Page 95 of Kandie Shoppe

So much happens in the short moments that follow. Stepping forward using the cattle prod as a staff, I train my eyes on him, then Snake as he comes into view, looking like an avenging demon.

“There are kids underground in cells at the old Shelby County kid’s home.”

“Kandie?” Snake all but yells as my body chooses that moment to give out.

His worried eyes are the last thing I see.

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

Ulysses

Hearing the commotion coming from the front of the El Diablo club house, Angel and I rush out of his office just as we reached an agreement to test the hunch, and it was little more than that. Something about the assistant pastor didn’t sit right with me. For several days, probably more than I liked, I second-guessed myself about why I was reacting to him and his insistence to help as stemming from his interest in Kandie.

However, the more I removed myself from the situation and thought about it, he seemed to give off the same vibe as one of the unsubs who lurked around the crime they committed to get some type of sick satisfaction from it.

“Something about him just don’t seem right,” I told Angel and Xander-Rafe Leroi, Kandie’s cousin that took time off from his job from the Birmingham Police Department CRT to come and help with the search as we met in Angel’s office. Searching their faces, I all but begged. “Or am I on some bullshit with the way her disappearance is getting to me?”

“Nah.” Xander-Rafe shook his head. “I felt like something was off with the dude from the moment he showed up the other night. He’s way too animated. Then he pulled me to the side, and all but implicated you in her disappearance.”

I stood back on my heels at his words.

“We’ll get some guys to track him,” Angel said.

“I’ll do a deeper background check and see what I can come up with.” Xander Rafe-LeRoi adds.

“All this sounds good, but I don’t think we have that kind of time.” My hand fists just as the outcry from the front sounds.

Our eyes touch briefly, all having heard Kandie’s name. We rush down the hallway that spills out into the main area of the club just as Snake rounds the hallway with a naked, unconscious Kandie in his arms.

“What the fuck?” Angel and Xander-Rafe both yell, seeing Kandie draped over Snake’s arms, looking as close to death as I have ever seen a person. The words that follow barely register as I stride over to the biker.

“She fainted after she said there are kids being kept at that old school that twisted ass bishop had.” He hands her over to me like the precious treasure she is.

“C’mon,” Angel says, turning to the rear of the hallway. I have medical equipment in the loft now that I’m not here full time anymore. He already has his phone out dialing. “Dr. Everything,” he says over the line, calling Mimi by the name she’s come to be known in the community. “Kandie showed up at the clubhouse. We need you to get here as soon as you can. Alright.” Never breaking stride, he leads me up the back stairs to the loft apartment he has above the club. Never having been here before, I briefly notice how out of sync it is to the rural community we live in. It would be better placed in New York with all the steel and concrete. Kandie’s loft still manages to hold the southern charm of our hometown.

Following him into the loft and up a floating staircase that opens up into a massive bedroom suite, I place her in the center when he says, “Here you go.”

I half listen as he tells me where everything is. My eyes are glued to her sunken cheeks and the deep purple bruises under her eyes. Whoever had her this last week starved her. Her lips are chapped. All the healthy glow she normally has is gone. Her skin looks ashen and wane.

Rage eats me up. My fists clench so hard I can hear my knuckles cracking.

“Mimi will be here in a bit.” I nod, not bothering to take my eyes away from her diminutive form covered in the buttercup yellow duvet that I instinctively know was a choice he made for his wife Ezekiel-Jane, who Kandie mentioned loves the color.

“I’m heading out to get those kids,” he says grimly, but I’m not listening. I’m kneeling now by the side of the bed. I don’t even know how I got here.

Silently he leaves, and it’s just she and I. She’s almost like the child I once knew in those covers looking vulnerable. How the fuck did she get back to the children’s home and why would Nathaniel take her there? I’ll bet my entire Shelby inheritance that smarmy motherfucker had something to do with this.

He always seemed to not be there when we got messages from the stalker. Then the other day Pastor Burrell said he wasn’t the one who spread the information about Kandie’s loft being vandalized but that it was the Assistant Pastor Nathaniel.

Kneeling, I take her way too cold hand in mine. I haven’t prayed since the night my father died, but I do now. I pour my soul out to God, asking Him for the miracle of a second chance with this woman whom I’ve loved since that night I came home all those years ago. Probably since before then but I just didn’t realize it. I always admired her in some way. The way she foughtto save her sister then stood up for those kids, even though she faced a prison sentence until she was finally cleared.

“I should have come back for you. I never should have let what I thought you not writing me stop me. We were just kids. Just kids.” Hot tears splash on our hands as I hold hers clasped in both of mine.

I’ve cried twice before. When my dad and mom died, not that it’s anything to brag about. I know I’m fucked up. Still brutally broken sobs rack my body as relief and grief gather me close. I’m so fucking grateful she’s alive. I don’t know what to do. Losing her would have ended me, more than the roadside bomb that almost blew off half my face ever could.

I have no idea how long I stay kneeling at her side, begging God to bring her back to me.

---