by Debra Kayn
Sharon spotted her son and hurried over to him. "Oh, baby. Were you hurt?"
"I'm fine." Carl shrugged his mom off him. "Where's Raelyn?"
"She's talking to Swiss and the police." Sharon studied Carl. "You're limping."
Mel searched the room and found Raelyn. He wanted her away from everything happening. She should've stayed upstairs.
"I'm okay." Carl let Grandma June hug him. "You both need to go upstairs and get out of the mess."
"Is it safe to go upstairs with the wall broken?" asked Sharon.
Mel nodded, knowing Battery had the building inspected before purchasing the bar, and though the front of the main level was ruined for business, structurally, the upstairs was safe. "That's a good idea. Carl, go up with them. I'll talk to the police for you if they come looking. Right now, I need to escort the customers out the back and clear the building as soon as I get the okay."
Ten minutes later, the only ones in the bar were Swiss, Mel, Rod, LeWorth, Battery—who'd arrived before the ambulance. Gia, Heather, Bethanee, Peggy, and Heather huddled behind the counter. The police surrounded the car, talking amongst themselves.
"The man was dead before he hit the wall," whispered Swiss. "He's stiff."
Mel glanced at the car and back to Swiss. "You're sure?"
"Enough to have already talked to Battery and we put a call into Stan Moore at the Funeral Home. He's going to be at the hospital to expedite pronouncing him dead and getting him out of there before they can discover it wasn't the accident that killed him. If we're lucky, we can keep any eyes off why someone would send a dead man through the bar that the club owns." Swiss glanced over at the ladies. "Keep it low. We don't want that info getting out."
"Last fucking thing we need is shit coming to the bar," Battery mumbled. "We should burn the place down and cut our losses."
Mel refrained from pointing out that Raelyn and her family lived above the bar and she depended on the business for her livelihood to raise Dukie because he understood Battery's dislike of the bar. It was where his wife, Bree, witnessed her mother's death, the loss of her father, and then lost everything familiar when she was put into the foster care system until Battery found her again when she was sixteen.
Besides, Mel couldn't argue with his president. The moment of the crash, his first thought was of Raelyn and making sure Dukie was safe.
A hand landed on Mel's arm. He turned and found Raelyn, and gathered her to his side. Her hand went to his stomach, and she leaned against him.
"It won't be long, and everyone will be out of here." He kissed the top of her head. "Dukie still sleeping?"
"Allison texted me and said my family was up in the apartment waiting. I doubt if Dukie will wake up, but if he does, my family is there to snuggle with him." She shuddered. "When I think of how close Carl came to being run over..."
Mel rubbed her back. "You can stop worrying. Swiss took a look at Carl and believes he only got knocked out. He's having your mom watch over your brother and wake him up every couple of hours in case he has a concussion. Besides some soreness, he'll be fine."
She sagged heavier against him. "I can't believe he was outside when the car veered off the road. I knew he should've stayed upstairs one more night."
Any talk of the accident needed to wait until law enforcement left. The rest of the Ronacks members needed to be called in, and the building secured before dark.
Deputy Hampton approached the group. "We've got all the information we need. Watson's Repo & Towing is outside and will remove the vehicle once we have our patrol cars out of the way. I'd urge you to call your insurance company first thing in the morning."
Battery shook the officer's hand. "Thank you, Deputy."
No talk of the dead man meant, for now, the attention wasn't on the club. But, they weren't safe yet. They needed answers.
Between the law enforcement officers leaving and before the tow truck driver hooked up to the car, Raelyn said, "What are we going to do with the bar? It'll take time to fix and—"
"No more talk of what we need to do," interrupted Battery. "Rest tonight, we'll have the club park their asses down here and seal up the front wall. Then tomorrow, we'll have a meeting at the clubhouse and make some decisions."
"Okay," said Raelyn.
"Make sure you're there, too. When we finish our business, you'll need to take part in where we go from here with the bar." Battery walked away.
"But..." said Raelyn.
Mel pulled Raelyn back from following Battery and asking more questions. "Let him go."
"I need to do something constructive or go crazy." Raelyn picked a napkin dispenser off the floor and set it on the table.
"Why don't you gather all the women and make sure they get their stuff together. A couple of the members will get them home before the tow truck hooks up. Heather, especially, doesn't need to be here when the dust kicks up again from the debris. Afterward, you can go upstairs. You shouldn't be breathing that shit either." Mel kissed her forehead. "Everything will be okay, babe."
He hooked his hands under his armpits and watched Gia and Heather flank Raelyn on the way to the kitchen. A clatter followed by a scream came from the back of the bar, and all three women raced ahead through the swinging doors. Mel flung out his arm, smacking Swiss to get his attention, and took off after them.
In the kitchen, Peggy stood holding a stock pot. "It's gone."
"What's gone?" asked Mel, stepping closer to the distraught cook.
"My money." Peggy's overweight body shook from her silent tears, and she slammed the pot down on the table. "It was here before the accident, and now it's gone."
"You put money in a cooking pot?" asked Raelyn.
"No, I put my purse with all my money in the pot." Peggy slapped her hand to her forehead and leaned hard against the table. "All of it."
Mel looked at Rod, skeptical of the story. "Peggy, we took your money out of your apartment during the first break-in. Your money is in the safe at the clubhouse."
Peggy closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she nodded. "You're right. I didn't bring my purse today, and the money is at the clubhouse. Through everything that happened, I-I forgot."
Raelyn smiled and hugged Peggy. "That's understandable. Everyone is rattled. What happened was scary. When one of the men get a break, he'll take you home. In fact, that's what I came back here to tell you all. Gia and Heather need to go home, too. There's nothing we can do tonight. We'll let the bikers board up the front."
Mel motioned Swiss and Rod out of the kitchen. In the bar, he turned to his MC brothers. "Was it my imagination or was Peggy lying that she forgot her purse and someone stole her money during the chaos of a car crashing into the building?"
"Her panic was real. Normally nothing ruffles her, and she was shaking." Rod took out his phone. "I'm putting the alert out to all members. The meeting will be at six o'clock in the morning. I'll rearrange the roster and contact the businesses who'll be affected by absences. We're going to need more members here, watching over the bar, at Peggy's, and in town looking for whoever was responsible today."
Mel rubbed his hand over his jaw. He still believed Carl was mixed up in some of the trouble plaguing Haugan, and now Peggy was covering up something. Raelyn's brother could've been killed today, or any one of them if they'd been standing close to the front of the building. His jaw ached, and his stomach soured. Raelyn could've been in the bar at the time if he hadn't talked to her in the hallway.
Chapter Twenty Six
After spending the night inside Raelyn's apartment with her, Mel wanted to find the closest bed and fall face first onto a soft surface and sleep for a few hours. He opened the back door of Raelyn's car, and Dukie climbed in. Between boarding up the bar, dealing with questions from Raelyn he couldn't answer, he hoped they all got answers at the meeting today.
There were more reasons for escorting Raelyn to the club than Battery ordering Raelyn to attend the meeting. Her back and forth attitude toward h
im needed to end. He couldn't go back to letting her lean on him because of the accident and the bar closed. She wanted to dissolve their relationship in front of the club.
He couldn't turn her away last night. She'd asked him to sit with her in her apartment when they finally finished sealing up the building, and she'd fallen asleep on his lap on the couch for two hours. He hadn't been able to leave and had taken that time to touch her and soothe her every time she stirred.
Mel scooted out of Raelyn's way as she stuck her head in the car to make sure Dukie buckled his booster seat. "I'll pull out when you're ready."
"Okay," she said from inside the car.
"You'll have to go in the back room or upstairs and stay with Bree while we have the meeting." He stared at her round ass, wanting to lie and tell her she couldn't talk to the club about his claim to her, but he couldn't. "After Prez talks to you about the bar, you'll have your opportunity to announce to the club that we're through."
She backed up and straightened, turning toward him. "About that..."
"What?"
Raelyn shut the car door, blocking Dukie from the conversation, and lowered her voice. "The day I talked to my mom—"
"Huh?" He shook his head not following her.
She exhaled. "The day Lip came to the bar."
Ah. That day. "What about it?"
"I planned to talk to you and explain what was going on with me," she said.
"With Lip?" He gritted his teeth.
"No." She sighed. "With me. With us. But, I was working, and then yesterday, the car crashed into the bar, my brother got hurt again, and it's always one thing after another that keeps me from talking to you."
He looked away from her. "I get it."
"No, I don’t think you do, Mel," she said, drawing his attention back to her. "Just...be patient with me, okay?"
Patient? He'd used all his patience through the years letting her grieve, being her God damn friend when he had no idea how to be someone's friend, and waiting for her to wake up and want a life with him. And, their relationship had worked. He ended up marrying her. In the end, being patient got him nowhere.
Last night, he'd had her in his arms again, and today she expected him to walk away. He couldn't survive stepping back when he wanted to step forward with her. But, there was no way to change her mind, and after she'd explained herself, he understood her reasons. He would always be a Ronacks member. She deserved the peace that came with knowing when she closed her eyes at night, her husband would be there next to her, for a lifetime.
"I'll see you at the clubhouse." He walked to his motorcycle as if going to his own funeral.
Not only would Raelyn be ending everything between them, but he'd also need to help the club figure out who is behind all the trouble hitting them lately. He had a feeling Raelyn wasn't ready for what was going to happen next in her life if he proves that Carl is at the center of the trouble.
He sat his motorcycle and turned it on. In fact, Raelyn hearing that her brother was involved would only prove that she was right to stay far, far away from him.
Fifteen minutes later, he parked in front of the clubhouse. He waited for Raelyn to stop the car and then helped Dukie out.
"Can I go to the meeting, Uncle Mel?" Dukie skipped sideways looking up at Mel. "Can I?"
"Nope." Mel grinned. Dukie asked the same question every time he came to the clubhouse, whether there was a meeting or not. "You know the rules. You have to become a prospect first."
Duke skidded to a stop at the door. "Then, can I go up and see Aunt Bree and eat cookies?"
"That's up to your mom," said Mel, swinging the door open and turning to Raelyn. "I'll text you when it's your time to come downstairs."
She nodded and walked past him into the clubhouse. He headed toward the pool table, the last Ronacks member to arrive. Lip lifted his chin and scooted over making room for Mel. He bumped his knuckles against Lip's raised fist. "Thanks, brother."
"I owe you one." Lip grinned. "How's your woman?"
"She's here." After discovering nothing had happened between Raelyn and Lip, Mel hadn't told Lip that Raelyn planned to break their relationship. He preferred everyone knowing she belonged to him. It kept hands off her and their eyes respectful.
After several minutes, when everyone but club members had left the room, Battery rapped his knuckles against the pool table quieting everyone.
"As of this morning, Stan Moore has custody of seventy-eight-year-old Clyde Beck who died in a negligent car accident yesterday when he had heart failure and crashed into the bar." Battery flipped over a paper on the table. "We got lucky, because of the man's age, his record of having dementia, and the fact he lived alone, there's nobody to question his death and Moore was able to get the emergency doctor to pronounce him DOA without taking a closer look. Whoever planted him in the car, got to him first before local authorities realized he'd passed away."
"Unbelievable," muttered Rod. "Tell me how someone gets a dead man to drive in a small town when there's at the most three cars on Main Street at that time of day?"
"The security tape showed a man jumping out of the passenger seat before the crossroad. I can only assume because of rigor mortis in the dead man's leg, it was easy to prop his foot on the accelerator with enough pressure to cause the car to gain enough speed to break through a brick wall." Battery held up his hand to stop the questions from coming. "The camera recordings showed that the car was aimed at Raelyn's brother, Carl, as he was crossing the road. From everything I could see on the recording, we're lucky the car veered to the left and hit the building. There were three people walking toward the car on the sidewalk, paying no attention to what was heading straight for them."
"Who is the man responsible for sending a car crashing through the bar and almost killing Carl, not to mention a bar full of customers?" asked Mel.
"LeWorth ID'd the guy as the same man who was vandalizing the building. Nate Gordon." Battery turned the next piece of paper over and picked up a black and white photo. " He lives out on Valley Road with his wife. LeWorth and Rod went out there the day after he spray painted the message on the building and his wife claims he's away on vacation and she doesn't know when he'll return. He works for the county road crew, and a visit to the county building didn't give us our guy. His supervisor said he took off last Friday and never came back. He'd worked there for fifteen years."
Swiss whistled low. "Erratic behavior for a married man with a steady job."
"Going by what you said, his wife isn't worried that he's on vacation without her." Mel crossed his arms. "She either knows what he's doing, or he's not on vacation. How many times has someone gone out to their house?"
Rod flipped through the roster book. "Choke is overseeing the prospects and they hit the place almost every two hours at different times trying to catch him."
"Have we ran his tags?" asked Mel.
"Gordon drives a Ford." Battery tossed a picture of the truck onto the middle of the table to join the profile picture. "The bigger question is why has this guy vandalized the bar with the message 'You're dead' and tried to kill Carl?"
"Carl was also beaten up before those two incidents," said Mel.
"Let's just shoot right to what it looks like." Rod scratched his shoulder. "Drugs."
"Delivery," added Swiss.
"The kid banged Gordon's old lady," said JayJay.
"Your focus is on the wrong thing." Mel chewed over saying anything more. His theory came more from a feeling than proof. "The night of the second break-in at Peggy's apartment, the deputy mentioned the sprinklers soaking the side yard on the block and the trespassers tearing up the turf. That night, Carl was late getting in before the bar closed and was waiting at the back door when I arrived back. I let him in and followed him upstairs. His sneakers were covered with mud."
"Half the eighteen-year-old kids around here have mud on their shoes," said Swiss.
"Right." Mel wasn't finished. "Last night, Peggy freaked out saying someon
e stole her purse out of a stock pot and all her money was gone."
"Her money is in the safe here," said Battery.
"She excused her behavior as forgetting during the excitement, but we all know Peggy. Someone breaks into her apartment, and she powers through. A fight breaks out at the bar, and more than likely, she'll be there swinging a skillet to break it up. She's involved in whatever is going on."
"Bullshit," mumbled JayJay. "What kind of trouble can an older lady get into? It's not drugs. I highly doubt she's fucking with some woman's man."
"All I'm saying is keep an open mind." Mel unfolded his arms and leaned against the table. "Main priority is finding Nate Gordon. We'll smoke him out if we're all out there searching for him."
"We'll ride team one, two, three, rotating every two hours around the clock. The rest of you will need to pick up an extra job or two to make up for the shortage of members who will need to work for the businesses around town for the next couple of days." Battery gazed around the table. "As of right now, I'll leave it up to the members on the level of security they want their women under. Bree will have one of the prospects with her at all times when I'm not with her."
After Raelyn finished talking to the club, he'd have no say on protecting her. Mel rolled his lips over his teeth. His gut told him whatever was going on revolved around her family and the bar, adding to his frustration. He wanted her fully protected, but his hands were tied.
"Lip is leaving in two days. Everyone should make a point to check in with him before he goes out on the next run for Ronacks." Battery exhaled loudly. "Next business we need to discuss is what to do with the bar. It's out of commission right now, and since Ronacks owns the bar, I want to put it up for a vote to close it down. Bulldoze the whole fucking thing and sell the lot. Someone can turn it into a fucking park for the tourists for all I care."
