Page 6 of Demon's Angel

Fuck this.How can I leave the club short-handed just to appease my sense of guilt and what had been my failing? I’d neglected to keep tabs on a woman I’d promised to watch over, and that wasn’t down to the MC. I shouldn’t use up resources for personal shit. Anyway, Hell was probably right: I’d misread the situation, there was nothing wrong, she’d just worn the harassed look of a woman tired from caring for a young baby.

Or, maybe, she’d taken one look at me and decided she didn’t like the adult I’d become. Could have found the young man she’d lusted after as a teenager had turned into someone who no longer interested her. It may be I had brought sad memories of her brother to the fore, making coping with Nathan’s loss harder, with me in her face as a reminder. There must be a hundred good reasons why Violet hadn’t leapt at the chance to rekindle our friendship.

I’d given her my number. She hasn’t called.

I should just drop it. Let her get on with her life and do the same with mine. Her behaviour was probably nothing more than the normal tiredness of a new mother with a young son. My desire to watch over her is an invasion of her privacy. Never mind that I want to know more about the woman she’s become, she’s not for the likes of me, and I should just leave her alone. I debate calling Dan back immediately, but can make do without him a while longer. The task I need him for isn’t urgent.

I’ll leave him where he is for now, and then get an update from him when he reappears. If he’s seen nothing untoward in the last couple of days, I’ll relieve him of his babysitting duties. I’ll have done all I can to make sure Nathan’s sister is okay and my mind can rest easy. And if her sweet, innocent look is fuel to my mind when I’m taking myself in hand in the shower, well, that’s my problem, not hers. No one will ever know except me and my conscience.

Returning to my office, I settle down to what I should be thinking about, rather than a little blonde pixie. It’s not long before I have another insight into why Hellfire had no problem giving up the chair. There’s more paperwork to running an MC than anyone would ever realise. We own businesses, we pay taxes. I’m in the middle of laboriously going through the figures Buzzard has prepared, settling in for a long afternoon, when my phone rings.

Swearing at the interruption, I press accept. “You got Demon.”

“Prez.” It’s Dan. His tone immediately has me on high alert.

“Speak to me.”

“Prez, it’s that girl you wanted me to watch.”

A growling sound in my throat warns him to get to the point.

“She’s in Canon City. I followed her here. Wills was just about to take over from me, so when she was obviously on the move, I decided I’d like to know where she was going so I tagged along. Thank fuck I did. It means there’s two of us. Well, look, I don’t know how you want us to handle this shit.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Dan? She doing some shopping? What do you mean, you don’t know what to do?”

“She’s not shopping, Prez. She left her house with a suitcase. Put it in the car. Thought you’d want to know where she’s going, if she was going to stay with a friend or something.”

Okay, I’m following so far. Haven’t heard anything worth the emergency call. Again my growl rumbles down the line to encourage him get on with it. I may change my mind about patching him in if he keeps fucking around.

“She brought the baby with her. We followed them. Prez…” There’s a pause, then he gives me the punchline. “She’s left the baby in the middle of a shopping centre.”

It takes a moment for his wording to sink in. “Left the baby?”

“She wheeled up the stroller. Didn’t look at the kid, didn’t say goodbye. Just exchanged a couple of words with a woman, then walked off leaving the baby and didn’t look back. Something’s off, Prez.”

There’s probably nothing strange. If I didn’t have so much respect for Dan, I’d have dismissed it as someone babysitting while Violet can look around the stores. But I do. Despite my earlier thought out of sheer frustration, Dan has proved he can think on his feet. If he reads there’s something wrong with the situation, there probably is. Or there could be an innocent reason.

“Prospect, tell me what you saw. The woman she left him with, she look like a friend?”

“Nah. That’s what’s got me, Prez. I considered friend, relative, sitter. What I’m seeing doesn’t match up. That’s why I’m following her now. Wills is trailing Violet. The bitch with the baby, well, she’s heading straight out of the mall. I’d place money this is no babysitting gig. They exchanged maybe two words. I’d say she’s passed the baby on to a stranger. You may think this is fanciful, Prez, but the way Violet walked off?”

Another pause while I chomp at the bit waiting for what I doubt I want to hear. In that he doesn’t disappoint. “She doesn’t expect to see her baby again.”

Jesus! My hand thumps down on the desk.I knew something was wrong. Fuck knows if I inherited Hell’s sixth sense or something.I hadn’t expected this, though. Violet’s given her baby away? There must be some explanation.

Thoughts run through my head fast.

She’s living with her parents. How can she return to them without the baby in tow?She had a suitcase.Was she not planning on coming back to Pueblo?

Is Dan right? Does a stranger have her baby? Whatever problems she has, surely the girl I knew would never give up her child. Not in suspicious circumstances like she has, pass her baby over in a mall and walk off? Thank fuck I had Dan on her, who knows what might have happened to little Theo if I hadn’t.

Dan might be wrong.

“Prospect, are you certain this isn’t right?”

“Sure as I can be, Prez. There was something about her expression when she left the kid. She’d walked past me, her eyes… Her eyes looked dead.”

My gut tells me he’s right to be concerned.“Prospect. Can you stop the woman? Question her.”

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