Free Opal (Rare Gems Series Book 4) by Kathi S. Barton

Sloan as he frowned, but he didn’t say nothing. “The jingle to my head. I remembered where the name had come from before. The one I telled you about.”
    “ What was the name? I’m assuming that whoever he was, this is where Fleming is holding up now.” Rufus nodded, and Sloan started looking at their surroundings and then back at him. “Does he really live here?”
    The place looked like a war zone when you first took a looksee , Rufus thought. Then the longer you saw it, the more it began to take on some shape. The house wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked, first of all. It was about the only one that looked like a good wind wouldn’t take it out, at least on that side of the street. The yard had been mowed, but no flowers or those pretty things that women liked were there. Even the car, the one that rarely got moved, was in good shape. It was very manly in a very quiet way. If you just looked, Rufus knew, you’d think that the entire street was up for repairs, but it really wasn’t. It was done to keep others out. He wondered briefly if the place was as fancy on the inside as Sloan’s house was.
    “ Yeah, he does have himself quite a place, huh?” Rufus laughed then. “I ain’t never seen a more pompous ass in all my years. Unless’n you count you. When I first met you, I thought you was a fop. Is that what they called dandies back then? Anyway, you was all dressed in that lace and silk. Wondered for a minute or two if you weren’t one of them funny guys.”
    “ I have no idea what you’re talking about. Funny guys? And I was never a dandy. It was the early fourteenth century. I was in style.” Rufus snorted but said nothing as Sloan continued. “Anyway. This house of his…do you suppose he might have a bolt hole to go out if we were to go in the front door? I mean, for all we know, he could be living in all of them and have his room in each of them.”
    “ Nah…he did live in that one there on the corner from what I can tell. It’s all boarded up now. I think it was condemned. He might could have a bolt hole, but I gots you a few guys wondering around the back on occasion. Just some bums I talked into helping out.” He laughed when Sloan winced. He loved making the man do that, and tried his best to speak as lowly as he could when they were together. “I did find me something you might be interested in. There’s been a van here right near every week for the past month, just going in and coming out with bags, like them there body bags. And they’d be full. This morning, they took out a nice round eleven.”
    Sloan opened his mouth but said nothing. He shook his head , and Rufus laughed. The man was in entirely too good a mood today. Rufus wanted to be jealous, but the alterative was finding a mate, and there was no fucking way he was going down that gravy train.
    “ Do we know where the bodies—if that’s what they are—are being taken after they leave here?” Rufus told him where he’d followed the van to. “So he has a mortuary helping him out. And the clean-up service, do you know who owns that?”
    This part he knew that Sloan was going to hate. He’d tried since he’d figured it out to decide how to tell the man, but there was no help for it. Rufus reached into his pocket and pulled out the small scrap of paper and handed it to him. Then he waited for the fireworks. When they happened, Rufus smiled. Better them than him was his way of thinking.
    “ You’re sure that this is the place I own?” Rufus only cocked a brow at him. “Sorry, but mother fuck. I own a service that is going in and disposing of bodies for him? What the hell is the council going to say about this one?”
    “ I done told them.” Sloan stilled. “I didn’t have no choice and you know’d it. Beside, that broad that made you take a mate? She said that she’d help you in any way she could. I think she wants this ass bite out of the way as much as you do. And I don’t think she’s all that king on the