56. Jace
The compound didn’t feel like home anymore. I didn’t know if it was because of my time in prison or the months I’d been living at the house at the top of the falls with Daisy — both maybe — but I felt like a visitor as I wandered through the compound, asking everybody if they’d seen Mac.
I thought the other members of the MC felt it too. They were friendly enough, had been fine when I’d shown up for Summer Shit and the Fourth of July with Wolf, Otis, and Daisy, but the vibe was different than it had been before I went to prison.
Maybe that was just what happened when the people you’d grown up with discovered you were a cold-blooded murderer.
I’d talked to several members of the club, all of whom had said Mac was “around somewhere” but none of whom knew exactly where, when I found Pinky sitting outside, slugging a bottle of water on the wide porch of the building we called the clubhouse. Inside I could hear the sound of squeaking rubber on the floors of the indoor gymnasium. Once upon a time it had been used as a recreation space for rich summer camp kids. Now it was used as recreation space for a bunch of bikers who were surprisingly good at basketball.
“Hey, Pink. Have you seen Mac?”
She peered up at me and I was surprised to realize she was getting old. Not super old but definitely older.
In my mind she was still a sassy thirty-something, giving everyone shit while she traipsed around, cooking in platform sandals and tight jeans, her tits hanging out of low-cut tank tops and cut-up T-shirts even when she was standing over the stove.
She still died her short hair pink but now she was a fifty-something giving everyone shit while she traipsed around cooking in platform sandals and tight jeans, her tits hanging out of low-cut tank tops and cut-up T-shirts even when she was standing over the stove. I saw it in the crinkles around her eyes when she looked up at me, the creases around her mouth from the cigarettes she still hadn’t entirely given up.
Then again, maybe she still saw me as the knee-high punk who’d thought being the son of a Blades’ president — even a dead one — gave him the right to be a monumental pain in the ass.
Time was weird.
“I think he’s out back,” she said. “He was looking for some tax papers.”
“Fuck.” That meant either riding through the woods to the outbuilding where we kept extra bikes and all the shit we didn’t use on a daily basis or walking through the woods, and neither sounded great in ninety-plus-degree heat. “Okay, thanks.”
She studied my face. “You doing okay up there in that fancy house?”
“I’m good.”
She nodded. “Just remember, we’re still your family.”
“I know.” It would always be true, even if things were weird. The people who raised you, who protected you when you were too vulnerable to protect yourself, were family forever, even when other things changed. “Thanks. You good?”
She nodded and stood. “I’m always good, darlin’.”
“Life is grand,” I said, because it was kind of her catchphrase and I hadn’t heard her say it in a while.
Her tired face was transformed by a sudden smile, like she’d been reminded of something important. “Life is grand.”
“I’m going to look for Mac,” I said. “See you around.”
I contemplated taking my bike, knowing it would be the fastest way to get to the outbuilding near the river, then decided to walk. The bike’s engine gave off its own heat, and extra heat was the last fucking thing I needed.
At least the woods were shady, and I felt some of the heat leave my body as I wound my way down the path toward the storage building. It used to be a garage for the vehicles used by the rich-kid summer camp (what had they used them for? taking the kids to champagne brunch? transporting them to yacht parties?). We used it to store tools and bikes, extra supplies and old financial records.
I wondered if the club was in trouble with the IRS. Mac was pretty careful about that stuff — most illegal enterprises went down because of tax fraud, not the illegal shit they did, as evidenced by all of the mobsters who ended up in prison because they got in trouble with the IRS — but you never knew.
The outbuilding was quiet, from the outside at least. Tucked away in the woods not far from the river, it was almost as big as the old dorm buildings where the single club members lived near the main hall.
There were two roll-up doors in the front, plus a set of double doors on the left. The garage doors were closed, probably because it was too fucking hot for any of the Blades to be working on their bikes. I tested one of the double doors and found it open, then stepped into the vestibule leading to the rest of the building.
It was cooler indoors, thank fuck, although the old buildings had a tendency to retain the outdoor temperature, making them cool during the first half of the day and hotter than hell in the evenings. The place would be like the Ninth Circle of Hell by six p.m. when the heat of the day finally worked its way through the concrete walls.
On my right stood the door leading to the garage. I moved past it and a narrow staircase — bathed in shadows and leading to the second floor — and started down the first-floor hall.
“Mac?” I called out, my boots echoing on the old linoleum floor.
The place felt like a mausoleum as I passed the closed doors of the offices, but on my way back to the front of the building I heard shuffling from the second floor, followed by a thud and a curse.
I headed up the stairs. “Mac?”
“Up here,” he grunted.
I hit the second-floor landing and followed the sound of slamming file cabinet drawers and shuffled papers to the third door on the left. Mac was inside near the window, his head bent to an open file in his hands.
“Hey,” I said.
He looked over, surprise lighting his blue eyes, and I felt a wash of guilt. I’d been avoiding him since I’d gotten out of prison, and I didn’t even know why. Maybe I was afraid he wouldn’t be happy I was back. Or maybe I was afraid to see the disappointment in his eyes, a mirror of my own, because trust me when I say no one could be more fucking disappointed in myself than I was. Somehow I doubted Mac had planned to have a convicted felon as a foster son when he’d taken me in all those years ago.
“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I didn’t know if he meant here as in the compound or here as in the supply building, but I decided to assume he meant the supply building because that was easier to explain than addressing why I’d been avoiding the Blades’ compound since I’d gotten out of prison. “Pinky said you were out here.”
I’d only been at the compound twice since moving into Daisy’s house — once for Summer Shit and once for the Fourth of July, both times when I knew there would be enough noise and chaos to prevent me from having to have anything like a serious conversation with Mac. Or anyone.
He nodded and returned his attention to the folder in his hand. “Accountants need some information for the IRS.”
“Everything okay?” I asked. Mac was getting older too, but he wore it well. His hair was still blond, but he had the weathered face of a guy who spent most of his time outdoors on his bike. He was still built, still in good shape, and I could see why he never had any problem with the ladies even though he was in his fifties now.
“All good,” he said. “Just financial bullshit. You here to pick up Fat Boy?”
“Nah.” Fat Boy had been my dad’s bike, a Harley Cruiser I pretty much only drove when I was riding with the guys. Honestly I preferred the S1000 — it was faster and sleeker — but the Fat Boy was a nostalgia bike. It made me feel connected to my dad and the MC. “I had a question for you actually.”
He looked up again. “For me?”
I nodded. “Doc mentioned to Daisy that her mom used to hang around here back in the day. Is that right?”
A stone wall dropped over Mac’s features. It was something I’d only ever seen happen when someone touched on the illegal aspects of MC business, because Mac did not have loose lips about that shit.
But it had happened now because I’d asked about Daisy’s mom.
“Is this you asking or Daisy?” Mac asked.
“Both. I never heard you mention her mom, and I don’t remember her either.” I’d have remembered Daisy’s mom because I knew from pictures that Daisy was her mirror image: same glossy brown hair, same violet eyes.
And I won’t say anything about Daisy’s mom’s body because that would be weird.
“She was gone by the time you were out of diapers,” Mac said.
“So it’s true? She hung around the club?”
Mac returned to the papers in his file, but I had the feeling he was stalling, trying to decide what to say while he shuffled the papers around inside the folder. “She was around.”
I leaned against the desk next to the file cabinet. “Was she dating someone here? Before she married Charles Hammond?”
Mac sighed and put the folder down on the file cabinet’s open drawer. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s this about, Jace?”
I shrugged, suddenly feeling like I was the one being asked a trick question. “Nothing. I’m just curious.”
Mac stared at me, his skepticism obvious. “Just curious?”
“There’s some weird shit going on,” I said.
“Can you be more specific?”
I didn’t want to get Mac and the club mixed up in the shit with Charles Hammond. All it would take was a phone call from Hammond to one of his lackeys at Blackwell PD and they’d be at Mac’s door with a search warrant for the compound. Mac was careful, but probably not careful enough to withstand that.
“Just… some shit with Daisy. With her dad.” I left out the part about the missing girls and the trafficking ring because it wasn’t relevant to Daisy’s mom.
“And what does it matter if Nory — if Eleanor — was hanging around the club?”
Jesus, talk about pulling fucking teeth. This was just fucking weird. Mac was careful about the MC’s illegal enterprises, but we were talking about a woman who’d been dead for a decade.
If it didn’t matter, why didn’t he just come out with it? He’d obviously been more than casual acquaintances with Daisy’s mom. You didn’t have a cute nickname for a girl you barely knew.
“I’m not sure that it does,” I said. “Daisy was just surprised. I was surprised too. Doc said you and Daisy’s mom hung out so I figured I’d ask you about it.”
“She was here,” Mac said. “Stayed here sometimes actually.”
“She stayed here?”
Mac scowled. “Don’t sound so surprised. It’s nice here. Quiet.”
“Is that why she stayed here? For the quiet?”
Mac sighed. “Listen, Nory’s life was… complicated, especially after her son was born.”
Blake. Mac was talking about Blake.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means, sometimes Nory needed some fucking space, Jace.” He was getting agitated, his mask slipping to reveal an expression I’d never once seen on his face: pain. “She needed some space from her life and she came here to get it. Then she got pregnant with Daisy and she stopped coming. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”
I nodded because I knew this tone of Mac’s. It was the one reserved for smacking down a rogue member of the club, for settling a dispute between two leather-clad giants with testosterone to spare.
The one that meant that this conversation? This conversation was done.
“Thanks for telling me,” I said. “Sorry if I… Fuck. I don’t know. Sorry if it felt like I was prying or whatever.”
He took a deep breath and his expression relaxed a little. “It’s fine. It was just a long time ago, Jace. I don’t like to live in the past. You know that.”
“I get it,” I said, because I did.
“Cool.” He tossed the folder back in the file cabinet. “Want to go for a swim? It’s hotter than shit up here.”
He was right, it was about ten degrees hotter on the second floor than it had been on the first. Sweat had started trickling down my back during our conversation. The whole building would be ninety-five degrees in under an hour.
“Sure,” I said. “A swim sounds great.”
We headed outside and the conversation turned to more mundane things: an argument over who would become the new treasurer now that Money had left the club, a plan Mac had to set up legit gym equipment in a couple of unused rooms in the rec building, the broken refrigerator in Pinky’s kitchen.
We kicked off our clothes and waded into the river, sighing with relief as the cold water cooled our bodies, settling back into the easy camaraderie that had marked our relationship before I went to prison.
It was an easy couple of hours, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said about Daisy’s mom.
She needed some space from her life and she came here to get it.
What the fuck did that mean?