Chapter 9
Nine
Do I run? Yes, out of patience, money, and time.
—Odin’s secret thoughts
Odin
I watched her go, my eyes narrowed in curiosity.
This woman was an enigma to me.
Pulling out my phone, I hit dial on Apollo’s phone number and waited for him to answer.
“You finally met her, I see.”
Apollo was a computer genius.
There wasn’t a single inch of Sawtooth, Bear Pass, or Jawbone that Apollo didn’t have eyes on.
In the beginning, it was just to keep tabs on the locals to make sure that there weren’t any questions or confusion about our sudden appearance in the area. Now, I decided, he watched because he was invested and wanted to make sure that his chicks were all doing well and were taken care of.
If you could consider seven adult male convicts “chicks” that he had to take care of.
“I did,” I said. “You didn’t tell me who it was for.”
“You didn’t ask,” he pointed out.
That was true.
When Apollo had contacted me months ago about a little girl needing blood on a routine basis, I’d never given it a second thought.
In truth, I’d been donating my Rh-null blood since high school when I’d gone to my first blood drive. I’d gotten a call within days, begging for me to come see them.
My parents had agreed, though reluctantly.
In the end, we’d found out that they were in desperate need of my blood, and donating as much as I could would help them immensely. They’d also told me to keep the information about my blood type private.
Something I wouldn’t understand the necessity of until I was in medical school and realized the severity of just how rare my blood was.
I continued to donate all the way through my prison sentence, too.
Now, I was technically dead, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to stop helping people.
As a doctor, I was always going to want to help people. Even if I had to do it in a different way now.
A quieter, don’t tell anyone ever, kind of way.
What were the odds that I’d meet that little girl I’ve been helping? Or run into said child’s mother at jury duty two hours away and have her instantly hate me?
Speaking of hate…
My mouth opened and I asked for details that I probably didn’t need about Constance.
“Tell me everything you know about her,” I urged.
“Well, would you like the heavy stuff? The non-heavy stuff? The illegal stuff? Or the stuff that ties her to that dog fighting ring a few weeks ago?”
I froze. “She was a part of that?”
“No,” Apollo immediately answered. “She wasn’t. But her ex was.”
“Wasn’t that a Dixie Warden from Alabama?” I asked for confirmation.
“Was, yes.”
A few weeks ago, Denver, our club president, had come to all of us to help find his woman. Though, they hadn’t officially been dating each other at the time. Holly had only been living in Denver’s barn apartment.
Denver had ended up finding her at a dog fighting ring where she’d been held hostage. Holly had gone to the man’s place in an official capacity as a veterinarian to help take care of an injured dog.
The man, who happened to be on the city council for Bear Pass, had decided that it would be best to have a permanent person that could help patch his injured dogs up so they could live to fight another day.
While there, Holly saw a member of the Dixie Wardens there.
Though, after doing some digging using the national club president for the Dixie Wardens, Silas Mackenzie, and Apollo, they’d found out that the man that Holly had seen hadn’t been a Montana Dixie Warden, but a disgraced Dixie Warden from Tuscaloosa.
Though, Silas had only found out it was Errol because he’d been stupid enough to use his credit cards here.
The Tuscaloosa Chapter hadn’t seen Errol for damn near six months, though.
Now, it made sense that he’d followed Constance here.
The man, Errol Fuller, was an ex-CIA member who knew how to hide, and he’d been doing just that for the last couple of weeks.
“So he came here because of her?” I asked.
“According to the shit I’ve been able to dig up, Errol and Constance went on one singular date.
Constance never went on another with him.
Even more tricky, Constance had a baby by Errol’s best friend, Mackey Jones.
Errol is responsible for beating Mackey so badly that he’s now wheelchair bound.
He’s also got the cognitive ability of an eleven-year-old, and has no capacity to take care of himself, let alone his own child. ”
“Was Errol charged?” I asked.
“For hurting Mackey? Yes. There was no way of getting that kind of information covered up. Errol did it publicly. But it was said to be a ‘crime of passion’ and his sentence was greatly reduced. The Dixie Wardens Tuscaloosa Chapter excommunicated him and took his patch. He served community service, was sentenced to anger management classes for several years, and put on parole for two years.”
“That’s it?” I laughed.
What a joke.
How did these fucking people get away with practical murder and not have to see the inside of a jail cell?
Seriously, there was a reason I’d done what I did.
The system was fucking broken.
“She moved here and didn’t tell him where she was going, but he was able to find her.
He has plenty of contacts. We haven’t been able to pick up where he is, though.
Haven’t seen hide nor hair of him on any of the cameras that I’ve been constantly monitoring.
Hell, if it wasn’t for his credit card statements and using his name at a hotel in town, we wouldn’t have known he was here at all. ”
That didn’t make sense to me.
The man was ex-CIA. Knew how to hide. Yet, he used his own name at a hotel in town that tied him here?
Yeah, right.
Something wasn’t adding up here, and I said as much.
“Let me know if you end up seeing him,” I said. “I’ll keep a better eye out now. But, Apollo, something about this doesn’t sit right with me. He’s ex-CIA. You said yourself he knows how to hide. Why would he use his credit cards here? Why would he let us know he was here at all?”
“You’ll keep a better eye out now that you’ve met the mother of the little girl you’re helping and have seen her hair and ass?”
I mean, not only because of that…
“Sure, if that’s what you want to believe.”
Constance was gorgeous.
Undeniably gorgeous with a side of perfection.
She was literally every man’s wet dream personified.
Short, shapely. Big tits. Wide hips. Small waist. Ass for days.
She had kissable lips. Beautiful blue eyes. Hair that would make any model jealous. And the voice of a fucking siren.
I’d heard her humming to herself that first day during jury selection.
Smoky and soulful.
But it was her personality that really got me.
Her automatic hate for me had intrigued me.
Though, it was finally now making sense why she’d talked to me all morning during jury selection, then gone out of her way after lunch to stay as far away from me as she could.
“I know it’s what I believe.” Apollo chuckled then sobered.
“I’ve been monitoring all of his accounts.
Errol is really, really good at what he did.
Connected with Silas and we got a good check into his background at work.
He was one of the instructors that taught all the little baby spies how to stay invisible. ”
“Fuckin’ awesome.” I sighed.
“That’s what I was thinking when I found out,” Apollo said. “Side note, but he’s not going to be stupid and get caught watching her. But he’s not far from her, either. He’ll also know her every move, so you need to watch yourself.”
“By not giving her rides?” I asked.
“By not antagonizing him when you’re the reason her daughter is alive.”
I sighed. “I’ll be smart about it.”
“You and your hero complex,” he muttered. “Take care of yourself, Odin. I’ll call if I have any more news.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Have a good one.”
After we hung up, I cleaned up the rest of the space, straightened the papers that Constance had messed up when she’d laid her head down on my desk, and headed out.
When I got outside, I shoved my shop keys into my pocket and headed not home, but to the dealership where Constance had purchased her vehicle.
According to the paperwork that Apollo had sent over a few days ago, Constance had purchased the SUV from the local Ford dealership.
With a couple hours to spare before they closed, I walked in and asked for the manager.
The salesperson didn’t hesitate to pass me off, likely due to the perpetually pissed-off look I always had on my face.
“Oh, one moment, sir.”
He scurried off like the little rat that he was and went into a corner office where a pompous-looking jackass was sitting with his feet up on his desk. His bare ankles were dark, likely because he played golf multiple times a week.
He got up and smiled at me through the glass.
I didn’t return the smile.
When he got to me, he held out his hand, and I reluctantly took it.
“What can I help you with, sir?” he asked.
“My girlfriend came in a couple of weeks ago to buy a new SUV. She’s had it in the shop for half of those weeks. I had to pick her up on the side of the mountain this week because it died,” I said. “And she said she called you to see about returning it, but you won’t take it back.”
The man’s eyes went wide. “Oh, our company policy is you can only return it after a week. She’s two weeks over that, and a few hundred miles, too.”
“Several of those miles y’all put on her car,” I pointed out.
“Not to mention, y’all have had it for ten days of the three weeks that she had it.
” I was thankful to get that report from Apollo so I could state all the facts that I had.
“Oh, and let’s not forget that she brought these concerns to you within the time window, and you promised that you would fix them.
But you haven’t. And now she’s driving around in her dad’s SUV…
” That was a total guess. “And she has a car payment on a car that she hasn’t even gotten to use. ”
The manager looked a little white. “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s not our fault.”
“It’s not your fault that you couldn’t fix what the problem was, on a brand-new car, might I add, within the time frame that would be required for her to return it?”
He swallowed. “That was out of our control.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But at this point, something needs to be done. It has less than five hundred miles on it. She’s had it a total of eleven days. And she paid in cash, well over market value for something that she should’ve got at a much cheaper cost.”
“I don’t…”
I pulled out my phone and started reading off the shit that she paid for. “Extended tire warranty.”
He stilled.
“Ceramic coating on a car that was shipped here for her that she ordered through you. Yet, you took her car, added the ceramic coating on it, then forced her to pay for it when she told you that she didn’t want it.”
The manager shifted from foot to foot.
I caught the front lapels of my cut and said, “I think you need to fix this. Get her into a new car. Even trade. Fix what’s wrong with this car.
Count it as a loss. I don’t give a fuck what you do.
But make this right. She has a young kid that has medical problems. They run the Raptor Center for injured wildlife. And she’s mine.”
His eyes went to the name right above my heart as well as the patch that proclaimed me as a Dixie Warden.
He swallowed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
I nodded once. “See that you do. I’ll be back if this doesn’t get taken care of to my expectations.”
Just as I stepped outside, I watched as the manager scurried back into his corner office and placed his phone to his ear.
I stepped outside and headed for my bike just to see a man step out of his Expedition that looked eerily similar to Constance’s and place his phone to his ear.
“Walt, what do you want? I’m right outside?”
Whomever this Walt character was started talking to the other snazzy lookin’ dude in high-pitched tones.
The snazzy dude frowned and placed his hand on his hip.
“I’m not returning that car,” he said. “We knew it had electrical issues when we sold it to her. We’ll get that fixed by corporate. But she’s over the deadline.”
There was a long pause, and then, “She’ll never figure out that we switched the cars. How would she know?”
More talking.
I narrowed my eyes and pulled out my phone to text Apollo.
Odin:
Pull the Ford dealership’s cameras. Who I think is the owner just admitted to switching out Constance’s car for his own lemon car. Knowingly making her buy a fucked up one with electrical issues.
Apollo answered with an immediate text back.
Apollo:
Pulling them now. Just remember that if you punch this guy, there are a lot of witnesses.
I ignored him and shoved my phone back into my pocket, walking up to the man with his slicked back hair and his cowboy boots that probably had never seen dirt before.
The man looked up and froze.
“Uhh, gotta go, Walt.”
The man in front of me plastered on his fake smile and said, “Hi, nice to meet you. I’m the owner, Dale Williams. Are you here to purchase a truck? Maybe a new car for your wife?”
“Well, Dale,” I said with my arms across my chest and my feet planted hip-width apart. “How about we talk about this fraud business you just admitted to in front of me, and you tell me how you’re going to fix it?”
The door behind me opened, and I heard Walt hesitantly say, “Uh, this is the guy I was just talking to you about, Dale.”
Dale looked from Walt to me before saying, “Is that right?”
“You have tonight to fix this,” I said. “You get her a brand-new car. Not one that you’ve driven. It needs to be as brand new as it can be. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to make sure you have this fixed.”
Dale swallowed. “I’m not sure…”
“Or the world’s going to see that bullshit you just spewed about selling a customer a used, fucked up car that you drove and found out was a lemon. What do you think Ford will think when you get plastered all over the internet?”
Dale cleared his throat. “I can get her fixed up in something new.”
“Something brand new,” I corrected. “And in the same color and trim style as the one she ordered.”
Dale nodded.
“By tomorrow.”
“That might not be possible,” he admitted. “I’ll have to probably do a dealer trade for it. It might take some time. Maybe a day or two.”
I scoffed. “I think if you put your mind to it, Dale, you can make anything happen.” I eyed Walt, then Dale again. “I’m not joking. Get this fixed.”
He nodded, his face paling at the tone of my voice.
“We’ll figure it out. Right now, sir.”
“You do that.” I walked to my bike and started it up.
As I drove home, I thought about how Constance had been fucked over, and it only made my blood boil hotter.
Which was why, instead of going inside when I got home, I went to the chainsaw in the back and got to work doing something I loved.
Carving wood.