“You didn’t think it was strange to hear screaming coming from next door?”Brass asked.
“Man, look, I was there to collect a check, check in with my parole officer, and nothing more.I’m not getting involved in things that don’t concern me—ahhh!”Sam gasps as Stone’s fist punches him in the gut.
“Not getting involved cost my brother his life, you son of a bitch!”Stone shouts as he uses the kid as a punching bag for a few moments.
After a few minutes, Sam’s able to collect his breaths, and Stone motions for him to continue.
“I-I- saw your brother run along the side of the fence of the house to the front yard.I didn’t see nothing else, but a minute or two later, I heard the gunshots, and the sound of wheels screeching away.Didn’t see the car or nothing,” he tells us.“That’s it I swear.”
“Why didn’t you tell this to the police or the MC when they came over to ask questions after the incident?”
“Fuck the police,” Sam snaps.“I’m not telling them shit.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then when I asked what happened?”Twitch stands and places his hand on the table.“And why is most of the fucking crew gone?”
“Er-Eric told us to lay low for a while.Said that we needed to take some time off and that the project is on hold.”
“Where are you getting your drugs from?”Reaper’s deep voice fills the room and Sam shivers.
“Eric gave us some stuff if we left for a bit and didn’t say a word,” the kid admits.
“Where does he get the drugs from?”Reaper changes his question slightly annoyed.
“I don’t know, man.Probably from where Dale gets his…from the professor guy.”
“Professor?”I finally chime in.All the brothers look at each other in confusion.I’ve never heard of anyone being referred to that before.
“I don’t know his name, but he dresses like one of those teachers at the college.He wears a white button shirt and dress pants with shiny shoes.”
Brass and I look at each other immediately.
“Fucking pastor and his cult,” Brass calls out.
“No fucking way,” Hawk says shocked while shaking his head.
“Cowboy, take our friend here to the guesthouse.Make him comfortable for a while,” Stone orders and shoves Sam at the Nomad.Sam starts to put up a fight, but Cowboy subdues him instantly.
I stand to my feet and move to the door on a mission.Stone blocks my way and so does Bull and Chains.
“You can’t go there yet,” Stone tells me, but I try to move around him.
“Get out of my way,” I growl, ready to brawl if he doesn’t budge.
“You’ll never find her on three hundred acres without a plan in place.We need to get things in order before we storm the farm,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I shrug it off not wanting any comfort or the feel of something else weighing me down.“Need to go over to the house and see if there’s any trace in the neighbor’s house or yard.”
“I’ll pull the info about the owners on your way and have it available,” Hawk informs us, pulling up his laptop from the floor and onto the table.
“Thought it was being used as a rental house,” Stone mumbles to himself.“Think a company owns it and rented it out.”You can tell he’s trying to remember, but then he turns to me.“Let’s go check the place out.”
We only take a handful of brothers.The rest stay at the clubhouse on standby waiting for a call if backup is needed.After several minutes, we pull up to the house, and from the looks of it, the place seems abandoned.Did we never notice it like this?It was always mowed and kept up, never the house on the block that was an eyesore.
“You’re telling me that for the last two months my pregnant woman was one house over from me?”I say to Stone as we walk up the driveway with our brothers behind us.
“This whole fucking thing is a shit show right now, Havoc,” he says.“The kid said that Rocky saw something in the backyard, so let’s start there.”
Stone divides us into two groups, half in the house and the other half with us.As we break off, my heart starts to hammer against my chest.We all pull our guns out, ready for anything.Once we push the wood panel door open, we slowly make our way around the side of the house to the large backyard.Off to the other side of the property, a new wooden panel fence looks to be replaced.It doesn’t match the other panels that share the same yard as the house that Sutton lived in.Our group splits up, and we walk the perimeter looking for any signs that might point us to what Rocky was saying was true and that Sutton was here the entire time.
