Page 44 of Patch's Bride
I’m tasked with the unenviable job of letting Siege and Rigs know that while we were all busting our asses to find her sister, she took off on us.
I head back to the meeting room and break the bad news. Oncehe finds out that she’s not answering her phone either, Siege lets out a string of curses. The look on Rigs’ face tells me he’s no happier than our club president. Zen’s monitors are lit with different pieces of information on Lila’s case.
Smoke has Adult Protective Services on speaker. Lila’s pulmonology information was in the packet Serena filed. APS confirms the risk and states that they have filed a missing person’s report on Lila.
We need to find the stepfather. Hopefully, that bastard has Lila with him. If not, we’ll beat the information outta him if we have to. However, that still doesn’t answer the question of where Beth’s gotten to. And more importantly why would she leave when we were trying to track down her sister. I don’t like the sound of this, but Zen had been monitoring her stepfather’s phone and there had been no calls or texts sent today.
We’re still trying to figure out where Lila might be and what’s happened to Beth when Roxy shows up at the door.
Rigs shoots her an annoyed look. “Out. You know club girls are not allowed back here. We don’t have time for you right now.”
She glances nervously at me before explaining, “I think something strange is going on with Patch’s old lady.”
Everyone stops what they’re doing, and all eyes are on Roxy. I motion for her to come into the room. “I want to hear what you have to say, but if you’re distracting us with some lying bullshit, I’m gonna be pretty pissed.”
Roxy’s unruffled demeanor is legendary around this clubhouse, but today she’s looking all kinds of uncertain. “I’m not playin’. And I’m not sure if I should be butting into her business if she wants to leave you. I’m just gonna tell you what happened and let you judge for yourself.”
I jerk my chin at her. “Why the fuck would she be leaving me? Just spitit out.”
She takes a deep breath and launches into a story.
“I saw Beth a couple of hours ago, she looked upset and told me she was finished with Patch and with this club. She said you all wouldn’t tell her what was going on, and she didn’t understand bikers. She wanted to go to Patch’s place and get her car, so I gave her a lift.”
I stammer, “You took Beth away from the protection of the clubhouse without permission?”
Roxy goes stiff and raises her voice. “She doesn’t need your permission to leave, and I don’t need your permission to give her a lift. I thought I was doing her a favor.”
I give her a hard look. Roxy has never done anyone a favor in her entire life.
“Okay. I wanted rid of her and if she decided she wanted to leave then I was gonna help her get as far away as possible,” she says, having the grace to look a bit embarrassed about her motives.
Rigs grits out, “Get on with the story.”
“When we arrived at Patch’s house, she gave me gas money, thanked me for the ride, ran to her car, and took off like a bat outta hell. Literally, like she was scared shitless. What the hell did you guys do to her?”
Not willing to give her a single ounce of information, I said, “Nothing. Is that all you have to report?”
“No. I guess I was curious so I followed her. Also, her giving me the gas money was kinda nice. No one has done anything like that for me before. She drove west to the county line, pulled over, and took a picture of the sign with her cell phone.”
I can hear several people gasp, and I might have been one of them, because that’s damn strange behavior.
“Well, still being curious, I followed her some more, and she ended up at some rich guy’s house. I parked across the street and waited. After a bit, they came out with another woman, and she looked drunk as hell. Beth helped her into the back seat, and they all drove off. Does any of this make sense to you?”
I nod. “Yeah, that woman was her sister, and she’s sick, not drunk. Where did they go from there?”
“I was gonna keep following them, but I was running out of gas.”
Curious, I ask, “Why did you give her a ride in the first place?”
She looks uncomfortable but answers truthfully. “Like I said, at first, it was to get rid of her because she’s an outsider. But then she was nice to me and gave me money for gas. I was confused but also worried something bad was about to happen to her. I didn’t want to be responsible if I could have said something but didn’t and she wound up hurt or worse.”
I look at Roxy with new eyes. “I’m not gonna lie to you. My old lady’s in danger, and you might have just saved her life. I’m not gonna forget that.”
After telling us the address where Beth met up with her stepfather, she flashes me a smile and flounces out of the room, proving to my mind that you can’t always predict how people are gonna react when they see things go sideways.
We all load up, eager to get our hands on Beth’s asshole of a stepfather. Tank takes his truck so we can get Lila back to her care home, assuming of course that we are lucky enough to find her. Dutch rides shotgun, and the rest of us take our bikes. I throw my medical bag into the back of Tank’s truck because I want to have what I need to treat Lila if she’s in a bad way.
Barnaby Lane is pretty easy to find once we hit Gosport. It’s one of those really nice housing developments where each house sits on around five acres and has an in-ground pool. We park twohouses down from the address. Siege, Rigs, and I walk up to the front door. We knock once.
