Chapter 12
Hound Dog
M elody settled in for the next few days, I kept my distance to allow her space, hoping that she would make it her own. I kept my distance primarily to allow her to not rely on me completely. She had gone out and gotten some things, worked with a couple record companies, and filled the house with life for once.
And yet I avoided her like I had taken my own word. Avoiding her to avoid the feel of retracting everything I said.
I barely looked at her even if she had emerged from the room. I made sure I was home late, only to avoid the late night wake up. I was going mad and looked like a maniac finding ways to avoid her because I feared that if given the chance, she might change her mind.
And as much as I wanted to be a part of that transition, watching her get a little comfortable in a safer space, it was for the better until we started working.
Our relationship, our partnership was going to be a friend teaching a friend. Or protege as she had joked that night. I laughed at myself at the foolish thought. Thinking that friend was enough. I needed her out of my head.
I sat in the living room one night, she hadn’t come out of the room. I could hear her hum tunes and I ached to hear her sing. I hoped she was still writing during the times I left.
I would look up from my computer hoping she would stumble in, and flash me a smile. I could have talked to her but after I told her to come home with me, I knew the line I was tiptoeing.
Why did it feel like that was harder than patching into the club?
I was a seesaw that had no balance.
There was something off in the house, and it felt like strangers rather than something else. I had no one to blame but myself.
My phone pulled me from my thoughts, seeing that it was Fender. If Fender called, then something was wrong and I wasn’t ready for what came next.
“Make it good, or make it worth my time, brother,” I warned him, because as much as I needed to get out of the house, I wanted to be where I was.
“It’s neither, unfortunately,” he said.
My face dropped, I didn’t want to hear that. It had been a while since we had heard from PD about the recent murder. Then again, we were trying to get them off our tails since we were innocent. After I had questioned each of the club members, I needed to know for sure that it wasn’t them and someone wasn’t testing my patience.
Was it excessive, sure, but I wasn’t taking chances.
“What now?” I asked, looking to see if there was movement from Melody’s room.
Fender let out a sigh before telling me, “Greene called, we’re needed downtown.”
Fender was right, it was neither.
“Get Shooter, send me the location and be there as soon as I can,” I growled out before ending the call. I could feel my head pounding at my temples and tension in my shoulders.
I knocked at Melody’s room, and she jerked her head back from the bed where her notebook was. Her hair was thrown into a thick bun, her bright face looking healthier than before, and her body looking damn tempting in her sweats.
“I just wanted to let you know that I have to go, and don’t know when I’ll be back,” I said. Not that I thought she would worry about me, let alone talk to me after I was practically gone the majority of the time.
After barely speaking with her for weeks, I didn’t know where that came from. My mind took control and impulsively knocked down a wall that I wasn’t ready for.
I hadn’t had time to help her like I promised, but she didn’t push back. Something told me she was holding back thinking I’d kick her out.
“You didn’t have to tell me,” Melody said, softly.
“I just don’t know what time I’ll be back,” I said, throwing my hands in my pocket.
She huffed, “You don’t need to do this.” She went back to writing.
I shook my head because now I was confused, “Do what?”
She sighed again like I had asked an obvious question. “Tell me your movements, you don’t need to report to me. We’re not dating, we don’t own each other.”
“That’s not…” I started but she kept going. I quickly realized that my master plan of ignoring her, putting distances between us was working too well.
“A few kisses was enough to say and then tell me that there’s nothing more, okay. I got it. You’re helping me out, it’s a kindness, not a relationship. You go your way and I go mine.” She barely looked at me. She sighed, like hope was gone, “I think we got it out of our system. I understand. I appreciate the gesture. Hell, if you need me out just say so. If you’re having second thoughts, I understand. Just tell me."
Obviously I didn’t know what I wanted. It hurt a bit to hear it from her, the pain and almost sorrow in her voice. I caused that.
She thought I had second thoughts, but what she didn’t know was that they weren’t of regrets, they were ones of her and if I deserved a chance. I was angrier after she said it was out of our system because internally that would never be the fact.
Why was I expecting so much more fight, when my own plan worked?
I didn’t like it.
I didn’t have time to fix it, it would have to be later.
That was her defensive wall, to not expect the best, to only rely on herself. I saw that.
Before I could retort, my phone kept buzzing in my pocket. I already knew it was Fender blowing up my phone. My hands shot out of my pocket clenched into a fist, wanting to hit something.
My phone kept going off, she quickly looked at me.
“I got to go, but we’re not finished with this conversation.” I groaned, hating the fact that I had to leave when this was unfinished.
I was barely out of the room before she whispered, thinking I didn’t hear, “Can’t give more than that.”
I knew I fucked up, but couldn’t help the thoughts of wanting her but can’t have her at the same time. I couldn’t keep doing it. I couldn’t keep tiptoeing around her. I needed to stop the damn pity party.
I pushed through the door, almost busting it off the hinges. I got on my bike, revving the engine loud. The roar of the bike vibrated underneath me, the power between my legs. I needed a few moments to get out of my head. The open air with the breeze in my face washed away any of the tension that was built from back at the house.
I dug that grave too early.
Weaving in and out of traffic got me downtown quicker than I planned. But when I pulled up a block away from the scene, I suddenly realized that the scene was down the street from. The Growler. Not that many people knew it was one of ours, our hands were in quite a bit of businesses.
The feeling it was getting closer to home didn’t settle well.
Seeing Fender and Shooter at the corner welcomed me to whatever chaos was about to be revealed. Shooter flicked his finished cigarette on the ground as he cleared his throat. Fender started rubbing the back of his neck. Fender tended to be quiet, more in the background, more observer than talker.
Fender came to us through the grapevine but I knew him from back in my Nash Lane days when he played guitar until one night he paid a price with an accident and hung up the guitar. He started to have tremors that came in high stress. They were controllable and even for a road captain he didn’t let that stop him. He couldn’t keep himself safe, but he wouldn’t let that happen to anyone else.
“Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is?” I asked, joining next to them waiting for Greene and his puppy dog, Daniels.
“Well, don’t think we’ll be nominated for town heroes if that’s what you were hoping,” Fender joked looking at me, then noticing my stern, pissed off look before turning away. He stood a couple inches shorter than me, but still a tall motherfucker.
Greene came strolling over right on cue, with his nervous trainee behind him. “Greene, tell me that isn’t a crime scene in the middle of the business district and damn sure not near our business.”
He took a deep breath, unlocking his phone to show us what they had again. And suddenly my heart dropped in my stomach for the first time in years.
“Thirty year old, caucasian female. 5 '4, auburn hair, known to be a singer around here. Cause of death without proper examination appears to be an overdose, similar to the first one. Nothing was stolen from her, she was left in the alleyway.” Greene started to distribute the information to us, but all my eyes saw was Melody.
I knew it wasn’t her, but the likeness reminded me of her.
It was a coincidence. That’s what I kept telling myself. What wasn't a coincidence was someone hitting too close to home.
The fear of ever seeing her like this, that it could be her was all I saw in this poor soul.
Shooter shook my shoulder. “Prez, you good? You look like you saw a ghost.”
It was exactly that feeling, if it wasn’t for the fact that the lifeless body in the picture was hours old and I just left the house with my eyes on her, I would have thought it was her.
“Something like that,” I muttered.
I shoved the phone back at Greene. “I appreciate the heads up, but if you’re not warning us about potential interrogation again, I fail to see the reasoning for us to be here.”
Daniels interrupted, “Respectfully, he didn’t have to call at all.”
The man was ballsy. “Well, buddy boy, you can shove that back. You’re still new here. We are not at some beck and call.”
Greene interjected, protecting his rookie, “Don’t take too much offense. Hound, this isn’t good. There’s only so much that I can push to get it out of your direction.”
“That a threat?” Shooter growled out.
Shooter stepped up toward Greene, but Greene didn’t falter, didn’t even flinch. “I’m not a lackey either. But I am a man of my word. As long as I know that it wasn’t you all, I have no issues.”
“Doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t just rat us out when things got tough. Even to save your own neck,” Fender retorted.
The tension between them was growing and if we didn’t want any more blood to shed, someone needed to step in. The two men kept sizing each other up, never breaking eye contact.
“We didn’t do this,” I intervened. It did nothing to break the external struggle to keep things under wraps.
“Didn’t say it was,” Greene respectfully said. “But, it looks like someone struck again.”
Another evidence bag filled with another small blue, devil printed bag. Someone did it again, pointing out the similarities between the first one and now the one that lay at the end of the road. There was no way it was us, but only so much could be done to show it wasn’t.
I had nothing against the man but no one was completely true to their word, some loyalties aren’t that strong and dedicated.
Fender cleared his throat, “We all may have a bigger problem that no one else is seeing.”
Shooter and Greene stepped back and twisted their heads. When he saw that they were waiting for answers he continued, “If anything, it’s not one of us, more like someone framing us.”
“You think someone is getting sloppy and overlooking,” Greene said.
“More like targeting, and doing something internally or second hand. I don’t know. But nothing has been said to us about the department thinking it’s someone else. Someone that knows about the business, about the bags.”
Daniels and Greene fell silent at the notion. They simply shook their heads no.
“Well, if someone is then it seems you have a problem,” Daniels interjected.
“Leave that part to us,” I said, with a slight smirk. It was going to be a long night.
“I don’t like cleaning up someone else’s mess,” Greene grunted.
“Ah, but that’s what we pay you for.” I laughed, lightly tapping Greene’s cheek.
“Hound, if I see that it’s one of your men, we’re going to have a problem,” Greene warned.
“Our problems are always your problem,” Shooter said.
Greene looked the other way or kept everyone off our backs. It was the concern that some things were truly out of his power and we might not have the power to stop. I’d be damned if that were to happen.
As Greene and Daniels walked away, I turned and knew what the day was going to be like. I certainly wasn’t going to be home anytime soon. And a certain conversation was going to have to wait, as much as I knew that it couldn’t.
The club came first.
The club always came first.
“I want answers and I wanted them yesterday,” I growled, rolling my neck.
“Boss, we can’t predict the future.” Fender came to defend the lack of answers or initiative to protect.
I didn’t care, someone clearly from the beginning was sending a signal and I wasn’t going to just let it go. I wasn’t going to loosen up now, someone was coming for blood.
“I’ll tell you what the future holds. That.” I turned pointing at the scene surrounded by the red and blue lights. “That’s strike two. I let it slide, thinking we were in the clear.”
“We were,” Fender started, but that shit wasn’t flying with me.
I stopped, standing chest to chest. “I don’t care if we were. I will not let our defenses down on pure thought. Next time you think, you remember what it’s like to let your guard down.” I sneered at him.
If you want it done right, then do it yourself.
“What do you want us to do, boss?” Shooter interrupted before I could break further. There were too many thoughts swirling around.
“Get Blaze to hack the CCTV footage, I want to know who was the dealer, or someone had to be watching and once he finds something, let me know.”
“What do you expect to do?” Shooter questioned.
“If it wasn’t us, then it was someone else targeting or selling. I think we have been too hands off. I won’t mind spilling blood if that’s what it means to get answers and end this crap.”
“Sounds like Saints may be turning in the halos for a moment.” Fender nodded his head.
“And church tomorrow morning,” I added before it was fresh on my mind.
Shooter jolted. “Why not now?”
I shot him a warning before he backed off. “Because I’m meeting with Blaze tonight and then I got something I need to take care of.”
Certainly, our halos were a bit tarnished. I had a little birdie that needed my attention before she wanted to fly and leave.