by Mia Malone
I just didn’t tell him I wanted it to last a very, very long time.
“But –” Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the delivery van turning the corner and parking next to us. “Can you handle the delivery?” he asked instead. “Gotta do a couple of things over at Oak.”
I told him I would and watched him pull out his phone as he walked away.
After the delivery, I dealt with the diner but then I decided to go for a run. In the afternoon. I couldn’t remember when that had happened before, but with Lee helping out with the baking and Annie taking some of the shifts, my workload had decreased, and I had time to do things just to enjoy myself. Like running in the afternoon instead of in the morning.
When I was about to leave, my phone signaled that I was low on battery. I swore a little because I liked listening to music while I ran, but it wasn't the end of the world. I'd read too many stories about runners twisting ankles or knees and not having their phones to call for help, though. I always had my phone with me when I ran, but I'd just turn it off and zip it into the small pocket on the inside of my jacket. I could go via Paddy's place to grab the iPod from my bag in his bedroom.
I jogged up the steps to Paddy’s house and into his bedroom feeling happy. When I heard the front door open, I felt even happier. Paddy had apparently managed to get out of the office early. He still refused to run with me, but since he was there, we might find another way to work out, so I straightened and turned with a broad smile on my face.
The smile faded away when a man I didn’t recognize walked into the bedroom. I heard more steps in the kitchen but kept my eyes on the tall man walking toward me. He didn’t slow down, and then he reached me.
I fought with everything I had in me, but there were three of them, and I had no chance.
***
Padraig
Paddy closed the picnic basket he borrowed from his receptionist and hoped to God he was ready. That Jenny was ready.
Joke had called, told him they needed to talk, that he’d show up at the office, and that coffee would be appreciated. Then he’d hung up. Paddy wondered what had crawled up Joke’s ass and hoped it didn’t have to do with the fight he and Annie had over dinner the other night. Jenny hadn’t been involved much in it, so he didn’t think so, but that was the only thing he could come up with.
Annie had calmly informed him, Jenny, and Cal that she would start looking for somewhere to live now that Doug told them her stalker returned his rental car at the airport and seemed to have left the state.
Jenny said it was a great idea, but both Cal and Paddy protested which resulted in what could only be described as an incredibly heated argument. Cal's reasons were pretty clear, even if he didn't spell them out. He wanted Annie to move in with him. Paddy hadn't spelled his own reasons out either, but he'd thought Annie might want to move into Jenny's small house. Provided that Jenny wanted to move in with him, of course, which he hadn't asked her about, and wasn't going to do in front of his daughter and her boyfriend. It was also way too soon to bring that up. They’d been a couple for a few weeks only, and she had still not unpacked the damned bag she kept on the floor in his bedroom.
The fight ended with him and Cal making Annie promise to wait another month before she started looking, and Paddy promising to use his contacts to help her find something when the time was up. Jenny had been annoyed with him and Cal and told them Annie was a grown woman who could live wherever she wanted, but she hadn’t seemed upset afterwards.
“You can’t ask any questions because I can’t answer,” Joke said as he walked in, grabbed a cup and filled it with coffee.
“What?”
“You should be clearer with Jenny about shit.”
“I repeat. What?”
“She –” Joke cut himself off, swore and started again. “You should talk to her.”
“About what?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Have you been drinking?” Paddy asked, knowing his friend hadn’t but unable to figure out what the hell he was talking about.
“No.”
They stared at each other, and then Paddy got it.
“You’ve talked to Jenny?”
“Yup.”
“And she made you promise not to tell me whatever she said.”
“Or any of the others. Said we gossip like little girls.”
The way she’d expressed herself was pretty insulting, but also pretty accurate.
“And I should talk to Jenny about…” Paddy said slowly. “My feelings?”
“Can’t say,” Joke said, but he was nodding as he spoke.
“Will she be happy if I do that?”
“I can’t say,” Joke said again, but he was still nodding in that exaggerated way.
God. Were they really doing shit this way?
“You’re sure?” Paddy asked.
“Can’t –”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Paddy muttered. “Right. Okay. I get it.”
“Good,” Joke said calmly. “See you later.”
Then he left, and Paddy stood there, staring out through the window. If he’d interpreted Joke correctly, he should tell Jenny he loved her and always had felt that way. This wasn't something to blurt out over nuked potatoes and chops, though. He'd have to figure something out which would –
Then he knew exactly what to do, which led to him borrowing a picnic basket and sending Eddie to the supermarket.
Chapter Thirteen
Padraig
He jogged up the steps to his house hoping Jenny had seen the two texts he’d sent her. He’d called the diner on his way home, but she hadn’t been there, and she hadn’t been at her house either. Joke hadn’t seen her since he left her waiting for the delivery just before lunch.
The door wasn’t locked, so he walked in shouting her name, but froze as soon as he was inside and dropped the picnic basket. Furniture was turned over and along the white wall were smears of blood.
“Annie!” he shouted and ran into his home. Had the fucking stalker returned after all? “Annie!” he roared again.
“Dad?”
He exhaled and turned toward the door. Annie, Cal, and Gibson stood there.
“Are you okay?”
“What happened here?” Gibson asked.
Oh, fuck.
“I thought that asshole was back,” Paddy said hoarsely, not willing to accept what his brain told him.
“I just got a call,” Gibson said and looked around the house with narrowed eyes. “He checked himself into a mental care facility in New York last night.”
Paddy closed his eyes and pushed out air through clenched teeth.
“Jenny,” he whispered, opened his eyes again and looked around. “Jenny!”
“Jenny?” Annie echoed.
“Cal, get her out, call Mac,” Gibson murmured, holding Paddy’s eyes.
It felt as if everything exploded in his mind, and he sank down in a crouch, afraid he’d faint. He heard Annie’s confused voice and Call murmuring something as they walked back outside. Then Gibson was crouched in front of him.
“Paddy.”
He sucked in air, raised his head and looked into his friend’s eyes, and said words he did not fucking want to say.
“Someone has taken Jenny.”
After that, mayhem ensued.
Annie and Cal went to the diner and closed it down. They came back with a white-faced Lee at the same time as Joke came running. Mac and a swarm of deputies were going through the house, so everyone else gathered on the back porch. Cal went inside, and after giving Lee's cheek a quick caress, Gibson did too.
“She doesn’t answer her phone, and they’re trying to get a trace on it. You have her passwords?” Paddy asked Joke.
“Shit, yeah,” Joke said and started fiddling with his own phone. “Looks like it was turned off right outside your house, an hour after I left her at the diner. She was low on battery.”
Paddy nodded.
“Right. She was r
unning. Always brings her phone but turned it off to save battery. Went inside for some reason, and someone was there. Or walked in after her because she’d have left the door open.”
Joke made a rasping sound and Paddy put a hand on his shoulder.
“Can you set up an alert?”
“What?”
“Let us know if she turns it on. She has it, so if she can, she’ll turn it on. Let us know where she is.” Joke blinked. “Hold it together, Joke,” Paddy said warningly. “If they wanted to kill her they’d have done it already.”
“You can’t know that,” Joke whispered.
“I have to believe that,” Paddy said. “Until we know anything at all, she is alive in my mind. And I will fight for her. You will too and so will every-fucking-body else. So…” He squeezed Joke’s shoulder gently. “Set an alert and go talk to Mac. Let him know.”
“Right.”
Paddy looked out over his garden and tried to figure out what else he could do. He seemed calm to the others because they needed him to hold on to his sanity. Everything was screaming at him to curl up in a ball and weep like a boy, but he needed them to do everything to find Jenny, so he pretended to be calm and in control. He'd talked to Doug and a few other contacts, and they were moving, either toward Wilhelmine or to find out what they could.
Someone must have seen something, he thought. There would have been cars on the road but not many, and Mrs. Baker, his neighbor… she was elderly and spent most of her time at home so she might have seen something.
Mac had already sent one of his men over to talk to her, and she was wiping her eyes when Paddy walked up to her. She hadn't seen anything strange, nothing had been out of the ordinary, and she couldn't believe what was happening to the world. He spent more time than he wanted on reassuring her they’d find Jenny. When she was calmer and had dried her tears, he got up to leave, and she mumbled something which caught his attention.
“The pipes?” he asked.
“If I hadn’t worried about something being wrong with the pipes, I might have paid more attention.”
“Why would –” He cut himself off and stared at her. “Who was here to fix my pipes, Mrs. Baker?”
“Why, Johnny B, of course. I saw his truck and went inside to make sure all my drains were working properly. Then I went out to talk to him, but he was already disappearing down the street. Turned left by the corner.”
Not wanting to scare his neighbor more than necessary, he walked slowly back to his home. Once inside, he roared for Mac to come.
“Send someone over to check on Johnny B. His van was here. Nothing wrong with my pipes, I didn't call him.”
Mac pointed at Cal who turned and left immediately. Paddy picked up his phone and called Doug to let him know what they should look for.
“We’re on it,” Doug muttered. “You holding shit together?”
“I’m good,” Paddy said. “I called a few of the other clubs, they talk to you?”
“We’ll find her.”
“Yeah,” Paddy muttered. “There’s no way this is related to Jen. It has got to do with me. My woman, my house. The clubs say they’re not involved. Muerta?”
Doug got that he wasn’t going to talk about his goddamned feelings.
“We’re going into their place in an hour. Bear and Gabe are heading your way. They’ll start tracking as soon as they get anything to go on. Everyone else is with me, and the Skulls will be here with everyone they can rally on short notice. I don’t trust the cartels on this, so I haven’t talked to them. Manny called though, talked to Howl, said they’re not involved and offered to help. Will talk to him after we’ve searched the Muerta compound.”
“Right,” Paddy said. “We’ll stay here. Won’t reach you in an hour anyway, so go in there and look around without us. They can’t be that stupid, but you’re right, we need to check. Tell Bear to liaise with Joke. I’ll give Manny a call later.” He paused and thought things through. “Day is on a plane back from Europe, but I’ll have Mac put someone on checking if anyone in Muerta owns property anywhere close.”
“We’ll find her,” Doug repeated quietly.
“Keep me posted and tell the Skulls, thanks for helping,” Paddy said, and closed the call.
Then he listened to Mac telling him how Cal had found the poor plumber bound and gagged in his office. Johnny B hadn’t seen much and could only provide a sketchy description of the men who had taken his van, but it was better than nothing.
“Doug's sending his top trackers,” Paddy said and pointed at Joke. “You'll liaise with Bear, he has your number. Get them moving. The van turned right down at the corner. Someone will have seen it so you can start asking people while we wait for them.” He swallowed and turned to Mac. “Wolves and Skulls will search the Muerta compound, but she isn’t there. They have eyes on the place, so Doug was pretty sure she isn’t. Someone owns property somewhere else, though.”
“I'll take that one,” Gibson murmured, and to Paddy's surprise, he turned to Lee. “Bethie?”
“I’ll call her,” Lee said. “Get me a list of names.”
She walked off with her phone, and Paddy watched her.
“Bethie?”
“Ex-husband’s cousin,” Gib said. “Married to the cop who was killed. Also, a tax lawyer. Easier to find out what we need from tax records than property databases, and she has connections.”
“Dad?” Annie cut in. “I’ll go back to the diner and open it up. Lee will go there too.”
“What?”
“Word has spread, and people worry. They're coming here, and Mac has a man outside just turning them away. He could do better things, and you don't need to deal with everyone, so well open the diner. We'll let people gather there, and it'll give Lee and me something to do.”
He wanted to hug her but didn’t dare to. Any kind of crack on the tight hold he had on himself meant the risk of him breaking into a million pieces, so he nodded, caressed her shoulder and watched her walk off.
Then he paced.
Joke called to share he'd traced the van's movement to the edge of town and was heading out on his bike with the Wolf-trackers. Mac walked out to share that the marks on his fucking walls were most likely consistent with wounds on an arm or shoulder and that the amount of blood wasn't alarming.
“Looks like there were two or three of them and she must have fought like a wildcat to mess shit up that way. It's a guess, but I think she got cut on some of the glass on the floor. She tried to hold on to a doorpost, and there's blood on the floor just inside the door. Looks like they had to drag her. She fought a good fight, Paddy.”
Paddy clenched his hands and nodded curtly but couldn’t get a word out. Everything inside him was screaming her name.
“The others don’t know,” Mac whispered hoarsely.
“What?”
“They don’t know what it feels like. Have no fucking clue how that ball of ice in your belly hurts like someone has cut you wide open. But I know, Paddy.”
Paddy sucked in air and held the eyes of a man who had been his friend all his life. Who had been his brother-in-law. They hadn’t talked about how Corinne and Robbie were shot in years, but he recognized the burning, angry pain in Mac’s eyes.
“We’ll find her,” he ground out, and Mac nodded.
“I never wanted one of us to ever have to feel what you feel right now, but here we are. We’ll find her. Dead or alive, but we’ll find her, and whoever did this will pay. Until we do, you hold on to that pain. Use it to keep moving, yeah?”
Paddy nodded, and then he paced his backyard some more.
Then Joke called.
“Found the van. It was off road and hidden but these Wolf-trackers are the shit.”
“Where?” he asked and listened to Jokes description of a small road half way up a mountain in a nature reserve a few hours away.
“We’ll get ready,” Paddy said, planning their next steps as he spoke.
“Okay,” Joke said, paused and added h
oarsely, “Her blood is in the van, but it’s not a lot. If they’ve killed her they didn’t do it in the van or around here.”
“She’s still alive.”
“Yeah,” Joke grunted, but Paddy could hear he didn’t believe him.
“Until we know, she is, Joke. Only way to keep going,” he said. “She’s alive and we will find her.”
“Yeah,” Joke repeated, with a little more confidence in his voice. “Wait,” he grunted, and Paddy could hear how he swore in the background and talked to someone.
“Joke?” he called into the phone after a while.
“Shit, got a lock on her,” he said. “It was just like a blip, but her phone came on and then went offline again.”
“Where is she?” Paddy asked, and everyone around him straightened.
“Whitewash mountain. Middle of nowhere. No roads, no nothing. It doesn’t have to be her, Pad. They could have tossed it, but Bear says there are old timber-roads up there. Coverage is lousy, so if she turned her phone on, it's likely she didn't get a connection, and the blip I got was just a fluke.”
“We’re on our way,” Paddy said. “Heading out in fifteen.”
“Take the bikes.”
“Yeah.”
They closed the call, and he turned to Mac and Gib.
“Whitewash mountain.”
“Fuck it,” Mac muttered. “That’s just across the state border. I'm gonna have to call the Feds again.”
“More eyes. More resources,” Paddy said. “Call them. We’re leaving in fifteen. Tell Cal.”
Doug called while he was getting on his bike. As they expected, Jenny hadn’t been at the Muerta compound, and the ones there had assured them they did not know where she might be.
“Something’s off,” Doug grunted. “Have no proof, but I smell it.”
If the head of a motorcycle club specializing in finding people told him his gut indicated something, he’d damned well believe it.
“We’re heading your way. See you in an hour.”
The wind was cold in his face, and the roar of the bikes rumbled as they went along Main Street. Several bikes joined in behind him, and he would normally have taken the time to stop and tell everyone to stay in Wilhelmine, but not this time. More eyes. More resources.
