Maggie took a deep breath and let that worry slip off the very full plate in her mind. “Thank you, Henry. Can we talk in private for a minute?”
Henry put out an arm to lead Maggie through the group and upstairs to the conference room. Maggie could feel eyes on her as she walked up the stairs, but she didn’t dare look down.
Doors closed, Maggie handed Henry the black burner phone. “I found this in that box of things Julie brought down. I don’t know exactly who it belongs to, but it has to be one of them. They must have left it in my apartment.” He took it from her and she shrugged. “Might be useless, but…”
“Better safe than sorry,” said Henry as he gave it a short inspection. He put it into his cut pocket. “I’ll get someone on it.”
There was a small, awkward silence.
Maggie swallowed against a tight throat. She said, “I’m sorry about all this, Henry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I just tried to do the best I could.”
Henry coughed and looked away. He became suddenly interested in the conference table, sweeping a hand over its glossy surface. Maggie scratched her neck in discomfort. “I feel… I feel like I’m cursed,” she said. “Like I destroy anyone who gets too close to me.” The laugh that came from her throat was harsh and bitter. “Julie couldn’t even bring down a box of stuff without getting in a gunfight, for Christ’s sake.”
Henry perked up when she said the word ‘cursed’, and in a dark way. Something flashed in his eyes she had never seen before. “You’re not cursed, Maggie. Don’t you ever say that.”
“Then what am I?” said Maggie. Part of her truly wanted an answer. “If I had stayed here, and stayed on the path I was… the path with Jase…. I would have hurt you. You didn’t want me in this world. So I left, which apparently hurt everyone, anyway. I fuck up my life in Eagleton and leave, and I come back here with a whole new round of pain for everyone. I drag Julie down here into it with me. I just….” Overwhelmed, she stopped and shook her head. “I don’t know where I belong, Henry. I set everything around me on fire.” She realized she had a hand in her pocket, palming her mother’s rosary for comfort.
Henry let out a big sigh. “You sound like your mother.”
Maggie scoffed. Henry didn’t talk about Sara much, and Maggie had grown bitter about his selfishness with the memories. “Do I? Is this a family curse, then?”
A small smile appeared on Henry’s lips, but not in his eyes. “Not from her, no. If there’s one of us cursed, it’s me for having lost her.” He looked up at Maggie. “Your mother felt like she set everything on fire, too. And she did, in a way. She wasn’t from this world, you know, where she ended up. Next to me. But she burned her way into it anyway.”
Maggie knew her face looked angry, but her eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t remember ever hearing her father talk this way about Sara. “What are you saying, Henry?”
After being lost in his thoughts for a few moments, Henry waved a dismissive hand. “I’m just saying some people burn bright, and it’s not always a bad thing. It’s not a curse. You just have to find hands that can handle you.”
Maggie fell silent, staring at her father. She couldn’t remember the last time he had ever made even a passing acknowledgment at her as anything more than an obstacle in his way. She almost felt overwhelmed.
He cleared his throat. “And anyway, this particular fire, it’s not your fault. This dickhead ex of yours could have let you go and stayed in Eagleton, but he didn’t. Don’t ever say you’re cursed.”
She could only nod with her gaze on the ground.
“Things will smooth out. I’ll make sure of it,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Now, could you do me a favor and send Jase in here?”
At this point, all Maggie could do was let out a soft, sardonic chuckle. I thought you said I wasn’t cursed. “Yeah. I’ll go get him.” Without another word, she opened the conference room door and headed down the stairs. Jase had not moved from his place with Will beside the jukebox, and he seemed startled when she walked up to him.
“Hi,” said Jase, as if on impulse.
“Hi,” said Maggie. She couldn’t look him in the face. Her gaze only made it as high as his broad shoulders—and even then, all she could imagine was the sight of them naked and moving over her. She cleared her throat and thumbed behind her. “Henry wants to see you.”
Jase seemed grateful, like he thought she was going to rip into a private talk right here, in front of Will and everybody. He put his coffee mug down on a table and brushed past her on the way up to the conference. She felt a jolt run through her heart when they touched.
“Have you fixed that, yet?”
Maggie turned at the soft sound of Will’s voice behind her. He shot a gaze up to Jase on the stairs and back down at her.
Words got stuck in Maggie’s throat. Did she trust Will enough to talk to him about this? She was splitting at the seams, holding the weight of this stress inside. “If by ‘fixed’, you mean ‘firebombed’, then yeah.”
Will gave her a lopsided smile, almost a laugh. “You can’t blow up what’s going on here. I think it’s bigger than that.”
“Yeah, well, not for lack of trying…”
“Why would you try to ruin it?”
She looked up and gave Will a sarcastic expression. “C’mon Will, you were there before I left.”
“That doesn’t mean I saw what you saw,” said Will.
Maggie huffed and crossed her arms. “Well, what I saw was how quick things started to fall apart for everyone as soon as Jase and I became more than friends. Henry kept getting so mad at him, kept making sure he was always on jobs for the MC. Life at home was hell. It was like the only quiet times were when Jase and I could take off on his bike and go somewhere away from all of it,” said Maggie. She leaned against the jukebox, suddenly filled with sadness. “He loves this goddamn club so much. He tried so hard to make Henry and me happy at the same time. It wasn’t fair to him.”
“It sounds like he did make you happy.”
Maggie couldn’t answer that. She paused, then said, “What did Henry think was gonna happen, anyway, you know? I’m not saying he shouldn’t have saved Jase and his mom the way he did. And I was glad to have other people, other kids around to connect with when he always seemed so far. But did Henry think our friendship was just going to… go away as we got older? After a decade of being each other’s best friend?”
Will leaned a little closer, speaking quieter. “I don’t think Henry ever gave any serious thought to you growing up at all, Maggie. I think he’s been in denial about that since you were born.”
“So you think he’s a self-absorbed asshole, too, huh?”
Will smiled. “I think he’s doing the best he can without your mom’s help. The thing about Henry is, he loves both you and Jase. Truly. But you both inhabit different worlds for him, worlds he wants to keep apart. For him, you two finding happiness in each other is the final end of that separation.”
Maggie listened intently. Will’s words made a deep sort of sense and she felt a calm slipping through her veins.
“You should find your happiness and trust your dad will follow,” said Will with a gentle squeeze of her shoulder. “Just don’t tell him that I’m the one who suggested it.”
When she laughed, he winked at her and moved through the growing crowd back towards the bar. Jase and Henry had emerged a few minutes before and come down to join the group and the president was handing out orders for the day and updating them on the hunt. Maggie faded in and out of attention on the speech, until he was speaking to her.
“Maggie, you’ll be here today, and you’re not to leave for anything. No exceptions. Don’t even go out front with a smoke; have Tommy take you out back. We’ll return before sundown.”
“Wait, Tommy?” said Maggie before she could stop herself. She looked at Jase standing next to Henry, but Jase wouldn’t look at her.
“Tommy and Ghost will be your detail today. They�
�re staying here at the clubhouse,” said Henry as he gestured to them in the crowd. “Let’s move out, boys.” The meeting broke in a flurry of movement and conversation. Coffee cups clinked as they were stacked in messy rows on the bar.
Maggie stared at Jase as she digested her father’s words. Jase had been removed from her protection. Had he requested it? Could he not stand the sight of her, after last night? She felt a pang in her gut and suddenly wished she hadn’t waited to speak with him about it, like a coward. She shouldn’t have even left the den without giving him an explanation. He had to be in so much pain.
Jase moved through the crowd following Henry. He didn’t speak or even look at her. Maggie tried to think of something to say in that moment, some way to get an answer to what was going on, but all she could think about was the pain swirling in her chest like a building storm.
She followed to watch Jase and the rest of the departing boys head down the hallway and out the front door. And then he was gone, just another engine roaring down the drive.
~ TWELVE ~
The sex the night before had done wonders for clearing Jase’s head. Part of him felt like a brand new man. The other part of him, however, felt like shit run over twice. Even though he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, he knew Maggie was giving him that hang-dog expression once she realized he wasn’t guarding her that day. He didn’t get any joy out of knowing her feelings were hurt, but at least they were in the same boat, now.
Henry had been the one to remove him from Maggie’s detail. The change in position filled Jase with shame. He didn’t even have to wonder why it was happening; Henry had a roster of reasons to do it. He’d caught no clues on the shooting at Hot Tamales. Maggie was attacked in broad daylight and Jase couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. And, even if Henry didn’t know it, now Jase and Maggie had… well, compromised things. At least, that was how Jase felt: compromised. Vulnerable. Tied up to endure the worst of the wind. He hadn’t argued, because part of him thought he deserved it, and the other part of him was glad to have a day away from Maggie.
Well, away from her body, at least, Jase thought, catching a whiff of himself as he followed Henry, Beck, and Drake into Dot’s Diner. After Maggie had left him standing literally with his dick out in the den, Jase had gotten dressed and spent the night hunkered over the bar, finishing off what was left of the whiskey they had found. His heart was a wounded lion, bleeding out in the tall grass. For those few minutes on the pool table, in her arms, everything had been put back the way it was supposed to be. But after, he felt colder than he had ever been.
He must have dozed off at the bar at some point in the night. He woke up with a start when members started showing up for the briefing. After that, he didn’t seem to have another free moment. Showering hadn’t even been on the map. He could smell his own sweat, but worse than that, he could still smell Maggie. Her perfume hung around his shirt and cut like a delicate ghost.
Jase hung back to take a seat on the far end of the dining table where the boys took their places. They ordered coffee for themselves, and offered Ned Tunstall, the man they were there to meet with, whatever he wanted. Ned picked a giant breakfast combo with pancakes, sausage, hash browns, the works. Henry made light chat with him while they waited for the breakfast to arrive, knowing well that the waitress had shoved it to the front of cook’s line. The MC’s men took refills on coffee as Ned dug into his breakfast.
After he was halfway through, Henry got to the meat of the matter. “Ned, I gotta ask you. Now, I know this is a delicate matter…” Jase sipped his coffee and listened to Henry work, “but it’s a very important, very personal matter which brings us here today. It’s something I need your help on.”
Ned was a civilian. He owned a local mechanic’s shop that the MC used sometimes in a pinch. He seemed a little wary of this lop-sided meeting, which is why Henry had insisted it be at Dot’s. He wanted to intimidate Ned, but had no intention of hurting him, and a public meeting was the perfect way to bridge that divide. Still, he seemed to take a good long time chewing up his eggs before he answered. “Is this about Hot Tamales?”
“We have it on good authority that you were there the night of the shooting,” said Henry with a nod.
Ned nodded. “I was.” He shoved a bite of pancakes in his mouth, and then looked around suspiciously. “But Gloria don’t know that.”
“And she won’t learn it from us.”
Ned ran his tongue over his teeth and nodded. “I don’t remember a whole lot, Henry, and what I did remember I already told to Sheriff Stewart.” Syrup ran down his chin in a tiny little river.
As Jase watched Ned eating, eyeballing the men like he thought they might rip away his breakfast, he thought of the old line Henry used to tell him: There are predators, and there are sheep, Jase. Some people never realize which one they are.
“Look, we’re following a good lead trying to find these assholes,” said Henry. “But we think they might be the same fuckers who shot up that house yesterday morning.”
“Oh, Christ…” said Ned with genuine shock. “You really think?”
“Remember back at the roadhouse, Ned. Now, some of the other witnesses have told us and the sheriff that the shooters were looking for something, but they didn’t know what. No one ever asked for money, or jewelry, or hell, even keys to the rigs outside. Do you have any idea what they were after?”
Ned swallowed the bite in his mouth and pursed his brow. After a few seconds he said, “No, I didn’t hear them say anything. I mean, I heard voices—lots of voices, yelling, screaming….” He shoveled a bite of yolk-covered hash browns into his mouth. “But I didn’t hear any words, you know? That gunfire was just so loud… doc says my ears’ll still be ringing for a month.”
Henry nodded, disappointed. “Some people who were there said it looked like the shooters might have been targeting bikers in cuts. Like whatever they were looking for was with the bikers. Know anything about that?”
“No, no…” said Ned, the gears in his head clearly turning. As he cut up more of his pancakes, he said, “I remember seeing a few different clubs there that night. I mean, if they were looking for bikers, that was the place to be.”
“Right,” said Henry. “Had a few Black Dogs there, we know.”
“Yep, there was you guys, there was a few Gladiators, couple of Fangs… and, you know, come to think of it…” Ned shifted in his chair to sit up straight and lean across the table towards Henry. “Come to think of it, Henry, there was something odd I noticed with the bikers.”
“Oh?” said Henry. “What’s that?” Jase put down his coffee cup and listened intently.
“The Rebel Cross boys took off, just disappeared.”
Henry looked down the table at Jase, who shrugged back at him. Beck and Drake had nothing to offer. “What do you mean?” said Henry. “We haven’t heard anything about any Crosses being there that night.”
“Well, they weren’t, not during the shooting,” said Ned. He took a few big gulps of coffee, and then started using his index finger like a pointer on the table while he talked. “But a few of them were hanging out at the table just across the way from where me and the guys from the quarry had posted up. I remember noticing because Blake was with us, and for a minute I was worried we were gonna need to find a new place to sit if they decided to hassle us.”
Henry said, “I take it Blake is not a white man.”
Ned gave a big shake of his head, his expression sour. “And I ain’t seen any trouble like that at the roadhouse for a while, but you never know when those boys get drunk. Anyway, I kept an eye on them for a good little while, as you understand. A couple of pitchers go by, though, and I realize I’ve loosened up and stopped worrying about them for at least a few minutes, because when I look over again, the table’s empty. Two half-pitchers still sittin’ there, untouched, and I didn’t even notice them leave. In fact I’m pretty sure Johnny might have stolen them at some point for our table.”
The Reb
el Cross was a white supremacist MC. Their chapters had been run out of LeBeau and Howlett a while ago, but they still held chapters on either side of the mountain pass and made frequent stops out of both towns. The Black Dogs made it very clear where they stood on the issue of having any Crosses in town, and most passed through quickly and quietly, submissive to the Black Dogs. The Crosses were not popular, and the Dogs outnumbered them in chapters and men.
“They could have just moved tables to get away from your friend,” said Beck.
“Maybe,” said Ned with a shrug. “Like I said, I didn’t see them again. The shooting happened maybe less than an hour after that.”
“Do you remember anything else significant?” asked Henry.
Ned shook his head. “No, not really. Sorry Henry, I don’t like this violence any more than you do. I wish I had more to give you.” He looked around the diner and then asked quietly. “Should- should I be worried about becoming a target?”
Sanctum: A Motorcycle Club Romance Novel Page 11
