Brash looked somber as he waited for Raze to go on. “Then she asked me…” Raze straightened. “That could be it. She asked me where I’d go if I was her. Said I’d go to Cajun country. Lafayette Parish.”
Bless growled softly. Raze thought she might still be unsettled by Brash’s late night visit. So he shushed her. “Shhh, Bless. S’alright.” He reached down to pet her, but she had her ears pricked toward nothing Raze could see and his attentions didn’t seem to garner the usual interest. She remained focused on something only she could hear.
Raze grabbed the back of his own neck like he needed to hold himself together and looked up at Brash. “Christ. There’s lots of road between here and there. Any ideas?”
Brash shook his head. “Soon as Brand gets my message, he’s gonna get involved. I’m thinkin’ that maybe we should also give my pop a call. He’s good at solving problems. Creative, you might say. And he’s got resources even I don’t know about.”
Raze took in a deep sigh. “You know what I want to do is go get in my truck and start drivin’.”
“That’s your heart talkin’. I’m glad your head is winnin’. So far. ‘Cause takin’ off to run her down without knowin’ for sure where she’s goin’?” Brash shook his head again. “That’d be crazy. Needle in a haystack. There’ll be other ways of dealin’. Just hang tight.”
Without warning Bless sprang to all four feet with a terrifyingly loud snarl and hackles raised. It was so fast and so loud it startled both men.
Thibaut Le Cocq ate his burger and fries, which weren’t half bad, drank his beer, which was cold and local craft, and enjoyed the band while the overall sense of satisfaction he had from knowing the job was all but done settled around him like a second skin. Sooner or later the girl’s shift would end. It’d be easy enough to grab her later, either in the parking lot or after following her home to whatever shithole she was hiding in.
He’d made eye contact with her earlier while she was scurrying about. She’d looked away quickly. He assumed that was because she misinterpreted his interest as sexual and maybe she wasn’t the kind to be flattered by a stranger’s stare.
When she was out of sight for half an hour, he didn’t think much of it. He figured she was on her dinner and restroom break. When that half hour started to look more like an hour, he got that itch in his gut that told him something was amiss.
He slid off the barstool, laid a fifty dollar bill on the bar and walked toward the back. He checked both restrooms before heading to the kitchen.
James, Julio, and Marquita, another cousin of Julio’s who helped on busy nights, looked up when Le Cocq entered through the swing doors. His eyes quickly scanned the room.
“Help you?” James said in his gruff way with an eyebrow raised.
“Sorry. Lookin’ for the restroom,” Le Cocq said.
Using a spatula, Julio pointed toward the door through which Le Cocq had just come. “Go back out that way. Go to the other side of the bar and turn left.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Marjorie almost ran him down as he stood there. The servers weren’t expecting anybody to be stopped dead still just inside the kitchen, but especially not on a night that depended on everybody bringing their best hustle.
“What the…?” she said.
“Sorry,” Le Cocq mumbled.
There was only one place left to check. The office. And the only place it could be was down the short hallway to his left.
He didn’t expect to find Clover Fields there so the fact that she was nowhere to be seen didn’t come as a big surprise. Likewise, it wasn’t a big shock to find that there was a backdoor on the other side of the office.
“Fuck,” he growled low in his throat.
He took his baseball cap off, ran his hand over his head, and put it back on facing the other way. Maybe she’d gotten sick and taken off. Or maybe she had her own version of gut instinct that was more or less reliable, as his was, and had hightailed it after that eye lock.
No one was around so he tried the back door to see where it went. The handle turned. If it had an automatic lock-on-close mechanism, that was okay. His business inside the roadhouse was concluded.
There was not much behind the building. An expanse of grass that was maybe twenty yards deep led to a wood siding house sitting all by itself with an eight-foot chain-link fence around the yard in back. There was what appeared to be a separate garage. No cars in sight, but there was a light on in the house.
He was just about to investigate when he heard voices headed his way so he plastered himself against the back wall of the roadhouse where he’d be in the cover of shadows.
From what he could make out of the conversation, two guys were concerned about a certain young lady’s sudden departure. He waited until they were in the house and crept forward taking up a post on the side of the house where he could hear the conversation through the screen door.
He congratulated himself on getting lucky a second time with the run. He’d taken the first bit of luck for granted and let her get away. He wouldn’t make that mistake a second time.
After hearing that they thought she was headed for Lafayette Parish, which just happened to be his own backyard, he could have left. But he stayed to learn that they had no plan other than to make a plan.
When he turned to jog toward the van in the parking lot on the other side of the roadhouse, he heard a hair-raising snarl that caused him to freeze temporarily. But within a fraction of a second his own flight impulse was firing on all cylinders. He abandoned the plan to sneak back to his van and sprinted the whole way there.
While Raze and Brash were trying to figure out what had Bless acting so aggressive, she lunged and tore straight through the screen door. They both followed, running after her all the way to the parking lot, where they witnessed her chase a white van spewing gravel as it peeled onto the pavement. She chased it for an eighth of a mile, then jogged back and came straight to Raze, wagging her tail.
Raze looked at Brash. “What was that about?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“You’re supposed to know because you trained the dog for protection.”
“I didn’t personally train the dog. But Christ. I’ll send somebody over to fix the screen door.”
“Don’t give a damn about the screen door right now. I want to find that stray…” He caught himself. Calling Clover ‘stray girl’ didn’t feel like an endearment when he knew she was running, scared, driving a car with registration and insurance in his name, unable to produce any identification, much less a driver’s license, with nothing but a few days’ tips in her pocket. “Clover. I just wanna find her.”
Brash felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Glancing at the blue light of the screen in the darkness he could see that it was his brother. “Christ, finally. You stop for Dairy Queen on the way home.”
“What…?”
“Never mind. We got a situation. I’m puttin’ you on speaker. Raze is here.” Brash held the phone between them and selected speaker. “You sure the thing’s been handled? ‘Cause somethin’ happened tonight that caused our girl to go runnin’ outta here not takin’ anything with her but a change of clothes and the car Raze got her. She even left her driver’s license as some kind of message.”
“On it. Finding the kink in communications and then we’ll get it sorted out.”
“Quick like. Raze is feelin’ understandably anxious. You gotta get in touch with whoever put a bounty on her and make sure every cockroach in the world knows it’s been retrieved.”
“You think that’s what happened? Bounty hunter scared her into running?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense. At least to me. Bounty hunter or a wannabe. Depends on how far and wide they spread the word that there’s treasure in her return. I’m callin’ Pop to get his thoughts on the thing.”
“Keep you posted.”
“Yep.”
Brash ended the call and scrubbed a hand over his face. “That
coffee pot of yours work?”
On the walk back to the house, Brash dialed Brant. “Yeah. I know it’s late. And you know I wouldn’t call to shoot the shit.” Pause. “We got a situation that could use your perspective.”
By the time Brash, Raze, and Bless had walked back to the house, Brant was more or less up to speed.
“She’s drivin’ a fire-engine-red Jeep Liberty. Older model, but it don’t shy away from attention. Car and insurance are in Raze’s name.” His eyes sliced toward the license still sitting on the table. “She’s got no ID on her.” Pause. “Right. Not even a driver’s license. And we’re not a hundred percent sure, but there’s reason to believe she might be headed to Lafayette Parish.” As he heard that recounted out loud, Raze was silently praying that she was driving well below the speed limit.
Brash lowered the phone so that the speaker end was a little away from his mouth as he turned to Raze. “What’s she wearin’?”
Raze didn’t have to give that too much thought because they’d had a semi-serious discussion about her attire for the evening.
“A Thin Lizzy shirt. Blue. Says ‘Bad Reputation’.” Raze blinked a couple of times. “Unless she changed. I guess that’s possible, but there’s no doubt she left in a big hurry.”
“Did you get all that?” Brash asked Brant on the phone and then paused to hear his dad’s reply. “Well, ‘course she could pull over and change. He thinks she might’ve grabbed a few things. So we’re not a hundred percent sure.” Pause. “Come on, Pop.” Pause. “I don’t…” Pause. “You don’t…” Pause. Brash sighed. “Guess you’re the boss.”
When Brash sat down at the kitchen table, Bless immediately came over, put her head on his thigh, and began wagging her tail as she looked up into his eyes with great expectations of hands-on affection.
“So now you want to be friends?” he asked, even as he reached out to stroke her head.
Raze set a cup of coffee in front of Brash and sat down, noting that Brash was avoiding eye contact. “Spill it?”
“You know Pop. He’s got his own ideas about things.” Brash still wasn’t looking at him.
“Yeah. I know him. What the hell does that mean?”
“He says that favors come in all kinds of varieties and sizes. He says that he’ll put some feelers out, make a few calls, in honor of your friendship with me.” Brash took a sip of coffee. “But he says you know how it works. The SSMC takes the protection of our women very seriously. As a matter of fact, you’d be right if you said it’s top priority. He says, if you want the kind of balls to the wall full stop commitment that comes with being part of the SSMC, everybody feelin’ your problem like you feel your problem? It’s yours. But you have to be a member of the SSMC.”
Raze took in a sharp breath then squinted his eyes. “That’s how it works now? I thought y’all were more democratic.”
“He says in this case a vote’s not needed ‘cause he knows you’d get a majority.”
“Why would it matter to him? Not sure I get it.”
“He said you belong in the SSMC. You’ve always belonged. And, these are his words, not mine. He said since you seem to be havin’ trouble findin’ your way to where you belong, he’s gonna give you a little shove in the right direction.”
“So your dad is not above shake down.”
Brash laughed and shook his head. “No. He’s got his own code. Mainly goes like this; whatever it takes to keep family and club members safe and happy.”
The two men stared at each other for a full minute in silence before Raze gave a shrug and a simple, “Okay.”
“You sure?” Brash said.
Raze leaned forward slightly. “Surprised you’re askin’ me that. ‘Cause I know for a fact you got a woman.”
It was enough said.
Raze wasn’t bothered or resentful about Brant’s tactics. In an odd way he was flattered. And Brant was right about the fact that, if Becky hadn’t taken over Raze’s life, he probably would’ve prospected at the same time as Brash.
Fucking Becky. The club had never come right out and said they didn’t like her, but the feeling was communicated in non-verbal ways. Becky felt it too, which was undoubtedly why she hated the SSMC and didn’t want Raze anywhere around them.
That was then. Now there were a hundred good reasons to be part of the club and, off the top of his head, he couldn’t think of even one reason why not.
Brash punched Brant’s contact. “He says okay.” Pause. “Yeah. Alright.”
“What’d he say?”
“He told me not to tell you what he said.”
Raze gave him a look that said, “If you value your life, you will answer my question now.”
“Alright. I’ll tell you, but consider it a confidence. He said he’s callin’ every club between here and there. Three of our guys have taken some of the fast rides from Wrecks to try to catch up with her on I10. The rest have already lit out on bikes. Good news is that it’s the middle of the night and fewer cars. Bad news is it’s dark outside. If they don’t catch her, they’ll go on to Lafayette and meet up with the Cajun Devils, who’re already preparing to lay down a grid network.”
“Cajun Devils?”
“They’re allies of the SSMC. They’ve been wanting us to come in with them on an interstate trucking company. This could give them the chance they need to show Pop they’d make good partners. They’ll be callin’ in markers and spendin’ money around the parish where needed to turn over every rock.”
“That’s good.” Raze nodded. “Why did he not want me to know that?”
“He wouldn’t care if you knew that part. It was the other part he told me to keep to myself.”
“The other part was?”
“That all of this was in the works before you said yes.”
Raze nodded thoughtfully. “I can’t just sit around here. I’m goin’.”
“You sure that’s the best move?”
“If she went straight to Lafayette, she’d be there around three. Best move. Bad move. Just don’t factor. I can’t sit around here.”
Brash sighed. “Let’s drop Bless off with Rescue. I’ll go with you.”
“Bless goes. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”
Brash shrugged. “Up to you.”
Raze turned to Bless. “Go squat.”
Bless headed for the dog door obediently.
“You taught your dog to go on command?” Brash asked in a tone full of admiration.
“I did. Comes in handy.” He grabbed Clover’s driver’s license and Bless’s leash then looked around for his phone. But his hand hovered over the spot on the counter where he always left his phone.
“What is it?”
“It’s not my phone,” Raze said quietly. “It’s her burner. She took my phone and left the burner. Took my charger, too.”
“Why would she do that?”
“I couldn’t call the burner. Don’t know the number. But I could call my own phone and it wouldn’t hurt her chance of gettin’ away.”
“Jesus. You got one of them.”
“One of what?”
“A smart woman. Sorry, brother.”
Raze had no patience for jokes. “Shut up and give me your phone.”
Brash handed it over and Raze dialed his own number. It rang for a bit and then went to voicemail. So he left himself a message.
“It’s me. I’m callin’ from Brash’s phone. Don’t know why you’re not answerin’, but I’m leavin’ a message just in case. Got a lot of friends out lookin’ for you while we’re tryin’ to find out who didn’t get the message your situation’s been managed. Call me the instant you get this. I’m on the way. Won’t say where. Just… what we talked about. Call me back on this number.”
Raze handed the phone to Brash. “Turn up the volume. Keep it on find and vibrate.”
Knowing how he’d feel in Raze’s place, Brash chose to let his friend get away with taking on some alpha behavior that would not have been allowed to pass
under other circumstances without a challenge. He nodded, took the phone, and slid it into his jeans pocket. No matter how loud the environment was, he’d feel the vibration if she called.
Raze’s truck had a custom hydraulic lift so that he could transport his bike if he wanted to. They used it to load Brash’s Harley, and headed east.
Both men were lost in their own thoughts. At length, Raze said, “Why didn’t she just come get me if she was worried? God knows I wasn’t far away.”
“I can’t pretend to know how women think. But if you’re askin’ for a guess, I’m goin’ with that she didn’t want to bring any kind of trouble to your roadhouse. Wanted to keep you out of it. You and your business. Whatever it was that scared her, I’m thinkin’ she might’ve wanted to lead it away from you. She was in a big hurry, but she tried to leave some clues that she wasn’t going because she’s got no feelings for you.”
Brash reached for his phone when it vibrated. It was Brandon.
“Yeah?”
“Took some time to track down the decider at his estate. Took more time to convince his people to put him on the phone. Says he gave an exclusive on the contract to a guy he works with pretty often. Apparently he outsources the work because this guy never fails. He said it’s possible that getting the word to him might have fallen through the cracks because rescinding a contract isn’t something they’ve done before. Ever.”
“So what now?”
“Now he’s going to make sure the hunter gets the message. Or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else he could end up with a bad reputation.”
“Brother. Is that a genuine concern for the man?”
“Yeah. It’s everything. Breaking a deal... If these people didn’t think they could believe each other, their organizations would implode from within. Overnight.”
“Hmmm.”
“You want the bad news?”
Brash felt himself tense. He didn’t react because he didn’t want Raze to be alarmed, whatever it was. “Yeah,” he said evenly.
“The bounty hunter is named Thibaut Le Cocq. And you’re not going to believe where he lives.”
Roadhouse (Sons of Sanctuary MC, Austin, Texas Book 5) Page 14
