Page 115 of Roses Are Dead
Jackson was all smiles and looking for me on the one day he could guarantee I was captive to whatever insanity he’d cooked up.
“I hear church on Friday needs a visiting preacher or ten.”
The shop was empty. I motioned at it. “You don’t have to speak in code.” Wolf had one delay after another to get everyone wrangled for the VP vote. But it was happening. The patch had been sitting in Wolf’s desk for too long.
“Hagerstown, ‘Burgh, and Scranton RSVP’d.”
Cool. It would be a hell of a party. On fucking Halloween, too. I smiled. “Is Kate at the club?” They started decorating a week ago and still weren’t done stretching fake spiderwebs all over the place. Rose was beside herself making witchy decorations and finally fitting in.
“Naw, she’s back at the house. The fucking cable is out again.”
“Hickey never tracked that down?”
Jackson groaned. “This is all new shit.”
There went his smile. Damn it. “It’ll all be fixed by the time you get back, then you’ve got…” I checked my clock and grinned, “all of a half hour to fuck her senseless again.”
“Takes more than a half hour.” Jackson stood a little wider and that smile peeked back out.
I pulled my phone out to text one of the prospects to meet Zoe at her school. Maybe even warn them not to take her directly home.
But it lit up in my hand before I could. I answered.
Skinner was talking too quickly.
“What do you mean, you can’t get a hold of Wolf?” I glanced at Jackson, who was not making a secret of listening in. Skinner spat out some more info. It sounded like he said KC had been arrested.
“He’s where?” Fuck.
I snapped my fingers and quickly relayed what I needed to Jackson while I listened to Skinner. “Write down that lawyer’s number—the criminal one, not the fucking estate one.”
I had it stored in my phone, but I needed to get Skinner on this right away. “Does KC have an alibi?”
Jackson’s eyes widened. He jotted down a number from memory. It figured he’d have that one memorized. We all should. I stuck a pin in that thought and moved back to Skinner’s conversation.
“Let me repeat what you said, Jackson’s listening. Three minutes ago, you got the post-booking call from KC. He’s facing a murder one charge.” I glanced at Jackson to see how he’d handle that news.
His mouth tightened. I barely caught the silent, “fuck” he couldn’t hold back.
And that was putting it mildly. We were all cooked. There were stipulations with the estate that applied specifically to this situation. The biggest were the morality clauses in the contracts that the club agreed to in order to get our hands on that money. No felonies. By any member.
We’d been relying on a silent addendum of ‘They have to catch us and convict us first’ to every action since. Because not even the fear of losing millions was enough to stop us from being Destroyers. Or in this case, an idiot. I passed the number Jackson gave me to Skinner who had to be working on his laptop and his phone because he verified he had the firm on the line.
The next thing I said was worded very carefully because the line wasn’t secure. Nor was my shop. “Have you run a roll call yet?” What I really wanted to know was if he’d located Sketch, his girlfriend, Izzy, and probably got them and his kid out of the fucking state. But I didn’t dare say anything close to that over the phone.
Skinner said he’d send a thread out.
Sure as shit, my phone displayed the message. “Check me and Jackson off. Kate’s at the house. Hickey should be there looking at her cable, but don’t count them until you hear from them.” I sent Jackson a tip of the head to make sure of that before anything else. “Pop it up and down the line. Use the full list. ASAP.” That meant everyone, ol’ ladies, hookers, prospects, everyone. Jackson got on his phone to check on his family rather than wait.
“What do you mean she doesn’t have her cell on her?”
Shit. Jackson’s skin had turned that ugly shade of red it got just before he beat the ever-loving shit out of someone. More than once, I’d had to tear him off so he wouldn’t kill the unfortunate target of his anger.
I tapped his elbow carefully to ground him and silently ask, who?
“Zoe. Fucking school makes ’em lock up their damn phones.” He turned back to the call with Kate. “Tell me you sent someone there in person to pick her up.”
While I didn’t hear her reply, I did see the dagger-stare Jackson sent in my direction. “And who’s on her?”
