Page 71 of Gunner
He nodded sharply and got into the small pickup truck. I followed him away from the compound and deeper into the nature preserve. A few miles in, we pulled over and exited the vehicles. An old friend of mine from the Flats was waiting for us under a picnic pavilion, and she approached us, glancing around quickly.
“I can’t thank you enough, Kade. Are you sure there won’t be any problems?” she asked, and I shook my head, hoping to reassure her.
“As soon as you get to Houston, my friend will have a new vehicle waiting, and he’ll take the truck from you. He has a job and a small apartment waiting, and I promise, you’ll be safe there. Stay on the interstates, keep your speed down, and be careful,” I advised, and tears filled her eyes as she nodded before taking the keys from me.
Skid and I watched as she returned to the small picnic area and whistled into the trees. A little girl, no more than four years old, stepped out from behind a tree and ran to her mother. The little girl has a cast on her wrist and a bruise on her cheek that made me want to kill Lauren’s boyfriend for what he did to them.
Now wasn’t the time to deal with him, and we watched as she strapped the girl into Skeeter’s truck and drove away. Skid left money in the truck to cover food, gas, and hotels for their escape. Lauren was a good girl who got caught up with a bad guy. He used her for a punching bag for years, and it was only last month I saw her and decided to help.
Giving her Skeeter’s truck to escape, knowing my Army buddy in Texas has a car compacter at his junkyard, was the perfect solution to his disappearance. Silently, we got into Skid’s truck, and it took thirty minutes of back roads and doubling back before we got onto the road leading into Portstill.
We had to cover our tracks, and Skid was typing away on his laptop as I drove. He was using the software he and the Callahan brothers were designing to see if he could erase us from security cameras, or at least give us solid alibis in case anyone ever pointed a finger at either of us. No one would have seen us out here, but I wouldn’t take the chance of losing Sadie over a mistake.
Keeping our involvement in Skeeter’s death a secret was paramount to her safety. If we were implicated, she and Jacob could be vulnerable to the anger of the club for our vigilante justice. A Death Hound doesn’t kill without approval from the president, but this was one of those situations that required mutiny.
We got to her house and went through the gate into the backyard. Standing in the chilly air, we stripped down to our boxers and placed all of our clothes inside the burn pit in the backyard. I took a shower first while he continued to work on his computer, and he quickly jumped in after me. Being paranoid, I took the shower curtain down and gathered both our towels, adding all of it to the pile of clothes.
I grabbed the bottle of lighter fluid and doused the pile before lighting a match and tossing it on top. The whooshing sound of the flames erupting was a comfort, and Skid joined me as we watched everything burn to ash. Walking back inside, I let Bear out of Jacob’s room and he ran into the backyard to do his business. He returned and laid down on the floor, showing his belly for scratches.
“This dog, man.” Skid chuckled and squatted down to love on Bear.
The clock on the wall showed three minutes until one, and we needed to talk before Sadie got home. I wouldn’t hide anything from her, but we needed to be on the same page. We discussed potential outcomes of Skeeter’s disappearance but there were too many unknown factors that Smokey kept from everyone but Bullet.
“Why the big secret? Why didn’t they tell the club about the extra guns and drugs? It’s not like we’re choir boys,” he remarked, and I leaned back in my chair, crossing my tattooed arms over my chest.
“My guess is they must be skimming from the club. Why else would there be more weapons than they openly claim and not a word about the drugs.”
The sound of Sadie’s car pulling up broke our conversation, and we both waited for her to enter the house. She walked in and her smile was tight as she closed the door behind her and removed her hoodie. Bear rubbed against her before plopping back on his pillow in the living room for his afternoon nap.
She wrang her hands as she walked into the dining room, and she leaned over, kissing me quickly before giving Dalton a side hug. We watched her as she poured herself a glass of tea and joined us at the table. Her movements didn’t appear scared or even shaken, and I smirked at Skid before she sat down.
He tried and failed to keep the grin from his face as she looked at him, asking, “What’s so funny?”
“You shot him in the foot.” He chuckled, and she cracked a real smile.
Tucking a lock of black hair behind her ear, she looked at both of us and asked quietly, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Looking to her brother, he exhaled and began to explain, “When Uncle Mick died, Smokey sent us to his place to gather up a bunch of journals. He, well, for lack of a better word, was the club’s historian. He recorded everything in his books but never let anyone see them. It still makes no sense to me, but according to what I’ve read, it was Torch’s idea, and when he died, Mick kept doing it on his own.” Skid took a swallow of Sadie’s tea and smirked when she rolls her lip in disgust before he continued. “Gunner found another book that wasn’t part of the club’s business. Not really.”
“The little red book,” she stated, and we both looked at her with confusion. “I found it a few days after he died on the floor and I read it. That’s why I was carrying my gun.”
He nodded and glanced at me before he pressed on. “I used my connections with Callahan to figure out who he was, and when I confronted Smokey, he told me it wasn’t our concern.” Clenching his fists, he cleared his throat. “I disagreed and decided to finish the task Uncle Mick set out for me. I killed him, Sadie. He won’t ever hurt anyone ever again.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek and focused on her hands resting on the table before she spoke. “Will you get in trouble?”
“No one is aware he’s gone, and no one will ever find him. I covered our tracks, so it won’t blow back on us,” he explained.
She nodded once before asking, “What about the club?”
“We act like nothing is wrong, and when he doesn’t show up next month for his delivery, we’ll see what happens. Smokey and Bullet betrayed the whole club with their lies, and they put us all in danger.” She needed to understand how important it was not to show our cards to Smokey until we saw how he reacted to Skeeter not showing up as promised.
“What will happen to them when the club finds out?”
“That’s for the club to decide, if and when it happens. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we have to be smart,” I reminded Skid, and when Sadie looked at me, I saw nothing but love shining back at me.
“Have you two eaten?” Sadie asked, and my stomach rumbled loudly. “I’ll make you some lunch.”
She walked into the kitchen, and Skid could see her over my shoulder. He watched her, and I watched him as she prepared sandwiches and chips for us. After pouring us each a glass of tea, she brought the plates into us and remarked, “I’m going to take a shower while you eat.”
