Chapter 42 #2
“So, they wanted to wait until she was out of the car and close, but not close enough to hurt her?”
“That’s what Kade thinks,” he says unsurely. This entire situation is just one big cluster-fuck, and I’m not sure any of us know what to make of it.
“Then why did her car blow up?”
“The crash. The bomb was stable, but not that stable,” he says in that smartass tone of his, and I find myself starting to pace in the leaves.
I don’t like not being there. I hate that Kade is near them, and it bothers me that Alex isn’t even in the room with her right now, but I have to do this.
I have to bring D home. Once again, he would know all of the answers.
He would know how to fix this whole mess.
“Do not leave her fucking side, Alex. I mean it.” I walk back out to the street and look up and down it to look for more evidence.
There’s nothing else here. When they took him, they must have been extremely thorough, and that only attests to who we’re dealing with.
The only thing in sight is the same gravel driveway that’s been up this mountain my entire life.
I walk up to it anyway, just to be sure there’s nothing lying under the rocks.
The last I heard, some old hermit lived up here, and he barely ever came to town.
He has a gate that blocks any vehicle from getting through, but apart from that, and a fuck-ton of no trespassing signs, there’s nothing really over here.
As I turn back around, an owl perched up on one of the high branches catches my eye. It’s looking directly at me, and while I normally love a good animal companion, I’m not in the mood to play ‘Cinderella.’
“Caw, bitch!” I try to scare it off, just for shits and chuckles, but it doesn’t move an inch.
Do owls sleep with their eyes open? Wait, they’re nocturnal, right?
What the fuck is it doing? I pick up a rock and toss it a little lower than it’s sitting, because I don’t want to hit it, and it still doesn’t move.
After walking a few steps closer, and I see a faint red light coming from one of its eyes, excitement fills my chest again.
“What are the chances that it’s our lucky day?” I ask Alex, almost forgetting I still had him on the phone.
“Have you met us?”
“That’s a good point. I take it back. I’ll call you again in a few minutes.
” I hang up and pocket my phone as I jog back to the car.
It was funny as hell to see Tony’s reaction when he asked whose car this is.
I just told him not to worry about it, and that it would be back where it belongs soon.
My best friend is worth getting some jail time for.
I doubt that Tony would actually lock me up.
Then again, he might just do it because he can.
I make sure there’s enough ammo in my pistol, and go to walk back across the street, when a heavy revving sound draws my attention.
Grease pulls up fairly quickly, and I instinctively rest my hand on the gun handle.
My body tenses with curiosity, and a little bit of paranoia.
I’ve never noticed him out this way. What are the chances he’s just out for an afternoon ride?
It’s not likely. He parks his bike behind the car and steps off of it as he rips his helmet away from his head.
“What are you doing, Grease?”
“One of my guys saw you standing outside of the bank and overheard you talking to the cop. When he saw you pull off this way, he called, and I was already out. So, I figured I’d offer my help.”
I know Ash and D trust him, but I'm not sure I do. Our groups have been cool with each other for a while now, but I’m not ready to trust anyone until they prove they’re worthy of it.
“Do you know who lives here?” I ask him cautiously.
“No. Why?”
“See that?” I turn and point at the camera.
“Okay? It’s a fucking owl. How does that help?”
“It’s a fake fucking owl, thank you very much.
I just found D’s bike behind the trees.” I point to where I found it, and his face falls.
He genuinely looks distraught over the revelation, and it makes me feel a little better about him.
His now-determined glare reaches mine as he looks back at me, and we stare each other down like we gearing up for war.
“I need to see what that owl did that day.”
He nods sharply and pulls his own pistol from his holster.
“Well, then. Let’s go ask this mother fucker what happened to D.
” He walks across the street, and I follow.
After ducking under the gate, we stalk the apparently long gravel way.
“How’s Ashia?” he asks softly. He glances over at me with worried eyes.
I don’t know what kind of friendship he has with my sister, but it’s clear he’s upset about what happened.
After their little meeting, she said it went well, and that she had a lot of respect for him.
Then, after Satori showed his ass at the barbecue, and they had her back so easily, it only proved her point.
I might be a little harsh on the guy, but I have to be when it concerns my family.
“Her and the baby are okay. She’s back on bed rest for a while, but they’re alright for now.”
“Good. We’ve been beat the fuck up about it. Even Vike won’t stop asking about her. Are you sure the guy driving the other car isn’t someone we should be worried about? My guys are ready to go if we need to handle him.”
I raise an eyebrow at that. How the fuck does my sister have an entire MC whipped?
“Yeah, we’re sure. A paramedic that treated Ash knows him.
He’s a surgical resident and shouldn’t have been driving after a long shift—said he’s a good kid.
” He nods as we finally walk up to a wooden fence and gate.
It clearly stretches around the entire property, and it’s tall as hell.
As if the trees at the bottom and around this space weren’t enough to keep prying eyes from seeing anything, the fence ensures it.
“I’m really sorry about your friend, man. He seemed like a good kid, too.”
I clear my throat as it threatens to tighten up on me again.
I’m glad Alex handled calling his parents, because fuck, there’s no way I could’ve done it.
Ezra was a good kid. He was so young compared to the rest of us, and so full of life.
If anyone’s heart was made of gold, his was.
He was a clumsy little shit, and he never stopped cracking jokes, but he had a lot going for him.
His death is hitting us all pretty hard, but we have to move forward.
“Thanks. Yeah, he was.” I swallow harshly and start to climb the fence.
Grease quickly follows suit, and the moment we jump down from it, a farmhouse reveals itself.
It looks run-down, almost, and seems barely livable from the broken and boarded up windows—plus the half-collapsed porch cover.
There’s also an old, burgundy pickup truck at the end of the gravel, and as we make our way to the house, I put my hand on the hood.
It's shockingly warm, and that tells me that it’s been driven recently—leading me to believe the old tales of this place aren’t so true after all.
I jerk my head towards the door, gesturing to Grease for us to keep going.
He nods and keeps his hand by his pistol, clearly on guard.
We both walk onto the porch, and before I can even knock, the door swings open, and the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun is directed at my face.
Shock explodes and I flinch, forcing me to raise my hands automatically.
Grease lifts his pistol and points it to the man threatening me, and now we’re all stuck in a death-dance.
“The sign says no trespassing!” the gruff, deep voice yells. My immediate reaction is to ask ‘which one,’ but I keep that thought to myself. I can vaguely see inside this decrepit house, and immediately notice the burlap sacks full of marijuana leaves. He thinks we’re here to steal his stash.
“We just have some questions about our missing friend. I don’t care about what you got going on up here.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about nobody missin’.” His heavy southern accent comes through.
“You have a hidden camera in the trees by the road. I just need to see the footage from September first. My friend’s bike was found in the tree line a few minutes ago. We're not cops, and we can pay you for your time.”
“Choose wisely, pendejo,” Grease warns him. After some clear internal deliberation, the man reluctantly lowers the gun just a little and jerks his head, signaling for us to enter. Now we’re getting somewhere. We step inside, but both men keep their guns aimed.
“I swear on my life, we’re just here for information.
My sister’s husband was taken from the road down here, and by the tone in your ‘I don’t know nothin’ about nobody missin’,’ I’m assuming you know exactly what I’m talking about,” I accuse him, and rightfully so.
He narrows his eyes and sizes me up, because I’m right.
He knows what he caught, but I’m guessing by his little side business that he couldn’t afford to get involved.
“I promise that if you show me what’s on that camera, that we’ll turn right around and go about our business.
We’ll never bother you again. I just need your help. ”
He finally lowers the gun and turns to walk into another room.
We follow, and I’m shocked by his setup.
It might make Carter cry, but only because it looks just about as nice as his.
He has a bunch of monitors set up on the wall, and I’m assuming there’s more than one owl in these trees, because they each have different feeds.
There’s even one from the base of the mountain at the stop light.
The keyboard is just as annoying as Carter’s, too. He’s typing so frantically and loudly that it plucks every nerve I have left. The screen in the middle lights up, and the time stamp shows the date I need.
Grease and I lean in closely, and the only sound coming from the small speakers is engines revving—then a screech and a crash that immediately follows.
I don’t see anything right then, except for a black car entering and almost exiting the frame.
It stops just short of the view, and that’s when I see Damien flying through the air.
I hold my breath.
He lands harshly on the pavement beside the car and rolls into the grass before he slams into one of the trees.
His bike slides past him and crashes into the brush after him.
I can’t help but grimace at how painful that looks.
Grease does the same, and has to stand straight to fight off the imaginary pain.
I’m sure it hits a little harder for him, you know, riding a bike and all.
A bald man dressed in an orange and black plaid shirt gets out of the car that hit Damien, and he walks over to stand over top of him.
I watch as Damien reaches out toward the man, clearly in a lot of pain, and the man just puts a phone to his ear before kneeling down to him.
What the fuck? The man looks way too calm, and an eerie feeling instantly washes over me.
After some small movements, Damien’s hand falls to the ground, and another man quickly enters the frame.
Both of the guys look way too fit to be of average size, and while they don’t say anything to each other—that I know of—they look comfortable around each other.
They quickly pick Damien up and throw him into the trunk before moving to hide his bike.
Anger surges through my veins. I just want to jump through the screen and defy time to stop them.
Once that’s over, the car with Damien drives back down the mountain, and a second vehicle, almost exactly the same, drives in the direction of the house.
“Where do they go after this?” I ask frantically. He types a little more, and then he switches to the camera at the bottom of the mountain. I can barely see it, but just before the car gets to the light, it turns down a private, almost hidden trail—making my body run cold.
“What the fuck? Why would they go that way?” Grease asks.
“That road goes to the old mental hospital, right?” I snap my gaze back to Grease and he’s already heading out the door.
I don’t stop to say thank you before I follow him, and I’m sure the guy is grateful.
We make it back out of the house and over the fence in what seems like a matter of seconds, desperate to get moving.
There would be no other reason for them to head that way.
The mental hospital has been closed for years, and that dirt road leads nowhere else.
How fucked would it be that this entire time, Damien was just over twenty miles from home?
He’s been right under our noses this entire fucking time, and we fell for all of their lies and tricks!
We’ve been chasing leads all over this side of the country, and we just had to look right in our own backyard.