Steel turned his attention to Ghost. “One of you could have come with him.”
“Like it or not, Steel, you’re one of us. Pretty sureyoutaught us that. Blood doesn’t make you family any more than a cut does.” Ghost stood up, crossing his arms over his chest but left his foot on the stair. “You have us and our support whether you want it or not.”
Steel looked around Ghost to where Ranger, Starbucks, Bulldog, Keys, Cage, and Papaw stood. He didn’t need proper lighting to see the determination on all of their faces. Melanie washisdaughter, but they all loved her too.
Ghost’s choices in who to bring and who to leave behind was obvious. Lucky was second-in-charge, so he would take over the club in Ghost’s absence. Bulldog was muscle as well as a voice of reason should they need to rein Scar in. Bear likely wanted to come, but the giant softy was better protection at the clubhouse than he was in the field. Scar was already here, and Keys wasneeded to work his computer magic. Jumper, Bones, Pumpkin, and Pirate had their individual challenges that could potentially hinder whatever it was Steel needed. It was likely a coin toss between Angel and Cage as who stayed with their kids and who came to Steel’s aid, and while Angel was a better shot, she was also pregnant. Demo, Grumpy, Jigsaw, and the prospects all had jobs, and the club still needed to make appearances around town so as not to raise suspicions. As it was April, Viktor and Darrin would have been patched in by now, though Steel had no idea what their new road names were. Like Jumper, Chip had severe PTSD. He was better on defense, not offense. Ranger and Starbucks were muscle, while Papaw was likely here to beSteel’svoice of reason.
“Fine.” Steel popped the cigar back in his mouth and stood up. “Let’s get the party started.”
Turning, he led the others inside the cabin. He took a few steps to the right as he entered to flip on the work lights he had set up around the hole in the floor. The club members filed inside, blinking rapidly at the sudden brightness.
Keys was the only one who gagged at the ghastly sight revealed by the illumination. “Oh God,” he got out before he spun and ran back out the door while covering his mouth.
None of the others reacted as they stared down at Shaw’s lifeless body, caked in mud, rain, and blood, with two bamboo stalks now protruding from his bare chest. It was too soon for him to show physical signs of decay, but the smell was horrendous, even with the open roof. Two shimmers of light reflected off the top of the bamboo. Steel had yet to retrieve the bullets. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to.
Cage ventured closer to the edge. He studied Shaw for a moment and then turned with his eyebrows raised. “Well,damn.”
Were it any other time after anyone else’s death, the reaction to his statement might have been laughter. But the tension that hung heavy in the abandoned cabin was too high. The black bands on each of the member’s arms were a testament that they had not forgotten Melanie or moved on from the brutality of her murder.
None of them wore their colors. Even with the response nationwide that the club had gotten in support and solidarity from other MCs, it would mean something if the VDMC was caught riding through Huntsville in full colors. Besides, not knowing what they were riding to or from, it wasn’t a good idea to advertise who they were for anyone with a smartphone or surveillance device to capture.
“Shaw’s dead,” Ghost said with a wave at the pit Steel and Scar had created. “Clearly, you didn’t call Keys to help get rid of the body. What’s going on?”
Removing the cigar from his mouth, Steel’s eyes glanced to Papaw, the only other man in the room who had ever met Griffin Shaw. The man’s eyes were hard, but he showed no sympathy for his former student. “Shaw claims he didn’t kill Melanie,” Steel told his former club.
“He was dying,” Bulldog threw in. “The man would have said anything to make it stop.”
“I wasn’t stopping, and he knew it.” The hardness in Steel’s eyes as well as his voice pointed out how unappreciative he was of Bulldog pointing out the obvious. “He told me just as he died that he didn’t kill Melanie, said his pain was ending but mine was only just beginning. He gave me a name to look up, which is why I called Keys.”
Steel did not add that all he’d done was call Keys, not told the club to ride like the hounds of hell were chasing them to get to him. He’d meant for a simple phone call to give him the answers he needed.
“And you believe him?” Ghost asked, both ginger eyebrows raised. There wasn’t judgement in his voice, but definitely something. Likely suppressed anger. Ghost wasn’t the only member who blamed himself for Melanie’s death. They’d promised her protection, along with everyone else in Steel’s family.
But it hadn’t been their job to protect her. Former President or not, it wasSteel’sjob as her father to have protected her.Hewas the one who had failed.
“No,” Steel said honestly. “But I need to put this to rest. I need to know that he wasn’t just fucking with me.”
Keys came back in, looking green around the gills and had his hand over his mouth. His backpack was now slung over only one shoulder. “What was the name?” His voice was muffled by his hand.
“Tracy Marigold,” Steel told him. “Athens, West Virginia.”
Keys scurried over to the table and the chair Steel had spent the previous night in watching Shaw’s sluggish demise. He pulled out his laptop, sitting angled where he couldn’t see the hole in the floor behind him. The moment he put his fingers on the keyboard, they started moving. Steel had always been secretly envious of Keys’ abilities with a computer. He was old-school and barely managed a two-fingered jab on a keyboard. While he had no desire to learn about manipulating computers and the web like Keys could, he could appreciate their usefulness.
Keys barely spent a minute typing away on his laptop before he spoke. “Tracy Luanne Marigold, forty-nine. She’s a criminology professor at Concord University. Twice divorced, no kids.” He glanced over his left shoulder at Steel, turning in the opposite direction than the corpse in the room. “Looks like she gave a lecture at Melanie’s college at the beginning of last semester.”
Steel kept his face blank as his heart tightened in his chest. He’d grown used to the silence between him and Scar the past several weeks, and hearing Melanie’s name was harder than he expected. “Did Melanie attend?”
Keys shook his head. “She wasn’t taking any criminology courses, and the lecture was meant for upperclassmen. While I don’t have a roster of who attended, I highly doubt she went.” He turned back to his computer screen and started typing again. “Let me do a trace on her phone activity back then to see if I can pinpoint where she was during the lecture.”
“Even if she did attend a lecture,” Ranger pointed out, “it doesn’t mean this woman had anything to do with her death.”
Steel’s eyes glanced between Keys’ screen that was doing something he couldn’t follow and Ranger, who was leaning up against the wall by the door with his arms crossed over his chest. “Clearly, Shaw knew Marigold had been at the college to mention her.”
Papaw stepped closer. “You have a right to learn who this woman is and to put your mind at ease.”
“I didn’t ask for all of you to come down here,” Steel snapped, turning back to the computer he had no hope of interpreting.
“Maybe not,” Bulldog said, “but you needed us. You look like shit, man. When was the last time you ate something?”
