Tex’s Angel (Savage Legion MC #11)

Chapter 26

Tex

A n hour and bit later, we pull into his driveway. It’s now totally dark outside. There’s one car in the driveway and the lights are lit up on the inside of the house. Rigs gets off his bike and jerks his chin towards the front door. Rider pulls out his gun and makes a gesture for going around to cover the back door. We fan out. Rigs hangs back to cover me while I go up and ring the doorbell.

A very pregnant woman answers the door. “Yes, what can do for you?”

“Good evening, ma’am. I’d like to speak to Herman Miller, if he’s at home.”

Making a quick glance over her shoulder, she gets cagy. “It’s dinner time. What do you want with my husband?”

Before I can answer, a big hand comes out from behind the door, jerking it open. “I’ve got nothing to hide. What the hell do you want?”

I already didn’t like this man and now, I’m actively looking for reasons to kick his ass.

“I want to talk to y’all about your daughter’s CPS case.”

His wife sucks in a breath. The man’s expression goes from surly to enraged in the space of a few seconds. “I’ve ain’t got nothing to say about that girl.”

“The teacher who made the original CPS report was abducted earlier today.”

“That fucking bitch probably deserves whatever she’s got coming to her,” he flings back. His words don’t carry much heat, so I’m unsure if he even means it or is just trying to get us to leave him alone.

“Look, you’ve got a couple of choices. You can either come out and have a civilized conversation with me, or I haul your sorry ass out of the house, beat the shit out of you six ways to Sunday, and y’all end up answering my questions any damn way.”

He steps forward slightly, “Who the hell do you think you are, coming here, knocking on my door and threatening me?”

“Wrong answer, dickhead,” I say as I reach out, grab his shirt, and drag him out onto the front porch. When he’s close, I can smell alcohol on his breath.

He stumbles over the threshold and falls into me. I toss him down the steps and tell his wife, “Sorry ma’am, we’ll just be a minute.”

She stammers, “You aren’t going to hurt him, are you?”

“That depends upon how cooperative he is. I promise you this is important. A woman’s life hangs in the balance.”

Glancing out at him rolling around on the cement pad at the bottom of their steps holding his knee, she says, “I’m gonna have to call his family to come over. I can’t just let you beat him up.”

“Why not. You let him beat Anabel up, right?” I have zero shits to give for child abusers or the women who protect them.

If I’m being honest, I’ll admit my words were a low blow but instead of looking hurt or guilty, she gets angry. “You don’t know anything about our family.”

“Did he abuse you too? Is that why y’all didn’t stand up for your daughter and get her to safety? Were you scared of him? Because that’s the only damn reason I can think of that makes any kind of sense.”

“No, of course not. He never hits me because I know how to follow directions. I do what he says.”

A scared abused woman is one thing, but she’s standing here telling me he never laid a finger on her. My righteous anger is doubling by the second, “But your daughter didn’t, so she deserved to be beaten until she was covered in bruises. Is that what you’re saying?”

Her voice became more exasperated. “Herman is scarred from his time fighting in the war. The VA won’t help him, and Anabel was hyperactive. She never listened, wouldn’t eat anything I cooked and had trouble sleeping. It’s blessing that they took her and gave her to a family that had the resources to manage her behavior.”

Rubbing her belly, she took a deep breath before continuing, “This baby is gonna be different, our chance at a real family.”

I have never hit a woman in my life, and I ain’t about to start. But mark my words, if this bitch was a man, then I’d have shown her exactly what I think of her methods of parenting.

I whistle and Rigs steps over Herman to come up the steps. “She wants to call his family to intervene on his behalf.”

“Yeah, I heard that. Want me to have a little talk with her?”

Her eyes drop to the cross Rigs always wears around his neck and then she takes in his button up shirt and leather cut. “What are you, some kind of preacher?”

Rigs turns and says. “I am a man of God.” Okay, the brother ain’t lying. Though I know he near enough got excommunicated from the clergy while he was in the military for almost killing a child abuser. He might not actively work as a minister anymore, but he still does believe in his own way—a way that in the past, had him sending a lot of evil fuckers to meet their maker prematurely, spurred on by his hand.

The woman’s expression relaxes slightly, clearly, she’s decided that since he’s a man of God he can be trusted.

“Why don’t I sit with you, while my friend talks to your husband. I’m sure they won’t come to blows because beating up a drunk man would be all kinds of wrong, right brother?” Rigs turns to me as he says the last bit.

That’s clearly secret code for ‘don’t leave evidence on him like bruises and cuts’. I play along, still not sure in my own mind if I’m gonna beat him to within an inch of his life or not. “Of course. I don’t know what I was thinkin’. I’ll be real gentle with him.”

Rigs walks into the house, after he shuts the door behind them. I jump off the porch, landing right beside Herman. Looking down at him, I can’t help but wonder what makes him tick. Why did he lie to his wife about being in the military? Why didn’t he simply walk off instead of leaving bruises all over his little girl? Why have another kid if you couldn’t handle the one that got taken from you by Child Protective Services? Nothing about this made any sense to me, but one thing was glaringly obvious. Herman was not the last of the good family men.

Rider pops up from behind a rose bush. “The back’s clear.”

“Nothing in the outbuildings?” I ask.

“Just tools and trash. Looks like this guy might be stealing shit from the building supply store he works at and reselling it. Grinning, he adds, “We all gotta have hobbies, I guess.” Looking down at Herman and the fact that he was bleeding through his jeans around the knee, he asks, “What the hell did you do to him?”

Never one to lie to a brother, I tell it to him straight. “I threw him down the fuckin’ steps because he was pissing me off.”

“Yeah, I’ve done that before myself. You gonna talk to him or do you want me to?”

“I’ll do it. You can chime in if you want. Rigs says we can’t leave bruises.”

Rider shrugs. “Easily enough done. I know a bunch of ways to inflict pain without leaving visible marks.”

I jerk him up and begin hammering him with questions.

“Clara Collins has been abducted. Do you know anything at all about who took her or why?”

“Who the fuck is Clara Collins?”

I hit him on the top of the head. “Y’all knew who I was talking about five minutes ago. Don’t play dumb with me, Herman. As you’ve probably noticed I have a short fuse tonight.”

“No. Seriously. Who is this Clara Collins you’re going on and on about?”

“She’s the teacher who made the CPS report that resulted in your daughter being taken away?”

“Dude, Anabel wasn’t my daughter,” he says it with the kind of casual indifference that makes it seem almost believable, but I know better.

“That’s not what her birth certificate says.”

He adjusts his position, apparently to get more comfortable before explaining, “They put my name on the damn birth certificate because we were married by the time Andrea gave birth. She was already knocked up when I met her. I told her to get rid of it, but Andrea was convinced the baby would somehow make things better by giving us an instant family.”

I scratch my jaw, trying to understand how his wife thought asking him to raise another man’s baby would make their marriage better. “Let me guess, it didn’t make things better. It just caused a bunch of resentment instead.”

Herman adjusts his bleeding knee. “Yeah. I told her that I’d take the kid on if she looked after it.”

“When Anabel turned out to be handful why didn’t you try and get her treatment? Why abuse her?”

“Ain’t got time or money for head doctors. The kid was just spoiled. I tried to spank her onto the straight and narrow.”

“And you got carried away to the point that you crossed the line into abuse, right?”

“Anabel was anemic. That’s why she bruised easily.”

I reached down, stuffed two fingers in his nostrils and gave his nose a good jerk. “Bullshit.”

His hands fly to his nose, and he yells, “Ow, that fucking shit hurts.”

“Good. It’s just the beginning of the pain I’m gonna deal to you if y’all keep lying to me. I’ve read Anabel’s medical file. She’s not anemic. You told your wife y’all were in the military. That was a lie as well.”

Herman gazes up at me, still holding his nose. “How the hell do you know so much about me and Anabel?”

“I’m a fucking cop, or I was until very recently.” I tell him because it’s true and I don’t want to get into how we’re working with CPS. It’s too much for his drunk brain to comprehend at the moment.

“Fuck off. If you’re no longer a cop, that means I don’t have to answer all your shitty questions.”

I grab his hair and jerk his head straight back to look him in the eyes. “Y’all think the fact that I’m no longer a cop makes me more or less dangerous?”

“More, probably,” he grumbles.

“I’m gonna ask you one more time, did y’all abduct Clara Collins, or do y’all know who did?”

“Would it surprise you to know that I don’t give a fuck about a fancy ass schoolteacher? As fucking far as I’m concerned, she did us a favor. Now that Anabel’s gone, we can finally start over.”

My hand comes out hard and fast around his throat. I begin squeezing and don’t stop, even when he starts trying to pull my hand away. “Where is she, Miller. Tell me before I snap your neck.”

He croaks out, “Can’t believe I’m gonna die over some bitch who did me a fucking favor.”

Rider’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Hey, dial it back a notch, Tex. I think this dude is telling the truth about Clara.”

“I know,” I tell him through gritted teeth. “I want to choke the life out of him for what he did to Anabel and for being an evil fucker in general.”

“Yeah, me too, but we’re wasting time here. Time when we could be looking for your woman.”

With a deep, guttural, frustrated growl, I release his neck and give him rough shove back. “Fine. Get Rigs and let’s get the hell outta here.”

***

On the way back to the clubhouse, we have to stop for gas. I get a call from Wade while I’m pumping.

“Hey, Tex. It’s Wade.”

“How is interrogating the Collins family going for us?” I ask.

“I finally got to beat the snot out of Chris. Come to find out, he’s not the stalker.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yep, I know we used to be friends, but that man is too dumb to wipe his ass properly. He might be eye candy, but my wife has decided I’m the better deal.”

“Tell me you are not getting back together with her, Wade,” I say. Seeing Wade and Brittany together was kinda sweet. Much as I had always found that club girl to be irritating as hell, she seems to genuinely like Wade.

“Hell the fuck no. I would never, not after the shit she’s pulled. I did shake her down nonviolently for information and scored something interesting.”

“Is it related to Clara? If not, we can talk about it later. We need to stay focused on finding her before it’s too late.”

“It relates, big time.”

“Okay, spit it out,” I say as get back on my bike.

“When Clara was a junior in college, she made friends with a librarian.”

“And y’all think this librarian is the one who stalked and kidnapped her?”

“No, you impulsive fuck. Let me get the story out.”

“Sorry, it’s really hard to stay calm and collected when the woman I love is missing.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s why I took all my frustrations out on Chris. He totally deserved it for fucking my wife and I feel loads better. Someone should start a therapy service where you can beat the shit out of people—”

“Clara,” I interrupt him trying to get him back onto the matter at hand,

“The librarian was caught in an abusive relationship. It seems Clara has always been a bit of do-gooder. She talked the woman into getting counseling and drove her to a women’s shelter in another state, so the abusive boyfriend couldn’t find her. The guy was enraged. He came after Clara and her whole family when she was home on vacation.”

“How did Clara not mention something like that?”

“Probably because he ended up getting arrested and was sentenced to twelve years in prison.”

“That sounds excessive,” I say. Domestic violence perps usually got five years max, unless actual bodily harm occurred. Personally, I thought any man or woman who beat on their partner deserved to be locked up and the key thrown away, but I ain’t no judge.

“He’d been arrested for a bunch of other crimes involving other counts of spousal abuse, uttering threats, verbal assault and battery. He was deemed a clear and present threat, and it was back when three strikes was a thing.”

I do some quick math in my head. Clara’s twenty eight now, she would have been around twenty-one in college. “Let me guess. This dude got an early release for good behavior?”

“That’s exactly what happened. His name is Daniel Davis, and he was released three months ago.”

“Hey, that actually makes sense. He would have spent the first month stabilizing his living situation, getting a job, and meeting with his parole officer. Once all that shit was out of the way and everyone thought he was reintegrated, he would have had more freedom to stalk Clara.”

Wade tells me, quite seriously, “I’ve never been a man to follow his gut on anything this important, but I’m convinced this Daniel Davis is our guy.”

“Did you send this information to Siege and Zen?”

“Yeah, and Zen has several addresses on him and his family. I’ve got the long-stay hotel he’s supposed to be staying at, an address for his parents, addresses for all his siblings, and one that stood out to me as more of a possibility than the others.”

“What one is that?” I ask with bated breath.

“His grandparents owned a hunting and fishing lodge at San Marcos Lagoon.”

“Send me the address of the lodge, I’m with Rigs and Rider. The three of us are gonna head that way right now. I can’t take a chance that Davis is gonna hurt her while we’re waiting for other to arrive.”

“Tex, this is a really bad idea.”

Instead of arguing with him, I say, “Tell Siege to send back up.”

All three of our phones ping with the location and we head out.