Nancy stared at him for a long beat. “You’re doing it all because I’ve had to visit that depressing place once a year every year to renew the lease. You think your nightmares are bad? Try physically walking into them once a year and being reminded of every little detail.”
“Hang on, who told you I was having nightmares?”
“Like you have to ask,” she huffed, turning to leave through the front door. “Let’s get this over with.”
Axe followed her outside. “I don’t even know why you hung on to Mom and Dad’s stuff for all this time. You should have just gotten rid of it. We don’t need the reminder. I sure don’t. And you’re not hard up for money.”
She stopped in the middle of the driveway and spun around. Tears were in her eyes. “They’re still our parents, Alexander,” she cried. “They may be gone, but that’s all we have left of them. You can’t just fixate on the night we lost them, you know? What about all the years before that?”
Axe was beside her and had his arms around her shoulders that very instant. “Come on, don’t cry,” he begged, rubbing down the side of her arm to console her. He leaned Nancy’s head on his side. “You know I can’t take it when you make that little whimpering sound…or that choking noise…oh God, the sputtering too,” he half-joked. “Awww crap, now you’re humming like a beached whale.”
“Stop that, you little shit,” she whined. His comment got him a punch in the chest, but at least her crying had turned into a gurgle-like laugh. “Okay, let’s go.”
“No. You stay here,” Axe told her. “You’re right. You’ve had to deal with this on your own for far too long. Just give me the address and locker key. I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t think so, brother dearest. Let’s do something together for a change.” She walked around to her Ferrari California T convertible. “Get in.”
“One sec.” Axe unlocked his bullet-riddled truck and dragged out a wad of napkins from the glove compartment. “Here,” he offered as he jumped into the passenger side of her car. “Your mascara’s running, and there’s a bit of snot smeared on your cheek. Not pretty at all.”
Nancy smiled, but snatched the napkins from his fingers. “Awww, how sweet and tactless all at the same time.” She flipped the sunshade down and checked her facial cleanup effort in the mirror before starting the car. “I’m glad to see you haven’t changed a bit, big brother.”
“Where’s the locker?” he asked as she reversed into the street.
“About twenty miles up the highway.”
Axe stared out the window. “Any chance we can open this baby up?”
Nancy turned onto the main street and fish-tailed the sports car as she sped up. “You mean like that?”
He smiled. “Uh huh.”
They were on the highway within minute. During the short drive, they sat in silence. Axe could just sense the questions forming in Nancy’s head. He knew that familiar expression that flitted across her face and quickly disappeared. After a while, she glanced over at him. “So... you and Angel, huh?”
“Sorry, what?” He wasn’t expecting that question. “Oh. Yeah well, we’re getting to know each other.”
“Bullshit.”
“Really, we’re not serious.”
“I was born at night, Alexander. Not last night. Any shifter who knows you can see she’s your true mate.”
Axe laughed.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ve barely been under your roof for a day and you’re playing matchmaker,” he pointed out with a smirk. Nancy stared over at him. “Keep those eyes on the road, sis.”
She shook her head and turned her head to face forward again. “Well I hope you don’t let her slip away just because I like her.”
“There it is. You approve. Bring out the bubbly then. Big brother’s getting hitched!” he announced, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“You’re a cynical assclown sometimes.”
“Thanks, Mom,” he answered, just to provoke her. “This is exactly what I needed this morning. A hefty dose of sibling bickering.”
His sister was miffed now, and taking it out on her stick shift. She accelerated, pulled out on the one-lane stretch of highway into oncoming traffic to get out from behind a slow as fuck minivan driver, and merged back into the right lane. She flipped on her indicator light and turned off the highway less than a minute later. “The building’s a few blocks from here.”
After parking in a nearby lot, he and Nancy headed up the street to the large warehouse. She nodded to the middle-aged man working at the front desk, and he buzzed them into the long, wide, fluorescent-lit hallway lined with metal doors large enough to drive a moving truck inside. She led him to the end of the corridor and stepped into a waiting warehouse-style elevator.
“It’s on the second floor,” she choked out, already upset again.
He reached his hand out and found hers. “Are you sure you want to do this right now?”
“Yes. We need this.” She took a breath and straightened up to get off the elevator. “The best way to get this done quickly is for you to go in and decide what you want. Once you figure that out, I’ll help you clear a bit of space upfront so that once everything has settled down, you can come back to haul them away.”
“I can pretty much guarantee you there’s nothing in there that’ll leap out at me,” Axe said as he followed her. Nancy opened her mouth to speak at the storage room door, but he beat her to it. “Don’t stress out, all right? I’ll check through everything before I decide.”
“Fine.” She found the key, placed it into the locking mechanism, then she stopped. “Are you ready?” she asked looking up into his face.
“Nope, but let’s do this. One and done.”
Three hours later, Axe was still sorting. Fuck. No wonder Nancy hadn’t gotten rid of a thing. How could anyone let these thing go? He sure couldn’t. All he had managed to do was move things around. The massive locker contained furniture, photos, clothes, keepsakes, trinkets, and even trophies from grade school sports.
“I am not helping, am I?” Axe huffed out, wiping the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He sat on the piece of sectional sofa he had just moved and slumped back to rest his head.
Nancy smiled and sat beside him. They both stared at the semi-transparent plastic containers stacked on the dusty shelving unit against one wall. “I don’t know. I kind of like the sofa here in the center of everything.”
“How about I pay for the next, I don’t know, say fifteen years of the storage lease, and call it even?”
“Nice try.”
A blue and white porcelain oriental vase in one of the containers caught his eye. “Wait. Is that Mom’s prized flower vase?” he asked, getting up to check the box. “It is. Remember how Dad used to hate that thing?”
Nancy nodded. “Yes. He’d bring her flowers, and she would only use this particular one, which would get them bickering every time.”
Axe snapped open the box lid and lifted out the vase. “For some reason, Dad hated it.”
“And they’d go all quiet and cuddly after their little tiffs,” Nancy added.
“Maybe I’ll take this home with me when this is all over. It’s strange…”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t remind me of that night, I guess. You know, for porcelain, this thing is damn heavy.” He turned the vase upside down to check whether the manufacturing stamp looked mass produced or more like a one-of-a-kind. Something clinked around inside, but didn’t fall out. “Hey, listen to this.” He shook it around. Something metal was definitely inside. “I think this thing has a trick bottom. Here. You try.”
Nancy came to his side and took the vase in two hands. She shook it around, then she looked inside, turned it upside down, and shook it again. “You’re right.” She passed it back to him. “Weird.”
Axe ran his hand along the edges, feeling for a groove or some sign of another opening. “I don’t know how they did this.”
>
“Wait, let me try something.” She took the vase again. “My hands are smaller,” she said, hugging it with one arm and slipping the other hand inside. “I’m totally gonna break this if my hand gets stuck.”
“No you won’t. I’ve got WD-40 in my truck if that happens.”
Her eyes lit up just then. “I feel something.”
Nancy lifted out the false bottom. She passed it to him, then lifted out a key. “What the hell?” she exclaimed, dangling it on the keyring that held it.
“That looks like it’s for a safety deposit box.” Axe took it and checked the tiny emblem etched at the top. “I know this bank. It’s the Costa Verde Savings and Loan. Do you remember that bank in town?”
“I think so. Do you think the box is still in Dad’s name?”
“Only one way to find out. He or Mom went to a lot a trouble to hide this key. Do you feel like taking a drive? But we’ve gotta stop for some coffee.”
She grabbed her purse near the front and pulled out the locker key. “You lock up and I’ll bring the car around.”
24
Axe
“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” Axe asked, climbed out of the driver seat. He looked down the sleepy main street of their hometown from all those years ago. “Hardly anything’s changed.”
Nancy stepped outside and smoothed out her suit jacket. “I’m surprised this place isn’t a ghost town by now.”
They strode toward the front entrance of Costa Verde Savings and Loans. “This bank’s probably the only thing keeping it alive.”
“I just hope this key is enough to get us access,” Nancy muttered as they entered. “We don’t even know whose name the box is in. If there’s still a box.”
“We’ll find out.” Axe looked around the stylish, modern interior of the bank. He glanced down at his leather cut, t-shirt and jeans, then he checked what his sister wore. Nancy fit right in here. He, not so much.
“Good morning. How can I help you?” one of the tellers greeted them from behind the security glass at her station.
Axe cleared his throat, aware of how out of place he looked, but didn’t give a damn at this point. “We’re here about a safety deposit box one of our parents owned.”
The teller nodded. “May I see the key?”
“Sure,” Nancy answered, taking it from the side pocket of her purse. She passed it through the opening in the security glass.
“And what are your parents’ names?”
“Natalie and Alain Voltaire,” Nancy told them. “I’ll write it down as their names have a French spelling.”
“Thank you. I’ll check for you.”
The teller took the key and written names to a coworker sitting at his desk in an inner office. After a brief chat, the man checked something on his computer, then nodded to the teller.
She returned to them with a smile on her face. “If you’ll both just show me a piece of identification confirming that you are Nancy Voltaire and Alexander Voltaire, I’d be happy to take you to open the box.” The teller accepted their driver's licenses and Nancy’s proof of name change. “Follow me.”
She led them past a security guard and around a corner into the open bank vault. With a gesture, the teller pointed to a small private viewing room. “If you’ll have a seat in there, I’ll bring you the box.”
Axe and Nancy took a seat facing the door.
“Are you nervous about what’s inside?” Nancy asked him.
“I’d say more curious than anything.”
“Maybe it’s… ahhh, who knows.” She leaned back in her chair and they waited.
The teller returned a few minutes later and placed a large strongbox on the table. “Thanks for your patience. This is it.” She turned the key on the side but left the lid down. “I’ll leave you to it. Let me know when you’re finished.”
Axe opened the lid when they were alone again. “Okay, well it’s not wads and wads of cash, or a secret insurance policy we didn’t know about,” he said, lifting out an index card folded in two. “That’s all?”
Nancy leaned forward. “What’s on it?”
Axe opened it and almost fell out of his chair from the shock of it. The four names scribbled out were bad enough, but they were written in Mom’s handwriting, not Dad’s. His shaking hand passed it over to Nancy. “Jesus fuck. What the hell was Mom into?” he asked.
He got to his feet and started pacing as he ran agitated hands over his head, gripping his hair by the fistful.
“What?” Nancy shrieked after her eyes scanned the words and poured over them. She snapped her head up to Axe so fast that her bangs whipped off her face from the jolt. “But…I don’t understand. Why did Mom have a list with these names?”
He could hardly contain himself. The four names seemed to have blazed onto the back of his eyelids and his vision.
Director Joseph Adam Riley, Nevada Department of Public Safety
Keith Jackson
Vincent Belmont
Colonel Arthur Travis
“I don’t know, but we can ask at least one of them what the fuck is going on as soon as we make it back to your house.” Axe snatched the card and slammed the safety deposit box lid shut. Forcing himself to focus, he did his best not to panic. “Let’s get some answers.”
“Wait. Can we ask Kade and Keith to meet us away from the house?” Nancy asked, following him outside. “I don’t want things getting ugly in front of the kids.”
“Fine. Tell him where we are. He can meet us at the diner across the street while I ingest an insane amount of coffee.”
Axe stretched out in the back corner booth of the bistro Nancy had picked out. He may have been stretching, but he was in no way relaxed. Why would Mom have put these four names together, locked them in a bank vault, and hidden the key in the secret compartment of a vase? She could have written this down days, weeks or even years before she and Dad were violently murdered in their own home. It had to be big.
“Kade’s old man better have some answers,” he told Nancy.
Axe couldn’t wait to hear what his brother-in-law and panther president had to say about his father’s name, Keith Jackson, being on the list. Kade was unlucky in a way. He was low-hanging fruit, the closest and easiest person to tackle today. Axe would see Vincent pretty soon, so he was probably next. The former Director Riley was now Nevada State Governor Riley. Even he was accessible. His son, Addison Riley, was Sabrina’s best friend, and happened to be the same Addison they had rescued from the panther jail all those long months ago. The only person on the list he had no idea how they’d access was for former Colonel Travis. Today, he was General Travis, and from Axe’s knowledge, they had no common contacts, family, friends or associates. Not that he knew of, anyway.
“Are you sure we can do this in here?” Nancy asked.
“Why not? You picked the place. Plus the coffee’s pretty good.”
“I’m just worried that…promise me you won’t lose it in here, all right?”
“We can chat in his truck if you prefer. That will be completely private.”
“You’re probably right,” Nancy choked out.
Axe reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. “Hey. He’s the one who’s got to explain himself. You have no reason at all to be nervous.”
“Really Alexander?” She pulled her arm away. “The grandfather of my children could have had something to do with Mom and Dad’s deaths. And Vincent too. Somehow, Mom knew something that connected the four of them. No matter what he says, our lives are forever changed because of that list.”
Axe agreed with her wholeheartedly, but the last thing he wanted to do was freak her out more. “Are you sure I’m the one you’re worried about? Because from where I’m sitting, he owes you a heck of a lot more than he does me. In any case, they’ll be here soon. Let’s try to reserve judgment, okay?”
Speak of the devil, Kade waved from the front door minutes later, motioning for them to meet him outside. Axe finished his cup of c
offee, helped Nancy to her feet, and they joined Kade. No one spoke. Nancy couldn’t even look at her husband at first. She always got quiet before she unleashed her wrath, and fuck, did she ever know how to raise hell. All the designer outfits, shoes and handbags in the world couldn’t take the beast out of his sister.
They followed Kade to the side of the building where two black SUVs were waiting. Nancy was giving him the evil eye the entire way.
“Pops is here,” Kade said, pointing to one vehicle. He spun around to face Nancy. “I took the kids to stay with my mother, and left some of the boys to keep watch. So what’s this about, honey?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
“Don’t even try to act like you’re innocent,” Nancy shouted. She backed away and folded her arms over her chest so he wouldn’t touch her. “You know something. I can see it all over your face, and there’s no way your father would willingly show up today on just what I said over the phone. Tell me, what does he know about my parents’ death?”
Kade’s eyes darted all over the place. He walked over to the wall and leaned on it, almost doubled over with his hands on his knees as though he would puke.
“Dude, you’d better start talking, because right now you’re looking real sketchy,” Axe said. “And guilty.”
Kade lifted his head. “Nancy, you need to know that I had no idea about any of this until today when I picked him up from their house.”
“What did he tell you?”
“Any day now,” Axe growled when Kade took his sweet time to explain. “You’re upsetting the mother of your kids…and the one she’s carrying. Talk.”
Kade took some effort to straighten up. “Let’s just speak to Pops. He can start from the beginning.” He tried to put his arms around Nancy again, but she wasn’t having it.
Axe gave a less than polite nod to the four bodyguards Kade had brought along in the second SUV. One of them opened the rear door of the vehicle Kade’s father sat in. Axe jumped in beside him. Nancy took the front passenger seat and Kade took the driver seat.
Bruised MC Bear (Beartooth Brotherhood MC Book 3) Page 14
