Page 51 of Crow's Haven
By some minor miracle, Siege jumps at the chance. “Yeah, I feel like my brain has turned to mush.”
Rigs and I stay behind as Siege climbs the stairs. We linger, intent on finishing our drinks. I swirl whiskey around in the bottom of my glass, frustrated and just bone tired.
Rigs finally speaks, his voice low, breaking the heavy silence. “Have you planned beyond finding her?”
“She’s not a fucking killer,” I snap. The annoyance is more at myself than my club brother. That I’d jumped to conclusions before finding out the truth from her own lips.
“But what if she is?” he asks quietly.
I crank my head around, ready to tell him to stop being an asshole. But when I look at him, all I see is the spiritual leader of our club, wanting to help me work through the unthinkable. Rigs was the first brother to join the Savage Legion back when Siege’s old man founded the club. Needless to say, he’s seen some shit, faced his share of betrayal and disappointment. He’s trying to walk me through a worst-case scenario.
I clear my throat and force myself to face up to a what if that breaks my fucking heart. “I don’t think she’s a killer, much less some kind of angel of death serial killer. That just doesn’t fit with what I know about my old lady. There might be something really fucked up going on and she did something accidentally that resulted in his death. But if that were the case, I think she would have owned up to it, rather than run off. I believe her when she says she’s totally innocent and thinks she’s being framed or some shit like that.”
“But what if she’s not? It’s best to get your head around that tiny fucking possibility now rather than when you’re in the moment.”
I ground out, “If she really is a killer, I’ll turn her into the police. I won’t take a chance on her hurting my boys or anyone else’s kids. Is that what you want to hear?”
Rigs nod slowly, his eyes steady. “Yeah, it’s not just what I want to hear. It’s what I want you to actually be prepared to do if you’re faced with proof that she killed that boy. You have two boys to raise. You can’t afford to get caught up in her shit.”
“I hear ya, brother. You really think it’s ever gonna come down to me turning in my old lady?”
He takes another sip of his whiskey. “Hell, if I know. My philosophy is to be prepared for the worst and anything short of that is a blessing.”
“I believe in her. Until I see cold, hard proof or she flat-out confesses, I’m riding with the assumption she’s clean.”
“I can respect that, especially since I don’t think she’s a killer either.”
“However, I think that when someone loses their life through foul play or otherwise,” he says carefully, leveling his gaze directly at me. “The people in charge scramble to figure out what happened and assign blame. Law enforcement does the same. This situation concerns me because of the information Zen dug up.”
“You mean the part where they sat on that arrest warrant for damn near a month?”
“Yeah, everybody knows that your best chance of finding a missing person or tracking down a criminal is to get after them as soon as possible. I want to know why.”
I knock back the rest of my whiskey. “To be honest, I’ve been scratching my head about that one too. On the one hand it looks like the hospital are trying their best to hush everything up. But on the other the cops are pointing the finger at Sharon.”
“Things ain’t always what they seem,” he continues. “Shit gets complicated, especially in hospitals. You’ve got cops desperate to close cases, hospitals scrambling to avoid lawsuits. Innocent people sometimes get caught in the crossfire. All it takes is one scapegoat to take the fall and all their problems go away.”
My jaw tightens like a damn vice, but I hold his stare. Can’t pretend there ain’t truth in what he’s saying. “You’re saying you think Sharon was literally framed by the hospital or the cops?”
“I’m saying it’s not impossible,” Rigs replies evenly, with no hesitation in his tone. “Remember what happened with Pope and how he had the town under his thumb. All it takes is for some nefarious administrator and a cop looking for extra cash and your woman becomes the scapegoat. We owe her the benefit of the doubt. She’s family now. You’re a member of the Savage Legion. She’s your old lady and that means something. This is me assuring you that we’ve got your back. No matter how dark and twisted the situation gets, we’re not giving up on her.”
My chest damn near caves in from the weight of his loyalty. When I answer my voice is rough with emotion, “Appreciate that, brother. More than I can say.”
He leans back slightly, his eyes dark with quiet intensity. “I don’t think your old lady is a serial killer either. Tex did that workup on angel of death serial killers and she didn’t fit the bill.”
I nod back. “Yeah, she didn’t check a single box. Wrong age, no need for attention, no savior complex, no control issues, and she sure as hell never acted like she thought death was a mercy. She ain’t built like that.”
Rigs thinks it over for a minute. “Maybe we need to go back to that phone conversation you overheard and analyze it one more time. Close your eyes, start at the beginning and tell me everything you can remember about what you overheard.”
I shut my eyes and exhale a slow, steady breath, as memories of that day flood my mind. “I heard her on the phone. Her voice was low and intense. She thanked the other person and said that using their identity had been a lifesaver.”
I stall, remembering how shocked I was that she was using an alias and lying to me about her identity.
“What else did she say?” Rigs coaxes me.
“She told ‘em there was still a warrant out, and the cops were after her. That’s when she said they think she killed a boy. Said she didn’t know how the hell to prove she didn’t.”
When I get lost in that memory, Rigs clears his throat.
