Tex’s Angel (Savage Legion MC #11)

Chapter 18

Tex

I wake up at the crack of dawn feeling refreshed and ready to face the world. Clara’s still sleeping so I leave her in peace. I quickly shower, dress, and go to check on the boys. Levi was staying in Evan’s room last night. I walk along the corridor just as Evan is coming up the stairs with breakfast for himself and Levi. I’m pleased that Rigs’ son has taken him under his wing, Evan’s a good kid.

“You want me to get something for you and Clara?” he asks. The prospects usually prepare the food and help around. Evan doesn’t have the full prospect duties as he’s just a kid and still has school.

“Y’all just take it easy, I’m gonna fix something for me and my old lady,” I say. The words have barely left my lips before I realize what I said. Yeah, I guess I’m already thinking of Clara as my woman.

I head downstairs to the kitchen where the prospects have just started making breakfast. They’ll set up a grill later on, but for early risers they have the coffee on and while I fill up our coffee cups, Nick makes eggs and toast to go with the bacon. I quietly carry our tray back to our room and find that my sweet Clara is still fast asleep.

After setting our tray aside I wake her up, “Time to wake up sleepy head.”

She turns over to look at me and her face breaks into a grin. It’s been so long since anyone other than my son looked that happy to see me—and as Levi’s a teen he’s usually too cool to be pleased to see his old man. My Clara is so sweet and loving even when she’s half asleep. Who could resist such a woman? I know that I can’t. I already want to make her mine.

I hand her a cup of coffee and while she’s draining her cup, I drink mine.

While we eat breakfast we talk about the upcoming meeting with Mattie and Cleo, the one I’m not allowed to be in because of confidentiality issues. I know these women have important work to do together, so I’ll wait outside for her to finish and then take her back to the clubhouse before I hook up with Rigs and begin checking out the new suspects. This whole situation seems convoluted, especially when I know for a fact that Mattie and Rigs used to work on cases together. Though Mattie explained when I asked her last night that it was because her department makes a distinction between a cold case and an active open case with their office. She and Rigs worked on cold cases. The cases relating to Clara are still open and ongoing. I guess this makes sense.

When we’re finished eating, I share the last of my coffee with her because she apparently needs it more than I do. Then we get into the shower, yeah, I know I already showered but I ain’t saying no to another chance of getting naked with my woman. I don’t know whether it’s the warm water or seeing me naked, but Clara finally comes alive.

I want to fuck her against the wall, but she has other ideas and drops to her knees in front of me.

“It’s your turn, cowboy,” she says as she wraps her lips around my cock. When this lovely woman puts her mouth on me, I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. Something about seeing her on her knees giving me pleasure flips all the right switches for me. I feel like the king of world while she’s sucking my cock and looking up at me like it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted. When her hand comes out to wrap around my balls and squeezes, it’s game over for me. I shoot shamefully hard into her mouth causing her to choke as she tries to swallow it all.

***

To my surprise, when we get to the CPS building Mattie comes out and requests that we both come back to her office. Rigs, and Siege’s wife, Cleo, are there as well.

Mattie says, “Thanks for coming here today. I have good news.”

“That’s great,” Clara says. “I could use some good news just about now.”

Mattie picks up a sheet of paper for her desk and gives it to me.

“I talked with my supervisors, and they have agreed that since the Savage Legion has helped in finding several missing kids, they’re willing to share information about these cases because both families have supposedly moved away, and we need to locate them in order to check on the kids and close the cases. I mentioned that you worked for Las Salinas PD and that swung their decision.”

“Are you saying that both kids went missing?” I ask.

Mattie gestures for us to sit down at the small conference table in her office. “It’s not all that unusual for families to move to a new county or even out of state to get away from a CPS investigation.”

“You’d think there’s be laws against that,” Clara says.

Mattie explains, “There are. But it doesn’t stop them,” she pauses and then looks at me, “As long as I’m leading the investigation, they’re willing to let you sign a release of information to ensure you don’t disclose information about the cases. If you’re willing to do that, then you can assist in our investigation, since you are technically law enforcement. We glossed over the part about you being a trainer.”

I start reading through the release and since it seems pretty standard, I scribble my signature at the bottom of the last page, initial the other pages and hand the document back to Mattie.

She sits down at the head of the table and explains. “Clara, you made two reports this school year. The first was on August thirtieth last year for Anabel Miller, an eight year old girl. The second was four months ago and involved a boy called Robbie Blake, a seven year old boy. I ended up supervising Anabel’s case and Cleo ended up supervising Robbie’s case, so we’re familiar with the children. We need to do a brief rundown on each case to make sure we’re all up to speed.” Turning to me, she asks, “Can you tell us what you remember from each case?”

I nod, reeling back in my mind, I begin telling them what prompted the CPS reporting on my part. “School had barely started for the year when I realized that Anabel was covered in bruises. I saw bruising on her neck and arms. She came to school with a busted lip, and it took me a long time to get her to open up. She reported that her father got mad a lot. She said he sometimes hit her and her mom. I went ahead and reported because the situation met the criteria for reporting and seemed to be getting worse.”

Mattie speaks up giving me information that CPS had discovered. “The father is Herman Miller, and the mother is Andrea Miller-Richards. We took Anabel to the hospital and discovered she not only had extensive bruising on her arms and torso, but her family had also attempted to cover it with makeup. She had several old fractures that hadn’t healed because she was never taken for treatment. Needless to say we filed for an emergency protective order immediately. Her parents never followed through the requirement stipulated in the family reunification plan.”

“That’s a lot to digest at one time,” I tell her.

Rigs asks, “And we have no idea what happened to the family?”

“We think the moved to Marlon County where the father’s family resides,” Mattie answers. “Zen might be able to track them down through their driver’s licenses or real estate records. I passed the details to my colleague at the Marlon County CPS, and they’ve been trying to track down the mother.”

Rigs nods. “How about the other kid, the boy?”

Cleo opens a file on her table in front of her and tells us, “Robbie Blake. His mother is Sandra Blake and his father’s name is Todd Blake. Clara, can you tell us what you remember about this case? hopefully it’s still fresh in your mind.”

Clara nods, “This one really stuck in my mind because of the significant amount of weight Robbie lost in such a short time. It got to the point where his eyes looked sunken in, and it was nearly impossible to keep him awake for classes. I took him to the school nurse, and we removed his shirt. He appeared to be emaciated. He also has some bruising and what appeared to be scratches on his back and legs. We tried to get him to eat but he couldn’t seem to hold anything down. He was lethargic and wouldn’t tell us where he got the bruises. Naturally, I made a report to CPS that same morning and one of your workers came out and picked him up. She said she was taking him to the hospital. That was the last I saw or heard of him. Not long after that I took up the position at Las Salinas High School.”

“That exactly what you wrote in your initial report,” Cleo says. “I picked up the case when the social worker called to say she needed an emergency removal order. After she explained what was going on, I dropped everything to make sure she got what she needed to save the child’s life.”

She sighed before continuing. “The hospital confirmed that he was severely malnourished and suffering from acute kidney illness from repeated, lengthy bouts of dehydration. They put him on an IV right away and he ended up being hospitalized for four days. Thankfully, we caught him in time.”

“What was the deal with the family, was it deliberate abuse?” I ask, horrified that Robbie had gone through all that, and also relieved that I’d reported it.

“As near as we could tell after getting Robbie to finally talk to us, his parents were both strung out on heroin, time got away from them and their water got turned off for non-payment. Robbie reported that he could only drink at school, his parents were always sleeping, and they ran out of food. He said he tried to climb up into the cabinets to get food but there was never much there to eat. The bruises were mostly likely accidental, in his case it was pure neglect.”

“Clearly he didn’t understand the difference between sleeping and passed the fuck out.” Rigs grumbles.

Something finally fell into place in my mind, both of these kids were young, not the high school students she teaches. “How is it you were working with small kids and now you’re working with teens all in the same school year? Those two age groups don’t even attend the same school.”

“My preferred age group is high school students, but when I graduated there were no vacancies, so I ended up teaching at the elementary school. Las Salinas High School lost three teachers over a short period of time, and I was drafted in to cover one of the positions which ended up becoming permanent. I’ve only been there just over three months. After I threw out Chris, I needed extra money to cover his share of the mortgage and high school teaching offered longer hours, so I ended up staying. It was hard whipping the teens into shape after they were used to so many substitute teachers.”

I give her a lopsided smile. “That kind of challenge was probably right up your alley. You were teacher of the year, last year for a reason.”

She gives me an indulgent smile in return and responds, “I just love teaching, no matter what ages the students are.” Turning back to Cleo, she asks, “Did the family complete their reunification plan.”

Cleo looks disturbed. “No. The mother took an overdose, and his father disappeared. We think he moved out of state, grief stricken over losing his wife.”

“Was it an intentional or accidental OD?” Rigs asks almost immediately.

“The police report ruled it accidental death. Likely they got a hold of uncut product, and she shot up before her husband, leading to her death.”

“That’s a damn shame,” Rigs says.

“It is,” Cleo agreed. “Unfortunately, the father signed over full custody to the state, so we’ve been looking for a good foster home for him. He’s blown one placement already by refusing to comply with any request they made and demanding to see his dad nonstop.”

“Oh, wow, this poor kid needs all the support he can get right now. Robbie was always such a nice kid. I honestly can’t remember him acting out all,” Clara says.

Mattie chimes in, “That’s often the case with kids who are being severely neglected. They’re polite and quiet because they don’t want anyone to know what’s going on at home because they fear they’ll get taken away.”

“Maybe I should start running a breakfast club, or a food pantry for my students, so they’ll always have something to eat when they’re not at school?”

Cleo perks up. “I’ve actually heard of teachers doing that before. You can ask for donations and set up a little pantry in one of the closets.”

Mattie gives each of us what she calls a hot sheet. “This has all the information we have on both kids. Our supervisor wants visits done on both children. When I mentioned that you were Robbie’s teacher and had built up a rapport with him, they think it might help if you speak with him. They feel you might be able to serve as link between their old lives and their new placements.”

Clara agrees right away. “I’d be happy to set a time and visit with them. I’ll make it a special point to encourage them to work with their social workers and therapists.”

Mattie’s shoulders finally relax. “It would be great if we could get them turned around and moving in the right direction. They’ve been through so much and deserve something good to happen in their young lives.”

Rigs gets to his feet. “Of course we’ll do everything we can.”

“Great, I’ll alert their residential providers that you’re coming and instruct them to prioritize your visit.”

“Is there anything else we need to know?” I ask.

Mattie shakes her head. “Not that I can think of. Too many of these cases end up with the kids not being able to reconcile with their families.”

Rigs drops a kiss on her forehead and tells her, “We’ll get right on this case and keep you in the loop on our progress. I know you have a busy schedule today, so we’ll leave you to it.”

She smiles up at him. “I’ll see you this evening, babe.”

***

We meet in the parking lot where our bikes are parked. I ask, “Which one do you want to start with, Rigs?”

“I like the junkie for this shit. He lost his wife and his kid. I’m betting he’s bitter, he’s probably still strung out half the time and looking for some payback for all he’s suffered. What do you think?”

I glance at Clara, and she reluctantly nods. “I think we should start with Robbie first. I want to check on him and let him know that I’m still thinking about him and hope he’s talking with his therapist about all this.”

Rigs agrees, “Losing your mom at such an early age can cause long lasting trauma to kids.”

We enter the address of the group home he’s currently living at into our GPS and head there.