“Don’t say it. Do not say I’m ruining my life over sex. You might be old enough to know a little about hormones, but you don’t seem to understand true love. I love him, Will. If he’s determined to send me away, then I suppose I’ll have to respect his wishes. But you know something? He loves me too. I’ll talk to you later, Will.” She ended the call and looked back over at Beck. With a sigh, she rolled down the window. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
Beck raised an eyebrow but said, “Sure. Pull up out of the driveway, though, or your pretty car will get smashed by one of those big trucks the police are using to tear up our property.” Beck started her bike and drove in closer to the house. With her stomach full of butterflies, Taylor followed her. Will had almost convinced her to go home, and maybe that’s why she felt like she had to talk to Beck...maybe she needed one more person to tell her how “icky” she was, and then she could get on with her life.
* * *
Rock pulled up in front of the Claw house behind two marked police cars and one unmarked car. He recognized the FBI agent standing outside with Lena. There was one uniformed officer outside the front door and he thought he saw a glimpse of one around the back as he drove up. He didn’t see Jonathan or Detective Tyler anywhere. He got off his bike and as he walked up to the house Lena pointed at him and said:
“You! You did this! You’ve always hated my family.” Rock didn’t say anything to the old woman. She was eighty years old, or maybe even older. He assumed she had done her best with her family and he wasn’t going to blame her for how her son had turned out. Besides, Rock had known Jonathan’s father and there was no doubt in his mind where that twisted mentality of his had come from.
“Mr. Tsosie.” The FBI agent stepped in front of Lena. “I’ll need you to stay outside the fence.” Rock wondered where the dogs were. Usually they were barking their heads off when anyone got close to the house. He stopped where he was and before anyone else could speak, Lena went off again:
“I raised your son! You were too busy to care for your own child and I took him in, and this is how you repay me?”
“Mrs. Claw, please...” the agent tried.
“No! He did this! He never should have been allowed to be a part of my family in the first place. My husband told me he was all wrong for Ajei. We should have stopped her from marrying him.” Rock still didn’t say anything, but what he was waiting for came to pass next. His eyes were on the open front door when Jonathan’s large form appeared in the doorway. A man in a suit had hold of one of Jonathan’s cuffed arms and another uniformed detective was behind him. Jonathan’s dark eyes were locked onto Rock’s face and Rock could not just see, but feel, the hate seething from them.
“Who’s he?” the man in the suit asked the FBI agent.
“His name is Tse Tsosie. He’s married to Mr. Claw’s cousin.” Rock saw Lena spit onto the ground in his direction out of the corner of his eye, but he still didn’t take his eyes off Jonathan’s face. He wondered why he hadn’t seen it. Why didn’t he know that Jonathan was just as evil as his father? Rock shuddered at the thought of Ajei’s deceased uncle. The Claw family had mourned his death when he was found beaten to death in the desert, but Rock and Ajei were sure that Mother Earth and everything holy was smiling down on the world the day he was taken out of it. Neither of them ever said that to Lena, or her children. They didn’t blame them for Malcolm Claw’s crimes, but now Rock was afraid that the torture and deaths of these girls might lie partially at his feet. Maybe someone could have helped Jonathan...stopped him, before he’d actually harmed anyone.
“Mr. Tsosie, I’m Special Agent Roger Stone with the FBI. Mr. Claw is under arrest and Mrs. Claw will be taking a ride with us to the police station for questioning. The CSI techs will be here soon and animal control should be along any minute to pick up the dogs. I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m going,” Rock said, still looking at Jonathan. “I just needed to see this monster taken away with my own eyes, to make sure it happened.”
Jonathan’s scowl grew darker and he said, “You need to check your own house for monsters.” The officer and the FBI agent led Jonathan out through the gate and Rock stepped up so that he was chest to chest with Jonathan.
“Mr. Tsosie...” the agent said. The officer had his hand on his gun, but Rock only needed a second. When he was eye to eye with the monster he said:
“Have they come to visit you yet, Johnny?”
“Fuck you,” Jonathan said through gritted teeth. The officer started to say something again, but the FBI agent stopped him with a raising of his hand. He seemed interested in knowing who “they” were. Rock knew that Jonathan didn’t have to ask.
“They’ll come, if they haven’t already. You looked at them. You touched them. They’ll come...and they’ll make you pay for what you did.” Rock had only killed one person in his lifetime. Once the life went out of the man he killed, he didn’t look at him and he didn’t touch him. Rock wasn’t overly connected to his Navajo roots. His upbringing hadn’t been exactly conventional for a Navajo boy living so close to a reservation full of people with strong beliefs. But despite practicing them all or not, he did know the customs and the culture of his people. He knew that his people believed when someone died, they went to the underworld. The underworld represents various levels of existence that people journey through before finally rising to earth to exist in the world as we know it. The dead reside there as well. When a person dies, contact with the body is limited only to the people, close relatives, who are preparing them for burial. If the body is molested in any way, or the eyes are looked into, that person will be given the ability to pass back and forth between the earth and the underworld. Despite the smug look on Jonathan’s face, Rock could see doubt and possibly fear in his eyes. Jonathan didn’t say anything else, and neither did Rock. That was all that needed to be said, for now.
Lena spat in his direction again as she was being helped into the back of the other patrol car. Rock looked at her with pity. Nothing he could say or do would hurt her as badly as knowing her son’s soul was destined for eternal damnation. There was a time in Rock’s life when that wouldn’t have been nearly enough for him. He had a temper when he was a young man, and sometimes the rages controlled him. But with age had come wisdom and now he knew that tonight and all the rest of his nights on earth he’d sleep soundly. He hadn’t laid a hand on anyone, yet he would have his revenge. Every night when he closed his eyes he would know that his own son’s soul was pure, and safe...and that was the sweetest revenge of all.
26
Two Weeks Later
“We’re almost in the black, boss.” Boots sat at the desk in the little office of the used car lot the club was still using as a temporary shop. The police had finally gotten Jonathan to start talking. He had confessed to the abduction and murder of twelve women in all, and Jessie’s abduction made thirteen. It had started decades before and because the land that the club had finally bought was in dispute and unused for so long, Jonathan had been able to use it as his burial grounds. The last body, the oldest one, had been dug up the day before so there was at least light at the end of the tunnel. Jace couldn’t even imagine what the families of those women had been through all of these years. They had just disappeared off the face of the earth, the first one almost thirty years before. He was glad they were finally getting some kind of closure, but he was curious about what would make a man do such horrible things.
“That’s good news,” Jace said, looking at the spreadsheets Boots put in front of him. As usual, Wolf had made a good call sending the biker with the strange shoe fetish his way. Boots was as talented with numbers as Finn’s father had been, and Jace finally felt like he was able to breathe. The fact that the shop was beginning to make money would mean that Jace would be able to use less of his own to finance things like the new club they planned on breaking ground on as soon as the mess was cleaned up and the permits were reissued. They still had a shop to b
uild, and houses...it was going to be a long road, but he felt like they’d come through the worst of it unscathed, and from here on out they could handle whatever was thrown their way. A knock on the office door drew their attention and they both looked up as Tommy Tsosie stuck his head in the door. “Hey Tommy, what’s up?”
“Jace, I’m sorry to bother you but I was wondering if I could have a word?”
“Sure.” Boots stood up.
“I’ll go out and see if the guys need any help,” he said.
“Thanks,” Tommy and Jace both told him. Jace smiled as he saw Tommy’s eyes go to the fancy brown-and-white ostrich skin boots the young biker was wearing. When Boots closed the door behind him Tommy said, “He’s a fancy guy for a biker.”
Jace laughed. “Yeah, I guess we’re all a little different in our own way. Sit down, Tommy. How are things going? How’s Jessie?”
“Things are good...better, anyway. Detective Tyler came by last night. He thinks that Jonathan’s attorney is going to go for an insanity defense.” Jace raised an eyebrow and Tommy curled his lip. “I know, it will take the death penalty off the table, but our people don’t believe in that anyway. He’ll suffer more here on earth with the visions of those souls he took in his head.”
“I’m sorry for what your family’s been through,” Jace said.
“Thanks. It’s a funny thing but all of this chaos has actually brought us closer. Maybe it’s just me getting older, but I’m starting to see things from my parents’ side a little clearer now. People do what they think is the best thing to do at the time for their kids. My father told me something that he never admitted to me before. He said that they were afraid. They got married so young and they were so impressionable when they joined up with the MC in Tempe. He said that by the time Mother got pregnant with me, they were both transporting drugs to the border and back, and they were in too deep to get out of it. They didn’t want me in the midst of that and they also didn’t believe they could give me all I needed if they ran. So they did the next best thing. They gave me the gift of being raised by my elders, people who taught me about my culture and my people. I realize now that had they kept me with them, there would have been so much I would have missed out on.”
“That’s good,” Jace said. “I hope someday I can look back on the way I was raised and find the good in it. I imagine it’s like a weight being lifted.”
“You always seem so cool...except for the day you threatened me in the hospital,” Tommy said with a smile.
Jace smiled too and said, “As you well know, looks can be deceiving. Did Jonathan tell them why he did what he did?”
“I talked to Aunt Lena yesterday for the first time. My heart is breaking for her. She’s been through so much in her lifetime. She lost her husband and then her mother suffered with Alzheimer’s for all those years. Her daughter, my cousin Misty, she hasn’t been home in at least a dozen years. Aunt Lena doesn’t understand why Misty wants nothing to do with the family, and so far Misty hasn’t explained it. But I wonder if maybe she knew something about Jonathan, because when my mother called to tell her about his arrest, she said Misty didn’t seem surprised. Anyway, Aunt Lena says that Jonathan hears voices that tell him to do these things. Jonathan believes the voices are the holy people and they’ve chosen him to ‘cleanse’ the earth of these ‘evil’ women. They were all either prostitutes, or women who slept with at least a few different men. Aunt Lena said the voices told him it was his duty to cleanse Mother Earth of the whores and to send them to burn in the underworld. Detective Tyler, however, believes differently. He says that he, and the FBI, believe Jonathan might have accidentally killed the first one after raping her, and it gave him a sexual thrill.”
Tommy made a disgusted face like he had tasted something sour and then he said, “He stopped killing during the time he was with his wife, but Detective Tyler says a lot is coming out since they interviewed her about domestic abuse and all kinds of horrible stuff. Anyway, he’s a sick bastard and as long as they lock him up so he can’t hurt anyone else, I guess I don’t care if it’s in a psychiatric facility or prison.”
“Any idea why he picked you to try and set up for it?”
“Originally, he just wanted you all gone. He knew that the property would be dug up to build on and they’d start finding bodies. I was so adamant about you not being on the land, I was an easy mark. Then they found those two bodies and he panicked. He had already drugged me that night and taken my clothes, so he tried to use them to set me up. He kept their blood – did the cops tell you that?”
Jace shook his head, “No, that’s...”
“Disgusting, I know. He had it in test tubes with anticoagulants that he bought in Mexico. They found them buried under the floor in his house. Jonathan hasn’t told them what he kept the blood for, but Aunt Lena believes it has something to do with the way his father died. My uncle Malcolm was beaten and left in the desert, but he didn’t die from the beating. He died from the loss of blood. She said Jonathan was always obsessed with that. He spent hours researching how long it took for someone to bleed out and if it was painful, that sort of thing. Gross.” Jace nodded again and Tommy said, “On a brighter note, Jessie is doing good. Physically she’s healing fast. She was in good shape, so that helped. Psychologically...it’s probably going to be a while before she’s comfortable being alone again, but until she tells me she’s ready, I’ll be there for her.”
“Well, I’m glad she’s doing better,” Jace said. There was a long pause and Jace said, “Was there something else?”
“Um...yeah, I had a favor to ask.”
Jace sat back in the chair and crossed his long legs in front of him. “Okay, shoot.”
“That land...I still believe that it’s spiritually connected to my people, my ancestors. But I realize now that I went about things the wrong way. I won’t be surprised or offended if you say no, but I have a proposition and for now all I ask is that you hear me out.”
“I’m listening.”
“There’s a grant, through the Navajo Nation, that I’d like to apply for. It would give me the authority and the money to open a museum, of sorts. I’d like to build the museum like a hogan...a house, from the old days...and build a sweat house and make it all as authentic as possible. I’d like to have some of the elders from the reservation come in and do story hours and I’d like to do tours of the land and teach people about the natural flora and fauna and all the birds and animals that live in the desert.”
“That sounds great,” Jace said. He knew there was more, but Tommy was having a hard time saying it. Finally after another long pause Jace said, “Are you asking me to donate a portion of my land for this?”
Tommy looked at the floor and Jace waited until the young man forced his eyes back up to Jace’s face. Finally he found his voice again and said, “I know after the way I treated you and your...family...that it takes a lot of nerve for me to ask anything of you. But, yes, that’s what I’m asking. The grant won’t be much in the beginning, but I expect the museum and the tours to generate revenue. It will be a non-profit, which means all the money we make will go back into the upkeep of the site. It might take months...but eventually I’d be able to pay rent. I would take good care of the land, and you could choose the spot so that it wouldn’t interfere with your business...”
“Okay.”
Tommy’s jaw dropped. “Okay?”
“Well, in all honesty I will have to call a meeting and run it by my brothers, and my old lady, but I don’t foresee any objections.”
“If there are, I’ll understand. I’m just so grateful that you’d even consider it after...”
“We all make mistakes, Tommy. Your mistakes were all made because of something you were passionate about. I respect that. I’ll call a meeting soon and get back to you.” Tommy stood up and Jace did too. For a second Jace was afraid the boy was going to hug him. He wasn’t much for displays of affection, unless they came from his sexy old lady. Tommy was smart enough t
o sense it. He held out his hand and Jace shook it, glad to put another one of their problems to rest and help out his neighbors in the process.
27
Jessie couldn’t believe how excited she was. Tommy was coming to take her out on a “real date” and she felt like a teenager. Every other man who hit on her in the bar wanted to hook up, and she’d taken more than a handful of them home with her. She was seeing a counselor who was trying to help her work through how responsible she felt for what Jonathan...almost...did to her. Tommy told her every day that it wasn’t her fault, but she couldn’t help but think if she hadn’t been so quick to sleep with just any guy that came along, she’d never fallen into the monster’s sights in the first place.
She did give herself credit for Tommy. She knew that at any point she could have given in to his advances and had sex with him. But there was something about Tommy that was different and she’d seen it right off the bat. He wasn’t a “temporary person” like all of the rest of them. Tommy was the kind of man a woman might want to build with, the kind a woman might even want to have a family with someday. That was why she’d waited for him to work up the nerve to ask her out and if not for Jonathan, their first date would have been weeks ago already.
She spent a long time in the shower, massaging coconut oil into her hair. Tommy told her often that he loved her hair and every time she got close, he’d breathe in deeply and smile. She knew it was silly, like an adolescent girl, but she liked that he seemed to notice things about her besides her boobs and butt like all the others.
Tommy had been with her every night since she got released from the hospital. She’d told him more than once that he didn’t have to be, but she’d been relieved when he refused to leave her alone. She had gone back to work and on the nights she closed up at the bar, he was there to help her and follow her home. At first he tried to just sit outside on his bike, but eventually she coaxed him inside and they’d started to share dinner most nights and sometimes they’d cuddle on the couch and watch a movie until one or both of them fell asleep. In the mornings she’d find herself alone in her bed and if Tommy was still there, he was asleep on the couch. She sometimes had a hard time not giving in to her desires for him, but she was so afraid of ruining what they already had. It was sweet and innocent...and she wasn’t sure but she thought she might even be falling in love with him.
Rise of the Phoenix: Phoenix Skulls Motorcycle Club: (Phoenix Skulls MC Romance Book 1) Page 19