Chapter 15
Nova
The Kings of Ruin are supposed to have answers.
Creed is supposed to have answers. They looked for Patch and found evidence he was snooping on the Reapers.
It all made sense. When Creed told me the Reapers were saying they didn’t have Patch, I could tell he was skeptical.
Now, after meeting with them, he’s suddenly convinced the other MC isn’t responsible for Patch’s and Layla’s disappearances.
If it’s not them, then who? Why take them? Where are they?
I have too many questions and not enough answers. When I reach my room, I kick the door shut, releasing a little of that frustration, but it doesn’t really help because I’m still pissed and frustrated and terrified. I don’t like being even one of those things and now I’m all three.
I don’t understand how we could go from having a lead and information to having nothing.
Except, I remind myself, Creed didn’t say they had nothing. He said the Reapers aren’t responsible and that the club are discussing what to do next. He could have theories or other proof that he needs to share with the MC before he can tell me anything.
As I continue to pace from one side of my room to the other, an idea comes to me, and I pull my phone from my pocket.
I don’t know if I’m grasping at straws or if it’ll actually help, but I pull up my contact list and start making calls. The first is our neighbor. We’re not exactly friends, but I water her plants when she goes on vacation.
“Amber, hey, it’s Nova. Layla hasn’t been by looking for me, has she?”
A pause while Amber answers in the negative, and then a quick goodbye before I move on to Ramon, a guy who used to sometimes drive Layla and I to school when we missed the bus. He always felt like a grandfather and even though we haven’t talked in a while, we exchange Christmas cards.
“Nova! Hola, mi amore. How are you?”
My conversation with Ramon goes past me asking if he’s seen Layla or if anyone’s talked to him about her, but just hearing from him makes me feel better.
I hold on to that feeling as I make the next half dozen calls, reaching out to people I haven’t talked to in years, friends of Layla’s I only knew by name and had their numbers only, so I’d be able to get hold of them if her phone died.
Still, it’s not long before I’m down to three numbers and haven’t learned anything I don’t already know.
I call Mom first and am surprised that she sounds relatively sober.
I don’t let myself hope it’s going to be a permanent change.
I’ve been through this too many times to not assume she’s simply in the ‘no day drinking’ part of her drinking cycle.
She’ll usually go three to four days where she convinces herself that not drinking before sundown means she’s ‘working on getting sober.’
“You sound good,” I tell her honestly. Even if I don’t think this is a real change, whenever I can say something about positive behavior, I will.
“Well, I feel like shit,” Mom says, “but I wanted to be sober if Layla calls.”
“You haven’t heard from her, then? Haven’t seen her?”
“Not since you told me she was missing.” There’s a sigh and then the too-familiar sound of a can’s tab being popped. “My fucking life.”
I close my eyes and take a few slow breaths as I listen to my mom chug what’ll be her first of probably three to four beers before sunset. On the last day before she decides it’s pointless to try to stop, she decides beer doesn’t really count as drinking.
“Have you talked to anyone who’s mentioned Layla?” I ask.
Mom’s laugh is brittle. “Only person I talk to is the asshole at the liquor store. If you came around more, you’d know that.”
I ignore her comment and push for more information. “What about the neighbors? Have any of them seen Layla?”
Another laugh. “I don’t talk to any of those assholes. Always stickin’ their noses where they don’t belong. You know that bitch across the hall? Mabelly or some shit like that? Two days ago I go to get my mail and she’s there, talkin’ about how she hasn’t seen either of you in a while.”
I’m not going to get anything else out of her.
It takes me five more minutes to get a word in between her complaints and all I manage to say is that I have other people to call.
Then she’s off again, ranting about everything and anything.
When it becomes obvious she’s not going to give me a chance to end the call with a goodbye, I hang up.
I know she’ll be pissed when she figures out what I did, but I stopped caring about that a long time ago.
The call could’ve gone better, but it went about as well as I expected. This next one, I have absolutely no idea how it’ll go.
One of the things I did to earn money when I was in school was tutoring other students.
Right at the end of my junior year, one of my classmates was in a really bad car accident.
Both his parents were killed, and he ended up with some memory and learning issues.
His uncle tried to find a tutor, but no one wanted to take the extra time to work with Sam.
No one except me. When Sam walked across the stage at graduation, I cheered almost as loud as I did when Layla graduated.
After the ceremony, Sam’s uncle, Donovan, revealed he was the warden at the prison where my dad was incarcerated.
Even though Donovan paid me for my time, he was so grateful for how much work I put into Sam graduating with our class, Donovan gave me his phone number and said that if I ever needed emergency access to my dad, I just had to ask.
I never planned to do it, because I never want to talk to my father, but I can’t help thinking that, if Layla got mixed up in something bad, whether because of Patch or because of someone else, it’s possible he could hear things in prison.
If talking to my dad gets me closer to finding Layla, I’ll do it, and that means I have a favor to cash in.
Donovan answers on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hi, Donovan.” I start pacing again. “It’s Nova Reed. Sam’s high school tutor.”
“I remember.” His tone is friendly, but not overly familiar.
We share a moment of basic small talk, and then I ask, “I’m wondering if there’s any way I could talk to my dad today. Like soon, today.”
“You’re in luck,” Donovan says. “I’m at work right now, so I can get your dad on the phone in just a few minutes. I will have to record the conversation, but you can talk as long as you want.”
“Thank you.”
It takes nearly ten minutes for Donovan to get my dad, but I’m happy to spend that time finding out how well Sam’s doing in his job at a local plant nursery. If anything, it gives me something positive to think about during what I know is going to be a rough conversation.
“Here he is,” Donovan finally says.
The next voice I hear is one I haven’t heard in eight years. “Nova? That you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.” I clear my throat. “This isn’t a social call. Layla’s gone missing and—”
“Fuck.” His curse startles me, but I don’t have to ask because he immediately adds, “I hoped all that was rumors.”
“All what?”
“I heard she disappeared,” he says.
I can tell by his tone that’s not all. “What else did you hear?”
“Word around the prison is, she might’ve been sold.”
His word choice turns my blood to ice. Sold. I know human trafficking takes a lot of different forms, but for a young, beautiful girl like Layla, there’s really only one thing she’d been sold for.
“Who?” The word comes out in a croak, but it’s all I can manage at the moment.
“Naming names isn’t healthy for a man in my position,” Dad starts to argue.
“Who?” I demand.
“I don’t know,” he says. “What I do know is she was involved with some biker, but from what I’m hearing, it’s not biker business. It’s someone bigger.”
Shit.
I don’t know if I’m glad to finally have some news, especially since it seems to match up with what Creed said about the Reapers not being involved, or scared out of my mind for what it might mean, not just for Layla, but for me.
With Patch also being missing, I can’t rule out the possibility that Layla’s not with him, but that he took her to sell her.
Which opens up the questions about whether or not the Kings have been screwing around with me because they’re into trafficking.
And then there’s the question I can’t stop myself from thinking. Is that why they’re keeping me here?
I need to talk this over with someone, and there’s only one person I trust enough for it.
As soon as it becomes clear he doesn’t have any additional information, I thank Donovan again and end the call.
Then I scroll to the only family member who’s been there for me and Layla through the years.
He answers on the first ring, and I close my eyes against the rush of relief.
“Uncle Marty?”
“Nova, hon, hey. Everything all right?”
Usually, the sound of my uncle’s voice is comforting.
He didn’t take over for our parents when things got bad, but we knew we could always call him if we had something we couldn’t handle alone.
Today, however, something sounds off. I can’t quite put my finger on it, so I go on with the reason I called him.
“Not really. We still haven’t found Layla.”
“We? Nova, are you still with that biker gang?” His concern sounds more like patronization.
“Their prospect is still missing, too,” I say. “And since he and Layla are dating, we’re all thinking they’re together.”
“You don’t think he’s maybe… keeping her with him?”
I know I called Uncle Marty to have someone to talk about the concerns I’m having after that call from Dad, but when Uncle Marty jumps straight to thinking Patch is involved in a bad way, something inside me pulls back.
That little warning voice in the back of my head has me avoiding the question and shifting the subject to my dad.
“Dad says people in prison are talking and they’re saying this is about something bigger than some MCs,” I say. When there’s no response for several seconds, I ask, “Uncle Marty? You still there?”