Page 100 of Stitch
“I know. I’ll figure it out, but for now, we need to find out as much as we can about what happened to Chrissy. We need to talk to this roommate of hers, and see who else has been in her life recently. The answer is out there somewhere,and we need to find it before the police, if we have any hope of avenging her.”
Ice nodded, keeping his eyes on his screen, but lifting a thumb in agreement.
“I’m getting what I can. If you can give me a few hours, I’ll do a deep dive, and get us as much as I can. I’d suggest visiting where she was found, but it’ll still be monitored by the police, and I don’t want them thinking any of us is the killer revisiting his fucking scene.”
Good point. “I need to find Has and apologise. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking before, but of course it wasn’t him. I’m sorry for being an ass.”
Reacher snorted. “Not sure I noticed any difference, brother. I need to go and update Ally. As the Pres’s old lady, she’ll be expected to support us through this. Ice, bring Lissa in, because she might be needed. After this, we’re gonna do what we can to find the assholes who hurt Has too. Nobody gets away with hurting my fucking club, and I don’t care if it happened before they joined. Got it?”
Ice stood up, tucking his tablet under his arm.
“I’ve also removed three more porn videos this morning, but I’m not telling him. He’s got enough to worry about right now. I’m close to finding the fucker though. The latest IP address led to some new information, so even moving around to try and avoid detection isn’t gonna work for much longer.”
Jesus. Poor guy, he was already still being plastered all over the internet, and now he was being falsely accused of something he’d never be able to do.
“I’ll go and look for him. I feel like such an asshole.”
“Good.”
Ice didn’t stick around for my response to his comment. They’d been enemies for so long, but lately they seemed to have finally buried the hatchet, maybe just since Ice had cleaned up his act. I’d missed so many things while I was away.
Reacher lingered after Ice left.
“Thanks, brother.”
“For what? Being a complete dick, and upsetting one of the most decent club members we have? You should probably punch me instead.”
He laughed. “If it’ll make you feel better, sure. I meant for pushing the old lady revote. Ally… she’s so fucking happy. I didn’t realise how much it was hurting her, you know, to be kept from that title. To be kept from being my fucking other half in the club. So yeah, thanks.”
“We need to speak to Micro and Jock though. If they have a problem, we needto do something to clear the air.”
“I’m with you on Micro, for sure. Jock… I was gonna come see you today about him anyway. He’s leaving us, brother. He came to see me after Church yesterday.”
“What? Is he okay?”
Reacher nodded, standing up and gathering up the used mugs from the table.
“He’s moving to the coast, to be closer to his daughter. Says he’s done with the life, and I can get that. He feels like there’s nothing left here for him now. Everywhere he looks, he sees Jess, you know? She was such a part of his club life.”
“Yeah, of course I can understand that. We all miss her, right? I can’t even imagine, especially not now I have Camille.”
Reacher washed the mugs and set them on the side.
“I know, man. We’ll have to give him a good send off. End of a fucking era, though. He was the last of the old club.”
Yeah, end of an era alright.
“He’s gonna be missed.”
We both prepared to leave the room together, with my focus being on finding Has-Been and making up for my behaviour earlier. Reacher was a few paces ahead of me, when I ran back for my phone.
After I’d found my phone, hurrying back out and closing the door, I turned and saw Reacher and Elise standing a few paces away, whispering to each other.
“There you are, sweets. Wow, you must have driven way too fast to get back here so soon.”
She looked confused as she looked past Reacher at me. He hissed something else, and strode away, while she watched him leave.
“What… you’re wearing the same clothes as last night, Elise. You didn’t fucking go home at all, did you?”
