Page 28 of Trouble

“I really appreciate you going out of your way, and helping with my car too.”

“Like I said, it’s no problem.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course,” I offered.

“Do you think the club would get involved if there was a problem with missing girls where I live?”

“That depends, I guess. What do you mean there’s a problem with missing girls?”

“Two girls I went to school with have gone missing in the past month. Everyone said they probably just got tired of living in the middle of nowhere, but I don’t think so. Leslie was one of them and she had the biggest crush on my neighbor. He’s some new Italian guy in town and…”

“Italian guy?”

“Yeah, reminds me of all those Godfather movies or something. You know the type? Bad boys in suits and whatnot.”

I made a noncommittal noise as I drove. “I’ll talk to Trouble about it when he gets back and let you know. When you talk to JoJo about your car, mention it to her too, okay?”

“I don’t know. That seems like asking for too many favors all at once.”

“Trust me, it’s not. Both clubs will want to know if girls start to go missing. The first people anyone points their fingers at will be the motorcycle clubs.”

“None of them are like that though,” Hannah defended without a single thought.

“We know that, but everyone else judges based on shit they see in the news and in movies, not on what the two clubs close to them really do.”

“I guess so. I’ll tell her.” Hannah pointed to the street sign that barely caught the reflection from my headlights. “That’s my road. Second house on the left.”

“Okay. Which one does the new Italian guy live in?” I asked her. She pointed to the blue house to the right of hers. Third house on the left. I made sure to type the address into a text to myself, so I wouldn’t forget it before I talked to Trouble.

After Hannah got out of the Jeep, I glanced down at my gas gauge and sighed. It was a forty-five minute drive back to my house and I only had a quarter of a tank, thanks to driving this far out. There was one gas station open between her house and where I had to turn left to get back on Highway 64 headed east. I sighed and thanked my lucky stars that the place was well lit as I pulled in. Unfortunately, the credit card machine at the pump wasn’t working, so I had to go in to pay for my gas before I pumped.

When I went inside, I was immediately uncomfortable. There were several men dressed in suits with slicked back hair standing around the drink machines. I made my way to the cashier as quickly as possible, in the hopes that I would go unnoticed.

“We need to get more girls. They’re not happy with the little trickle they have coming in.”

“Did they miss the memo that this isn’t exactly a metropolitan area? We recruit too many and someone will start to ask questions about where they are,” one of the men stated.

“He’s not wrong. You need to spread out the recruitment, and if you’re smart, you’ll do it outside of this town. You don’t shit where you eat.” The man who offered up that advice was from the area, judging by his accent. He had his back to me as he spoke, so I couldn’t tell if I recognized him or not.

“If you don’t shit where you eat sometimes, it paints a pretty picture that this is where we do business. Voids speak just asloudly as culling too many from one area. We’ll spread out a bit, but we can’t avoid pulling them from this town.” That man was not from around here. His northern accent had midwest, most likely Chicago, written all over it. The hair on my arms stood on end as the cashier finally got the machine to work and took my money. I walked as quickly as possible out of the gas station and to my Jeep. The whole way, I wished that I didn’t need gas to make it home because I would have tried to coast in on fumes if I thought I could make it, rather than taking the time to fill up with those men still there.

I wasn’t stupid. They might have been talking about recruitment, but the sheer fact that they had to talk about voids and pulling too many spoke volumes about the nature of that recruitment. As soon as I got the pump working, I pulled my cell out and sent a text off to Trouble and Hollywood, just in case.

Trinity: Bad men at Fatbacks in Murphy. Gassing up and going home, but nervous. Wanted you to know in case…

I didn’t know what else to put.In case I disappearedwould start a panic the minute they read the text. Neither of them texted back, so I assumed they were on the road or in a meeting. Considering they were on a run, either was possible, even given the time.

“Hey!” I ignored the man, the one who sounded local, and willed the pump to push gas into my Jeep faster. “Hey!” He called again. I glanced up to see that he had rounded the pump and cocked his head to the side as he took me in. The man was about my father’s age, and he looked a little familiar, though I couldn’t place him. It was possible I’d seen him at the club before. That was one of the hazards of working at a strip club. “You look familiar.”

“I get that a lot,” I mentioned as I stared daggers at the stupidly slow pump.

The man chuckled. “I bet you do, sweetheart. Is your mom by any chance Evelyn Markham?”

I was thrown when he mentioned my mother and looked back up to see the smile spread across his face. “Yes, she was my mother.”

“Was?” He questioned.

---