Page 48 of Tuck & Roll

“Because he was sitting in one of the ACSO cars while they tore us apart.” Dagger crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels.

“What the fuck? How did he get the Alamosa County Sheriff’s Office to do his dirty work? And what was he looking for?” Tuck scanned the room and didn’t see Darren or Kylie anywhere. Where were they? Were they here when the club was raided or had the two of them still been at home?

Race answered those questions. “I don’t know how he got them to do his dirty work, but as for what he was looking for? It was this.” He held up a flash drive.

“What’s that?” Maverick asked.

“Kylie’s drive with all the original information she pulled off Chet’s computer and the new stuff she was digging up this morning.”

Fuck! Kylie was here this morning during the raid? Tuck’s heart started to race and set off a tidal wave of questions. Would the raid have her rethinking her association with the club? To him? Would this completely destroy any hope of the two of the being together? How could he convince her that despite the raid, the club was still her best bet to protect her from whoever tried to kill her?

Race rubbed the back of his neck. “I think this,” he waved his hand in a circle, including all the rubble spread about. “And Kylie’s fire are connected. Not sure how yet. She’s still got some digging to do, but Whitener’s for sure involved.”

“Do you think Whitener was on the other end of Chet’s conversation Kylie overheard?” Tulsa flicked a broken chair leg with the toe of his boot toward a pile someone had been collecting.

“Makes sense,” Trick agreed. “He’s been using Officer Miner to harass us.”

“What did Kylie discover today?” Chris tipped his chin toward the drive in Race’s hand.

“The account Chet was transferring money to is listed under the name Clark Gussman.” Everyone exchanged a look to see if anyone was familiar with the name. When no one spoke up, Race went on. “Looks like Clark has been withdrawing $5,000 a month and within a day or two, $5,000 appears in Whitener’s account. Kylie was just starting on this trail when ACSO showed up. I believe the information on the drive is what they were looking for.” Race rubbed his thumb absently on the little device.

“So what you’re sayin’ is Whitener, Clark and Chet are all workin’ together,” Tulsa surmised. “And that the money Chet is skimmin’ from us is goin’ into an account that pays Whitener to harass us?”

Trick chucked a broken table leg across the room. “So we’re basically paying for all the shit going on? We’re financing our own harassment?”

“That’s some fucked up shit,” Tulsa summed up.

Tuck watched as everyone’s expressions went from confused, to pissed, to rage and quickly moving into homicidal in seconds. None of this made sense. Whitener was working for Chet who was working for Clark Gussman? “Who the fuck is Clark Gussman?”

“We don’t know yet. Kylie didn’t get that far,” Race answered. “Did anyone find out if Chet was working at Bottoms Up the night of Kylie’s fire?”

“Yes, he was,” Jed answered as he walked through the door. “Gotta call from there as I was pulling in with her new equipment that Chet hasn’t showed up today.”

“Fuck. He’s in the wind,” Dagger grumbled. “We should have gotten our hands on him as soon as Kylie showed us he’d been skimming.”

“Yeah. I know,” Race said. “Things around here have been crazy, but it’s no excuse. I should have given the order to move on him immediately. That fuck up is on me.”

“No one’s to blame,” Maverick said. “Hell, they, whoever the fuck they are, has had us chasing our tail so much there’s no wonder we don’t know which way is up.”

“Right. Now that we have that cleared up, was Kylie here when this all went down?” Tuck had patiently listened while Race explained about the raid and everyone put the pieces together and now he was done. He needed to hear that she’d been far from here when the raid occurred.

“Yeah, she was here.” Race’s confirmation only made Tuck’s imagination run wild.

“Fuck!” He didn’t like hearing that. “What happened?” He dreaded hearing the details, but he needed to know how bad it was.

A slow smile spread across Race’s face. “I’ll tell you what happened, but first I want to state the woman is smart and whether she realizes it yet or not, she’s one of us.”

Tuck’s eyes narrowed, wondering where he was going with that statement.

“From what she’s found out so far, she knew she couldn’t trust the cops with the information. So when she heard the commotion out here, she hurried to download the new information she’d found, then stuck the drive in her shoe so they wouldn’t find it.”

“Son of a bitch.” Tuck swiped a hand over his mouth. He couldn’t believe she’d been put in the position of hiding evidence from the police. Whatever she found must be pretty damn important if someone was willing to set fire to her house in order to destroy evidence and to kill Kylie. And then to brazenly raid the SORMC clubhouse, searching for the drive, told him someone was getting desperate.

“You shoulda seen Kylie.” Tulsa’s admiration of Tuck’s woman was not lost on him. “She was so damn brave. She didn’t cry or scream or freak the fuck out. Not even when they forced us all outside and to our knees. Not even when that prick Kitowski knocked her to the ground and stepped on her neck.”

“The fuck you say?” Tuck had to have heard him wrong. He didn’t know who this Kitowski fucker was, but he was making it his mission to find out and give him a taste of his own medicine.

Tulsa shook his head and chuckled. “I didn’t know who was gonna to take him to the ground first, Darren or Race. And Race about came unhinged when another guy was pattin’ her down a little too long. He asked if the guy was gonna to finger fuck her, too.”

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