Page 34 of You are the Reason

“I’m calling a family meeting,” he announces.

Internally I facepalm, knowing Jesse is going to stroll in here and go completely over the top. He will want to invite everyone over once the bar closes and throw some extravagant party to keep me distracted. Always attempting to play the role of my protector in his own quirky way.

However the reality of the situation is,Jesseis the one who needs the distraction. If he was to ask me? I would beg him to take me home.

Sarah joins us at the bar as Brad smirks and shakes his head; he too knows Jesse has concocted some plan to try to get us all out together tonight. When Twisted Sister first opened it was a weekly occurrence. We would all get together for drinks, whilst I secretly checked out the competition. You know the best cocktails to have on the menu and what not.

“Alright, what’s the deal?” I say, throwing my hands up in the air. “Spit it out, Jess.”

“I vote we close this place down early and hit up the town.” He wriggles his eyebrows at me and I roll my eyes.

“Yes! Let’s!” Sarah chimes in. She’s young, flirty and freshly eighteen. She has also beenschool-girl crushingon Jesse since the day she first laid eyes on him. The whole thing is entertaining to say the least, mostly because Jesse is so oblivious.

He throws an arm over her shoulders. “See this one knows what’s up. How about it, Brad? Becksta?”

“I don’t know about you guys,” Beck says. “But I’m not going to be the one to explain to the boss why we closed up early on a Friday night.”

I lower my palm between the stools Becky and I sit on, offering her a silent high-five. When she reciprocates, I giggle and turn to face Jesse. I’m pretty sure Sarah is the only one here who doesn’t know the truth about who owns the bar, but I like to keep my cards close to my chest.

“Mmm, Becky’s right,” I add with a disapproving tone, Jesse flashes me an evil eye but stays quiet. “C’mon Jess, I’m done here anyway. These guys will survive without us.”

“Meeting adjourned,” Jesse mumbles, proceeding to walk head down, through the back of the bar towards my office; like a puppy with his tail between his legs.

* * *

“I’ve been waiting for one of you to call, I have some things you may find interesting,” Stanley greets, answering the phone.

“Fire away,” Jesse says.

Once I convinced Jesse that we were in fact not going to drink away our responsibilities, he drove us back to his place where we now sit, speaking with the one other person who knows the ins and outs of the past twelve years.

“Let’s start with the car that was following you a few weeks back. The name it’s registered in, I don’t suppose you connected the dots as to who that is?”

“Only today … unfortunately.” I glare at Jesse, narrowing my eyes.

“My apologies,” Stanley states, shock lingering in his voice. Jesse and I always thoroughly communicate all the information Stanley provides us with, and a lot of the time we connect the dots before even he does; yet this time, that wasn’t the case. “I’ll be sure to call back as soon as I have made any connections in the future, in case you haven’t done so yourselves. Moving on, I did a full check of him, and the reason he has slipped through our radar is because he requested bail for a second time, which was granted in April.”

I gasp, “Wait, Lance has been out for almost three months and we are only finding this out now?”

“I know this isn’t ideal, Kin—”

“Let’s just refocus,” Jesse cuts in. “Please go on, Stanley.”

He clears his throat before continuing, “Once I knew he was out of jail, I searched for any other vehicles, properties or businesses in his name. These were the hits I got —”

I scribble down the following as Stanley reels them off, but then zone out as Jesse wraps up the conversation with him.

The blacked-out SUV, we already knew of

A warehouse located, 45 minutes out of Melbourne

A white van & small truck

Freight and cartage — One can only assume a cover-up business

Looking over the notepad in front of me, I stand and grab Jesse’s keys. I need to go home and find everything that we already know about Lance and I also still need to know Jesse’s point of view regarding the last journal entry from Kyle.

Jesse looks at me puzzled, with one brow raised he asks, “Are you going somewhere?”

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