Hilarie successfully avoided me all week. She came in and left early, and she took her lunch breaks while I was in a session. I didn’t try to call or text her. If she wasn’t talking to me at work, there was no reason for me to think she would try to talk to me after work. She was going to have to get over it. I was moving to Croftridge, and there was nothing she could do about it. We could part ways on bad terms, or she could suck it up and be happy for me like a true friend would. It wasn’t like I would never see her again. We could still talk on the phone, and we could even double date if she was still seeing Shaker. Her immature behavior was really starting to piss me off.
The woman ignored me for the rest of my employment at the crisis center. I had gone from resigned to pissed off to hurt by her actions. The staff members had a going away party for me during lunch on my last day there, and she didn’t even show up to that. I smiled and did my best to pretend my feelings weren’t hurt, but I’m sure they were able to see through my act.
After the party, I went back to my office and started the process of packing up my personal belongings. I didn’t have any sessions scheduled that afternoon since all my patients had been transferred to the other therapists. I was still fuming about Hilarie’s behavior when someone knocked on my office door.
“Come in,” I called out and placed another book into the box at my feet. I turned to find Hilarie standing just inside the door with a sad look on her face.
“I’m sorry I missed the party,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. She sniffed, and her chin trembled. “I’m having a hard time with this. I don’t want you to go,” she croaked and burst into tears.
I went to her and wrapped my arms around her. “Oh, Hilarie,” I said and squeezed her tighter. “We’ll still see each other. Croftridge isn’t that far away. We could even meet halfway for dinner once a week if you wanted to.”
I felt her nod against my shoulder. “I would like that,” she said and pulled back, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“I would, too.”
“I’m sorry for being such a bitch the last few weeks. I really do want you to be happy,” she said and reached for a box I hadn’t noticed. She picked it up and lifted the lid. “Peace offering?” she asked and held out the box filled with lemon squares from my favorite bakery in Sugar Falls.
I grinned. “I’m stuffed from the party, but I can always make room for a lemon square,” I said as I surveyed the box and shamelessly reached for the biggest one. I pointed to one square in the corner. “Is that one different?”
“Oh, I almost forgot about that one. Yes, it’s a peanut butter treat for Titan. Is it okay for him to have?”
I nodded and swallowed a mouthful of goodness. “Yes, he’s had them before, and he loves them.”
“I know you said he’s friendly, but I think I’ll let you give it to him,” she said with a nervous laugh.
I took the treat from the box and held it out for Titan who swallowed it instantly. “Did you even taste it, boy?” I asked with a giggle.
Hilarie laughed, too. “I don’t see how he could have.” She glanced at her watch. “I have a conference call starting in five minutes. What time are you leaving?”
“I’m staying until the end of the day, just in case anyone has any last-minute questions about my previous patients.”
“Oh, good. I’ll come back and help you finish packing once I finish my call.”
“Thank you,” I said and hugged her again before she left.
With Titan sleeping in the corner of my office, I turned on some soft music and got to work. I was halfway through filling the third box when I decided to take a break. Yawning, I made my way over to the small sofa in my office. I collapsed onto the leather, closed my eyes, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
I don’t know if it was just luck or some subconscious instinct for self-preservation, but my mind seemed to wake up before my body did. The moment my mind was back online, I knew something was wrong. I was cold and lying on something that was decidedly not the sofa in my office. My head was throbbing, and my hands and feet felt tingly like they weren’t getting enough blood flow. That was when I realized my hands and feet were tied to something. Willing myself to maintain a steady breathing pattern, I cracked one eye open enough to get a glimpse of my surroundings, but I couldn’t see anything. Slowly, I opened both eyes and realized there was nothing for me to see because I was in total darkness.
Don’t panic.
Don’t panic.
Don’t panic.
No matter how many times I said it to myself, it didn’t work. After dealing with anxiety issues for years and years, somewhere along the way, I learned that sometimes it takes more time and energy to fight off a panic attack instead of letting it run its course. So, I surrendered to the panic, the fear, the helplessness, the overwhelming sense of doom. I cried; I writhed; I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I let it all happen, and when it was over, I started trying to figure out where in the fuck I was and what the fuck had happened.
The first thing that occurred to me was that Titan wasn’t with me. If he was, he would have tried to comfort me during my panic attack. How had someone gotten to me with Titan around? He was sleeping in my office when I fell asleep. That’s when I realized someone had drugged me, and likely Titan as well. Fuck.
Before I could analyze my situation any further, the door to the room opened, and someone stepped inside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Carbon
I barreled through the front doors of the clubhouse and ran straight for Church. I called Duke first and told him to get his ass to the clubhouse and bring my sister and nephew. Then, I called Phoenix and told him I needed him to call an emergency Church. He didn’t ask questions and didn’t give me any shit about it. He just said, “Okay,” and disconnected the call.
When I arrived, everyone except Shaker was already there. I wasn’t going to waste time and wait for him. “I can’t find Harper, and I know something is wrong,” I blurted, trying to catch my breath.
Duke was instantly on his feet. “What the fuck do you mean you can’t find her?”
“Today was her last day at work. She was going to leave from there to come here. She should have been here over an hour ago. Her cell phone is going to voicemail, and she’s not answering her office phone. I had Judge tap into the camera feed at her house, and there’s no sign of her. We have to find her!” I screamed. I was losing my shit. After what had just happened to my sister and Harper having been kidnapped before, my mind was flooded with worst-case scenarios that could be playing out that very minute.
“Lock it down, Carbon. We’ll find her, but wrestling with you will take time away from searching for her,” Phoenix said sternly.
“Say no more, Prez. I’m good,” I replied. He said the right words to have me reining in my temper. I didn’t want to do anything to take away from finding Harper. I knew, in my gut, that she was in trouble and it was killing me.
“Byte, see if you can get a location on her phone or her car if she has any kind of tracking on it. Somebody find Shaker and get his bitch on the phone. Carbon, call Ruben and see if Titan has a tracking chip,” Phoenix ordered.
We scrambled to carry out our assigned tasks as fast as possible. Byte couldn’t get anything on her phone or car, but Titan had a tracking chip, and it was showing him at the crisis center.
“Gear up and round up as many sober members as you can. We’re rolling out in 10 minutes. Duke, call Judge and your Aunt Leigh to let them know what’s going on. I’m guessing Copper and his boys will meet us there,” Phoenix said.
“Do you think Boar would send some boys out? They’re closer than either of the Blackwings clubs,” I asked.
Phoenix nodded, his eyes full of understanding. “I’ll call and ask. Just keep it together. We’ll find her.”
We left the clubhouse in exactly 10 minutes, leaving Ranger, Badger, and a handful of prospects behind to watch over the girls. Boar agreed to help us out an
d send some of his boys to the crisis center. As expected, Copper and his crew were on the way to Sugar Falls as well.
About halfway there, Phoenix signaled for us to pull over. “Boar’s boys arrived at the crisis center. The place is empty from what they can tell. Titan is inside the building and, according to Boar’s VP ‘is on a rampage.’ They looked through all the windows, including Harper’s and didn’t see anyone. Her car isn’t there either. They’re going to wait at the crisis center until we arrive. Carbon, do you think you can get that dog under control, or do we need to call Ruben to come down?”
“Let’s get back on the road. I’ll call Ruben and ask him what we should do,” I replied.
Phoenix nodded and pulled back onto the road. Fuck. I knew something was wrong, but Titan flipping out inside the crisis center confirmed it. Nothing made sense. She wouldn’t have left him there, so where was her car? Fuck, where was she?
The rest of the ride was a blur. I managed to keep my bike on the road, but I couldn’t tell you how. The only thing on my mind was finding Harper.
When we pulled into the parking lot of the crisis center, I could hear Titan barking and snarling as soon as we turned our bikes off. Following Ruben’s instructions, I walked to the door and called his name. When he focused his attention on me, I gave the command Ruben assured me would work. “Cessare!” Titan closed his jaws and dropped his butt to the floor, sitting still as a statue. “Good boy!”
A few of the guys behind me muttered their surprise that it worked. Ignoring them, I got to work picking the locks. It took several minutes, but I finally got the doors open. Byte and Judge had already disabled the security system. I slowly opened the door and eyed Titan warily. He was a good dog, and I trusted him completely with Harper, but Harper was missing, and I wasn’t sure how he was going to react to me. He whimpered when I took a step inside the building. I patted my leg with my hand and called him to me. He eagerly came to me and started nudging me in the direction of one of the offices. One that was not Harper’s.
He took the lead when I started walking toward her door. I heard Phoenix, Duke, Copper, and Judge following behind me. Titan walked behind a desk and stopped. He barked once and tapped the floor with his paw like he was pointing at something. I bent down to retrieve a small plastic bag lined with a white powder residue. Holding it up for my brothers to see, I bellowed, “Motherfucker!”
“No. Fuck no,” Duke groaned. The sound of something being destroyed had me turning to see Judge pull his fist from the wall.
“Brothers! She needs you to keep your shit together. Carbon, I can see the red haze in your eyes. Focus, boy. We’ll find her,” Phoenix demanded.
“Get the computer guys in here. I installed a few cameras here when I installed the ones at her house. Spazz checked the live feed for the office and her house when we first got here, but we didn’t have time to go back and look through the recordings from earlier today. One can pull up the feed from here, and the other can get the feed from her house,” Judge said, shaking his hand out and pacing the room.
“I’ll take the office, and you get the house,” Byte declared, sitting down at Harper’s desk with Spazz setting up his laptop on the opposite side.
“What the fuck?” Byte shouted at his computer. He sounded pissed, which was a rarity for our laid-back resident computer geek.
“What is it?” I demanded.
Byte motioned for us to come closer and turned his computer screen around to face the room. He clicked play, and the screen showed Harper packing her personal belongings from her office. He skipped forward to show Harper talking to someone at her office door. We saw her reach for something, eat it, and then feed something to Titan. Byte skipped forward again, and we saw Harper yawning and curling up on her sofa to take a nap; Titan snoozing on the floor beside her. Then, the screen went black for a few beats before a message filled the screen. “Carbon and Duke, here’s your only hint.” The screen filled with a bunch of dots, then lines started connecting the dots to make a picture that roughly resembled two stick figures holding hands.
“That’s what was painted on her living room wall,” I stated. “What the fuck is it?”
“I have no idea,” Phoenix muttered.
“I haven’t found anything on the recordings from her house, but if the office feed was jacked, there’s a good chance the feed from her house has been tampered with as well,” Spazz interjected.
“We’ll have some of the guys stay here while we go check out her house,” Phoenix said, already heading toward his bike.
Copper pointed toward Titan. “What about the dog?”
“He’ll be fine here. Byte, can you watch him while we’re gone?” I asked.
“Sure. Jot down the commands to get his ass under control in case I need to, and we’re straight,” Byte said, not the least bit worried about the dog.
When we arrived at Harper’s house, I immediately knew something wasn’t right. I could feel it. I crept closer to her front door, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I turned back to the guys. “Something’s not right.”
They all murmured their agreement. Copper added, “My gut is telling me we should go around back.”
Halfway to the back side of Harper’s house, our phones started ringing, all of them. I pulled mine out and accepted the call. My ear was filled with Byte shouting, “Get away from the house! Now! Go! Go! Go!” The five of us started running as a group. We hopped on our bikes and peeled out of the driveway. I was about to stop and ask where we were going when the sky brightened, and I felt an intense heat warm my back. Stopping in the middle of the road, I looked back over my shoulder to see Harper’s house in flames.
“She wasn’t in there!” Phoenix shouted. I felt his hand clasp my shoulder and shake me. “She wasn’t in there! Byte had the true live feed up. That’s how he knew the house was about to go up in flames. She. Was. Not. In. There!”
I nodded and turned my head to find Duke staring up at the house. Copper was in between Judge and Duke, a hand on each shoulder, I assumed having the same conversation Phoenix just had with me. “We have to find her, Prez,” I said, the desperation evident in my plea.
“We will. Let’s get back to the crisis center before the pigs show up and try to pin this on us,” Phoenix said, climbing back on his bike.
Back at the crisis center, I didn’t know what to do. Only one thought was on my mind, and it played over and over.
We have to find her.
We have to find her.
We have to find her.
We used Harper’s office as a makeshift command center. The small space was cramped with everyone piled in there, but we made it work.
“Has anyone heard from Shaker? And what about her little friend that’s been fucking him? Anybody else think it’s strange that they seem to have vanished as well?” Phoenix asked the room.
I jumped to my feet. “You think he has something to do with this?” I growled.
Phoenix pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. “I don’t know what to think. Harper’s missing. He’s missing. Hilarie’s missing. That can’t be a coincidence, brother.” He directed his attention to Byte. “Find anything yet?”
Byte never took his eyes from his computer. “I can’t find shit on a Hilarie Thaxton in Sugar Falls. Are you sure that’s her name?”
“Yes, I’m sure, but screw the computer search. She works here. There has to be something in this place with her address listed on it,” I replied.
I was right. Less than five minutes later, we had the address of Hilarie Thaxton and were heading to her house.
Her house was empty, as in completely fucking empty. No clothes, no food, no furniture. If she had lived there, she sure as shit didn’t anymore. I clenched my jaw and balled my fists, feeling my control slowly slipping from my fingers. We had nothing. Not a damn thing to go on. Anyone could have her, and they could be doing…I couldn’t even complete that thought.
I turned to face my brot
hers. “What do we do now?”
Phoenix looked at me pointedly and opened his mouth to speak, but his phone ringing stopped him. Phoenix answered, and Byte’s voice traveled through the silence surrounding us. “Get back here now. I’ve got something.”
Byte stood when we entered the room. Spazz had moved to the other side of the desk and continued pounding furiously on the keyboard in front of him. He made eye contact with Phoenix and ever so subtly lifted his chin in my direction. Before Phoenix could make a move in my direction, I held up my hand. “I’m good, but I won’t be if you don’t spit it the fuck out.”
“Does the name Valarie Vine mean anything to you?” Byte cautiously asked.
“She’s the daughter of Vincent Vine, the fucker that kidnapped Harper,” Judge exclaimed.
Duke furrowed his brow in confusion. “She’s dead. Why are you asking about her?”
“What?” Byte asked. “How do you know she’s dead?”
“Because I had a private investigator keep tabs on her and her aunt and uncle. Not long after she went to live with them, she tried to kill herself and was placed in a psychiatric hospital. She was released when she turned 18 and seemed to be making a life for herself. She stayed in the same town, got an apartment, and found a job. A few months later, she was found dead in her apartment. The private investigator called to let me know and even sent me copies of the newspaper with the obituary,” Duke explained.
“What about the aunt and uncle?” I asked.
“They’re both deceased,” Spazz said. “The uncle died five years ago, and the aunt died two years ago. Both from natural causes. I also have Valarie Vine’s obituary pulled up.”
“Again, why are you asking about her?” Duke demanded.
Carbon (Blackwings MC Book 4) Page 17