No club likes losing one of their cuts. It’s not unknown for someone to impersonate a member of a different club to get them into trouble. As glances are exchanged no words need to be said, but one more possible reason for Skull going missing has to be acknowledged. Someone didn’t want him but wanted our colours instead.
“Time will tell,” Demon says, pragmatically. “All we can do is record its loss. If it ever turns up with the wrong man attached to it, he’ll fuckin’ wish he’d never been born.”
Amen to that.
I remain seated as the others move on out.
Demon starts to move past, and then stops. “You okay, Ro? Apart from having to sleep in the clubroom?”
At the reminder my hand goes up to the back of my neck and I rub it. “I’m just wondering how the fuck I can tell Mel we’re giving up.”
“Not giving up, Ro.”
“Seems like next week we will be. If we call lockdown off, to her it will appear we’re assuming Skull’s dead.”
“You think he’s not?”
I shake my head. Can’t deny that I do, though of course, I’m keeping that from Mel. “I just expected a body to turn up, you know? Have a funeral, bury him with club honours. Give her and us closure.”
Demon’s finger and thumb find the brow of his nose. “Melissa’s been pretty tied up with all this pregnancy stuff. Worrying whether she was, then, wondering how she’ll cope. I reckon early pregnancy under normal circumstances is stressful enough.”
“What’s on your mind, Prez?” My senses sharpen. Something definitely is.
“I’m wondering whether she’s got info she hasn’t shared.”
I scoff, “You think she’s holding out on us? She’s not. I can assure you of that. Girl’s fuckin’ distraught.”
“Sometimes people know more than they think they do. Things which seemed insignificant at the time, can add up.”
As I stare at him, I realise he may well have a point. “Want to talk to her now?”
“No time like the present, as they say.”
Mel’s out in the clubroom, she’s actually chatting to Mo. That’s one person whose attitude toward Skull’s woman did a complete turnaround once she knew she had a child on the way. I interrupt, having to say quickly there’s no news when her eyes light up briefly, and then ask that she come with me to see Prez.
“Need to pick your brains, Melissa,” Prez starts after she sits down opposite him. I stand against the wall behind her. “Sometimes people let things slip when they don’t mean to, and we’ve been wondering if that applies to Skull.”
“I’ve told you everything I know.” She looks mystified.
The door opens, I move out of the way.
“Yeah, come in Beef. Thought it would be useful to have the VP in on this. You mind?”
Mel shakes her head. “I just don’t know how I can help you. I’ve told you everything that happened. If I’d have thought of anything else, I’d have let you, or at least Pyro, know.”
Beef raises his chin toward Demon and gets a jerk of the prez’s head back. He takes a breath. “Something’s been playing at the back of my mind like an itch I couldn’t scratch. Wasn’t able to grab hold of it until Prez mentioned he was going to speak to you just now. Something that Steph said months back. That day when we’d returned from the cabin.”
Mel looks confused. As do I. I fold my arms and wait for the VP to elaborate.
“I was going to have ‘the chat’ with her,” he uses air quotes, “about the club. Turned out most of the things I was telling her, she already knew.”
None of us are up to speed yet.
“I’d left her with you, Mel, VI, Jeannie, and I think Jay was there too. I asked her outright whether she’d asked about the club, and her reply was no, that was you.” Beef pauses and sends an apologetic look toward Demon. “This may be nothing at all, and I’m not accusing you of anything Mel, but it’s been bugging me as to why you would have to have asked. Skull must have surely had ‘the talk’ with you? You’d been together a while by then. I know he wanted you to get comfortable with the club before he claimed you, and us with you. In that case I would have thought he’d have explained what to expect before you set foot on the compound.”
“He did.” Mel frowns, then puts her hand to her head and rubs at her temple.
Beef opens his mouth, but she holds her palm toward him. “Wait a moment.” We give her that minute, then another. Finally, she opens her mouth. “He’d asked me to ask about the club. I’d forgotten about that. Yes, you’re right. He’d told me all the stuff about the cut, what it meant, the brotherhood, but… he kept asking what Violet knew.”
We look at each other, then back at her. She’s shaking her head. “The day before he left, he’d asked me what I’d been talking to Violet about. I told him Theo’s new tooth. It wasn’t the right answer. Oh, he wasn’t angry, he was disappointed. I don’t know what he meant. He never told me exactly what to ask, or what he wanted me to find out.”
“Did it strike you as odd?” Demon asks in a deceptively quiet tone.
“No. I was more confused.”
Her head is bowed, and her eyes are half closed.
“Mel?” Beef asks, like me, wondering if perhaps she’s become overwhelmed.
But when she looks up, she gives a quick shake of her head and her eyes contain a spark. “You’re right! There’s something else. Something I hadn’t thought particularly odd at the time, but now you’re asking… That night when he walked out of the room and I said it looked like he was going to make a call… I was more shocked that he’d got dressed and I couldn’t understand what he was doing.”
Demon’s already shaking his head. “There was no call. Cad’s already found that out.”
Mel ignores him and carries on, “He had a phone, but not his phone. Not the one he normally used. He fumbled in the back of a drawer and brought it out. I’m sorry, I didn’t even register it at the time. I was too shocked at his reaction. Didn’t think it was important. It’s only when you asked if he’d said or done anything strange.”
My jaw drops. He could still have indeed made a call, but from a burner that we didn’t know about. The questions are, why, and who to?
Demon stands so fast his chair falls over. “Come.” He’s looking directly at Mel, but she’s not the only one to follow him out of the room. Both Beef and I are hot on his heels as he clangs up the metal stairway and along the hall, pausing only to rap hard against the door before slinging it open. Then closes it fast.
“I did not need to see that,” he snarls, then raps the door again. “Get your fuckin’ clothes on fast. I need to come in.”
The door opens again and Hell’s standing there wearing jeans with the button undone and a smirk.
“You’ve fuckin’ scarred me for life, old man,” Demon rasps, while behind him, Beef and I are trying our best not to laugh.
I do have some sympathy. Who wants to walk in on their mom and dad having sex?
“Where’s Mo?”
“In the bathroom,” Hell responds. “What’s so fuckin’ urgent you stopped me, well…”
“Fuckin’ traumatising me.”
Yeah, but as he supplied the word fucking, Beef and I lose our battle and crack up.
Hell ignores us. “What do you want?”
In turn, Demon ignores Hell, turning instead to Mel. “Which drawer?”
Stepping gingerly into the room, Mel points it out. Beef goes across, yanks it out, and feels behind it, then shouts in triumph. I go across and look. It would be too much to hope that we’d find the phone, but what we do discover is that the drawer has a fake bottom. All manner of stuff could be hidden in there.
I turn to Mel, but she’s looking as confused as us.
Skull, it would appear, has secrets.
Demon glances at Mel then jerks his head toward me. Taking the hint, I take her hand and encourage her out of the room.
“What does it mean, Pyro?”
Opening th
e door to her… my room, I can only shake my head. “I have no fuckin’ idea, and that’s the honest truth.”
“He had a secret drawer where he kept a phone hidden.” She proves her eyes work as well as mine. “He wanted to find out information about the club by using me. What on earth could I find out that he didn’t already know?”
I suspect the prez and VP are having a very similar discussion now, but I can’t leave Mel. She’s too worked up.
I have a few ideas of my own. “You know how Skull got patched in?”
“He prospected for eleven months, then got voted in.”
I nod. “That’s true, but not quite all of it.” I point to my own bed, and she nods her permission for me to sit. “Have you spoken much to Jay? About what happened when she first came here?”
“She gave me a summary. Said she was kidnapped by one of the members who’s gone now.”
“Yeah.” I rub my beard. “Someone was causing trouble for the club. Tried to get people arrested for shit they hadn’t done. That person caused a drive-by shooting and all signs all pointed to Runt as we called Skull at the time. Changing his name was one of the bargains he made.”
“I knew he’d had the name Runt,” she corrects. “But what are these bargains? And why did he make them?”
I ignore her question. It will be answered in time. “We thought he was the one responsible. Went after him pretty hard. Hurt him, bad. He wasn’t saying anything. We thought he was planning worse. Turned out the culprit was, plans were already in progress to take Jayden, but as Runt didn’t know, he couldn’t warn us.” I glance at her; she rightly looks horrified. “It was fuckin’ serious, Mel. Jayden could have died. We knew an asshole was fuckin’ with us and it had to stop. Turned out Runt had been set up. He wasn’t telling us anything as he didn’t have anything to tell. We were so fuckin’ sorry when we found out. Made a man hurt when he was innocent.”
“What did he do? How could he ever trust you again?”
She’s gotten straight to the heart of it. “He left the club. I agree with you, we thought that was the last we’d seen of him. How could he come back when he’d suffered through that?”
Her eyes crease. “But he did return?”
“Yeah, he returned darlin’.” At the time I’d respected him for it.
Her head shakes. “Why?”
“Couple of reasons he said. He knew he’d been set up by an expert. He was away for a month licking his wounds, when he came back he said he understood what we had done. Had had time to cool down and a chance to clear his head. He missed the camaraderie and wanted it, knew what we’d done was to keep the club safe, a club he’d worked hard to be part of. We agreed to patch him straight in, named him Skull as he has a hard head, and that, we thought, was the end of it.”
She stares at me but doesn’t ask more. I leave her to come to her own conclusions, which she does. “You think he’s waited all this time for some sort of revenge? No, Pyro. That is not the man I know. Not the man who’s the father of my baby. You’re crazy if you think that.”
“Mel, I haven’t told you anymore than everyone here knows. Skull’s been a good brother since he was patched in, we all trust him. But he does have reasons to hate the club. Now you’re saying he tried to use you to get info and it turns out he may have had a burner which he could have used shortly before he disappeared into the blue. Two and two sometimes does add up to five.”
“Or doesn’t add up to anything at all. Pyro, he wasn’t using me. He loved me. I’m certain that was true. He couldn’t fake that. If he was going to leave, why didn’t he take me too? Why leave me here?”
“What if he had been going to hurt the club, but couldn’t do it in the end?” I’m thinking aloud. “Maybe his leaving was him cancelling his plans, not commencing them.”
“But what about me?” she wails. “Where do I fit in? Tell me that, Pyro. What about me?”
Chapter Sixteen
Melissa
“What about me?” I scream at Pyro.
I’m so angry at the man who I thought was my friend. Perhaps Skull would have told me what happened in time, perhaps I’d have heard…
“That’s it!” I exclaim. “Skull was worried one of the women would let drop something about what happened to him, and he was worried it would turn me against the club.”
“No, I don’t think it’s that.” Pyro shakes his head sadly. “You said he encouraged you to speak to the women and find out about us. If he was worried, he’d have kept you away, not pushed you in.
I suppose that’s true. Anger wells up again. Pyro admits they hurt him, and badly enough he went away for a month. But Skull looking for revenge? That doesn’t work. “Skull loves the club, Pyro. He joined for the family he doesn't have and loves all of you.” He sold it to me enough in those terms and haven’t I seen that for myself? Demonstrated by how everyone’s rallied around to make sure I’m alright, and just because, in their eyes, I belong to their lost man.
“What do you expect him to do? Hurt you? Hurt one of the women? Theo? That’s not the man I know.” Skull might retaliate if he was directly attacked or would step in to save somebody else. I’m certain Skull wouldn’t want a dish served cold, which revenge in this case would be. Skull is not a man who’d let ill done to him fester.
Pyro’s holding out his hands palms up, as if confirming he hasn’t really thought this through.
“You really think he’s hung around biding his time to get his own back on you. And he does this how, by disappearing?”
“Mel, I don’t have the answers. All I know is that it’s raised more questions. You’re right. I could more easily believe it if it wasn’t for you. You’re an amazing woman, Mel. No,” he looks cross, “don’t dismiss yourself like that. You are, beautiful too. So, Skull lands himself a real winner. Why would he leave you? That makes no sense.”
A real winner? Amazing. Beautiful? Pyro needs his eyes tested. I shelve that for now. “Because he was worried I was pregnant.”
“Nah,” he shakes his head. “Even that doesn’t ring true. First, he didn’t actually know, and second, Skull was, is, a good man. I can’t believe he’d walk away from his responsibilities. Okay, so there may be some of us who don’t like the idea of being tied down with kids, but if it’s no longer theoretical, most men change their minds and step up to being a dad. I think that would have been Skull.”
I give a small nod. I think that would have been Skull too.
“And you’re also right. Skull’s not the type to wait for revenge. We were surprised he came back to the club, suspicious of his motives for a while. But to wait this long? To claim an ol’ lady, and then fuck off? Doesn’t make sense. And don’t you fuckin’ doubt it, Mel, that man loved you. X-rated demonstrations in the clubhouse proved that.”
He winks. They were not X-rated, but perhaps PG.
Skull loved, loves, me. Even his brothers could see it. So why has he gone and left me in the lurch?
Pyro stands. He walks to the door and drops his forehead against the wood. “What do we know, Mel? Let’s talk it through.”
“Skull could have called someone on a phone no one knew he had.” Unless my memory is at fault, and he hadn’t walked out with a phone at all. Could it have been something else? I shake my head, doubting my eyesight now. “Then he came back and acted quite normally for almost two weeks. He left that morning, saying he’d be gone only a couple of days.”
“He gave you every indication he’d be returning?”
Now I go through the conversation in my head. “He was definite. Maybe not so much about the timing, but he said it was only one night that he’d be away.”
“So, if we take it at face value, Skull had every intention to come back. We’re left working on the premise that something or somebody stopped him.”
“He didn’t tell anyone in the club he was leaving at all.”
Pyro continues thinking aloud. “Perhaps he didn’t think he had to. He went on a Sunday, intended to be ba
ck the next day. The security work was slow, Pal didn’t expect him to turn up. Members are trusted to put their hours in, so there was no reason for Pal to think anything other than he’d been working at the auto-shop instead. Likewise, there was no need for Pal to tell me to expect him, so I didn’t have cause to miss him when he didn’t turn up.”
“I don’t come to the club during the week when I’m working, so you wouldn’t have found out that way.”
“You speak to the women. When he’d returned, you could have dropped in conversation he’d been away. We’d have eventually found out.”
“So, he’d have had an excuse ready, and it would have to be something the club would accept.”
“That’s easy, darlin’. He could have said you and he had had words, and he’d taken off to clear his head. But really, he’d have needed no explanation if he’d been back the next day. Brothers don’t need permission to do their own personal shit, not unless it impacts the club.”
Maybe that is what happened. I frown. “We had had an argument, but it had been a while back. I’m sure that wasn’t the reason he left. We’d cleared the air, he’d apologised, and there was nothing in his behaviour leading up to him leaving that would have suggested he was still brooding.”
“Us men are funny creatures, Mel. Sometimes we just get the urge to go riding.”
“Would you have done it that way, Pyro? Walked out on a woman having told her a lie?”
“We’re not talking about me. But, no. I don’t think so. Though I don’t have an ol’ lady, so I can’t really say what I’d do. Skull may have wanted to avoid more discussion. If he’d said he needed to feel the wind in his hair, what would you have said?”
I think for a moment. No, I wouldn’t have agreed without discussion, not if I’d thought he was brooding about whether or not I was pregnant. “If it was just a ride then I’d have understood, but if he wanted to work out how he felt, I would have tried to persuade him to stay so we could talk through our problems together.”
Devil's Dilemma: Satan's Devils MC Colorado Chapter #4 Page 13