Chapter 6 Sutton
SUTTON
I pulled up to Cage’s father’s house and paused. As I parked my car, I felt something akin to lead settle in my stomach. My eyes watered as I slowly got out of the car, pausing to take a look at the house. It looked empty. Dark. Dead
Like Cage’s father.
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed.
I slammed my door closed and jogged for the front door. But the second I found it unlocked, I knew I wouldn't find anything good. The only reprieve I had was knowing my father was still at his house. Otherwise, I would have been worried.
“Cage!?” I called out.
The smell was the same. The way it always smelled. Tobacco laced the air and mint candies laced the furniture. I closed the front door behind me and stopped. I forced myself to take in the air. To remember Patch one last time before I got to work.
“I’m so sorry, Patch,” I whispered.
I knew Cage had already left. But I needed to figure out where he was headed.
I rushed to Patch’s office space, knowing that was the only room in the house that held the answers I needed.
Well, probably. I’d been in Patch’s house a handful of times since Cage and I started hanging out.
And while we had to sneak around my father, we never once had to sneak around Patch.
He always held his arms out for me. He always welcomed me like part of the family.
I let the tears slide down my cheeks as I rummaged around.
There were a few loose papers on the desk already. Not to mention, open drawers and one that was overturned and empty in the corner. It look like whatever Cage needed, he already found. All I had were these loose scraps of paper and some picture that had gotten left behind.
I picked it up, gazing at the man sitting on what looked to be the deck of a house.
“Huh,” I said.
The man looked like Cage. I mean, not much. But there were similarities. The strong jaw line. The full lower lip. The stern gaze that naturally settled into the eyes. I flipped the picture over to see if there was an inscription on the back. But it was blank.
Is this the brother Patch told him to go after?
I tossed the picture back to the desk and picked up the loose pieces of paper again. One of them was nothing but a blank page. A last chance at the printer to shoot out information for whoever was making them in the first place. But the other piece of paper held something very interesting on it.
They were handwritten notes. And the words I could make out sent me flying to the laptop still sitting on the desk.
I typed in the words as I glanced down at them. “Redding,” which I recognized. “Dead Souls,” which I didn’t. “Hoover,” which I had no idea how it fit into anything. And the initials “MC.”
I pressed the enter key before I reached for the leather office chair behind me, watching the dusty laptop do its work.
It moved slower than dirt, which made me smile.
Patch had never been one for technology.
Hell, the man still carried a flip phone around with him!
I giggled as I shook my head. Patch was always bucking against technology that way.
No matter how hard I tried to get him to take to a smartphone, he simply wouldn’t give up that rock of a phone he had stowed away in his back pocket.
“I’m sorry, Patch,” I whispered softly.
It didn’t shock me that Patch didn’t have a password-protected laptop.
There were filing cabinets as far as the eye could see in this office space of his.
Which told me he didn’t keep anything of importance on it anyway.
I snickered as the search results finally loaded.
I tuned my eyes to the results slowly blooming in front of me.
And when I saw a few articles on a motorcycle crew pop up, I knew I had the right place.
I clicked through a few of the articles, just to get an idea of what was going on.
What the crew was into. And sure enough, the rough and tumble man in the picture I reached for again was in a few of the article pictures.
Standing right in front, with his arms crossed over his chest and that stern look in his eye.
A look I got from Cage sometimes.
Cage did say his father said this man was in a crew.
Once I was sure I had the right place, the right crew, and the right information, I gathered everything up.
I closed out the search history, then put a password on the laptop.
Just in case. After I was done, I closed everything down and snatched up the picture.
I folded up the handwritten notes, hoping to decode them on my way to Redding, California.
Because now that I knew where Cage was headed, he wasn’t going to be heading there alone.
It took me a little while to get out from underneath my father.
But all men were the same. The second any woman mentioned cramping or headaches; they immediately crinkled their nose.
One small trip to the bathroom with a few hisses and muttered curse words, and my father was sending me out the door with money for the drug store and wishes to feel better this week.
Men really hated it when women started their periods. And it was easily to capitalize on.
“Idiots,” I murmured.
I locked the front door of the house and walked out. I headed back to my car with the information in my back pocket and a need to find Cage. He wasn’t doing this without me. I wasn’t letting him do this alone. I got to my car and opened the door, turning back toward the small, darkened house.
It was a quaint house. More like a cottage, than anything. And the memories that bombarded my mind made me smile.
I could hear Patch and his son cackling together in the kitchen over beers before lunch time.
I could smell Cage’s breakfast first thing in the morning before Patch called me down.
Knowing damn good and well I was upstairs.
I smiled as I remembered the first time Patch took my hand, telling me—with his eyes burrowing into mine—that I was a welcomed member of that house anytime I wanted to be one.
My lower lip trembled as the smell of his scotch-laden breath pulsed against my face.
Just before he’d come in to give me one of the biggest hugs my body had ever experienced.
My god, that man gave the best hugs.
“I’m so sorry, Patch,” I whispered.
I opened my eyes and took stock of the house one last time before slipping into my car.
“My father will pay for what he’s done to you. I’m going to make sure of it,” I murmured.
I jammed my keys into the ignition and fired up my car.
I looked behind me, running my eyes over the three suitcases of things I had packed.
One with clothes, one with toiletries, and one with shoes.
Accessories. The nicer things I could use.
Or sell, if necessary. It was time for me to choose a side, and I knew who I wanted to fight alongside.
I knew where I wanted to stand. I knew what side of the line was meant for my life.
Now, I had to find Cage so I could inform him of the new presence beside him.
I backed my way out of the driveway and started out of the neighborhood.
I wouldn’t need directions until I crossed over the Redding city limits.
Until then? I had a good idea of where I was going.
Which would save me a great deal in risk.
I made sure to plant my cell phone at my apartment before I left.
I put my lights on the timers I used whenever I snuck out of my own damn apartment just to go spend the night with Cage at his father’s house.
I made sure to take every precaution so if my father’s cronies did some sort of a drive-by, it would look like I was home.
My first order of business had been to get a burner phone for myself.
A few, in fact. Because I knew once I got into Redding, I’d have to use the GPS on one of the phones in order to navigate to Hoover Road.
Which I could only assume was where this guy in the picture lived.
I’d be tearing through burner phones just to get there, because if my father noticed I was gone that soon, he’d be tracking me.
Which meant I couldn't use data on a phone like that for more than ten, fifteen minutes. Max. Just to be safe.
I had to keep Cage safe with my actions until I could find him.
“I’m coming for you, Cage. Please, don’t leave me behind so soon this time,” I said, sighing.
As I navigated onto the highway, I settled in for the long drive.
I’d learned a lot from my father over the years.
I’d learned a lot about how to conceal my steps and how to get away from people.
For years, I’d listened in on conversations and played dumb while being attentive to him discussing work with others.
I got very good at eavesdropping, and I became even better at getting him to talk about his work sometimes.
I committed every single piece of information to memory.
Just in case I had to use it one day. I knew how to obtain fake identification.
Who to contact for it. How burner phones worked.
The purpose of air-gap computers and why they were important.
I knew how to fake identification to get a credit card I could max out before abandoning it.
I had all sorts of ways of falling off the grid completely.
I capitalized on many things with my father. Especially the fact that he believed things went in one ear and out the other with me.
“It pays to act dumb,” I said, smiling.
Then, I turned on my blinker and merged left, taking my first highway split as I headed for California.