“He likes you.” Ramos caught my gaze and smiled. He enjoyed sitting so close to me, especially when our thighs touched. He knew I liked it too, but he didn’t want me to get the wrong idea and get carried away or anything.
“Ha-ha.”
With a grin, he slipped from the seat and moved to the other side, thinking that he liked this view too. I felt the heat rise in my cheeks, but it fled as his gaze turned to the entrance, and his face grew cold. “Don’t turn around.”
“Why? Who is it?”
“Looks like an undercover cop. I think we may have been followed.” His gaze flicked to mine. “Don’t panic. The gang can smell a cop a mile away. We can sneak out the back before he gets close to our table.”
“Has he spotted us?”
“I’m not sure… but… yeah, he just zeroed in on your blond hair.”
“Crap. I need to see who it is… I might know him.” Would Bates follow me? I didn’t think he’d do that, and I knew it wasn’t Dimples. So who? I listened to the thoughts of people around me, trying to pick up anything about me and my blond hair, but found nothing.
A wave of distrust rolled through the room, followed by hostility. It included just about every person in the crowd. Oops. That guy was in trouble.
Big Kahuna lumbered by. As he passed our table, he nodded to Ramos, silently telling him to take the back exit. A few others stood to join him, blocking the cop’s view of us, and Ramos mentally told me it was time to go.
As we ducked out of view and hurried toward the back, I glanced over my shoulder toward the bar. With a shake of his head, the man turned to talk to Big Kahuna.
I’d seen him before, but it was so brief that I couldn’t remember where. Then it hit me. He was the cop from the observation room, the one from the gang unit. But why was he following me? Worse, had he been at the store watching us? Did he know about the drug deal? If he did, I was in so much trouble.
CHAPTER 11
I followed Ramos through a doorway into a back office and storage room. We scurried into the storage room and opened another door that led to the back entrance. With the door closing behind us, we rushed toward the bike.
“Did you see who it was?” he asked me.
“Yes. I know him. He must have followed me to the store, and then here. We’ve got to get back to my car before he does.”
Ramos nodded, not even bothering to hand me the helmet, and we both jumped on the bike. We made it back to the store in no time, and I quickly unlocked my car.
“We need to talk somewhere safe,” Ramos said. “Head to Thrasher.”
I nodded, following him most of the way. The tension left me as we entered the parking garage. At this time of night, the place was mostly empty, and Ramos pulled into his usual spot by the elevators. I parked next to him, and he joined me, sliding into the front seat of my car.
“Okay. What’s going on?” he asked.
Where should I start? I explained the interview with the gang member and that the cop following us had been watching from the observation room the whole time. “I only caught a glimpse of him before I left, so I have no idea what he’s thinking, or why he’d follow me.”
“But you must have made an impression if you got the kid to tell them about the car. He must have thought you already knew about it, and that’s why he followed you.”
“So… does that mean he thinks I’m involved in the whole drug thing?”
“Why else would he follow you?” Ramos sighed. “Too bad he’s right.”
“This is terrible. What do we do now?”
“Do you think he’ll go to the detective you’re working with and tell him about this?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably. We were in the store for a while. If he was watching, he may have seen all of us. Do you think he took pictures?”
“He could have, but it was too dark to get much of anything. And watching us doesn’t prove that anything happened in the store. It’s certainly not enough to arrest anyone.”
I sighed and laid my head back on the seat. “This sucks. What am I going to do?”
“What were you going to do anyway?” Ramos thought I must have had something planned to tell the police.
“Well, yeah… before the guy followed me, I thought I’d tell them that I had a premonition about the BMW, and that the kid driving it lives in a fancy house with rich parents. For the kid’s name, I could say that I keep seeing a big X, like X marks the spot, so it must have something to do with his name.
“I thought I could throw in the name of the high school, only change it up a bit so it’s not so obvious, like telling them it’s Sky something… like Skyline or Skyview. It’s vague, but close enough for them to fill in the blanks with the right information.”
His brows rose. “That might work. But what if they’re gunning for Manetto?”
“I don’t know how they could. Xavier killed Slasher, and it had nothing to do with Uncle Joey.”
Ramos nodded. “Yeah, but I doubt the kid will confess without a little coercion from the police. You know how cops are with kids, they could scare him into saying whatever they wanted, especially if they want Manetto.”
“Not these cops, especially if I’m there, which I’m planning to be. Once they bring him in, I can pick up what Xavier did with the gun, and maybe even why he killed Slasher. Plus, if we’re all out of options, I can always get
