Through The Weeds (Nightshade MC Book 2) (14 page)

Buster was surprised to see Manuel was there, deep in conversation with Ace and Train. “What's going on?” he demanded.

“I took a ride past your girl's house. Everything looked normal, if normally is a car crashed into the front of the house. Got curious. Went inside. Place was tossed. No sign of the girl.” Manuel shook his head. “It didn't look good.”

Buster glanced over at Ace, who was doing his level best not to look affected by what they were being told about Jillian. “Caroline said that she was with the boyfriend last, guy named Jake, and they were going to one of the casino hotels. Let's find out if they ever checked in. Ace?”

“I'm on it.” Ace walked away.

“Good call keeping him here. Poor bastard.” Train shook his head. “It's pitiful really how worked up some guys get over ass. We got good pickings around here at any given time. No offense.”

“No offense?”

“You and Caroline. Got to say, I get why you'd be into her. Those tits, and her nipples get hard easy, you can tell even when she's wearing a bra.”

“Train, shut the fuck up about my old lady's tits,” Buster replied.

“Oh shit.” Train shook his head again. “I swear, we're dropping like flies. Fucking women. I'll go and check out Jillian's place. See what I see. You going to tell the fuckhead that something might have happened?”

“No,” Buster decided. “We're not going to tell anyone anything until we know what the actual situation is. Check out the house quick. We need to sit down at the table. It's about Miller.”

“Fucking figures. Someone cursed us with interesting lives, that's for sure. Give me twenty and I'll call in.”

“Good man.” Buster watched as Train walked to the door. As Train opened it, a now familiar blonde stepped through. Ace's shadow had arrived. Since the attack, it seemed like she was growing more and more reliant on Ace always being at her side.

Buster crossed the room to greet her. “Hey, Sweetheart.”

“Is Ace here?” Tabitha tucked her hair behind her ears. “I know that there's something going on, and I probably shouldn't have come here, but I swear someone followed me after I left the nail place.” She flashed her hands at him. Bright red with little playing cards, all aces, stenciled on them. “Aren't they cute?”

“I've never seen anything like that before. You did the right thing coming here.” Especially if Jillian was actually missing. Jesus Christ, they were plagued by missing women. “Ace is doing something. Why don't you go and sit down, relax. Grab something to eat. I'm heading over that way myself.” He wasn't hungry, but Caroline had been. He'd promised to bring her something.

He walked to the table with the food and promptly forgot about Tabitha. Instead, he filled a plate with a little bit of everything. He grabbed a bottle of water and headed back to the office. Caroline was at the desk, frowning at the papers. “I come bearing food.”

“You're awesome.” She looked up, smiled. “I am also awesome. I've got five guys coming in to interview tomorrow morning. They're all willing to start straight away.”

“You got names?” Buster asked. “Email them over to Ace.” He set the plate and drink down, picked up a pen and wrote out the email address. “Get any resumes?”

“A couple. Is Ace in charge of hiring?”

“Ace is in charge of anything to do with a computer,” Buster replied. “He'll run a check on 'em before they come in.” He wasn't too happy that there would be strangers around, but there was little to no choice if they were to keep the business running.

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.” Caroline looked over at the plate. “Wow, that's a whole lot of food. Good thing that I'm hungry. I'm going to be here for hours. Oh, and I've suddenly got vacation time at work. Ryan told me to take the whole week. I wonder who gave him that idea.”

“I just called him to tell him I appreciated him not giving you shit,” Buster replied innocently. “He came up with the whole vacation thing all on his own.”

“Yeah, well I might get this place running right in that time with proper incentive.”

“Oh, I'll give you incentive.” Buster moved over to give her a kiss. “You let me know if you need anything.”

“I will. Everything okay? You seem... off a little.”

“It's some club stuff,” Buster replied, careful not to lie to her. The last thing that he wanted was to get off on the wrong foot when they were really starting this thing between them. He still couldn't believe it had happened or that he wanted it, and her, more than he'd thought possible. “I'll tell you about it later.”

“Works for me.” Caroline's attention was already back on the papers across the desk. He was happy to leave her to it, glad that she'd be occupied and not bored while he and his brothers figured out what came next.

<#<#<#<#

“The house was trashed pretty good,” Train reported. His attention was focused on the joint he was rolling. “It wasn't random, as big of a mess as it was. Someone was looking for something. Jillian's room wasn't all that messed up. Caroline's was a disaster. Your old lady got a secret we need to know about?”

The term old lady got the attention of the entire room. Buster resisted the urge to flip his middle finger up at Train. The fucker had outed him on purpose. “Nothing worth someone breaking in and searching her house. Ace ran her when she started working at Baked.”

“He's right. I did. She had a shit load of parking tickets, a couple speeding tickets and a collar for possession back when she was like nineteen.” Ace shrugged. “Can't see any of that being reason for someone to want to tear through her shit. You think she'll be able to tell us if anything was taken?”

“Yeah, she's barely managed to unpack. Should be pretty obvious if something is gone. What did you get from the hotels?”

“There was one room rented to a Jake Wallace, a fifty-five-year-old man from Tampa. Somehow, I don't think that's her new flame. I tried to trace her phone with the GPS, but it's not showing up, so it's turned off or something.” Ace was starting to look twitchy, twitchy in the way that meant he was going to lose his shit.

Buster knew that was the last thing they needed. “He could have taken her somewhere else. We need to work on finding him, figuring out what happened with Jillian, but we've got other things that we need to focus on as well. Things like the call I got from Joseph Miller.”

“Miller!” Ace slammed his hand down on the table. “Miller could be behind this. Fucker keeps threatening to go after the people we care about. Maybe now he has.”

“So he takes Edge's sister? That's a weak fucking link.” Train shook his head. “If Miller was behind this, there'd be a very bloody body somewhere. For all we know, she took off with her man. We need to worry about Miller before anything else.”

“So, we just forget family?” Rock asked with a frown. It made sense he'd speak up, he and Edge had been friends since they were young. Jillian was like a sister to him as well.

“She's the one who cut that family tie, not us.” Danny spoke up. “And that doesn't mean that if something happened, we're not going to help her. But we've got to fucking prioritize here, Rock. We don't deal with this crew and Miller, we're dead. If we're dead, we can't help anyone.”

“He's right. For now, we've got to focus on staying ahead of all this so that we can be of some help. If not, we're fucked. Does everyone understand that?” Buster asked.

Everyone did. He'd known that they would because they were smart guys. Guys who realized just what sort of world they lived in. Buster hoped that Jillian had just taken off somewhere, but he wasn't hopeful of that. They stayed in the room for nearly an hour, created and discarded plan after plan, until they all agreed there could be no plan until they knew who this crew was. It was time to hit the streets hard, to find out what secrets they concealed. It was a big job, too big for just them.

It was Train who put forth the idea of having The Street Kings work things on their end, full cooperation. Buster had just been about to suggest the idea himself. It passed the vote without hesitation. “I'll get in touch with Manuel. Have him float the idea to his guys. Until then, we need to find out what we can on our own. Train, go talk to your junkie again. Danny, go with him. I don't want anyone alone. Ace, I need you on Edge and the electronics shit. Rock, you take Monroe out with you. Talk to anyone you can think of. I'll meet with Manuel.”

“That leaves you alone,” Danny pointed out. “Probably not smart right now.”

“No choice, we're down a man.

Chapter Twelve

Caroline wasn't sure what she was supposed to get at the grocery store to feed Nightshade that could be cooked by the limited resources of the bar. There was one tiny oven, a four-burner range, and the microwave. Amelia,a on the other hand, just kept tossing stuff into the cart as if they weren't shopping with a fucking armed escort.

Yeah, her life had taken a seriously surreal turn in the past few days, and that included the fact that she was now in a long-term relationship, something like a marriage, with a man she hadn't even said I love you to. Saying it now felt weird, weirder than it should have. Caroline opened her mouth to voice her thoughts to Amelia but remembered that Train was right behind them. She couldn't figure out just why he'd been the one assigned to them.

It had been a week since the ambushes that had taken down Bones and since Jillian had disappeared. Caroline tried calling her phone several times a day but it always went to voice mail. Buster told her to hold out hope, but she couldn't. Life had taught her that it was better to be realistic about a situation. The unfortunate reality was that Jillian was dead and gone; what was the other choice?

“Shit, I forgot to check if we were running low on toilet paper.”

“Always get toilet paper,” Train told her. “Bunch of guys eating shit that you prepared, there's going to be a lot of shit after.”

“You don't like it, don't eat,” Amelia shot back, her middle finger adding a little something to the conversation. “So, we'll get toilet paper. Paper towels too. And cleaning supplies.”

“And stuff to make cakes and cookies,” Train added.

Caroline had lost count of how much she'd baked in the past few days. If she never saw another bag of chocolate chips it would be too soon, but it kept the peace. Anything, within reason, that kept the peace was worth it. There were too many people under one roof, under each other's feet, and it was starting to create tension. Ace and Danny had nearly come to blows the day before over leaving a spoon in a jar of peanut butter.

“Give her a break, Train. She's spent more than enough time in the kitchen the past few days.” Amelia rolled her eyes. “Go and grab something from the cookie aisle.”

“Can't leave the two of you alone,” Train replied. “And this isn't a Sunday stroll, can we hurry it up? This place gives me the fucking creeps.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Amelia replied.

Caroline tuned them out at that point; they could go on for hours and hours. It could be amusing, but after days of it, she was starting to get annoyed. Maybe she was starting to have cabin fever, or rather bar fever, because this was the first time she'd been out in a week. Buster assured her that the lockdown couldn't last forever, but there was no new information on anything. He was frustrated. Everyone was frustrated.

“Could the two of you fucking stop!” Caroline demanded when the angry buzz of their voices finally became too much to tune out. “We're going now. If we didn't get it, we don't need it.”

“Jeez Mom, don't get your panties in a twist,” Train quipped. “We're just busting each other's balls, no harm in it.”

“See, you always go too far, asshole,” Amelia chimed in.

“Enough. Fuck. Enough.” Caroline let go of the cart. “I'm going to use the bathroom. I'll meet you at the check out.”

“You need to change your tampon or something?” Train asked.

Caroline's only response was a growl in his general direction as she walked away. She headed to the bathrooms but she didn't have to go. The idea of hiding out in there was tempting, but she knew she'd be skeeved out within minutes; dirty bathrooms were not her thing. Instead, she walked out the front entrance and into the parking lot. It was hot, too hot; the sun was pounding down on her. She started to sweat almost immediately.

Caroline leaned against the building, enjoyed the quiet and watched the busy street. They were only a few blocks from RBS. Guilt washed over Caroline. Ryan had been seriously cool about her not being able to come to work, but she knew that it wasn't easy for him to do her job and his own. After all, it was why he'd hired her in the first place. She was going to need to talk to Buster, see just how much longer they were going to be tucked away. It might be time to tell Ryan to look for a new employee. The thought filled her with panic. She knew that Buster wouldn't let her starve, but still, she didn't want to have to rely on him for everything.

She pushed away from the wall, intended to go back inside until she saw a sleek black sports car stopped at the light. Caroline moved towards the street, recognized Jillian's profile in the passenger window when she got close enough. “Jillian!” She started to run when the light changed, but by the time she got to the curb, the car was already gone.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Train demanded. His hand closed around her upper arm, started to yank her back to where the SUV was parked. “Last time I checked, the bathroom wasn't on the street outside.”

“I saw Jillian.” Caroline pulled at his grip, but he was strong, stronger than her by far. “She was in Jake's car, right there. I saw her. She's alive.”

“You've finally cracked, Caroline. It's alright, I figured you'd have done it days ago. Come on now.” He pulled her along behind him, even when she struggled. “Once we're in the truck, I'll give you something to take the edge off.”

“I do not need anything to take the edge off. I'm telling you, I saw her. I saw Jillian.”

“How about we debate this in the truck? We're drawing a lot of unnecessary attention right now,” Amelia suggested.

“They were going towards the house. We should go.”

“We're going back to the bar.” Train tightened his grip. “I'll throw you over my shoulder if I have to. Don't make me call Buster.”

“Yeah, do that,” Amelia suggested. “I'm sure he'll be thrilled that you're manhandling his old lady in the grocery store parking lot.”

“Fuck you, bitch.” Train released Caroline's arm to face off with Amelia. They were only inches away from one another.

“You wish you could fuck me!” Amelia snarled the words at him. People had stopped to watch them. Yeah, they were definitely drawing too much attention.

“Guys.” She pushed between them. “Chill out before someone calls the cops.”

“Get in the truck, both of you,” Train ordered. “Right the fuck now.”

Caroline started for the truck. Train used the key fob to unlock the door, and she reached for the handle. At first, she didn't realize that the sudden burst of loud pops was gunfire, but she heard Amelia scream for her to get down. She hit the ground face first, smacked her chin hard enough on the asphalt to make her jaws slam together.

She scrambled across the rough ground, scraped her palms and knees in the process. She ignored the sting, the dull ache of her chin, as bullets continued to rain down. It stopped as quickly as it had started; there was a squeal of tires and she turned just in time to see an older model black sedan speed away.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” a voice asked. Caroline looked up to see a man that she didn't know. She shook her head and recoiled when he reached out to touch her. “It's alright, take it easy.”

“Back up, Pretty Boy, she's fine.” Train pushed past the man. “Time to go. Now.” When he reached out she took his hand, let him help her up. “You whole?”

“What?”

“Are you whole? Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Good. Move your ass.”

“Amelia? Where's Amelia?”

“She's already in the truck. She's fine, it was just a little graze.”

“She was shot?” Caroline heard the thin, high pitched voice that came out of her mouth and she didn't recognize it.

“Lower your god damn voice,” Train hissed. “She'll be fine. It grazed her arm. We don't have time for twenty questions. Shut your mouth and move your ass.” He all but threw her into the truck when they reached it. “Help her wrap that shirt around her arm before she bleeds all over my seat. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out?”

“Fuck you.” Amelia flipped up her finger, winced at the movement. “The asshole is right, I need a hand, I can't get it tight enough. Wrap it around and then tie it.”

Caroline did as she asked, while Train got behind the wheel. She heard the sound of approaching police sirens and was surprised. The response time was usually much longer, but then again, the calls weren't for a drive by at a grocery store.

“You're looking a little pale. You okay over there?”

“Yeah. I'm just...” Caroline shook her head. She didn't have the right words to describe what she was feeling. “What are the odds that was just a random drive by we got caught up in?”

“The odds on that are slim to none.” Amelia leaned back against the seat with a sigh. “That was deliberate. Are you sure that you saw Jillian in Jake's car before the shooting?”

“Yes. I'm positive.”

“Train. Go to Jillian's.”

“You don't tell me what to do,” he replied from the front seat. “We're going to the bar where your old man can deal with you, and I can go and find the fuckers that took a shot at us. An inch over and one of those bullets would have been in my actual ass. Nothing goes in my ass.”

“You really think it was coincidence that Caroline saw Jillian and moments later, all hell is raining down in the form of automatic gunfire? Come on, I know that you're smarter than that.”

“I'm smarter than you,” he pointed out. “If it wasn't coincidence, then the stupidest thing I can do is take the two of you there. We're going to the bar, and then Nightshade is going to handle this. And the two of you are not Nightshade.”

“Asshole,” Amelia muttered but she didn't press the point.

Caroline wanted to object, to say that there was no way the shooting could have anything to do with Jillian, but she didn't. She couldn't. Everything that she wanted to say just built up, filled her throat and chest. The ride to the bar seemed to take an eternity. When they did arrive, Train pulled in the back of the building.

In seconds the truck was surrounded, the doors were open and Buster was there. She went into his arms, had trouble breathing when he squeezed her tight, but she didn't want him to let go. Ever. “Let me look at you. You're bleeding, Sweetheart. Let's get you cleaned up.”

<#<#<#<#

“Alright. Let me take a look at you now.” Maggie sat down next to Caroline. “Everyone says that you've been pretty quiet since you got back. Want to tell me what that is all about?”

“Not a lot to say, I guess.” Caroline shrugged her shoulders. “Buster cleaned me up. I don't think I need any stitches, just some antibiotic gunk and bandages.” She held up her hands to show them. “I know to keep them dry and clean.”

“Well, I should just leave the doctoring to you, then, shouldn't I?” Maggie smiled. “At least let me take a look, I really don't want to piss off your old man.”

“Is Amelia okay?”

“I'd say she's better than okay. I gave her something for the pain. She's sleeping. She'll have a scar but Danny informed her scars are badass, so it's all good.” Maggie deftly unwrapped the bandages around her hands. “Your man did a good job.”

Caroline bit her tongue to keep from telling the woman she'd told her so, but that would have been rude. After all, Maggie had come to help them despite the fact she was so pregnant that she could barely move. “Thank you,” she said instead.

“Tilt your head back.” She removed the bandage. “This doesn't look so bad. You might have a little scar, just a tiny one. To avoid that, I'll give you some ointment to use on it.” Maggie picked up the duffel bag she'd carried over. “Use it twice a day. Did you hit your head anywhere else but on the chin?”

“No.” Caroline took the tube she offered.

“You ever see anything like that before? Been in a shooting?” Maggie asked. Caroline shook her head. “I didn't think so. I do think this was a shock to your system. You need to get some food in you, take these two pills and get some sleep.” She handed over a small bag. “They're a sedative. They're safe and you'll sleep like a baby tonight.”

“I want to wait until Buster gets back.” Once he'd been sure that she was okay, he'd taken off with Train. Caroline figured that he'd gone to the house, to see if Jillian was there.

“Suit yourself,” Maggie replied. “You need to get something to eat. As tempting as it might be, no alcohol. And if Buster isn't back in a few hours, I'd suggest that you take them anyway. Your body and mind need rest.”

Not drinking wouldn't be a problem; she didn't feel like drinking at all. However, taking the pills and putting herself out before Buster came back was a problem. Caroline didn't say anything, just nodded her thanks at Maggie before she turned her eyes away.

“Caroline.” She looked over as Edge approached her when Maggie walked away. “Are you sure that it was Jillian you saw?”

“I'm sure.”

“I was pretty shitty to her, wasn't I?” Edge sat down. He looked older than he had only weeks earlier. His hair had grown longer than he normally kept it. “I was just worried about her that night, and it all went to shit because I was high. If she's back, I need to see her. I need to talk to her. I need to make her understand what I did and why I said what I said about challenges. And I need to apologize to you because it hurt you too.”