make hand over fist. If he were to get his supply and someone else's, that's enough to fully deal Snap for a month or more. How is he getting rid of it in a week's time and where is it going from there? There are three main dealers in Jackson that aren't going through the supply he's going through. At the rate Phil is dealing, he'll need semi-truck deliveries in the next month. We aren't even ready to expand outside the state yet.

Dale clicks through the pictures some more and stops on one. I glance over and see a shot of her face smiling and stare at the woman who has caught my attention in more than one way. Her eyes are glittering in the sunshine and her lips are stretched across her face in an inviting way. I wonder what it would take to make her smile like that.

"I don't like the way you look at her." Concern and ire lace Dale's voice. "You have a lot of pictures of her, Cash."

I pull my gaze from the screen and put it on him. He's studying me intently, but I've trained myself to show no emotion when need be.