Page 42 of Haze's Jewel

Chapter 17

Haze

Tank and I are banging out cool tattoos like there’s no tomorrow. Finally, around one in the afternoon, we’re down to our last few customers. Tank finishes first, he was gonna meet his old lady for lunch, so I tell him to leave locking up to me. My last customer for the day is someone by the name of Rick with no last name. Anna is normally very meticulous about taking down full names and contact details, this man has neither. I frown at her neat handwriting. I guess it doesn’t matter, because in the end he turns out to be a no-show. I wait fifteen minutes and then begin cleaning up. I can’t say I’m particularly disappointed because this just frees up extra time to spend with my Anna. She should be finished with her shopping and visit with Mel and the baby.

I’m supposed to meet her at the clubhouse, so I take a minute to call her and let her know I’m on my way, but the call doesn’t go through. My text doesn’t either, so I figure she might still be out shopping or at the hospital and out of range. There’s a bunch of missed calls from my brother, but he should know I don’t pick up when I’m working. I think about calling him back, but I’m headed to the clubhouse anyway.

I close up the shop and jump on my bike. I take the long way to get in ten more minutes of road time, because there is just something about riding the open road that lifts my spirits and feeds my very soul.

Unfortunately, when I get to the clubhouse, she’s nowhere to be seen. Before I can call her again, there is a commotion in the back, and I rush through to find about a dozen of my club brothers all converging on our meeting room. It looks like church, although much more panicked. I look around, noticing my brother is missing in action.

I stop one of my club brothers, Venom, and ask, “Hey, Ven. Have you seen my brother today?”

His eyes get big. “Holy fuck, you don’t know?”

I freeze in place as panic rises in my chest. “Know what? What’s happened?”

He drags me over to where Siege, Rigs, and the other club officers are huddled. The second Siege’s eyes land on me, he reaches out and drags me closer.

“Bad news, Haze. Trix had an asthma attack while shopping at the mall. Your brother hightailed it over there to make sure she’s okay. As it turned out, she was fine. Someone shared their inhaler with her. He’s on his way back now.”

“Okay,” I say gesturing at the throng of brothers gearing up. “That doesn’t sound like a rally the troops type of emergency.”

“Vapor said that when he got there, Trix was beside herself. She said Anna went out to get her emergency inhaler from the car and never came back.”

Anger surges in my chest. “If you’re insinuating Anna would take off and leave Trix during a medical emergency, I can tell you right now that she would never do such a thing.”

Siege reaches out, grabs me by the back of the neck and jerks me forward. “I need you to shut up, brother. And pay attention to the words coming out of my mouth.”

I give him a small nod and seal my lips. I can see why he’s aggravated with me. Everything related to Anna makes me jumpy, and the thought of someone thinking she would leave my brother’s wife and run off makes me want to beat the everlovin’ shit out of someone, even if that someone, is my club president.

Siege speaks slowly, articulating every word clearly. “Anna is missing. Vanished. We know this because Trix’s car was still parked where she left it, and her keys were found on the pavement a few feet away from the vehicle.”

I jerk back out of Siege’s grasp and open my mouth to speak. When he glares at me, I clamp my jaw shut. I need to listen not talk right now, in order to know how to best help her.

“There’s more. We think that Anna has been living in Las Salinas under an alias. Zen has spent the last hour trying to dig up information up on her, and literally couldn’t find anything at all. No Anna Bryan exists, not in an age range that corresponds to your Anna’s presumed age.”

I grind out, “What the fuck, are you saying that she’s been lying through her teeth to me all this time?”

Zen speaks up from behind me. “Unfortunately, yes. Before you lose your fucking mind, you should know that there could be a very good reason for all the cloak and dagger shit.”

I rub my chin, remembering all the things she said about her stepbrother and ex-fiancé. Looking from one to the other of them, I explain, “She did mention that her stepbrother and ex-fiancé are besties who did some pretty messed up shit to her in the past. She told me that they were forced to play nice with her while her father was alive but once he passed, they both turned on her. She told me the ex was pissed when he found out she wasn’t getting much of an inheritance.”

“Did you say inheritance?” Zen asks, his voice excited.

When I nod, he opens his laptop, balances it on the inside of one arm, and types with the other hand. “One name kept coming up that almost matched Anna’s, but since I didn’t realize she was operating under an alias until much later in my search, I didn’t investigate it further. Let me see if I can find it.”

I crane my neck to see what he’s looking at. He begins rapidly tapping his screen. “Here, I found it. The name is Annalese Ryan, not Anna Bryan.” Flicking to another page, his expression turns grim. “I turned loose a set of bots on the public records databases in five surrounding counties and Annalese Ryan turned up as one of two surviving relatives for an Andrew F. Ryan. The other is this stepbrother you mentioned, Gregory Strickland Ryan, I’m guessing he took the adoptive father’s surname. The father’s obituary stated he and his current wife, Andrea Strickland Ryan, were killed in an unfortunate accident.”

Siege ponders out loud, “It could be that Anna was supposed to get an equal share of the inheritance and that’s why her stepbrother scared her off. He’s trying to fuck her over and take all the money for himself.”

Smoke and his old lady step forward. “It’s likely that he’s doing something shady and needed her to disappear. Whatever shit he was up to, was discovered by the executer of the will. In lieu of discovering the stepbrother’s attempt at manipulation, the executer is pressuring him to find her before he’ll release any of the inheritance money.”

Being our club attorney, Smoke would know about shit like that. Siege’s sister, Serena, is clinging to his arm. Being an attorney herself, she sometimes has a different perspective than Smoke. When she speaks up, I like her theory better. “My best guess is the son got the lion’s share of the inheritance, but his father left a life insurance policy which was earmarked for his daughter. If he knew his son was the type to screw his sister out of her inheritance, naming her the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy was the easiest way to ensure she got a fair share of his estate. The stepbrother needs to verify her death in order to collect the insurance policy as next of kin. If what we’re thinking is true, the stepbrother wants both the inheritance and the insurance money.”

Smoke’s expression turns even more grim. “It would make sense that Anna needs to turn up dead through no fault of his own, for the stepbrother to collect the insurance payout as well. If the father was smart, he would have bought a large enough policy to ensure they inherit equal amounts so there are no hard feelings between the two. That kind of money entices people to do stupid things, particularly when they’re lost in grief or just plain greedy.”

Rigs nods his agreement. “Yeah, that kind of money makes people stupid.”

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