Chapter 20
TWENTY
HAYLEY
I sat there quietly trying to listen in on my father’s discussion outside. But when he closed that porch door, there wasn’t much I could hear. I didn’t like the way he looked at me though, when I mentioned Stone’s motorcycle gang.
I got up and placed my plate on the counter, trying to make it look like I was finished.
I saw my father peeking through the window.
But when I looked over at him to wave and smile, he turned back out toward the backyard.
That told me everything I needed to know.
Whoever he was talking with, he was talking about the conversation we’d just had.
I had to figure out if my father was targeting Stone’s crew.
I slipped silently from the kitchen to the hallway.
I walked down it, bypassing my father’s room and darting into my old bedroom.
Well, my bedroom that he had converted into a home office space.
I slipped through the door and turned the light on, trying to be as quick as I could about things.
But it didn’t take me long. Because there, on top of his desk, was a file folder.
And when I opened it, Stone’s picture was on top.
“Shit,” I murmured.
I rifled through the pictures. I saw three other men there with names I didn’t recognize. Some massive tank named “Texas.” Some skinnier looking guy named “Bronx.” A guy with a player’s smirk on his face. His name was “Notch.”
Notch? Really? Like notches on a damn bedpost?
“Ew,” I whispered.
There was a great deal of information there.
Things my father had highlighted. Some guy by the name of Boulder.
Jett. A couple of women named Ella and Keva, whoever they were.
I saw ages and something about guns. The word “Chinese” with a question mark by it.
Then, at the top of one of the papers, I saw it.
“Confirmed: The Lost Boys MC”
My heart dropped into my stomach. The room tilted around me.
Holy shit, Stone was in some sort of trouble and my father was poking around in their group.
Was this the crew he had gone undercover for these past few months?
It had to be. There wasn’t any other explanation as to why the file folder was so thick.
He didn’t get this kind of information sitting at his desk.
He only got this information by speaking with them directly.
“Oh, no,” I whimpered.
I paused, figuring I had heard something.
But, when nothing met my ears but silence, I hunched over his desk.
I shuffled through the papers, trying to take in as much information as I could.
I pulled out my phone and began taking pictures, as many as I could take from the massive file in front of me.
And as I was taking pictures, my eyes scanned over something that made my skin tingle.
“Jobs: gun smuggling, money laundering”
I felt sick to my stomach. I continued taking pictures, hoping the quality would be good enough to read them later.
If I zoomed in or something. I read enough to know that my father’s team was trying to stop them.
Trying to peg them for what they were doing.
And after I’d taken some pictures, feeling satisfied with the information I could filter through, another thought crossed my mind.
Mom.
I paused again to listen out for any sounds.
I crept back to the door, wondering if my father had come back inside.
I crept down the hallway, not wanting to press my luck if I didn’t have it.
But as I peeked through the kitchen and out the back doors, I saw my father had sat down in a chair on the back porch, his phone still connected to his ear.
Oh, he was in the midst of a deep conversation. Which meant I had plenty of time.
I ran back down the hallway and lunged into the room.
In the swell of a heartbeat, I ripped open the drawers at his desk.
I filtered through them, trying to find any sort of information on my mother I could.
A death certificate. An obituary. Hell, the program for her funeral I’d lost in my move.
I searched his desk and pulled out his drawers.
I looked through the file tabs where I figured her information would be.
I even took to looking through his bookshelves on either side of the room, pulling books out and shaking them to see if anything would fall out. But there was nothing.
Nothing about my mother anywhere.
Is it really that easy for him to erase her?
I stood in the middle of my father’s office and closed my eyes.
It grew hard to breathe. Hard to think straight.
I swallowed deeply and went back to the file folder, taking pictures of the rest of the information.
My father was head-deep in a conversation.
He’d probably forgotten I was here. So, I took the liberty of at least making his unlocked office worth my time.
After over one hundred pictures taken of the papers in the file folder on The Lost Boys, I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
Why didn’t my father have anything of my mother’s in here?
I looked around his office and on his desk. There were pictures of me. Of him and me. Pictures of his team and awards he’d won at work over the years. Pictures of his promotions and pictures of us in the park. But there was nothing of my mother.
Nothing at all.
“How could he just not have anything?” I murmured to myself.
I put everything back where I found it to the best of my ability.
Then, I slipped out of the room. I put the door back to the cracked state in which I’d found it and then headed back to the kitchen.
And as I walked back there, I took stock of the pictures on the walls.
Pictures of my father and myself. Portraits we’d had done over the years to clock my birthdays and Christmases.
I walked into the living room and took stock of the photos he had of coworkers.
Bosses. More promotions and more awards.
I’d never noticed it before, but there wasn’t a damn thing in this house that even remotely resembled the presence of my mother.
And while I understood grief, I got the feeling that it was much more than that.
“What are you not telling me, Dad?” I asked softly.
I shook my head as I made my way back to the kitchen.
But as I crossed by the patio door, I heard my father talking outside.
I heard his voice rumbling low. Intentionally talking lower than he needed to.
And because my curiosity had already peaked to dangerously high proportions, I stood there and pressed my ear to the curtained window.
“Confirmed, yes. The setup is tonight. Be ready to go at eight. We’ll have them right where we want them by nine fifteen.”
I didn’t know much, but I knew my father was talking about setting up Stone’s crew.
He was setting up the club tonight for something, and in the pit of my gut I wanted to tell Stone.
I wanted to make sure they were safe. Sound.
Secure. I didn’t know why. I shouldn’t have cared.
After all, they were just a bunch of gun-running, money-stealing, roughhousing men.
Yet, the feeling didn’t go away.
I saw my father get up from his chair, and I dashed back down the hallway.
I slipped into the bathroom, locking the door and turning the fan on.
I needed to buy myself some time to piece all this together.
I needed to figure out what the fuck I was missing.
My mind wasn’t putting everything together because it kept shooting off into twenty-thousand different places.
“Hayley?” my father called out.
“Pooping!” I exclaimed.
“Ah, right. Well, I gotta get a shower! Make yourself at home!”
“Thanks, Daddy!”
Great. Even more time.
I sat down on the toilet seat and listened as my father walked by. His shadow appeared underneath the doorway and he stopped, which made my heart stop in my chest. I held my breath. I made small grunting sounds, trying to sell what I was doing.
Then, my father spoke through the door.
“I just wanted to thank you for coming over,” he said.
I cleared my throat. “Kinda in the middle of something, Dad.”
“Yeah, sorry. Just… you coming over means a lot, princess. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Daddy.”
I heard him grunt before he walked away.
His shadow moved, and I released the breath I was holding, listening as he made his way down the hallway.
A few minutes later, I flushed the toilet just as I heard the shower turn on.
I made my getaway back to my car in that moment, trying to slip out of my father’s house and get back to my own apartment.
I had a work shift I had to get ready for, plus I had a phone call to make.
I raced back to my apartment and ran up the steps to the third floor.
I panted as I burst through my apartment door, kicking the small boxes I had yet to unpack out of my way.
Fucking hell, I really needed to get the last of my place unloaded.
But that was the furthest thing from my mind.
I sat down on my couch and pulled up the pictures I’d taken of those documents and read through them as best as I could.
And when I came across the piece to the puzzle I was missing, my jaw dropped open.
“I have to call Stone,” I murmured.
I flipped over to my contacts and pulled up his number. The number I’d pulled from my caller I.D. at work when he called me at my office that night. I dialed it as my eyes fell onto my clock. It was a little past noon, and for some reason the damn man wasn’t picking up his phone.
“This is Stone. Leave a message. Or don’t,” his voice message said.
I snickered as the phone beeped, and I began rattling along.
“Stone, it’s me. Hayley. Look, this is urgent. An absolute emergency. I need you to call me back as soon as you get this. Okay? Please. I’m begging you,” I said.
Then, I hung up the phone and leaned back into the cushions.
It was going to be a long-ass workday.