Angel Girl (S.H.E. Book 1)

by Christine Michelle

  That was another dagger straight to my heart. Out of everyone here, myself included, she absolutely would tell Quick first. She thought of him as damn near a twin brother, despite the fact that they’re a year apart and have two totally separate sets of parents. It bothered me at first, and I got over it quickly when I was able to participate in their interactions more. Right now though, that bond they had hurt.

  “You need anything, honey?” One of the club whores asked. Her name was Rachel, I think. She was sort of new here, younger, and not showing the signs of use like the other girls yet.

  “Go away,” I told her. She didn’t listen. Instead, she put her hands on my shoulders and started trying to massage them.

  “Your woman ran off, but I’m here for you baby,” she cooed in my ear.

  “Get the fuck off of me!” I bellowed out as I stood, knocking the chair into her which sent her teetering off balance and falling to the floor with it. “You ever fucking come near me again, I will make sure your ass never makes it through the front door again, you hear me?”

  “Calm down, son.” Mick was there, hand on my shoulder now. “Let’s get you a drink too.”

  Quickshot was the next person through the clubhouse doors, and I swear to God, the entire club held a collective breath waiting to hear his news. I didn’t need to hear anything from him though. I saw it all written plain as day on his face. Pure and utter devastation brought his shoulders low as his head whipped around looking for evidence that she might have shown in his absence. She hadn’t told him. My heart kicked into overdrive, my mind racing through possible enemies who might want to use her against the club. It was possible that she’d been taken against her will. Then again, her behavior, her missing clothes, they all said she walked on her own. The abandoned car and subsequent finding of her cell phone in her room just proved she knew there could be trackers on them, which there were. She was making sure she couldn’t be followed.

  A barstool went flying across the room as an angry growl reverberated on the walls of the clubhouse. Our Jamie was gone, and the man who had been as close to her as a twin all her life didn’t know any more than the rest of us. I didn’t blame him one bit for the fit he was currently throwing. Hell, I wanted to join him. Instead, I just sat there at the bar staring at the wall of liquor in front of me wondering which one would numb me the fastest. She was the only woman I’d ever loved. She’d finally turned 18, and we were supposed to run off to Vegas for the weekend to get married. We were supposed to finally be able to be together. Hell, I hadn’t been with a woman in 18 months, since before the first time I laid eyes on Jamie. I’d waited for her and she just left, with no word.

  “Give me a shot of whiskey, Lou.”

  “Hey kid, maybe you should wait a bit,” he started to argue with me.

  “I said give me a fucking shot.”

  “Yeah, me too!” Quickshot sat down next to me now. I wasn’t sure how he’d managed to wear out the fit he was throwing, because I’d been lost to my own thoughts, but he was here now.

  “You’re fucking under age, Quick.”

  “You see the fucking ATF here? No, now shut the fuck up and give me a drink.”

  Lou slapped two shot glasses and the whole bottle of whiskey on the counter. “I’m not wiping either of you up off the bar tonight. Go easy.”

  “When’s the last time you talked to her?” Quick asked me as he downed his first shot.

  “Two days ago.” He stopped pouring another shot and looked over at me accusingly. “Don’t even fucking start. I was on a run, and she said she was going to be busy registering for classes at WVU.” I sighed. “I sent her a Happy Birthday text yesterday, and tried calling to see if she got the package I sent.” I hadn’t been able to get a hold of her, but I did get confirmation that the package was delivered to someone at her address. I wasn’t sure what to think when I didn’t hear from her. “I thought maybe she was just getting nervous and needed some time to think or something.”

  “She has been talking about this for months, in a good way. Why would she flip out all of a sudden?”

  “Hell, man, you tell me. You’re the person she’s closest to.”

  “What about Marisol?” Quick suddenly shot up straighter in his seat. “Has anyone gone to check in at Marisol’s house?”

  There was a whole lot of head shaking, and suddenly I was thankful I hadn’t taken my shots yet. “Come on, we can borrow Shorty’s truck, I saw it parked outside.” I ran over to Shorty and got his keys from him and Quick and I were off just like that. I knew where the girl lived since I’d dropped Jamie off or picked her up from there enough times.

  The usual thirty-minute drive across town ended up taking a little less than fifteen. Thankfully, I hadn’t blown past any cops on the way. The minute we were at Marisol’s door I was about to knock like it was a police raid, but Quickshot pulled me up short and pointed to the side of the porch. She was outside on the porch just staring up at the sky vacantly. It was almost like she knew we were coming.

  “Marisol?” I called out as I got out of the truck. She glanced over at me, took in Quickshot slinging his big body so that he was positioning himself just in front of me, and then she hugged her knees up to her own body, wrapping her arms around them. “Have you seen or heard from Jamie today?”

  “No, why? What’s going on?” Her tone was flat and emotionless.

  “We can’t find her. Some of her things are gone, but her cell phone was left behind, and her car was found on the outskirts of town,” I explained.

  Marisol’s face paled under the moonlight and she swallowed thickly. “Do you think someone took her?” She asked.

  “Why would we think someone took her?” Quickshot answered with his own question.

  “You know,” she offered while flailing her hands in our general direction before wrapping them back around her legs. “You’re involved in shady shit with a biker club. Maybe one of your rivals took her?” She was asking questions everyone in our club had probably already thought of, only our guys were doing it with a fuck of a lot of concern in their voices. I cocked my head to the side, studying her at length.

  “If you hear from her at all, we need to know immediately, okay?”

  “Yeah, of course. I can’t believe she’s gone,” the girl said while laying her blond head down with her cheek resting on her knees. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything,” she offered, and then it was like she checked out right there in front of us. I backed up towards the truck again and Quickshot followed, getting in when I did.

  “That seem right to you?” He asked.

  “Not at all. What in the fuck is going on?” I called the clubhouse. “I need a prospect on Marisol’s house for the next couple days. Jamie wasn’t here, but the girl is acting funny,” I said into the phone. I had called Tuck, Quickshot’s dad and our VP, because I thought he’d be in a better position to deal with shit. Turns out, he wasn’t.

  Marisol ended up missing for a couple days herself when we went back to check, because Tuck never sent the prospect by to watch the house.

  The minute we heard that Marisol had been spotted coming back home, Wren and I were on our way to her house in a flash. Quickshot would have been there, but he’d been sent on a run with his dad. Partly to get them out of the clubhouse and focused on something other than Jamie, and partly because the run couldn’t be put off as it was time sensitive. Neither Wren or I were in the mood to wait a minute longer, and I ended up taking out my frustration on the front door with my fist when I didn’t get a response right away.

  “What in the world?” An older woman cried out as she opened the door.

  “We need to talk to Marisol, now.” I ordered her like she was one of the club whores.

  “Chill,” Wren hissed out under breath that reeked of the whiskey he’d been drowning himself in for days. I, on the other hand, had stayed stone cold sober on the off chance that someone called in with a lead and we needed to roll out right away.

  “
Young man, I don’t know who you think you are, but…”

  “Look, Jamie is missing. We need to speak to your daughter to see if she knows anything.”

  “Oh my! Poor Jamie.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially then. “I don’t think Jamie and Marisol are getting on right now. Marisol’s been a mess of tears for going on three weeks now. I sent her to her Aunt Sally’s house for a few days, because I couldn’t take it anymore. Jamie hasn’t been here or called at all in that time, that I’m aware of.”

  “What in the hell?” Wren looked taken aback by the news. Apparently, he hadn’t heard anything about this.

  “Well, we’d still like to talk to your daughter, please. Any little thing might be helpful.”

  “Of course,” she finally opened the door and let us in. We moved straight to the girl’s room, and what we saw there was pure guilt written all over her face.

  The guilt melted away and settled into an expression more closely resembling fear. I shot a glance to Wren to see if he picked up on it too. He nodded. Now, we just had to figure out what she was hiding and why.

  “W-what are you guys doing here?” She started out on a stutter, but her voice grew stronger.

  “Looking for Jamie still, you seen or heard from her yet?”

  Marisol’s eyes snapped up to met mine then. They were shocked and questioning. She had no clue Jamie was still gone. “I haven’t really talked to Jamie for a couple weeks. She’s mad at me.” She chewed on a fingernail that had already been bitten down to the quick before she glanced back up. “She really hasn’t been home yet? I thought she just needed some time or something.”

  Wren made a noise low in his throat. I knew he wanted answers as to not only why Jamie no longer spoke to Marisol, but also why she never told anyone of their falling out. I wanted to know too, but right now we needed to find Jamie.

  “Any clue where Jamie might go without her car and cell phone?”

  Marisol’s eyes grew big and round in her head. “Oh my God, she really did it,” she hissed out.

  “Did what, exactly?” I damn near shouted.

  Fear etched into the groves of Marisol’s forehead then. “She um, well back when you walked off with the whores, after her father announced you were claiming her, she came up with a plan. Her grandparents left her some money. It became hers on her eighteenth birthday. She planned to leave everything behind and get lost.”

  “She talk about this plan recently?”

  “No. You two had worked things out,” the girl winced. Something wasn’t right with what she was telling me.

  “I want the truth,” I said evenly.

  “Everything was good with you guys two weeks ago, but I haven’t heard from her since she got mad at me.”

  “Why was she mad at you?”

  “None of your business,” Marisol replied tartly.

  “Wrong! We’re trying to find her because she’s not safe. Now, why was she mad?”

  “I tried convincing her again to come away to UCLA with me like we had planned before.”

  “You’re telling me Jamie Murdock got so pissed because you tried to convince her to go away to college that she hasn’t spoken to you in two weeks?” Marisol only nodded, no verbal answer. “I’m finding that really hard to believe.”

  “What did you do to try to convince her?” Wren asked. His question was laced with suspicion. Marisol locked her lips up tight and refused to answer. “If I find out whatever you did caused her to haul ass, we will come back for you.” Wren turned to leave, but stopped short to look back at the girl. “And Marisol, there aren’t enough miles in this world to keep the club from getting to you.”

  I was almost at a loss about the fact that jovial, fun-loving Wren had just threatened a teenage girl. Then again, it was obvious she was withholding information about Jamie.

  “I just wanted her to come away with me to college. That was our plan all along until you came around.” She seethed her words at me.

  “Yeah?” I moved in closer. “Well shit changes and life rarely works out the way we plan. How’d it work out for you? Seems whatever you attempted backfired in a huge way.” That shut her up. “You won’t be going to your fancy college in California either.” I told her bluntly.

  An indignant laugh bubbled up from her. “You can’t stop me. I’ve already been accepted and it’s paid for.”

  “You want to go? You tell us the truth. Otherwise, I’ll personally make sure there’s no way UCLA will take you. If you keep pissing me off no college ever will.”

  “Your MC may be tough shit here, but even you can’t change things with my college. Now, get out of my house.” Before we could move she was screaming for her mother. Unfortunately for Marisol, her mother had been right outside her door eavesdropping.

  “Is Jamie really in danger?” The woman asked.

  I nodded my head, but Wren answered her. “If one of the club’s enemies finds out she’s out there on her own,” he swallowed visibly. “We already found her car abandoned near WVU. We aren’t sure if she left it there or if…”

  The woman wiped a tear from her cheek. “Marisol?” The pitch of her voice had gone up. “What have you done?”

  “What?” The girl cried out. “Momma, they’re threatening me.”

  “And it seems you’ve done far worse than make idle threats. What did you do to Jamie?” Marisol’s mouth hung open in disbelief.

  “Seriously? You too? My own mom?” She kept shouting the questions. “It’s always about Jamie! I’m so tired of everyone falling all over themselves about her.”

  “Funny thing to say coming from the person who tried to sabotage Jamie into coming to school with you. If you’re so tired of living in her shadow why wouldn’t you be happy about jumping into college without her?” Wren moved closer. Marisol’s mouth snapped tightly closed again as she ground down on her molars. “Still nothing?” He looked around and noticed Marisol’s packed bags, then turned to her mom. “I’ll make sure you get your money back, but she’s not going anywhere until we find out what she did and where Jamie is.”

  Marisol started laughing then as she looked right at me. “It didn’t take much. I’ve been her friend almost as long as Quickshot has. She trusted me, and thanks to your past behavior, you made it too easy for her to believe me.”

  “To believe what?” I yelled the question, all semblance of calm or control gone in that moment. I felt the anxiety bubble back up in my gut.

  “That you were with someone else. I had lots of details for her, so she had to believe me.”

  I turned to Wren then, having heard enough. “Do whatever you need to, man.” Then I pointed at Marisol. “If Jamie is gone because of this shit, she will never see another happy day in her life.” I turned and left for the truck while Wren said something to Marisol’s mom. By the time he joined me in the truck we could hear the screaming from inside the house. We sat listening a few minutes until everything went quiet inside.

  “This is my fault,” I finally said.

  “No, it sounds like it’s hers,” he tipped his head toward the house in front of us.

  “Yeah, but I planted that doubt. If it hadn’t already been there…”

  “Why’d you do it? Back when Ghost announced you two, why’d you leave with the club whores?”

  I huffed out a humorless laugh. “Ironically enough, because just before Ghost made the announcement I heard Jamie talking about going to UCLA and a partial scholarship she was able to try for. It would have paid for half of her tuition. She was so excited, man. I knew then that Ghost hadn’t talked to her about things. It was my way of making sure she had a choice. Funny how things work out.”

  “Damn. You never told her why?”

  I shook my head and explained to Wren about the deal I made with Ghost to make sure Jamie went to college where she chose to go. He listened and shook his head. “All this shit was avoidable. If her mom were here, she’d kill Ghost for this shit. Hell, for so much more than just this mess.” I glance
d at Wren out of the corner of my eye before I pulled the truck out and took off for the clubhouse.

  “You don’t want to know what Marisol told her?” Wren asked as we drove down the road headed for the highway. I just shook my head. “It’s not going to matter now. Jamie’s gone, and apparently she had enough money to run with.” I sat quietly for a few moments. “I just don’t know what we’re supposed to do now,” I told him, feeling completely lost.

  “We’ll find her. I promise. We can start by trying to find out about the money. There has to be a trail, maybe Quickshot can find a way to follow it.”

  ~*~ Present Day ~*~

  “I hid the money trail pretty well just in case my dad found out about it,” I told him. He nodded.

  “Quickshot said that’s probably what happened. He found the initial account, but lost the trail after it splintered a few times.

  “So, she really did lie about it then,” I sighed.

  “Why, Jamie? Why did you believe her?” Sweet asked me with a voice laden in sheer desperation.

  “She knew all about your apartment,” I told him. “She knew what your bedroom and guest bedroom looked like. She told me all about how you took her virginity in the guest room so you wouldn’t mess up your regular sheets. She told me all about everything in great detail.” I explained to him.

  He just appeared puzzled. “I don’t get that. She was never in my apartment for any reason, certainly never because I was fucking her.” He spat the last few words out, though the anger in them wasn’t directed at me.

  “Quickshot filled me in on a little something before you came back tonight. He told me about a night when you guys were out together and a prospect named Manic had been at your apartment when you guys got back.” I filled him in on the rest of Quick had told me about that night, and how the timeline added up to when Marisol told me that she had been with Sweet.

  “I still don’t get why you would believe her. I mean, she knew what I meant to you, and you had to see that as a betrayal, Jamie.”