Page 14 of Demon
“What did you find?”
“Confusing shit.Something’s not right with this.”
“What do you mean?”She leaned forward intrigued.
“This one was in the Marines.Honorably discharged, nothing notable there, but not even a month later he’s got his first charges, but no conviction.There are charges scattered over the last two years, stretching from Biloxi, Mississippi to here, but all of them end up dismissed.He’s never been convicted of anything.”He read for a few more seconds, clicked several times and continued reading.“His known associates are all members of a motorcycle club here in Tucson.”Gavin scowled.“These are not the same names or the same club that the other one was part of.”He looked up and met her gaze.“The two Jennings are related, aren’t they?”
She nodded.“They are, at least according to the second one.He said they’re cousins.”
“On the surface it looks like the apple may not have fallen far from the tree.”Gavin’s gaze never left the computer screen.
“What do you mean?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.Ronnie didn’t know if it was because he didn’t want to tell her what he was seeing or if he was still organizing his thoughts.
“On the surface, these two look very similar, I’m not talking looks, though there is a lot of resemblance there too, I would have guessed they were brothers just by looking at them.”
That made her feel better about having mistaken Joe for Jim Bob, but it didn’t answer her question.
Gavin continued to stare at the screen for a couple of minutes then he shook his head.“Give me a few.This feels off.I’m not sure why.There’s nothing I can say is wrong or out of place, but it just feels off.”He scowled at the computer then hit a few keys, and did something with the mouse.
When he still hadn’t spoken more than five minutes later, she got up and headed into the bedroom.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.You do your thing.I can’t sit still and wait for answers any longer.”
“What are you planning?”
“Nothing.I’m just going to make myself busy.I’m going to start a load of laundry and go clean up the kitchen.That will give you time to do your thing without me breathing down your neck, and it will give me a chance to do some thinking.”What she didn’t say was it was either clean up her place or hit the gym.She had a billion thoughts swirling through her head and she needed some sweat therapy to calm her thoughts and try to make sense out of what was going on.Not the least was coming to terms with the knowledge that her instincts were off.She was usually pretty good at knowing when someone was blowing smoke up her ass, but it looked like she had total missed the mark when it came to Joe Jennings.
Sure, she’d known he was with some club, but she hadn’t gotten the impression from him that it was one of the outlaw clubs.Not that she knew anything more about outlaw motorcycle clubs other than that they existed, there was more than one in Tucson and the guys in them were not good guys.
She focused on cleaning up the kitchen and tried to forget the way her brain had betrayed her by featuring one hot Mr.Joe Jennings in her fantasies over the last couple of days rather than her usual Opie Winston from that TV show about MC’s.She loved that show, and she wished she could say why.It wasn’t like she believed that the show was anywhere near accurate as to what being in a club like that was like.She figured it was as close to reality as those ‘reality’ shows about bounty hunters.Which was to say they’re both fiction and that’s all that needed to be said.
9
Inhisroomatthe clubhouse, Demon lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to decide what to do next.He had to tell Tuck and Sadist what was going on, there was no debating that.And he had to do it as soon as possible.But with what Gizmo had told him about Krissi’s father and the Devil’s, he thought maybe he should include Ruger in that.
But if he was including the treasurer in the meeting, shouldn’t he include all the officers?
He wrestled with the decision for nearly an hour before he came to the conclusion that this decision was above his pay grade and he pulled out his phone.Staring at the screen, he tried to decide if he should ask the president or the VP.After a few seconds he hit the button and dialed Sadist.He was who he knew the best, partly because the president, Tuck, was only recently returned from Wyoming.Most of Demon’s prospect time has been spent with Sadist at the head of the club.
“Yo,” Sadist said as he answered the phone.
“I’ve got a problem.I need to bring it to you and Tuck.”
“Ok, when?”
“As soon as we can manage it.”
“Ok, I’ll get with him and let you know when.Does it affect the club?”
“Yeah, I think it will, if only indirectly, but that’s not all.It’s got more risk of directly affecting Ruger and his family.I spent most of the last hour trying to decide if he should be in on the meeting too.Then I thought if I’ve got three officers, shouldn’t we have all of them?”He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush, hoping Sadist wouldn’t make him finish explaining all his back and forth thoughts.
“And what did you decide?”
“That the decision of who to include in the talk is above my pay grade, so I called you.”
