by Naomi West
Kelsey knew the hunt for Spike Lawler had been going on full force ever since Chopper resumed his place at the head of the diminished Outlaws. She knew, too, that he continued to utilize the Mongols’ drug routes, and that the money kept rolling in. The part of her most wounded by her losses wanted to object to the whole thing, but this life was the life that had always sustained him. She felt that ultimately, she had little right to demand that Chopper leave behind the ways he’d known for so much longer than he’d known her. So, she kept her head down, stayed in the shadows. She hadn’t set foot in the compound even once since her encounter with Spike at the warehouse on the docks.
“I can’t go back there,” she said to Chopper. “Not right now.” And he had just looked at her and nodded, his eyes full of sadness and something like regret. That was when he started spending hours away, presumably locked inside his war room, plotting. Kelsey worried privately, but in some sense, she found she didn’t mind. The solitude was nice, and it gave her time to process some of the worst of her grief, in her own time. There was no one to burst in on her crying in the shower to ask frantically if she was all right, no one to interrupt her gloomy but therapeutic hours spent gazing out the window at nothing. All her thoughts were inside, and for Kelsey, it felt good to be able to work through them on her own, without someone trying to force them out of her. By the time he came home to her, often late at night, she was usually ready to interact with another human being, to smile and kiss him and ask about his day.
They were having good sex again, too, although that had taken longer. Kelsey was wary of his touch at first, afraid that it would bring back memories of her trauma and make her remember the horror of losing the child she and Chopper had made. But he was patient and gentle, and she gradually discovered that having him in bed with her felt like an escape to a time before everything went sour. Now, she relished those moments with him, the feel of his skin against hers, his lips on her body. It made her feel like a different person, which was sometimes exactly what she needed.
Kelsey stood at the kitchen sink, her arms submerged up to the elbows in hot soapy water. She grabbed a handful of silverware from the bottom of the sink and scrubbed absently with the soft side of her sponge. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, her gaze far away. She was thinking about the way Chopper had lain quietly beside her last night after sex, one arm tucked behind his neck, staring up at the ceiling. She’d watched his chest rise and fall softly with each breath, his sculpted torso half hidden by the sheet. It was clear that he’d been spending more time in the gym, and normally she wouldn’t have dreamed of complaining, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that he was getting ready for something. And the last time he’d gotten ready, they had both lost so much.
“What’s up?” she asked, tracing her index finger along his sternum. Chopper didn’t answer right away, but his arm came down around her. She felt his fingers contract and relax against the small of her back.
“We need to go back to the Mongol place,” he said.
Kelsey frowned in the dark. “Why?” That was the last place she wanted him to be, and, she suspected, the last place he wanted to be himself.
“Need to look around and see if there’s anything valuable. Something that’ll tell me where he went.”
She put her head on his chest. “Is it safe?” Even now, weeks after the confrontation was over, it seemed like a stupid question. To her, the Mongol compound would never be safe—at least not while Spike remained alive. “What if he went back there?”
Chopper glanced at her, his expression inscrutable. “Then I’ll find him there, and I’ll kill him, and this will be over for good.” His words weren’t as comforting as they might have been a month ago. Kelsey didn’t look back at him.
“Kels, I know you don’t like it. I don’t like it either. I sent my best men there once, and look what happened to them. But there’s no way around it.” She remained silent, knowing that it would be hard to debate this point with him. “It’s all right, I promise. We had Outlaws there before. They cleared it.”
“Don’t promise me things you don’t know,” she said softly. “I’ll trust you, because what else can I do? But don’t promise.”
“Okay.” His hand traveled up her naked back and into her hair. She finally turned her eyes to him, and after a moment spent gazing into his face, their lips met. “I love you,” he said gently, so close that she felt the words on her mouth.
“I love you too.” Kelsey hesitated, then swung her leg over his hips. “Let me give you a little something for luck.” Her hands worked their way between his legs, rhythmically pulling and stroking him. Chopper smirked for a second before sighing and closing his eyes. She pushed her hips against him. “Should I save it for the morning?” she asked teasingly.
He opened his eyes. “No. Give it to me now.” His big hands gripped her waist; she could feel the calluses on his palms.
Her cadence picked up. She felt his pressure on the soft skin between her thighs. “Tell me you want it,” she whispered. Her hand floated out to caress his face.
Chopper nipped the tips of her fingers. “I want it,” he answered. His voice was low and husky. “More than anything.”
Kelsey smiled. She rubbed circles on him with the pad of her thumb as she lifted her pelvis and let him slip inside her. He tensed, let out a quiet groan. She let a moment of warm silence pass before she began to ride him, deep and hard, the way he liked. Her breath quickened. She braced herself against his rock-hard chest.
Chopper moaned again. “Kelsey…” His hands found her breasts. She arched her back. “Kelsey!” He leaned back on the headboard, straining against her. These were some of the moments she liked the best, when Chopper’s well-guarded emotions were laid bare in a moment of raw intimacy. Kelsey sank her fingers into his hair and pulled him against her, pressing as hard as she could. A sound escaped her mouth, more of a whimper than anything else, as she peaked rather suddenly. Her toes curled. Beneath her, Chopper released a guttural growl. His body tightened viciously, and then he relaxed, panting.
She kissed the top of his head, not moving, drinking in the sensation of having him connected to her. He put his lips lightly to each of her nipples. She giggled. After she had dismounted him and laid down at his side, the afterglow began to fade and her thoughts became serious.
“Be careful, Jesse,” she murmured, using his real name so that he knew she meant it.
He rolled onto his side, facing her, and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her in for a long goodnight kiss. “I’m always careful,” he said.
The belly of the sponge caught on a fork and ripped a little bit, pulling Kelsey out of her trance. She looked down and put her fistful of cutlery under the faucet, watching the edges gleam in the light from the window above the sink. I’m always careful, he had said. But she worried now, because she knew he wasn’t.
Her phone sat on the table in a way that reminded her of when she’d been hiding from Spike in the den. Kelsey picked it up and slipped it into her pocket, hoping to cut off the memories before they started flooding back in. Sometimes it was hard to believe that it hadn’t been years since that happened, since she lost her baby. She could only think of it as part of the distant past — otherwise, it just felt too close. On her way out of the kitchen, she spotted the grocery list tacked to the front of the fridge. She grabbed it. Maybe some shopping would keep her mind at ease. Mundane chores had a way of drowning her sorrows.
She walked to the store, ten minutes of sunshine and fresh air that she discovered she sorely needed. She took the long way, letting herself soak up the sunshine. Inside her mind, the dark thoughts began to scatter to the corners where they lay in wait for moments when her guard was down. That, Kelsey could handle. She’d been handling it since the day her sister died.
Still, she paused on the curb just before the automatic doors. She was getting better, but sometimes crowds were still a problem. Too many people, the sound of crowds, bright interior lights
— all those things tended to remind her of running through the front door of the pub down the street, going straight to the restroom, and puking her guts out. And that was a gateway memory to the hospital. Kelsey shook her head slightly, drawing in her eyebrows. None of that was going to plague her today. She was good. She was feeling strong. There was nothing to worry about except Chopper.
Taking a deep breath, Kelsey walked into the grocery store. She was relieved to see that it was pretty empty on a late weekday morning, and as she wandered the aisles in search of the items on her list, she felt herself slipping into a comfortingly regular routine. There she was, a normal person doing her shopping. To all these strangers, she might as well be a housewife. Or a stay-at-home-mom. The thought sent a pang through her chest, and she quickly dismissed it. Just a housewife, she told herself. That’s all. She tried to stop the next thought from forming, but she couldn’t. If I had kids, I would’ve brought them with me.
Kelsey swallowed hard, focusing all her attention on the display of polished apples in front of her. Suddenly, picking out the perfect fruit was the most important task of her life. She inspected each apple with the eye of an art critic as she wrestled her emotions into submission. It took six apples to get her through the storm. But once she reached the other side, she was able to sigh, rub her eyes, and print out the barcode sticker. A small victory, but one she cherished nonetheless.
“Kelsey!”
She was headed to the checkout lines, but the voice calling her name made her stop dead in her tracks. Her heart hammered as she tried frantically to conjure a corresponding face before she turned around.
“Kelsey, is that you?” it said again. She turned very slowly, keeping her face averted for as long as she felt was humanly possible. A woman’s voice … the one who’d left that message on Chopper’s answering machine? No — she would have known immediately. Finally, she couldn’t keep from looking anymore, and she dragged her eyes to the stranger’s face, her stomach heavy with dread. But all she saw was a bright, surprised smile on the face of a girl she’d known briefly at the news station. Kelsey began her struggle anew, this time to remember the poor girl’s name. Bethany? Beverly? She hoped the inner embarrassment wasn’t showing on her face.
“Hi,” she said, offering a timid smile in return. Becca? Still nothing. Her past had never felt so damned far away.
“Oh, my gosh, it’s so good to see you!” The girl’s smile turned apologetic. “I’m sorry. Maybe you don’t remember me. I’m Brittany, from the station. We only worked together for a few weeks, I think.”
“Right, of course.” Kelsey’s own smile immediately became more genuine once she’d been relieved of the burden of Brittany’s name. And now, she really did recall her, hired three weeks before Kelsey took her leave of absence. In fact, her first day had been Kelsey’s first day back at work after Hannah’s death, and Kelsey remembered the fog of her grief being pierced by Brittany’s sunny smile. She’d thought back then that Brittany would make anchor in record time.
“How are you?” she asked. “Still at the station?”
“Yeah.” Brittany laughed slightly. “They asked me to anchor, but I said no. I think they’re a little mad at me now.”
Kelsey raised her eyebrows. As far as she knew, no one had ever refused a promotion that big. “I don’t think that’s ever happened before,” she said. “I’m impressed.”
“Well …” Brittany waved her hand modestly. “It’s weird, and maybe it’s kind of lame, but … I wanted to stay on the crime beat. That’s where I feel like I’m helping people the most, you know?” She tucked a stray lock of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. “The anchor pay grade is definitely nice, but I mean, I know what they do, and I’d rather not do it myself.”
The crime beat? Kelsey’s growing admiration for her former coworker took a backseat as soon as she heard those words. She’d spent the weeks before she left the news trying to get in with the homicide team, but they’d been strictly instructed not to speak with her except as a member of a victim’s immediate family. She’d always suspected that they knew more than they told her.
“Yeah,” she heard herself agreeing weakly, unable to formulate much more of a reply. Her mind raced. It had been so long since she’d called for an update on Hannah’s case, and even longer since they had anything useful to tell her. She wondered if it would be weird to ask Brittany if she knew anything, right there in the middle of the store.
“How are things with you?” Brittany said. She smiled again. “I know we weren’t like, best friends, but I just moved to this neighborhood and it’s so nice to see a face that I recognize. I’ll go away soon, I promise.” Something about her gentle self-deprecation pulled at Kelsey’s heart. How many times had Hannah said things like, I’ll stop bothering you, I swear, or I promise, this is the last picture?
“No, no, it’s okay.” Kelsey stepped off to the side and put her shopping basket at her feet. “I’ve been … all right. You know how it goes.” This was likely not an answer that would satisfy a reasonable acquaintance, let alone a crime reporter. Kelsey rushed on before Brittany could say anything. “Um, I was wondering … can I ask you something?”
Brittany’s face changed, no doubt her news senses tingling. She, like all good reporters, had the ability to smell a bombshell waiting to be dropped. “Of course,” she said carefully, keeping her expression pleasantly neutral.
Kelsey breathed in. “Have you heard anything about the Hannah Jones case? I mean … do you know what’s going on with it?” She sounded dumb at best, suspicious at worst, but it was the best her brain had managed. She held her breath in anticipation of Brittany’s reply.
“Hannah Jones …” Brittany placed a hand on her chin, gazing off to the upper left.
The ensuing silence was more than Kelsey could handle. “She’s my sister,” she blurted. “It’s a cold case now. I just …” She trailed off, unable to articulate her feelings. Instead, she gazed helplessly at her companion, hoping that she would understand.
“Oh!” Brittany’s look brightened, but only for a split second. Her eyes, a few shades off from the color of Chopper’s, filled with warm compassion. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Kelsey. I had no idea.”
“Thank you,” Kelsey said, meaning it. She tried not to fidget.
Brittany continued. “I haven’t heard anything about that one in a while. Bu t—” She reached out and touched Kelsey’s hand. “When I go back into work tomorrow, I’ll check the cold case file for you, okay?” Reaching into her purse with her other hand, she drew out a notepad and a pen. “In fact, let me write it down so I don’t forget. Hannah Jones, you said?”
“Yes.” Kelsey’s heart leaped. “Hannah with an H at the end.” She didn’t know exactly why, but this chance encounter had given her more hope than she’d felt in ages. Her chest tightened, and she willed herself not to start bawling in public.
“Got it.” Brittany flashed Kelsey another brilliant smile. “What’s your number? First thing tomorrow, I’ll check and give you a call.” She wrote down the number Kelsey gave, then flipped the notepad shut. “Okay, I’m sure I’ve tied up enough of your time. I’ll let you get back to your day.”
“Thank you so much,” Kelsey said. “I mean, for looking into Hannah’s case.” The smile on her face was so wide it hurt her cheeks. “I’m so glad I ran into you today.”
“Me too!” Brittany took her hand again. “Listen, I live like, right around the corner from here. If you’re nearby, we should definitely get together sometime. There’s a neat little pub up the street. Maybe we could get drinks or something?”
Kelsey’s smile almost faltered. “Yes,” she said, her voice brimming with false confidence. “Definitely.”
“Amazing.” Brittany paused, then swooped in for a brief, tight hug. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Kelsey. Bye!” She waved.
Kelsey watched her move away down the aisle and disappear. Her heart was like a jackhammer in her chest. Did that really ju
st happen? Had she somehow found a way to get the answers she thought were lost for good? With slightly shaking hands, she picked up her basket and made her way to the checkout. The anxiety that had threatened her morning was nowhere to be found. In its place, there was a glimmer of light. And for the moment, Chopper slipped her mind entirely.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chopper
The ransom note was the first thing he found, drafted in Spike’s handwriting on a page torn from a composition notebook. In the margins, he had actually written the words, “Use cutouts — old school.” Chopper didn’t know whether to laugh or rip the paper to shreds, but a morbid curiosity drew his eyes to the contents of the note. The more he read, the deeper his frown became, until he held the note clenched in two fists, his fingers punching through the paper.
CHOPPER SLATER—
YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR LITTLE PRINCESS AGAIN? WE HAVE HER.
BRING THE STOLEN DRUG MONEY TO THE DOCKS BY 12AM TOMORROW AND SHE WILL BE RETURNED TO THE OUTLAWS UNHARMED.