by Jessie Cooke
Finn chuckled. “My bed, with you.”
“Pervert,” she said with a laugh. “It sounds wonderful, though. I’m there. Then where?”
The phone beeped, indicating his time was up. “Caitlin, they’re going to cut us off now. Please take care of yourself, okay? I can’t even tell you how badly I miss you.”
“Me too. I’ll see you in two days. Thursday is visiting day.”
“Hopefully I’ll be out of here sooner than that. If I’m not, you don’t have to come here. I’m sure your family is not...” The phone beeped again, his last warning.
“My family has nothing to do with it. I’ll see you soon! Take care of yourself, okay?”
“No worries, love, it’s a day in the park in here.”
Finn reluctantly put the phone down. The man behind him in line, not waiting behind the privacy line as he was supposed to be, said, “It’s about damned time.” He made a kissing noise at Finn. Finn rolled his eyes and ignored him. He was in enough trouble; he didn’t need any more. He moved back toward the center of the day room and he was about halfway to the table he’d been occupying earlier when a huge black man stepped in front of him. Finn sighed. “Excuse me,” he tried.
“Where the fuck you from, Scotland or some shit?”
“Something like that. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”
“Nah, I don’t think so.”
“Say what?”
“I don’t like Scottish boys with tattoos and long hair.”
“What kind of boys do you like?”
“Fuck you, white boy.”
“Now I’m confused. Didn’t you just say you didn’t like me? You’re not really my type anyway. Why don’t you send your cellie by after you finish banging him tonight? Or are you a bottom?” Finn didn’t even have time to dodge the big fist that caught him on the chin. He was caught off-guard so he went down, but he scrambled back up to his feet quickly and went at the big guy. They tangled up, throwing punches and rolling around on the day room floor. The inmates were all gathering around to watch and the alarm was going off. Finn was getting in some good licks, but the big guy was besting him. Blood was flying out of his nose and he could taste it, filling up his mouth. He didn’t so much mind a broken nose, but he hoped the son of a bitch hadn’t knocked out any of his teeth.
“Hey! Break it up!” The guards had pushed their way through the circle of inmates and were trying to pull them apart. Finn was done and would have gladly conceded that the big guy had kicked his ass...but the big guy wasn’t done yet. Even as two big guards tried to haul him up off Finn, he was throwing punches. One of the guards had his OC spray in his hand. OC was pepper spray, potent stuff. Finn had never been sprayed, but he’d seen people that had. It looked like it hurt like hell. “Last warning,” the guard called out. Finn let himself be dragged up off the floor. Once the guards had him on his feet, the big guy, dragging the two guards who were still holding onto him, lunged at him and suddenly the air was filled with a fog of pepper spray. Finn’s eyes were watery and they burned. His skin felt like it was on fire and his throat was burning and itching so badly that he felt like he was choking and couldn’t breathe. He felt himself being lifted underneath each arm and propelled toward his cell...at least that was where he thought they were taking him. He heard the door sliding open and he was pushed inside. Seconds later he was shocked by the feel of cold water cascading over him. It was too fucking cold on the parts of his body that hadn’t been sprayed and only seemed to make the pepper spray reactivate in the places that had. It took everything inside of him not to scream. Jesus, he needed a fucking cigarette.
Caitlin put down her phone and turned around to see her mother standing in the doorway with her arms folded over her chest. They were staying at her Uncle Tony’s house while she recuperated. She kept telling her mother she was fine, hoping she’d go back home to New York, but no such luck, yet.
“Caitlin, what are you doing? Is this a rebellion against me? Was I just too strict after your father left?”
“You were, Mom...too strict. But Finn is not about rebellion. He’s...I have these feelings for him, Mom. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before and I don’t understand why you can’t just let this go.”
“He’s trash.”
Caitlin gasped. “You don’t even know him! How dare you say that?”
“He’s in and out of jail. He’s the reason you were kidnapped and almost raped and killed. He’s in a gang...”
“Stop it! Just stop! We’ve already had this conversation. I’m not arguing with you about this again. If you can’t respect how I feel, Mother, then you can go home, today. Or better yet, I’ll leave. If Joy will have me back.” Joy had been avoiding her since she told her off at the hospital. If anyone should be able to understand, it should be Joy. Her cousin lived her life the way she wanted to live it and everyone else be damned. She was the one always telling Caitlin to loosen up, and yet she’d done her part, trying to keep Finn away when he wanted to see her in the hospital. Caitlin hoped it had just been about her being shot and now that she was doing better, things would start getting back to normal. She knew Joy wasn’t a judgmental person and Uncle Tony hadn’t ever shown any signs of that either. Maybe, if her mother would just go home and stop influencing them all, Caitlin could get on with her life.
“Tony said an attorney was here to see you yesterday,” her mother said, as if she hadn’t heard a word that Caitlin just said.
“Yes, it was Finn’s attorney.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants me to testify in front of the grand jury on Monday about what happened that day.”
“A grand jury?” Her mother cocked an eyebrow. Caitlin hadn’t told her mother about the lawyer because she didn’t want to tell her about Finn’s being arrested...this time for murder. Her mother would refuse to see it as self-defense, just as the DA was doing. It would just be something else for them to fight about.
“Yes.”
“They only convene grand juries when they’re looking for an indictment. Who are they indicting if the man who kidnapped you is dead?”
“They’re trying to charge Finn with murder for killing him. Mom, you don’t understand what that man did to Finn. He tortured him. He intended to kill him. I’m going to testify, for him, whether you like it or not.”
Her mother shook her head and said, “I don’t know where I went wrong. How did I not raise you to believe you deserved so much better than this?”
“Like what, Mom? Some guy who makes a lot of money and fills my belly with babies and then gets bored with it all one day and leaves?” As soon as she said it, her chest hurt. She wished she could rewind the moment. The look on her mother’s face was pure pain, fresh, almost. It was the kind of pain that Caitlin had seen in her mother’s eyes when her father left them. She’d just been a tiny little girl, but she remembered waking up at night and hearing her mother sobbing quietly in the next room. She always wanted to go to her and comfort her, but she just didn’t know what to say. As she got older and her mother got more and more protective of her, especially when it came to dating, she took on a lot of guilt for not doing more for her back then. Her brother, who was already a teenager when it all happened, told her that she was being silly. She wasn’t to blame and there’d been nothing she could have done. But when a kid gets something in their head like that...it’s like a virus that slowly gnaws at their sense of self-worth. Caitlin’s had been almost completely eaten away and she knew her mother would never understand it, but just the few times she’d been with Finn, she could feel it slowly regenerating. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was a low blow.”
With tears in her eyes her mother said, “You know I only say and do the things I do because I love you, right?”
“I know, Mom. But you need to realize that I’m not a little girl any longer. I’m aware that there are good and bad people. I’m also aware that you can think people are good because of how they seem on the surfa
ce, but then it turns out they’re not. It goes the other way too...you look at Finn and the fact that he’s in an MC and he has a rough past, and that’s all you see. But I see so much more than that. I see a man fighting to put his past where it belongs, and get on with his life, a good man. So, if you love me, Mom, then please respect my choice, and support me. I’m prepared to do whatever I have to do to make sure he doesn’t spend any time in prison.”
Her mother wiped a tear from her face with the back of her hand and said, “I almost lost you.”
“But you didn’t. I’m going to be fine. So please, Mom, take this experience and learn from it. None of us knows how long we’ve got. I don’t want to waste the time we have together, fighting all the time.”
“You’re a lot like him, you know?”
“Who...my dad?” Caitlin had memories of him. She remembered what he looked like, the sound of his voice, his smile. But she was too young to really know him, or his personality. Her mother nodded and Caitlin said, “How so?”
“He suffered from magical thinking,” her mother said. “He hated the way the world was, so he pretended it wasn’t. He pretended that there was good in everyone and everything...”
“Mom, maybe he wasn’t pretending. Maybe it was a choice he was making, to see the good in everyone. I know you don’t believe this, but there is good in everyone. I think the good people in the world find some kind of balance. Believe me or not, Finn is a good person in his heart and I have feelings for him, and this is the last time I’ll defend them, to you or anyone else.”
Caitlin and her mother stared at each other for several minutes before Caitlin let out a frustrated sign and started to leave the room. Her mother stepped in her path and opened her arms. Caitlin went into them, and they both dissolved into a torrent of tears.
26
“McGregor! Grab your personal effects!” Finn had been dead asleep when he heard his name but he was wide awake when the guard told him to bring his things. That meant he was leaving, and that could only mean that the prosecutor had decided he didn’t have enough evidence. He stood up and pulled on his t-shirt and positioned himself against the far wall, facing the cell door. He was in seclusion, in a single cell, next door to the reason he was there. “Got your stuff?”
“I don’t have any stuff.”
“He don’t have a dick either!” That was the big black guy who had beat the shit out of him and gotten him pepper-sprayed the day before. His skin was still burned and his eyes still hurt and he’d had to listen to the asshole taunting him through the wall most of the night.
Finn shrugged and told the guard, “He wants me bad. Dude’s obsessing over my dick.” The guard wasn’t fazed by any of it. He opened the food port and said:
“Hands.” Finn stepped up to put his hands through so the guard could cuff him. Meanwhile his neighbor was still talking.
“Fuck you, white boy! Just wait until I get out of here!”
“Sure, I’ll call you. I didn’t catch your name, though...” The officer closed the port and waved at the guard in the tower to open the door. Finn stood back until it was opened and then stepped out when the officer motioned to him. He was facing the next cell and he smiled at the big fucker standing at the door.
“Name’s Jamison, asswipe. Newell Jamison. Don’t you fucking forget it.”
Finn’s eyes widened and he was just about to tell Jamison that he was the guy Jace had said would “help” Finn in there. Finn was really curious now, about how Jace knew the guy. “Trust me, Newell, I won’t.”
The guard began leading Finn away, toward the doors of the pod that would lead them outside toward the intake and release area. He was given his clothes and personal effects and once he had everything, he called the shop. “Phoenix Custom Bikes!” Streak answered, practically barking into the phone.
“Hey, Streak, it’s Snake. Can somebody pick me up? They cut me loose!” Finn had been tempted to call Caitlin first, but he didn’t want to push her. She still had recovering to do. He’d call her as soon as he was home. He needed to report in first anyway and find out what was going on in the club while he was away.
It was an hour later when Bubba showed up in the van. “Damn...who fucked up your face?”
Finn rolled his eyes and said, “I tripped.”
Bubba chuckled. “Looks like you tripped several times, right into some dude’s fist. How’s the other guy?”
Finn grinned and said, “I fucked his fist up, bad.”
Bubba laughed. “You know, I think Jace is going to have to add picking you up from jail to the schedule.”
Finn chuckled. “Fuck you. Give me a smoke.” Bubba handed him a cigarette and Finn picked up the lighter out of the center console, lit the butt, and took a long, refreshing drag. “Damn, that’s good.”
“I hear tell that jail used to not be so bad when you could smoke,” Bubba said. “Not that I spend as much time there as you do.”
Finn flipped him off and then settling back into the seat with his cigarette he said, “So, what did I miss?”
“Well, Beck is on a tear over something. Nobody is sure exactly what, but some suspect it has something to do with Punk.”
“No word about him yet?”
“Nothing they’re telling us,” Bubba said. “But like I said, seems like something’s up. Beck’s been asking a lot of questions about him, which is weird, since she was the one that brought him into the club in the first place.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Like if any of us ever heard him talking to his family or if he has said anything about his service in the Navy, shit like that. It’s weird.”
“Yeah...maybe she’s just trying to find family to notify that he’s missing.”
“Maybe, but don’t you think she could get that information from the Navy?”
“You would think.” Finn would think the cops would have it too, if they were spending any time looking for him.
“The Southies finally left,” Bubba said, in almost a relieved tone. “That Marshall...kind of a wicked dude.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Those eyes, man. I thought Beck’s blue eyes were cold when I first met her, but Marshall’s ice hers right over.”
Finn chuckled. He had to agree. Dax’s eyes did freak him out a little too. It wasn’t so much the color of them as it was their intensity. They were the kind of eyes that you looked into and wondered about all the things they might have seen. “That it?”
“That’s all they’re telling me, but you know...I’m not privy to a hell of a lot. I hear what Jace wants to tell us in church and the rest over a beer in the shop after closing time. Speaking of the shop, though, business is picking up. We’ve taken a dozen new orders this week alone. Jace called in some of his employees from Connecticut--they should be showing up soon.”
“Hey, the name Newell Jamison mean anything to you?”
“As in the president of the Black Warriors?” Finn shrugged. “You know, the club out of Buckeye? Newell Jamison is a big black guy, scary-looking. He likes to drink and he likes to fight and...”
“And he’s the guy that fucked up my face.”
Bubba whistled through his teeth. “You’re lucky then. When I first got to Arizona I went to Buckeye first. I didn’t know the Black Warriors was an all-black club...” Finn laughed out loud. Looking embarrassed, Bubba said, “All right, all right. It coulda meant something else. Anyway, I was in this bar that I’d been told they hang out in. When they came in, and I realized maybe I wasn’t gonna fit in. I was just gonna settle my tab and slip out, quietly. But before I could get out of there, a fight broke out. I don’t know who or what started it...but I was mesmerized by this huge black dude. He was throwing punches like a professional fighter. When all was said and done, the sheriff showed up and hauled him and a few more of his crew away and the guy he was going after left in an ambulance. The bartender’s the one that told me I’d been watching the president of the Warriors, Newell Jami
son.”
“You know what his relationship is with Jace?”
“No clue. What makes you think they have a relationship?”
“When Beck came to see me, she told me if I needed anything to reach out to Jamison.”
Bubba chuckled and said, “What the hell did you ask him for?” Finn laughed too and wondered if he would have gotten a different reception if Jamison had known who he rode with. He wasn’t sure. The big guy just seemed to be looking for a fight.
As soon as Finn and Bubba got to the shop, Finn went to find Jace. He was in the back room, helmet and gloves on, welding a set of chrome pipes. Finn had been around Jace long enough to have noticed that other than Beck, nothing made the boss happier than getting his hands dirty in the shop. He was a genius in the design phase of the customization, but he was the happiest when he was actually doing the work. Jace stopped the torch and flipped up his helmet when he saw Finn. “Hey. You’re out.”
“Yep. I haven’t talked to the lawyer yet, but I’m assuming the DA decided not to charge me. It’s probably too much to hope he decided not to charge me at all.”
“They don’t have shit, but...” Jace looked around to make sure no one in the shop was within listening distance and he said, “Thanks, Snake, for what you did for Beck.”
Finn shrugged. “If not for you and Beck, God only knows where I’d be.”
“Call the lawyer and find out what’s going on. I’m surprised he wasn’t there to meet you.”
“I’ll call him. Hey, did Beck get a hold of my old man?”
Jace grimaced. “Yeah, she did. Then she found out there’s an active warrant for Punk out of Chicago for desertion.” He looked around again and said, “We have Hunter looking into it, but he texted early this morning and said he might have a hit on O’Hare’s location.”
“So they weren’t taken? They took off?”
Jace shrugged. “That’s what it looks like. Beck’s pissed.”
