Page 56 of Sugar and Skulls

I’m used to doing things my way. Right or Wrong. Raffe might know about this but he doesn’t know about the million other things I’m currently juggling.

My phone rings. I glance at the screen. I answer it, turning away from Raffe. “Hey, what’s up?”

“That guy just left. You know the one who dropped the picture of the little girl.”

My heart drops into my stomach.

“I followed him. You’re not going to believe this.”

I sit up straighter in the seat. No. I know who it was. It was Gabriel. It had to be. The photos and Katie’s drawing prove it.

“He went to your fucking aunt’s trailer.”

“Who was it?”

“It wasn’t Jimmy. He is a member of the Devils though. He was wearing their jacket.”

I close my eyes, swallowing convulsively. Shit, a black jacket with a fucking cross logo on it. I was wrong about Gabriel.

“You all right, sweetie?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Call me the next time he shows up.”

“Will do, Sugar.”

Raffe’s head is spinning back and forth from me to the road as I hang up. “Everything okay?”

“Is it ever?” I lay my head against the seat.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Dan

???

When one of the guys pulls up with Raffe’s bike on the trailer he is pulling I know something is wrong. I stop him at the door. “Where’s Raffe?”

“Don’t know. Dirk called and asked me to pick up the bike, he didn’t elaborate on why and it’s not my job or desire to question anything that man tells me.”

An hour later Raffe and Jesse show up, Raffe driving her rod. Dirk pulls in behind them. What the hell now?

Dirk shakes his head at me before I get to them. I slow my steps. Jesse gets out. When she sees me, she wraps her arms around herself. I open my arms to her, and she quickly steps into them.

“You good?”

She shakes her head no.

“Okay.” I say, then I say it again. “Okay.”

The look on Raffe and Dirk’s faces tell me she’s definitely not okay.

I place my arms around her and guide her inside. Katie comes running the minute we step inside. Immediately Jesse changes.

“Come help us,” she grabs Jesse’s hand and drags her over to the table where Bill and she have been working on a puzzle all evening.

Jesse laughs and lets the little girl pull her along. Bill watches them, his eyes never leaving his daughter. When she sits down next to him he drapes his arm over her shoulders and pulls her in, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

She smiles at him. Not a hint of “not being okay” on her face. Dirk and Raffe stand next to me, taking in the scene.

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