Drift (Don’t… #8)

Chapter 11 STREET CORNER

Gray flicked the indicator, then took a left into the car park at the back of Farm Retreat. Monique’s red Volkswagen Polo sat off to the left, and as Jan eased off leaning against the bonnet and waved him over, Gray pulled up to the passenger side, leaving access to the driver’s side for Aid.

Gray rolled down the window, and Jan leaned down as he cut the engine.

“Thanks so much for this.” The harassed tone over the phone carried through to Jan’s soft looks, worrying brown eyes. “Bloody timing. With the FRC taking up most of tomorrow, we were supposed to clear today’s schedule. No doubt Chris and Ben are gonna love tattling on us when we don’t turn up.” A sigh. “And I bought the bastards dinner just.”

Gray cocked a brow, but Jan shook his head. “Long story.” His smile came easier. “Thank you so much for coming over.”

“Not a problem.” As Jan stepped back, Gray pushed out of his Merc, and after giving a quick look around, he tipped his head to Monique. “Miss Tucker.” Strange, he’d seen her brother’s body, had been inside Jason’s home, going through his personal belongings, talking to his neighbour just a few hours ago, yet he stood here with Monique, going through mid-afternoon pleasantries. It should have affected him, he knew that, but death was just that: death. Life… was just a breath away from it even if it stood next to them in a car park.

“Sir.” She was midway slipping her phone back in her bag. “Thank you,” she said with a relieved smile. “Goddamn mechanics. Mine promised she had no issues.”

“New issues tend not to take notice of many a good mechanic,” said Gray as he opened the back door for her, taking in the chill of winter and how Monique rubbed at her arms, what she’d face as soon as she got back to the MC. “You had any problems before?” He didn’t like apparent coincidences either, not when it came to stranding one of his lovers out in the open.

“Just a few chokes and splutters this morning, but nothing too drastic.” Monique smiled and sat side-saddle in the back of Gray’s car as he glanced around the empty car park again. Everywhere seemed sedate enough. The dinner rush had come and gone, and life settled into the lone car passing on the road. “We didn’t mean to bother you,” she added, giving Jan a long look. “Recovery could have handled it.”

“Which would have taken a lot longer,” said Gray as he checked his phone. Still no call back from Jack. “And it’s Gray, Monique. Mr Raoul at a push.” He looked her way. “But not sir. I’m not your boss.”

Monique rubbed at her ankle, her hat hiding most of her face. “Manners,” she said. “Old trick I learned from my brother when the rozzers are around.” She grinned up at Gray. “Kind of like an apple a day keeping the lawman away.”

Rozzers? Gray snorted a smile as Jan shook his head at Monique. Now that was a term for a copper he hadn’t heard in a long time. And she was sharp enough to pick up on the law tie with Gray. He knew Jan wouldn’t disclose his MI5 ties and beyond, so this was… just Monique.

“Your brother, hm?” said Gray, and he knew he had to do this. “That would be the curator, right?” He looked at Jan. “What’s his name again?”

Jan held up his hands and physically took a step back. “I’ve not met Jason, and from childhood stories of Tweedledum and Doe here, I don’t think I want to.”

Gray gave a sniff. “So, Jason Tucker, then? And you’ve both had run-ins with the law too?” It was a cruel way to play for personal background information, but he needed to test the waters for facts.

“Hey.” Monique hit Jan’s leg. “I see what you did there, giving out his forename.”

“Ouch.” Jan rubbed at it, mouthing a sorry with his smile. “You were the one calling our designated driver names.”

“Let me find one for you for dobbing my brother in.” Monique flipped him the bird.

“What a lady,” said Jan. She was, Gray could see that, but she came with no sensor filter that he liked. Would Jason have had similar traits? She was definitely used to covering for her brother and knowing when to say nothing. So yes, they’d had a few run-ins with the police at some stage, but with her being here in London, Jason in Wales, and both having settled into good careers and relationships, it seemed distant history for both.

“So.” As Monique took out her iPad, shutting down police talk on her brother and looking too set to do some work, Gray eased back by his Merc and tipped his head Jan’s way. “Breakdown by name and repetitive nature, huh?” He needed to keep that ease in Jan’s eyes just a little longer. “You started early on the suggestion box? Only this time you get… me.”

Jan coughed a little, blushed, so badly as he scratched at his neck at the reminder of how he’d first met Jack and just all the fucking around that had gone down in Jack’s garage… his home after that. No doubt more on how Gray had observed it all on the CCTV. “Don’t. I was preparing myself for Jack’s pisstakes, but yours—”

Air brakes sounded off the main road, and a recovery truck pulled into the car park, tearing Gray’s look back to the entrance. The truck slipped ahead of Monique’s car, then reverse warning lights and an alarm came on as it backed up close to the front end of the Polo.

With iPad in hand, Monique moved first to head over, but a touch to her arm, Gray shook his head and kept her by him. It won a frown off Jan, but as the engine was cut to the recovery truck and the cab door opened, Jack jumped down with a grin, easing Gray’s hold on Monique’s arm now Jack seemed to automatically hone in on Jan.

“So, Breakduh—”

“Not a word.” Jan levelled a finger Jack’s way as he came over, stopping him in his tracks. “You mention one word about Breakdown’s and me, and us—” Jan sliced across his own throat. “—we’re so done, Harrison.”

“As if I would.” Jack laughed, winked at Gray, then made no bones about kissing at Jan’s cheek as he came over. “I’ll play nice. I’m on the clock,” he said, pulling back and patting lightly at Gray’s abs. “There’s also a lady present. How you doing, Monique?” He winced at her. “Well, other than the whole remake of Jan’s epic Titanic, Get off my piece of Plywood, Jack scene? Hang on. I’ve even got the theme music somewhere for him.” He patted himself down and pulled out a phone Gray didn’t recognise. But, damn, Gray was glad Jack was here, easing tensions. Thumbing through the new phone, the theme music to Titanic came on, but a warped version, a kid playing a school recorder for the first time and missing every note.

“You ass,” said Jan as Monique doubled, laughing. “You actually spent time searching YouTube for that?”

“Maybe.” His quick hide of the phone called yes as he pinched Monique’s hat and slipped it on. “You both okay? Any bruises, cuts— concussions from talking to each other about those boring-ass numbers you drool over all day?”

Monique tried to pinch her hat back, a little flustered as Jack dodged her each time. “My God, you’re like a bloody puppy seeing life after being left alone all day. Keep—” She choked a smile. “Keep still and give me my bloody hat back.”

Jack dumped it back on her head, leaving Monique scowling up at the haphazard slant. He looked Gray’s way a moment later, and a haunting look of an eight-year-old boy playing in the back yard with his dog was… startling.

Jack chucked a second phone over, and Gray caught it. The iPhone he recognised. The crack down the screen he didn’t.

“Dropped it down the pit doing that Cherokee that got taken to Steve’s instead of mine this morning. Had to stop and pick up a throwaway.” Jack held up the one playing the Titanic music, then set it to quiet with a wince, and Gray frowned at how Jack didn’t quite meet his eyes after that.

Was that a lie there?

“Ray said he’ll handle getting a new one set up,” added Jack. “Gotta keep the hired help happy with some Internet security checks, right?” He sighed Jan’s way. “Sorry I missed your call. I got back to the garage just as Aid was killing the gears on my baby back there.”

Jan cocked a brow towards the tow truck.

“So.” Jack looked at Monique. “You wanna tell me what’s gone on with gorgeous little Marco Polo here? And please note: Sam’ll be bringing you a courtesy car before you finish work. No need for Ray.”

There would be, but Gray couldn’t disclose why Ray would be around anything to do with Monique for a while.

“Why thank you, sir!” Monique held on to her hat as a gust of winter wind hit. Giving a sigh, she found Jack again. “She just died on me. It felt like I’d run out of fuel with how she kept choking and trying to take a breath as if her BDSM collar was fastened too tight, but I had a quarter tank of petrol in last night.”

Jack choked a laugh, his look coming Gray’s way briefly, then took the keys off her. “Let me take a look at that, erm… BDSM collar tight fit.”

“Didn’t know I could make you blush, Jack,” Monique called as he headed for the driver’s side. He waved her off, but something caught his eye, and he stopped for a moment to run a touch over whatever stole his head away at the back of the driver’s side. Another look at Gray, he got in and started her up.

A loud whining hurt the ears, but arm resting across the steering wheel, Jack seemed taken with the fuel gauge. He cut the engine a moment later, then came back over.

“Any ideas?” said Monique as she rubbed at her shoulder. The wind picked up, shifting her long blonde hair across her face. Jan slipped off his suit jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“Thank you.” A smile went Jan’s way.

“Hard to say for sure until I get it back,” said Jack. “But the fuel pump definitely isn’t sounding happy.” His look drifted to Gray, and Gray knew that look, the one that said too close to home, mukka . “Ray will pick you up at the MC by the time you clock off,” Jack said back to Monique, and the change from Sam to Ray was… concerning, He’d definitely picked something up. “I should know for sure by then.” He thumbed to the Polo. “I’m gonna get him onto the recovery truck. Jan, can you get Monique out of the chill and into Gray’s Merc? I’ll need her contact details putting into my new phone.”

Jack went to chuck it over, then came over to Gray and slipped Gray’s phone from his pocket. He held his up next to it, then thumbed through, adding his number to Gray’s. A frown crept up for a moment, then something else was typed in his own: no doubt Gray’s number. After a moment, he chucked the phone over to Jan, and Jan just about caught it.

“Course,” said Jan. “C’mon, trouble.”

Gray waited for them to head off and take some warmth before following Jack over to his tow truck.

“Problem?”

“Hm?” Jack frowned back at him, then started on the ramp and didn’t say anything until the noise from lowering it hit the car park. “Go take a look near the fuel cap. Tell me what you see.”

Gray made his way to the driver’s side and made it quick. A few spots of water loitered around the cap and marked a thin path down the dust of the side panel. Gray ran a look over the roof, then went back over to Jack, not happy.

“There’s been no rain,” mumbled Gray. “Not with the heatwave over the weekend. And there’s enough dust on the side panels and roof to say it’s not been through the carwash.” He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket.

“She also said there was a quarter of a tank in last night, yet it read full just,” said Jack.

Gray cocked a brow. “Someone added water to her tank?” Oh, now wasn’t that… interesting.

Jack scanned the carpark as the ramp finished its long stretch towards the polo. “A lot of. Water’s not like sugar. Sugar doesn’t dissolve in petrol. It stays in a sediment state at the bottom. Disturb it, the filters do their job and keep it out of the engine. The most it will cost is a new filter, but it won’t cut the car out. But add water?” He gave a rough sigh. “If water instead of fuel from the tank is shunted around the engine, into the cylinders, it knackers the whole combustion process.”

Gray watched Jan store Monique’s details in the phone, the talk between them looking more relaxed. “Literally dead in the water,” mumbled Gray. He didn’t like that, and it left him with two gnawing options. Was this the serious players tied to Jason’s murder, or—

“Our office bullies?” Jack looked Gray’s way as Gray scanned the car park for CCTV and found no sign. “Monique mentioned on the phone to Aid that problems started this morning as well. They could have gotten access to both locations. Maybe they’re playing with how the mention of trouble this morning will put them in the clear if they were here this afternoon and seen.”

Gray looked at him. They had been here. Jack wouldn’t know that, but the reasoning was sound, and Jack didn’t come weighed down with a Welsh murder scene. This was too out in the open and public for the Welsh killers, but if this started at Monique’s home like Jack was saying and Chris and Ben had been here this afternoon, it couldn’t be ruled out.

“Hm,” Jack mumbled more to himself. “This morning would have been the testing phase: a lot of water in the tank cuts the engine immediately, but only a little will cause drag on the accelerator and minor grumblings. It explains the difference Monique mentioned. And like here, I doubt Monique has CCTV at home to check for this earlier-morning kind of fuckery either.”

“More serious than office bullying, though,” mumbled Gray, if they’d been on the road and it had cut out…. “I should have been told sooner they were giving him issues.”

Jack tilted his head, and this look settled in his eyes, like he watched Gray from a few miles away. The look was similar to how he was never quite with Gray through his absence, only here, Jack knew precisely where everyone was. “I’m telling you now there’s potential proof of an issue,” he said quietly.

“That’s not what I meant.” Gray was looking to bite, mostly as a result from his own head still being back in Wales, with bone marrow siphoning and the possibility of a doctor being behind it all, but he didn’t want to dig into Jack for it.

Jack nodded. “I know what you meant. But you’d have done what prior to this?”

Gray cocked a brow. “You into thinking I needed proof to handling Chris and Ben, now or any other time?”

“Yeah,” Jack said quietly. “Because this is MC staff and Jan. Family, the best of, and you don’t fuck with an MC staff member until there’s proof he needs fucking with. We don’t need protecting at work.”

Gray watched him for a moment, not understanding where the challenge came from. Or maybe he did with being told to back off. “You all right?” he said gently.

That seemed to catch Jack off guard, and he sniffed, wiped at his nose, and looked around. “Sorry. Just pissed off over this bullshit, that I missed his call.” He gave a deep sigh as he looked Gray’s way. “Especially over malicious shit like this.”

Gray nodded and rubbed at his arm. Maybe that was it. He looked ready for a fight, mostly with himself, so Gray didn’t push it. Upsetting Jan was only going to add to it when it came to Monique. And then he had to sit Jack down and talk… Jude.

Christ.

“Okay. Double check your working theory,” Gray said gently. “Get me the proof this was done here. Get me a definitive timeline of anything that happened since this morning, then we’ll talk security.”

Jack nodded eventually, and Gray went to turn away, but Jack came in close, a hand gently brushing at the back of Gray’s before a finger hooked his and pulled him in close. His kiss was all Gray’s, taking all thought away from Gray for a few moments with the full-on public intimacy of it.

Jack pulled back eventually, his look soft. “Sorry I missed your call.” He flicked a look to Jan. “Fucking sorry I missed his more, especially leaving him stranded on the roadside.”

Twice he’d mentioned that now. It really ate into him, so Gray gently brushed the back of his hand along Jack’s. “Kind of frustrating, huh? This stepping back on security and leaving a lover on his—”

A rougher kiss stopped Gray’s words, and Jack tugged Gray in hard, clothed cock crushing clothed cock and taking Gray’s breath. “Carry on with the told you so digs.” Jack pulled back, cocking a smile. “I’ll mukka tip you for it.”

Gray went to say something, but a car pulling into the car park drew them apart, and Jack was back to watching it too.

“Go on. Watch your suit. Go look after Jan and Monique.” Jack winked at him. “Big bloke here. I can handle this.”

Gray cocked half a smile. “Never usually bothers you over grease on my suit or me handling you.”

Jack tutted. “Just keeping it family-friendly and clean, guv’na.” Another wink. “There’s no alley around to go Public Indecency Offence and you get me in cuffs over it. Bloody shame, that.”

Gray laughed and looked him up and down, so damn tempted. Jack needed cuffing and curbing at the best of times just to keep him… focused in the right ways. “Give me a call with all the details once you’re done.”

“Will do. But you’ll handle this how?”

Gray glanced back at Jack, a little caught out with the explicit ask. Jack didn’t do that. “Normal channels.” His smile fell. “My way.”

Jack nodded, and his smile fell too. “Make it hurt. Because this is close, far too close to fucking home and him .”

Gray nodded. That was more like Jack. He headed back to the car, throwing a glance Jack’s way before climbing in his Mercedes.

Talk stopped behind him, and Jan looked up. “Just give me a moment,” he said before pushing out and running the phone over to Jack. Something was said, a kiss stolen, mostly Jack’s, and his extra hard hold onto Jan that seemed to carry a quieter sorry over leaving him on the roadside held Gray’s attention.

Jan jogged back over a moment later and slipped in the front passenger seat. “All good,” he said, snapping his belt into place. “I double-checked he added all yours in right too. Jack and tech despite him being a mechanic, eh?”

“Thank you.” Gray shifted into gear and snorted a smile as he pulled away. “Shouldn’t take us long,” he said as he turned into the road. “About twenty minutes.”

It took Gray fifteen minutes with the light traffic, and he pulled to a stop in the MC carpark after security allowed him in.

Monique had gotten a call a few moments ago that Shaun needed to see her, and she sighed as she slipped her phone away before getting out and offering over a smile. “Thank you, Mr… erm.” She blushed. “Gray.”

“Anytime.” He meant that today, especially knowing what she was about to walk in to.

After slipping her bag over her shoulder, she headed over to reception. Gray gave Jan a look when he didn’t take off his belt, just sat there, staring out the window once he’d finished messing with his suitcase.

Gray kept focus on the window ahead. “I think you need to be in there with her, Jan.”

Jan didn’t take the hint, only sent a look Gray’s way. “You gonna tell me why you were at home?”

Gray frowned.

“You said business, then contradicted it by saying you were on your break.” His smile was so soft. “And trust me, this really isn’t the time for your double love of sophistry. Something’s bothering you to get you home early from… Nottingham business.”

Gray stared out the window again. “I was done in Nottingham, nothing more.”

Jan stayed on him for a few seconds, then—“Okay.” He pulled out Gray’s phone and offered it over.

“You’re doing what now, Jan?”

“Playing the privileged card.” He tapped the phone. “Make the call. Get me the last few hours out on business with you. I’ll catch up at home tonight with work.” He gave a rough sigh. “It should also give Chris and Ben something to really cry about to Jill, arseholes that they are. But you talk to me now. I think you need to. You’ve been a little lost over the last few months.”

Gray frowned, then eventually took the phone and made the call, occasionally flicking a hard look back at the MC’s account’s building: to the line of cars and licence plates. Chris’s and Ben’s hid among there somewhere, but that wasn’t his focus. Not just yet. He couldn’t tell Jan about Jason, not before Shaun had spoken to Monique. Too many questions would be raised, so that only left… Jude. And yeah, it more than troubled him.

He brought up Martin’s list on his own iPad, then offered it over to Jan. “Martin handed me that just before we lost him.”

Jan frowned at him, then ran a look over it.

“Women?” He glanced at Gray. “Those he slept with? Why…?” He seemed to work it out so quickly, but then that was Jan once he’d been given some of the jigsaw pieces. “He handed you this during all the trouble with Light.”

Gray nodded. “I thought it was just a distraction tactic to stop me and Light going head-to-head.”

“But women… kids.” Jan’s look went back to the list. “You found something?”

Gray offered a sigh. “A boy.”

“A boy ?” Jan snapped a look to Gray, then back to the iPad. “Where…?” He quickly scrolled down the list. “What’s his name? How old is he? Do you have a picture?”

Gray brought up the image of Jude playing with the black Labrador in the back garden.

“Jesus.” Jan swiped a thumb over the image. He seemed to try and fail so quickly over guessing who Jude looked like more: Jack or Martin.

Knowing this was going to hurt, he brought up part of the file Ray had given him: the Newspaper heading, and Jan’s mood changed instantly.

“A bin ?” That life of a council kid living off scraps of food out of rubbish bags seemed to resonate so damn angrily with a baby being left in a bin. “He was dumped in a fucking bin ?” Jan flicked through the rest of the file. “Is Jude alive?”

“We don’t know,” Gray said quietly. “He was eight years old when he ran, and there’s been nothing since. No NHS number, no driving licence, no National Insurance Number issued at sixteen. Even a name change would have left a record. Getting in contact with Raif would be my next step for intelligence. He knows people at street-level, which is where Jude ran to. If he’s still alive, Raif’s the best man to find him.”

Jan shrugged. “So why the hell are you still sat here?” It seemed to hit in the next moment. “Jack. He doesn’t know. Why the hell didn’t you tell him just?”

Gray tapped at a name just above Joanna’s.

“Charles Groves?” said Jan with a frown.

Yeah. Groves. Gray looked Jan’s way.

“Joanna was Cutter’s daughter. Jude is his grandson.”

Gray pulled in slow to the manor gates, waiting for Steve to open up. Sat next to Gray, Jan turned his phone over and over as he rested his hands in his lap, his quiet not having given up its hold since they’d left the MC. It touched 5:30 pm, and Jan echoed the bone tiredness of Gray’s.

“I know Cutter really screwed with Jack’s head and body, Gray,” Jan said quietly as the gates started to open. “But Jack….”

“Jack what?”

A look came Gray’s way. “Jack’s decision, no one else’s. He decides what happens from here on in over Jude.”

Gray nodded. It hadn’t been open for debate with him. They’d nearly lost Jack completely over withholding information on who had been behind Jan and Jack’s rape and psychological reconditioning, so Gray had made a promise not to lie to Jack no matter how much it hurt once he’d found out the details. Jan’s calm look refused to be thrown back to the same losses and hurt, and Gray loved his head for it when it came to anything that could potentially knock one of them off their feet. “No,” he said gently. “We don’t keep this from him now we have most of the details.” He slipped into first gear as Steve nodded them through. “We’ll talk to him tonight.”

“The list.” Jan looked ahead as Gray headed in, the slow crunch of pebble under tyre setting the pace. “When did you find it after Martin left? How long have you been searching?”

Gray tensed his jaw, keeping his look firmly on the long drive up to the courtyard. He knew this was what would dig into both Jan and Jack. “It was always there at the back of my mind since he gave it to me, but I wanted him here before I made any formal searches.”

“So when did you start?” Jan frowned. “More to the point—when did you start thinking Martin wouldn’t be back to search for himself?”

Gray shifted into second gear, his thumb brushing the leather of the steering wheel. “I don’t doubt Martin will be back.” He looked at Jan. “But I do know him. Like Jack, he’ll want all the answers. They’re both at their worst when they don’t.”

The weight on Jan’s shoulders seemed to ease. He seemed okay so long as he wasn’t forced into a corner over thinking Martin wouldn’t be back.

Gray rubbed at his thigh. “You okay with my search into the list?”

Jan glanced out the side window, at the green. “I understand why you didn’t mention it, how it could have led to nothing. All that matters is that you looked.” Another twist of the phone in his hand. “But Cutter’s grandkid…. Jesus Christ. What the fuck was Martin thinking, Gray?”

Yeah, Gray wanted to know that too. Cutter had driven Jack’s love of cutting during sex in order to push his aggression levels on breaking the law for him, which ultimately aided on triggering Martin. Cutter also fed Elena’s disorders along with Jack’s, which drove Elena to do what she did to Jack and Jan, their rape and psychological reconditioning off Vince and Henry. Greg, Jack’s dad, was the only one to come away with the broken bones for it.

No. Gray didn’t want to throw Jack and Jan back into all of that. Nor Greg. As for Elena? Gray had made sure she was long since off the playing field.

“Okay.” Jan pushed out with jacket and suitcase in one hand, phone in the other, then he came over to Gray’s side and leaned in close as Gray set his window down. “Get back to work. I’ll let Jack know I’m home and working a few hours here. We’ll talk when you’re both back, not until.” He offered a smile, then headed for the manor in the next breath, already thumbing through his phone to no doubt call Jack and let him know only Monique would need the courtesy car at the MC.

Gray had gotten a text off Brennan. Andrea, Monique’s lover, had been delayed out of town and couldn’t get to the MC until six, so Shaun made the call to wait until she was there until he broke the news over Jason. Jan wouldn’t be notified for another thirty minutes either.

That gave Gray half an hour to get a look at Chris, face to face, and he hoped, he really hoped for Chris and Ben’s sake that they had nothing to do with Monique’s car, because Gray was really in the mood to handle them if they were.