Chapter 2
Onyx
Club meetings always feel more righteous when my old man sits at the table. Even though he stepped down as Prez months ago, his wisdom is still very much needed. Plus, my old man founded this club, and I don’t think he could stay away from church if his life depended upon it.
Jasper stands, placing both hands on the meeting table and leans forward with a steely gleam in his eye.
It’s his favorite power pose. Somehow my oldest brother has gotten it into his head that in order to fill our old man’s boots, he’s got to project a certain image.
Then again, Jasper has always been a pretty serious fucker, so maybe this isn’t all that much of a stretch for him.
Slate, the second oldest of my brothers, is our VP.
He’s scrolling through the news on his phone.
Mica’s skimming the management reports I just gave him on our club’s businesses, the ones I manage, and he keeps the books on.
I’m the club secretary, but do a shit ton more than just take meeting minutes.
Mica is the perfect club treasurer because he has a head for numbers.
Jinx, our sergeant-at-arms, is the only club officer who isn’t part of the Jackson clan.
We voted him into office because he’s honest, loyal, dependable and has always had our back.
Just before he opens the meeting, Jasper’s phone vibrates on the table. He catches the caller ID, reaches over, and presses the speaker button so we can all hear what he has to say. “Detective Morgan, what can I do for you today?”
If our only trustworthy police contact in Solano County is calling us up, there must be something important going down. Morgan is the only window we have into what’s going on at the Cedar Falls PD.
Today Morgan’s voice is low, urgent, and deadly serious. “We have a missing person case and just got a warrant for the suspect’s arrest. His name is Charles Brennan. He’s wealthy, educated, and well connected. He’s also currently a fugitive from justice.”
Jasper’s gaze sweeps the table before he responds. “Why the fuck are you calling us? Do you think your fugitive might be in our territory?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s he done?” Jasper asks.
“Got a history of stalking his exes. You know what these rich pricks can be like? Thinkin’ they own their women.
This one’s always been untouchable. Anyway, his girlfriend’s family just listed her as a missing person.
They brought us enough information to give the DA an easy win.
Somehow, he found out we were coming for him and he ran. ”
My old man asks, “What makes you think he’d stray all the way out here?”
Morgan states flatly, “He likes to hike and claims he can live off the land if he had to. He gets all his clothing from high-end outdoor outfitters and drives a Land Rover. You know the type. We got a hit on his card at a gas station in Shelby, so it looks like he could be headed this way.”
“Well fuck me,” Slate says. “He sounds just like the kind of fuckin’ asshole to think he can squat on our land.”
I point out the obvious. “He might be thinking the same thing my parents did when they bought our property thirty years ago. That it’s convenient to Interstate 505, has riverfront access, and lots of places for a clever man to hide if he needs to.”
My dad throws me an annoyed look for talking about our family business with a cop. Yeah, I probably fucked up there.
Jasper rolls right past my little slip of the tongue.
“I think you might be onto something, Morgan,” he replies.
“I don’t want our land swarmed with fuckin’ law enforcement.
Point them in another direction and our club will take responsibility for searching every square inch of our property. We know all the good places to look.”
Morgan’s voice turns wry, “Great idea. I don’t need an officer falling down a ravine or an old well.”
“They won’t if you leave the job to us.”
“Let me know if you find anything.” After a brief pause, he adds, “Needless to say, I need him alive to stand trial.”
“Don’t worry,” Jasper assures him confidently. “We’ll make sure he’s still breathing when we turn him over to you.”
“I’ll text you his picture, along with a description. If you want to send one of your prospects to me, I’ve got a piece of his clothing that you can let your dogs sniff.”
My old man answers, “Absolutely. I’ll send a prospect into the lion’s den.”
Morgan chuckles for the first time during this conversation. “That’s the first time I’ve heard our precinct referred to as the lion’s den, Rock. That’s normally what my men call your clubhouse.”
Even I’m amused by their banter. Morgan says his goodbyes and we get to planning.
Our Prez just volunteered us for a two-hundred-acre manhunt in the bitter cold. Which means every brother will be out in the wilderness, flooding our ridges and woods. We’ll be working in teams of two or three. Sounds like a fun way to spend the weekend.
Jasper quickly announces, “We need to get after this fucker before he stumbles on the home depot.”
The rest of us stop dead in our tracks. When he uses the term home depot, Jasper doesn’t mean the home improvement store.
That’s the nickname for the place our club has been burying our bodies for the last thirty years.
I hesitate to think how many we killed, maybe dozens.
All were well justified, in self-defense or fuckers that just wouldn’t stop coming for us.
We don’t kill lightly and rarely is it premeditated.
Killing occasionally just comes with the territory of runnin’ an MC.
But Jasper’s right, we can’t take a chance on him or anyone else accidentally stumbling onto our dumping ground.
Slate speaks up, “We need to make one clean sweep over the entire property. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch him with very little effort.
If not, we appoint our most trusted brothers to guard the home depot and then spread out for a more thorough search.
If he’s here, we need to find him. If we see anything, we call Morgan.
Doing it our damn selves keeps cops off our land and out of our business. ”
Rock nods once, approving Slate’s plan. Jinx cracks his knuckles like he has been waiting for something interesting to pop off.
***
It takes Jasper close to an hour to assign all the brothers our search areas.
My old man unfolds a map, intent upon marking off the areas as they’re searched.
True to his word, Morgan let us have a shirt that belongs to Brennan.
With that in hand, we gear up and head out to get the dogs.
Husk unlocks the kennels. He’s the kennel master, who got his club name from the fact that he has huskies.
Only eight of us have dogs out of the thirty or so brothers that live at the clubhouse.
When we approach, the dogs bounce and bark from behind the fence. They can either smell our adrenaline from twenty feet away and know they’re getting a rare opportunity to track, or they scent Husk and are just so goddamn excited to see him they can’t stand it.
My dog, Forge, might not have the best nose in the pack, but she makes up for it with pure tenacity. Right now, she’s vibrating with excitement and comes running to me the minute Husk opens the gate.
Mica’s mutt, Sable, stays lower, like he’s tracking before we even give him anything to track. Our two dogs have different mindsets, which make for good balance.
We’re all split into groups now. After Husk opens the bag with the fugitive’s shirt in it and lets every dog smell it, each group wanders off to search their areas. Mica and I move towards the tree line behind the clubhouse, the dogs pulling hard enough to jerk us forward.
Mica falls in step beside me. “You look like you’re thinking hard about something?”
“Yeah,” I say, tugging Forge back to heel. “Not all of us have a genius IQ. That means we have to put more effort into it.”
Mica is by far my most intelligent brother. He flashes me an easy grin at my self-effacing compliment. He doesn’t like to brag but he knows solving complicated problems comes easy to him.
He asks, “Are you looking forward to chasing some rich fucker through the woods?”
I toss him a lopsided grin. “Yeah, it’s been ages since we’ve hunted down a goddamn human.
God knows, I love the chaos of tracking someone through the woods, never knowing if we’re gonna catch him before he gets the jump on us, if he set traps for those who might come looking for him, or if he’s blissfully unaware that we’re even hunting him. ”
“I like to think he’s blissfully unaware,” Mica responds.
“Well, if we’re lucky, he’ll be smart like you. And it’ll be more of a challenge.”
He doesn’t deny it. “Do you think he did something to his missing girlfriend?”
“I don’t give a shit about that. It’s for the police to unwind. I just want this asshole off our property and out of our business.”
The dogs pull us towards the woods, straining against their leashes.
I don’t know if it’s because they actually smell something, or they’re just angling to play in the river.
I enjoy the sights of nature and the scent of pine and damp earth.
The dogs seem convinced they’re gonna find something worth sinking their teeth into.
Forge catches a scent before we’re even twenty yards in.
She freezes for a second and then begins rooting around on the ground like crazy.
Sable comes to see what she found and picks it up a second later and they start pulling us deeper into the woods.
Mica gives me a small, satisfied nod. We both have faith in our dogs’ ability to track a scent.