Monday, March 25th
Eyeing the house on her laptop screen, Kendall Donovan sipped her lavender and lemon tea, not necessarily at peace with her decision to end her marriage but knowing she had no choice if things continued on the current path. She still had three years before Rory turned eighteen. By then, Johnnie might’ve straightened up.
She huffed and set the delicate China cup back onto its saucer. It was one of her favorite tea sets with pretty emerald flowers and gold rims on both pieces.
Johnnie gave her the tea service on Rory’s tenth birthday, right around the time he began taking their son into that hellhole known as the meatshack.
She’d been taken there as a hostage when it was little more than metal and concrete with a lone window and little ventilation. Mortician had gone easy on her, a fact she never forgot and appreciated to this day.
She glanced at her laptop again. The screensaver had kicked in so she slid her fingers across the mouse pad to further contemplate the house.
It was pretty, simple by the standards she was accustomed to living but vastly better than where she’d grown up. More importantly, it would be hers, bought with her money.
Much like the house and land Christopher gave her tenyears ago, Johnnie would have no say in it. This time, she wouldn’t sell it and put the money in their joint account. The joint account, like her marriage, would be over.
She allowed that thought to settle inside her soul. Johnnie had been her essence for so many years. The man she’d held onto when Spoon and Logan kept her drugged right after her mother’s suicide. She hadn’t even known Johnnie’s name then, believing she’d never see him again the night she’d driven away from the clubhouse. Nor had she thought she’d survive those two fuckheads. But Johnnie had been her beacon, her savior. He’d kept her grounded in those dark days and beyond, when she’d been sent back into his life. However else he felt,whateverspot she held in his heart, didn’t matter. He’d just been her Johnnie.
A bittersweet smile curved her lips and she glanced at her teacup again. This year, Rory’s birthday, his fifteenth, was barely a blip. So many other things took precedence. She’d given her son a gift and a big hug, hoping…expectingJohnnie to beherJohnnie.
Not the new iteration of him that she loathed. The idiot who thought he knew everything. The “victim” who didn’t care about anyone.
But nothing. Johnnie hadn’t even bought Rory a gift.
There was always next time.
Dejected, Kendall jotted the contact information for the real estate agent, exited the website, and put her laptop in sleep mode before closing it.
Marital problems could wait. They would be there tomorrow.
Girding her resolve, Kendall unlocked the desk drawer with all the files she’d been trying to figure out at Christopher’s request. Most of the mountain of documents were properly organized into birth certificates (at least two for some of them), marriage licenses (not many of those), letters (too fucking manyof that group), and wills (the most fucking frustrating of all). There were also bills of sale, deeds, mortgages, spreadsheets, ledger entries, club documents, gun licenses, bank statements back when they sent canceled checks.
The issue wasn’t the stacks of folders. It was the fact that most of what she had meant nothing because there was no actual official records in state databases. Granted, the canceled checks proved payouts and the bank statements showed real deposits, but county documents? State records?
Those fuckheads falsified the majority of them.
Growling in frustration, Kendall opened the top folder and snatched her to-do list. She added a trip to New Orleans at the bottom.
Fuck, that should be at the top in big, red letters. However, Kendall had to inform Roxy that the house where her mother lived might hold some of the original documents.Somewhere. Maybe buried in the backyard? A basement? Did Roxy’s house even have one? New Orleans was prone to flooding. Basements might not be safe.
An attic?
She just needed to get in that fucking house. It didn’t matter if Bash said he’d take care of it. The fucking can of worms had been opened. Before it was resealed, Kendall wanted a resolution for all parties involved.
Suppose there was nothing to find? She would’ve alarmed Roxy and Ms. Pearllene for nothing. Perhaps, before she said anything to Roxy, she’d look on Louisiana’s database for vital records.
Damn it! She was a dumb ass. All this fucking time, she’d been chasing ghosts when she could’ve gotten accounts on genealogy sites that offered all types of historical records. Deeds, birth certificates, marriages licenses, death certificates…well, maybenotdeath certificates. Motherfuckers who just disappeared probably didn’t have one.
That would be a good starting point. She’d have answers for Bash, Christopher,andJohnnie. Motherfucker that her husband was, he still deserved the truth. Whether he accepted it was up to him.
But Bash was the bridge between the original members and the succeeding ones.
She added genealogy sign-ups to tomorrow’s schedule, then listed the states connected to Logan, Cee Cee, Sharper, Rack, Big Joe, and K-P in some way for more than just club ties: Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Virginia, and Louisiana. She added Nevada. In one of the letters, she remembered one of those assholes mentioning Big Joe first meetingMarionthere.
Thatlittle fuckhead.
She also added Georgia. Sharper had supposedly burned to death in a hotel fire there. Although he turned up at his own funeral, there must’ve been a reason he’d chosen to go to the Peach State.
If she added sons and grandsons, which might be a good idea, she’d include Utah and Florida.
