Chapter Three
Moose
Any plans I had of playing it cool with Doc Hannah evaporated not long after the police left.
It was the MC’s job to know what went on in this town. The fact that it involved the Doc, meant it involved me.
I upnodded Wrench as I walked into the garage, and started tinkering on the bike I was working on. Lucky came through the door a while later. I called him over with a jerk of my chin.
I wasn’t worried about whether the MC could handle a couple of animal abusing assholes.
What was on my mind was Hannah. She was a doctor, so I knew she was smart.
Her compassion clearly knew no bounds. But, she also seemed to think the best of everyone and the idea of her and her petite little frame alone against some abusive pieces of shit had my teeth on edge.
“I don’t like this whole dog fighting thing.”
He pulled a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it. “You think it’s connected to the other shit going on around here? What would dog fighting have to do with breaking into the Black Crown?”
I shrugged. There was a reason I didn’t want to hold a position within the MC.
I had spent my entire childhood being responsible for keeping my brother, Asher, and I alive. A job that should have been done by our parents and later foster parents, but wasn’t. I didn’t want to be responsible for my MC brothers now. Not solely anyway. But something was going on. I could feel it.
“Should we mention it to Prez?” Lucky was a patched member of the MC like I was. Neither of us held executive positions, preferring to wrench on cars during the week and race them at the Graveyard Strip on the weekends.
I shook my head. “Not yet. We gotta at least loop in Deadeye.”
Deadeye was the MC’s Enforcer. An intense son of a bitch who you didn’t want pointing a gun at you. He’d been a sniper in the military. Why he wasn’t anymore was anyone’s guess.
Lucky and I jumped on our bikes and met Deadeye at Bottles & Bites Diner. They had a killer burger, and everyone knew to mind their business when the MC was there.
We ordered drinks then got down to business. “What’s this about?” Deadeye asked, turning his ice blue eyes on me.
I filled him in on the rescue center, the dogs and my suspicion that the whole thing could be connected to whatever the hell was happening in this town.
Deadeye listened without comment. Our food arrived and he waited until the waitress was out of earshot before speaking.
“This Doc your old lady, Moose?”
I took an unnecessarily long time dipping a french fry in ketchup while I thought about how to answer. Was she my old lady?
No.
Did I feel like I needed to protect her?
Yes.
Where that led, who knew. She was all sunshine and I was a smear of grease. She’d be crazy to want me the way I wanted her. “I don’t have any claim to her, but-”
Deadeye raised a hand and I shut my mouth. “We don’t know enough about this. It could all be connected, but we can’t act until we know.”
That was a lot of words in a row for Deadeye, but I suspected he wasn’t done so I waited.
“I’ll get a few of the guys to ask around. If there is more to this then we’ll find out.”
“And Hannah?”
He took a deep breath and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Unless she’s your old lady and part of the club, we don’t have the guys to watch over her.”
I understood. Still, as I watched Deadeye walk out of the diner, I knew I wasn’t about to let this go.
******
Lucky and I’s lunch with Deadeye had put me behind on a brake job for a customer.
Being distracted didn’t help.
I was finally finishing up, but one glance out the garage door told me the sun had long since gone down.
“Why is there a fucking cat in this box?” Wrench asked.
I could just make out one orange ear sticking up from over the cardboard. “That’s Peaches.”
“You were the last stray I took in, don’t tell me I have another,” he deadpans.
Technically, Nomad was the one who’d brought me in, but Wrench gave me a purpose at Rust Valley Garage after I finished my time as a Prospect.
“I’ll take him back to Snuggle Squad.” I scooped the big cat into my arms and grimaced when he immediately tightened his claws into the leather of my cut. “This thing was built to save me from road rash, but somehow you put a hole in it?”
Wrench raised an eyebrow, muttering Snuggle Squad and shaking his head.
I walked to the end of the Rust Valley driveway and headed up the road towards Hannah’s place. A flash of bright white caught my eye and I saw a cat dart through the bushes. I hadn’t walked far enough to be inside the perimeter of Hannah’s fence.
Something wasn’t right.
For the escape artist in my arms to be wandering was one thing, but once I looked around, I caught a few sets of glowing eyes.
It was late evening and there were no lights on inside the rescue center.
Hannah’s SUV wasn’t parked out front either, but there was a white panel van with its rear doors open facing the front door.
“Sorry, Peaches, you’re going to have to fend for yourself.
” I put the big cat down, grabbed the gun out of the waistband of my jeans and started towards the open gate.
I could hear muffled voices that were way too deep to be Hannah.
I’d never seen anyone else working at the rescue.
Did she have a boyfriend? The idea had me clenching my teeth.
Two men came out the front door just as I was about to round the gate. I pulled back into the shadows.
“Bitch must have them somewhere else. We’ll hunt her down and find out.”
As much as I wanted to bust some skulls, I hung back until the van pulled out of the driveway then pulled out my cell. “Deadeye, we might have a problem.” I filled our Enforcer in on the development as I walked through the front door of Snuggle Squad Rescue.
Still couldn’t believe she’d named it that.
There were a few cats hiding in corners and under the desk. Everything else was chaos. Papers spread around, every cage door opened and furniture turned over.
At least they didn’t break the windows.
“You think these are the guys we’ve been watching out for? The ones who tried to break into the Black Crown?” Deadeye asked through the phone.
“Could be. Can we get the Prospects to watch the place until morning?”
“Done.” He hung up. Our Enforcer was a man of few words, but luckily, he was also a man of action.
I sent off a text to Wrench to let him know the deal then started putting things back to rights. I didn’t want Hannah to come back and see this. She didn’t need to worry about missing cats, or see how her dream rescue had been torn apart.
“Shit,” I turned to see Wrench standing in the door running a hand through his salt and pepper beard. “You weren’t kidding.”
I nodded. The Prospects arrived not long after. “Tank, go stand guard up front. Jet, start rounding up cats and put this place back together.”
Wrench headed out but I couldn’t convince myself to leave. As I was watching the woods for glowing eyes, Peaches sauntered up and wrapped himself around my ankle. “You again.”
I started walking the perimeter of Hannah’s property, looking for anything suspicious or weak spots in her security.
Peaches trotted along beside me, circling my ankle whenever I stopped.
“Yeah, yeah alright,” I said, scratching between his ears.
“I think we got them all,” Jet called from the front door of the rescue. The sky had started to lighten from pitch black to the dark purple of a fresh bruise. I picked up Peaches and headed for the front door.
Things looked a lot better.
Each cage had a cat - except for Peaches’ cage, of course - and they had righted the furniture that had been knocked over. Tank was just straightening a stack of scattered papers when my eyes landed on the envelope on top of the pile. It had Hannah’s name and address, but it wasn’t this address.
I snatched it up. ”Fuck these guys know where she lives.”