Chapter 4 #2
“Yeah,” a voice called back from a few rows away. Seconds later, a tall woman came around the corner and I understood.
She was wearing the same type of long skirt and loose long sleeved shirt that I’d seen Esther wearing at school, her hair pulled back in the same hairstyle.
The only difference that I could see was the puffy vest she wore over it all, sort of trendy but clearly worn in deference to the weather and not as a fashion statement.
“Can you help Otto here pick out some plants for his flower beds?” Ephraim asked, smiling at his wife. “We need a woman’s touch.”
His wife—Caity—laughed and looked at me. “We’ll find you something. There aren’t really any flowers blooming at this time of year. Were you hoping for some shrubs, maybe?”
“I—whatever you think,” I said, shaking my head. “I have no idea.”
“I’ve got some ideas,” she said, smiling. She looked over at Ephraim and at his nod waved at me to follow her.
As we moved through the rows of greenery, I couldn’t help thinking about that look.
It was as if she’d been asking for permission to show me around—which didn’t make any sense since he’d called her over to do just that.
It gave me a sour taste in my mouth that only intensified when I realized that Ephraim had followed us at a distance and camped out one row over while Caity asked how big my garden beds were and showed me what she thought would look nice.
“You went to school with Ephraim?” his wife asked casually as we stood at the little register near the front door a few minutes later.
“With Ephraim and Esther,” I confirmed with a nod.
Her gaze sharpened. “You know Esther, too?”
I laughed lightly and shrugged, my stomach clenching for a reason I couldn’t pinpoint as she watched me closely. “About as well as I know Ephraim. I didn’t really hang out with either of them, but it’s not a big school.”
She smiled back at me as she nodded, but her eyes were wary.
“You guys all finished?” Ephraim asked, wiping off his hands as he walked toward us. As if he hadn’t been watching us the whole damn time like a psycho.
By the time I left, I had six bushes in pots on a drop cloth on my back seat and my skin was crawling.
On the outside, they seemed like any other couple.
No sense of tension or anything like that, but when you watched them a little something just felt wrong about it.
Maybe it was because I’d grown up with women who had no problem saying what they wanted and doing what they wanted and generally taking no shit from anyone, not even their husbands.
There wasn’t anything that I could say that definitively bothered me about Ephraim and his wife, it’s not like he’d beat her in front of me or something, but the way she’d looked to him like she was gauging his opinion of what she said and how she acted… felt gross.
I also hadn’t learned anything about Esther. I hadn’t even had the chance to ask about her in a way that wouldn’t have become suspicious pretty quickly. Even mentioning her name had them looking at me like a hawk. I figured that wasn’t a good thing.
Pulling out my phone, I called Titus.
“You go to the garden center?” he asked, the sound of a bunch of teenagers talking over each other in the background.
“It was just her older brother and sister-in-law,” I said, glancing back at the stupid plants in my back seat. “No sign of her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t work today,” Titus said, the background noise getting a little quieter. “You didn’t ask about her, right?”
“No. I mentioned that I’d gone to school with her and Ephraim and the wife picked right up on it and asked if I knew Esther.”
“Huh.”
“The way she asked was weird, man. Like the answer was important.”
“What did you say?”
“That I knew her as well as Ephraim because it was such a small school. It felt off.”
“I told you they were fuckin’ strange. Didn’t I tell you—”
“Yeah, you told me.” I sighed. “Not sure how I’m gonna talk to her. It’s not like I could randomly run into her somewhere. I haven’t before now.”
“I think the women keep pretty close to home.”
“How the fuck do you know all this?” I asked in exasperation. “You’re the prince of not payin’ attention to what’s goin’ on around you.”
“I pay attention to some shit,” he countered. “Listen, bell just rang and I need to get back to class. I have an idea though. I’ll call you after school.”
He hung up before I could tell him not to do anything. The little shit.
I probably shouldn’t have pulled him into my bullshit, but he was the only one who actually knew who Esther was.
If I’d tried to explain the situation to anyone else, they wouldn’t have been able to understand what I was dealing with.
Hell, I didn’t fully understand what I was dealing with—but ironically, Titus seemed to have a good grasp on it.
After dropping the plants off in my front yard and putting the Mustang away, I got my Harley out of the garage and headed into work.
Thankfully, everyone was pretty easy going about people taking days off or coming in late or early.
As long as you weren’t being a dirtbag and still hit your forty hours, they didn’t really give a shit when you were there.
Almost everyone in the club worked at the garage at one point or another, but the old timers came in pretty sporadically, so it was a surprise to see the forecourt filled with bikes so early on a Tuesday.
“Where you been?” my older brother Micky called as I parked my bike.
I waited until I’d pulled my helmet off to answer him. “What are you, my mother?”
“Cute,” he muttered. “Shit’s goin’ down and you’re bein’ cute.”
“What shit?” I asked, climbing off the bike.
“Not sure yet.”
We walked side by side into the clubhouse. It was pretty full of members loitering around, but there were a few missing which meant the big guns were closed up behind the bar talking about shit I wasn’t allowed to hear.
“You know what this is all about?” I asked Micky quietly as we headed toward Rumi.
“Somethin’ about a shipment that never made it,” he replied just as quietly. “I was standin’ next to Dad when he got the call.”
“That’s not good.”
“Understatement,” Micky muttered as we reached Rumi. “You heard anythin’?”
“Not a peep,” Rumi said easily, leaning back in his chair. “I’m sure they’ll be done jerkin’ each other off soon and then the rest of us will get a tug.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mumbled, glancing around to make sure no one else had heard him. I knew he was joking, but saying shit like that could and would get his ass handed to him.
“Stop bein’ an idiot,” Micky said, grabbing a chair for himself.
“Does anyone know what happened?” I asked, glancing between my brothers.
Micky just looked at me.
“That’s what we’re waitin’ to find out, Tiny Tim,” Rumi said, grinning at me.
“You’re such an asshole.”
“You know as much as we do,” Micky said, shooting Rumi a glare. “When they figure shit out, they’ll let us know.”
I looked over at the closed door, wondering what they were talking about in there.
How had a shipment gone missing? Our trucks were usually driven by a younger member or sometimes a prospect—I’d had my turn at it a few weeks before—because most of us didn’t have records yet, with two veteran outriders for protection. Had anyone been hurt?
Who were the outriders that morning? I couldn’t remember and I hadn’t seen them at the club that morning because I was so fucking late. I grimaced. What a perfect fucking day to be chasing after some girl.
Micky and Rumi made small talk while we waited and our cousin Brody came and sat with us, but I was distracted. I was worried about what was happening around me and who had gone on the run that morning, but thoughts of Esther kept creeping back in.
How would I ever make sure she was alright if I couldn’t even ask about her? I couldn’t keep going to the garden center and I honestly didn’t even want to.
There wasn’t a single excuse I could use to stop by her house. I didn’t know where she shopped or hung out. It felt like I’d run head first into a brick wall. I thought about her cousin and immediately rejected any idea of asking for her help. That girl was all drama.
“Heads up,” Rumi murmured, jerking his head toward the bar as he let his chair tip forward onto four legs again.
I watched the group file out of church. It was impossible to read their expressions.
My grandpa put his fingers in his mouth and whistled loudly, making the entire room fall silent.
“At about nine thirty this mornin’,” our president Dragon announced, not bothering to raise his voice. “Coupla vans ran Mack and Leo off the road.”
“What the fuck,” Micky breathed.
“Both of ’em are fine,” Dragon said, raising his hand to quiet the chatter that had started up at his news. “Homer was drivin’. They got him stopped somehow and beat the holy hell outta him.”
“At least they didn’t kill him,” Rumi said quietly.
“At least they didn’t kill him,” my dad said loudly from his place near the bar.
I was sure it was what we were all thinking, but it was pretty telling that my dad and Rumi had said the exact same thing. Two fucking peas in a pod.
“Casper’s already left to pick up the boys and get ’em back here,” Dragon continued.
“But Homer’s gonna be a while, so Brenna’s gonna work out shifts for who’s at the hospital.
Moose, Hulk, and the girls are headed up there now.
There will be at least one member at the hospital with Homer until he’s released. ”
The group nodded, almost as one. It went without saying. I couldn’t remember a single time when we’d had a member or someone’s family in the hospital without at least a couple Aces in the waiting room standing vigil.