Page 6 of Roughstock
** GPS was turned off on the following dates, each time bring switched on and off at approximately the same location and duration.**
There was a list of dates below, and I noticed a pattern. Pops was out of pocket twice a month for eleven months prior to his attack, each time disappearing for six to seven hours.
“Where were you going, old man?” I asked the screen, and when someone cleared their throat, I snapped my head up to see who was there.
Seeing Jagger, my Sergeant at Arms, leaning against the door to my office, I closed the computer and motioned for him to enter. I’d gone to school with Jagger, but he was two years ahead of me. He was a football star who could have gone professional, but he decided to enter the oil fields in North Dakota to make his fortune. After five years of solitary living in the frozen north, he returned to Rapid City and prospected the Royal Bastards.
He took his seat and flipped his long blond hair out of his face as he placed two glasses filled with whiskey onto my desk, pushing one to me. Reaching across, I took the drink and shot it back in one swallow, feeling the familiar burn all the way down my throat.
“What have you got?” Jagger asked, nodding to the closed computer.
I leaned back and ran my hand through my hair, feeling the length and making a mental note to get Cheyenne to cut it this week. Sighing deeply, I shook my head before I began.
“Do you remember a few weeks ago when I told you I spoke with my cousin’s friend about cracking into Pops’s phone?” He nodded, so I continued. “He just sent me a report with passwords and some location information. He’s overnighting the phone back to me so we can go through it and hopefully make sense of his movements before the attack.”
Jagger gave me an understanding look then reached into his cut and pulled out a rolled joint. Lighting the end, he inhaled deeply before reaching out and handing it to me. Pops was a father to many of the brothers in the club, as well as a stern President and a demanding leader. From what he’srevealed, Jagger’s home life wasn’t the best, and I believed he missed Pops as much as I did.
“So, what’s the big mystery?” he inquired when I handed the joint back to him.
“He turned off his GPS twice a month for almost a year, ranging from a few hours to almost half a day. I think that information may lead us to the people responsible for what happened to him.”
“And what happens when we find them?”
“I’m gonna drag their ass behind my bike until there isn’t enough left of them to bury in a matchbox.”
I meant exactly that. I was going to make every second of the last hours of their life as painful and miserable as I could possibly make it. Then, I was going to take great pleasure in killing them for taking away the only family I had.
“Have you spoken with Phantom?” Jagger inquired as he handed the joint back to me and stood from his chair.
I was surprised he stood still for so long. Jagger was always on the move, needing to keep busy so the demons he fought in his mind couldn’t catch him. I’d seen them up close twice in the last few years, and I would never want to be on the receiving end of his anger.
“He and the rest are on their way in for a meeting before dinner.”
“I’ll get everyone into church when they arrive. Ms. CeCe is going to be pissed if dinner gets cold.”
I chuckled, knowing there was one person in the clubhouse who everyone was a little terrified of. Ms. CeCe. Her husband worked on the ranch with Pops, and she took over cooking duties for the club. She was a tiny woman with more gray hairthan black, and she had a mouth on her worse than any Bastard in the club. We were all a little scared of her, and the last thing you wanted to do was piss her off.
“Let her know to keep it warm in case we run over. If she knows, maybe she won’t kick my ass too hard.”
He snickered and tapped the doorframe as he walked out, another of his weird habits. He tapped twice with his left hand, saying the devil needed to know he’s gone. I never understood what he meant by that and I refused to ask. If he wanted to tell me, I’d listen, but we weren’t a sewing circle and I wasn’t their counselor.
Opening the computer, I printed the email from Devlin listing the dates Pops was out of pocket and then returned to my seat. Every time I sat down in it, I felt like a fraud. It should’ve been Pops leading the club, or one of the brothers with more years in the club. But they elected me to lead, and I was determined to do a good job and to be hard but fair, like Pops.
Glancing to the side, I looked at Pops’s cut hanging from a hook on the wall and I questioned what he had gotten himself into that was bad enough to cost him his life. Standing, I folded the list from Devlin and slipped it into my back pocket before walking over to the cut. Lifting it from the hook, I caught a faint smell of the cologne he wore and I smiled to myself, remembering his advice.
“Wear cologne, Trent. You spend all day working around animals, you start to smell like them. No woman wants to cuddle with an animal, so wear your cologne.”
Turning the cut over to run my fingertips over his name patch on the front, I sighed heavily, wishing I could get hisadvice and guidance now. Knowing that was a pipe dream, I went to hang the cut back up when I heard a crinkle from one of the pockets. Pushing my fingers into the small front pockets and finding nothing, I lifted it from the middle of the back and slipped my hand into the inner pocket of the leather cut.
Inside was a receipt dated three days before Pops was attacked. It was hard to make out the name of the business, so I carefully rehung the cut and walked back to my desk. The lamp on the desk hadn’t been turned on in years, and the smell of burning dust on the bulb stunk up the office as I inspected the receipt.
A knock sounded into the room and I yelled, “Enter,” without looking up to see who it was. Jagger opened the door and stuck his head in as I finally looked to see who was there.
“Everyone’s here if you’re ready,” he stated, and I nodded and stood from my seat. He glanced down at the slip of paper in my hand as I approached the door and asked, “What’s that?”
I handed it to him as we walked across the clubhouse to the secure room we used for church. He looked confused as he handed it back to me, and I nodded toward church, letting him know I’d fill him in soon.
As we stepped in front of the door, Animal handed us each a small plastic basket, and we placed our cell phones into them before he stepped to the side and allowed us to enter. I’d become a little paranoid since Pops died and enacted a no cell phone policy in church. I didn’t want anyone or anything to listen in on our club’s business, so they stayed outside.
