Page 15 of Property of Stone
Patch turned around and hooked a thumb toward the back of his vest. “Know what these are?”
A large embroidered logo of a masked skull wearing a crooked crown was sandwiched between a downward curving top patch that screamed: KINGS OF ANARCHY and the lower upward curving patch that shouted: PENNSYLVANIA. A smaller square patch with the letters “MC” to the right of the logo completed the look.
She might as well state the obvious. “Patches?”
“Know what they stand for?”
“No.”
“Then you don’t belong here.” Patch made a shooing motion with his tattooed hand. “You best skedaddle.” With that, he spun on his heel and headed back to the school.
“Wait!”
He did not wait, so Taryn ran after him.
That could be another bad decision in her lifetime long list of bad decisions, but her gut was telling her that, between Patch’s actions and questions, James Conrad did live here.
“He had long dark brown or black hair, black facial hair, dark brown eyes. He’s six foot or so and”—from the little she could see that day—“has tattoos.”
A snort was heard from the man who continued to walk and did not slow down.
“Please! I only need a minute with him.”
“He lasts longer than a minute.”
What did that mean?Did she even want to know? “If you know that, then you know him!”
“Didn’t say that,” Patch threw over his shoulder, not slowing down.
She ran faster so she could catch him before he disappeared through a door she only just now noticed.
She got in front of him, then stopped, blocking his path. When he stepped to the right, so did she. When he moved to the left, she did the same. He shook his head. “Woman.”
“Please. He helped me. I only want to thank him.”
“Hire one of those planes that writes in the sky or somethin’.”
She tipped her head to the side. “Would I tell them to fly it over this address?”
He dropped his gaze to his boots and muttered, “Fuck.”
“Can you just tell him I’m here and only need a moment of his time? It would be greatly appreciated.” She pointed to the ground. “I can wait out here.”
“Might be waitin’ a while.”
“That’s fine.” It wasn’t, but now she was determined to see him. The more Patch tried to get her to leave, the more she wanted to dig in her heels.
Patch kept his eyes locked with hers as he slowly leaned over and spat some more of that gross dark juice onto the ground.
Taryn quickly stepped back to avoid the splash.
Yuck.
When he straightened, he pulled a cell phone from the inside of his vest, jabbed at the screen, then put it to his ear. After a few seconds, he dropped it to his side. “He ain’t answerin’.”
“Try again, please.”
With a long, aggravated sigh, he dialed again and put the phone back to his ear.
