Chapter 24
Jenny
The clubhouse had been quiet today with most of the guys out at work or on the missions Seek had told me about.
It was nearly sunset and we were having a movie marathon—well, Seek and I were having a wine drinking marathon—to cheer the girls up.
They were transfixed with the show, curled up on one end of the huge sectional.
They were bunched up together lying in a tangle of limbs.
Seek’s two dogs were somewhere in the pile, loving having kids to chill with.
I’d gotten to meet Auron and Jecht not long after Priest and I became official and I was over the moon in love with them.
There was nothing better than having a combination of kids and dogs in the house.
It made my heart feel like it would burst with happiness.
Seek was half asleep, head resting back, watching the movie. I’d only had one glass since I was technically babysitting.
The girls had been thrilled to have a ‘sleep over’ with auntie Seek and the pups.
Things were going as well as they could with them.
Their grief came in waves, pulling them to oppressive lows before finally allowing them to claw their way up out of it.
At this stage their hard fought peace didn’t last long, but I knew eventually they would have longer and longer bouts where the grief was held at bay.
At some point, that hurt and sadness would only creep in every once in a while.
They were too young to realize it now, but that blinding agony we suffered when we lost someone we loved was worth feeling. It was the price we paid to know the person, to love and be loved in turn by them. Without it we would have never had them there in our hearts to begin with.
I wasn’t responsible for the beautiful sentiment.
That honor belonged to my grams. She had the most incredible way of making me feel better, no matter the situation.
I only hoped I could help heal these little broken hearts the way she’d helped me over the years.
A knock on the door broke me from my musings about family.
I stood up, careful not to distract the girls, and went to the door.
Pulling open the door, my brows shot up in surprise. “Sylvia, hi.”
Sylvia was one of the older sweet butts.
She was closing in on fifty and had never married or had kids of her own, though you could see the affection in her gaze whenever she looked at the children running around the clubhouse.
She always spoke up whenever anyone needed a babysitter and she was an honorary member at this point.
The guys all loved her to death and it was easy to see why.
She was the sweetest lady. I had a feeling she’d gravitated toward the club because she didn’t have a family of her own, so she’d made one instead.
And though none of the men had fallen in love with her and made her an old lady, we all treated her as though she was.
She was a part of the club, a part of the family, and always would be.
“Hi, Taz,” she replied, giving me a warm smile. “The guys are back and Priest asked me to come watch the girls. He wants you and Seek to meet them downstairs.”
“Okay, thanks, Syl.” I turned and found Seek already stumbling to her feet. She giggled and swayed her way across the room toward me.
Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, I helped her downstairs. “Careful,” I warned as we navigated the stairs.
She tripped, stubbed her toe, and bent forward to rub at it, almost causing us to topple headfirst down the last five steps. Strong hands managed to catch us just in time.
Another giggle sounded and Seek patted Priest’s chest. “Thanks, Muscles. ‘Preciate the help.”
Priest lips quirked as he stared down at her. “You drunk?”
“Psft, no,” she denied, then brushed past him so she could finish going down the stairs.
Priest eyed me for a moment, then turned to help her. Hush was already heading over, shaking his head at his old lady, but there was a grin on his face as he and Priest shared a look.
He turned back to me and held out his hand. I didn’t need help with steadying, so I linked our fingers and held his hand as we walked back to the meeting room. We’d just gotten in and settled when Lockout, Dash, Smokehouse, and Hellfire came in and sat down.
I listened quietly, horror rising as Priest and the others relayed what they’d found out near The Silverbell Mountains.
Seek’s eyes were hard and cold, her lips pressed into a firm line as they finished telling the story.
Her buzz was a thing of the past as anger burned the effects of the alcohol from her system.
“I knew it. I knew something fishy was going on out there.” Her eyes landed on Hush.
“Are they killing the hikers? Or pulling them into the cult?”
“It’s hard to say,” Riptide said, answering before Hush could. “I’m guessing a little of both.”
“They probably keep the women,” Butcher added. “And any kids.”
“Odds are they end up killin’ the men they can’t convert,” Hush told her.
“Maybe not just the men,” Seek pointed out. “Since they killed Sherry.”
“That might have been Chet,” I said with a shake of my head, thinking about what Hush had brought up out in the desert. “Maybe he wanted his ex-wife out of the picture, so he lured her out there and killed her.”
I swallowed hard, but forced myself to say it. “And Caitlyn?”
Lockout’s eyes met mine and I saw the anger burning there. We were all pissed off about this entire situation. “He was probably going to kill her too… Which brings me to what we found.”
I shifted in my seat, finding it hard to sit still while I had this ball of anger and sadness building up inside of me.
Chet had wanted to kill his own daughter.
Or maybe have some of his friends from the cult kill her.
Priest had told me the entire story of how they’d found Caitlyn and it’d chilled my blood.
Now knowing this had all happened to her because of her father?
It was inconceivable. What kind of person would do that to their own child?
“He was hotel hopping, checking out all the local hospitals.”
Lockout’s words brought me back fully into the conversation. My eyes widened. “He’s looking for Caitlyn?”
Priest’s hand covered mine and he squeezed. He picked my hand up and brought it over into his lap, keeping our fingers tangled together.
Lockout shook his head. “Maybe. We’re not sure. We weren’t able to get any information out of the people who’d seen him.”
“Why would he be checking hospitals almost a month after the shootout?” Toxic asked.
“Maybe they didn’t know what had happened and finally figured it out?” Hellfire suggested.
“The bodies were missing from the grave,” Riptide added. “Maybe they were waiting to make sure no one was setting a trap for them.”
“Which means they’re patient,” Lockout muttered. “It makes sense, but that’s going to make finding out more about them difficult. Whoever is leading them is going to keep them in check.”
“When we were in the apartment Chet mentioned that Ethan owed him,” Priest pointed out.
“Why?” Ricochet asked.
Shrugging his shoulders, he shook his head. “Don’t know, but the one in charge is Ethan.”
“They didn’t find Sherry and Caitlyn’s bodies with the men in the grave when they came back and dug them up. Maybe they thought they escaped,” Hush said.
“He’s looking for Sherry,” I added as the realization struck.
“Caitlyn seems to be like a by-product for him. Sherry is his obsession. He’s searching for her.
Maybe when the men didn’t come back, they thought they had escaped with her.
When they found the bodies, that would confirm that Sherry had help. ”
“And we didn’t bury Sherry out there. We used our friend at the morgue to make her disappear. As far as they know, she’s still out there,” Priest pointed out.
We all thought about that for a minute before Priest spoke up again. “So what do we do?”
I jumped in before anyone else had a chance. “I know it’s not your guys' style, but what about calling the police? I mean, it’s a cult, beating women and killing people.”
The looks I got were anger masking offense. The idea of calling the cops versus just killing the bastards left an unpleasant taste in all their mouths. It was written all over their faces. Despite the non-verbal answer, Lockout decided to explain it to me.
“I spoke with an FBI Agent—ex-agent—Flynn about that.” I knew Murphey Flynn—she was the sister of one of the Texas MC’s old ladies and now one herself—but I didn’t interrupt him.
“She pointed out that all we have is a group of weirdo’s building houses in the desert.
While they are on Federal land, that is in fact the only crime that can be proven.
If we bring cops in, they’ll just pack up and move.
Then we’ll have to start hunting them down all over again.
And they’ll probably end up killing more people in the meantime. ”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said sheepishly.
“It’s okay,” Priest said while soothing me with his hand. “None of us did. That’s why we called Flynn. But that brings us back to my question. What do we do now?”
“Well, Caitlyn is safe here with us. Chet has no idea she’s here. The cult has no idea we know about them,” Lockout answered. “So, we’re going to find out everything we can about them and then we’re going to dismantle that fucking organization brick by brick.”
“Umm…” I piped up. “Depending on how smart these guys are, they can find Caitlyn. CPS processed her, by her birth name. We did everything legal, by the book. If he gets it in his head to check with the system, it will bring him straight here.”
“I can put a notification into the system at work. It will send me an email if anyone contacts CPS or goes through our systems to look for her,” I continued.
“Perfect. That just gives us yet another head’s up in case Chet somehow gets too close,” Priest said.