Page 57 of Rebel

When we got to our bikes, Storm glanced at me. “Should I assume that you’re not about to go home and rest easy when we’re one step away from catching this bastard?”

“You can all go home if you like. I’m seeing this through because I’ve got to put Lacey’s safety first. No hard feelings if you need to leave. You’ve all been real good sports about helping me out today.”

Storm snorted a laugh. “There ain’t no way I’m letting you hunt down that asshole on your own.”

“Then we keep pushing forward,” I told him, thrilled that he wanted to help.

It didn’t take long for Hacker to get an address, and soon we were all heading in the right direction.

I turned the situation over in my head during the entire ride to this nephew’s place. No matter how I looked at it, the conclusion looked solid. Maybe the asshole nephew targeted the office first because it was lower risk than breaking into a residence where people lived. When he came up empty handed at the office, he waited until the occupants of the house were gone and went straight for the safe. Unable to get it open, he panicked and ransacked the place for anything he could sell.

I had to admit that in my lifetime, I’d never seen a situation that was wrapped up quite as nicely as this one. There was lots of logic, and very little in the way of loose ends or contradictory information. Hopefully, this would be what Lacey needed to put this whole mess behind her. She might not rest easy until he’d been picked up, but just knowing who was to blame would be a huge relief for her and her parents.

***

I knew there was an active warrant out for his arrest, but given what Richard had put Lacey through, I didn’t think it wasfair to just let the police pick him up and put him in jail. He deserved to suffer. Then he could go and spend some time in jail contemplating his life choices. That would be my idea of true justice.

It turned out, Richard was nearly impossible to find. First, we visited his stepfather. We knew he wasn’t likely to be there since they’d gone no-contact, but we did get a picture of him and a list of possible hangouts, courtesy of the stepfather. It was clear there was no love lost between them. Most of his hangouts were in the next county, so it looked like we’d be doing a bit of riding this evening.

I swear, we ended up scouting every whorehouse and crack den in the area. Granted there weren’t all that many, but it was exhausting. I saw places I never imagined could exist in the US. Unlike Nevada where prostitution was legal and carefully regulated, the two brothels we visited were dirty, the women were worn down and we suspected they were being trafficked. After making sure Richard wasn’t hiding anywhere on the premises, we made an anonymous report on both of them to the local police.

We didn’t catch up with Richard until almost midnight. We finally found him sleeping on a filthy mattress in a crack house right in the center of town. It was slum area with public housing and people drifting around like ghosts in the middle of the night. I almost tripped over a homeless person trying to get into the building. I’d always heard about areas like this, but seeing it in the flesh was a wake-up call. I suspected some of these folks were not going to survive the winter.

Our small team split up and searched around until we found him. When Storm texted that he’d found him in the basement,we all rushed down to see if it was him. When he held up the picture his stepfather gave us, it was a dead ringer for the nearly unconscious man. I gestured towards a pile of his belongings on the floor. It was mostly drug paraphernalia and his wallet. “What are we going to do with this shit? If we take it, he’ll just wake up and start using again. If we leave it someone might OD on it.”

Storm grumbled, “Either way, it’s a no-win situation. Give it to me and I’ll get rid of it properly.”

I handed Storm the drug paraphernalia and stuffed Richard’s wallet into his pants pocket as we hauled his ass up.

His glassy eyes opened slightly, and he mumbled, “What are you doing? Leave me alone. Chico said I could stay.”

“We’re takin’ ye outta here,” Celt told him. “This is no place for a bright young laddie like yerself.”

“I got no place else to go,” he groaned faintly before passing out.

We’d just gotten him out the front door when several police vehicles pulled up all at once. They had their lights on, sirens blaring, and the fully kitted out officers pulled their weapons immediately upon exiting the armored wagons.

“Fucking hell,” Storm cursed under his breath. “It’s a damn raid.”

Storm and Celt tried to talk to the cops while I did my best to make sure Richard stayed alert. It didn’t go over quite as well as we’d hoped. In short order more police cars showed up from different law enforcement detachments, along with a couple of ambulances. We managed to get Richard into the ambulance before Storm was patted down. Once the officersfound Richard’s drug paraphernalia, Storm was cuffed, and so were we right behind him. They threw us in the back of an older model police van and impounded our motorcycles. We just sat there in the van, looking at each other like idiots as we tried to brainstorm our way out of this mess.

Storm directed us, “When you get your one phone call, contact our club’s attorney, and let him know what went down. Tell him I’m not letting my brothers rot in jail for days while these rural police officers sort through what happened and how I came to have drug paraphernalia in my possession. Tell him to spring all of you and circle back around for me.”

Celt shook his head. “And just who do you expect is going to be willing to tell Zoe that we all left you incarcerated and fucked off back home without you? I don’t see any of the brothers signing up for that job.”

I fought back a laugh despite the seriousness of our situation. “Yeah, because she’s definitely gonna claw that fool’s eyes out.”

I saw the hint of pride that ghosted across his face, because he knew his woman would burn the world down to get him back and kneecap anyone who left him behind.

Celt jerked his chin in my direction. “Rebel’s right about that. No, thank you. I ain’t abandoning my cousin in a foreign jail.”

Storm made a gesture with his hand like he wanted us to look away. “We’re not in foreign lands.”

Celt glared at him. “Ye know what I mean, ye stupid fecker.”

Just then the back door of the van flew open, and an officer threw another addict into the back with us. He stopped longenough to shout, “Shut the fuck up and calm down.” And then slammed the door closed again.

The man they just threw in wiped a trickle of blood off his brow before asking, “So are we breaking out or what?”

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