Page 5

Tusk

I hover over Zen’s shoulder as he tries to pull the SIM card out of Brittany’s phone. He gently elbows me back. “Damn, brother, you’re gonna have to back up so I can work.”

“Sorry, I’m just so fuckin’ anxious.”

I know that I shouldn’t be riding his back that way. But we need the information on this phone if we’re going to find her. Regardless of whatever else is going on, I can’t shake the feeling that she’s been kidnapped.

Zen pulls something square out of the phone. “I finally got it out of that mangled mess.” Putting it in a device attached to his computer, he says, “Let’s see what’s on here.”

I watch him run some kind of encryption device that breaks the password, and then he begins accessing information. “I’m gonna put this on the big screen. Tell me if you see anything that looks out of place.”

“I’m not sure what we’re looking at,” I confess.

Zen explains what he’s seeing. “It looks like she deleted a bunch of stuff about ten months ago.” He clicks on it and smiles. “It’s all the contact information she had with the other brothers. She deleted their phone numbers, email addresses, and chat messages.” He clicks on a few of the messages and cringes. “It looks like most of her chat messages were arguments with them anyway.”

“I’m gonna hack into her email and look around.” I watch him do exactly that. “There are emails from you. She was talking to some guy who owns a custom knife shop.”

My hand automatically goes to my waist and comes up empty. I remember taking my knife off my belt because I didn’t want to wear it around my kids. It’s locked up at home in the chest at the foot of my bed. I feel conflicted about taking it off.

Meanwhile, Zen continues looking through Brittany’s phone information. “Are you seeing anything that could indicate conflict with a potential abductor, any complaints she made about me, or plans to leave?”

Zen shakes his head. “Nope. Just everyday stuff. She has appointments with Tex’s old lady to get her hair cut, meet for coffee in town, and they got their nails done last week and were meeting to plan a birthday party for Tex.”

He stops to text someone and then begins scrolling through the information again.

“Go back further,” I tell him. “Is there any old information from before she came to the Savage Legion’s clubhouse?”

He begins searching. “Now that you mention it, everything starts five years ago, when she first arrived. Her email address was brand new. Although she deactivated all her social media, the original beginning dates were around the same time. It’s like she just came into being on that day.”

“Do an internet search for Brittany Rainard.”

“I did that when she first came, like I do for every new person. I didn’t get any hits. She told me that she led a low-key life in a small town before hitting the road. To be honest, I didn’t follow up because she seemed like just another corn-fed girl from the Midwest at the time. Granted, she blossomed into a sexy, vivacious troublemaker that all the brothers loved. But when she first came, she was extremely modest, wasn’t wearing makeup, and she seemed sweet.”

I give him a disbelieving look. “I literally can’t imagine my Brittany as modest and sweet.” To me, she’s just the opposite of everything he just said.

Zen glances over at me. “I’m sorry that we didn’t find anything useful on her SIM card. Where does this leave us in finding her?”

“I honestly don’t know. Maybe we could check around at other apartment complexes and see if she moved. I can’t imagine where her furniture went unless it was to another apartment.”

“Give me a second,” he says. He makes a few quick calls and hits paydirt with the last one. “Her furniture is all at a local thrift store. She called them to pick it all up, and they sent a truck out and got it all in one fell swoop.”

I run my hand through my hair in exasperation. “She wouldn’t just leave me. She loves me. I know she does.”

Before Zen can answer, there is a knock at the door. Tex’s old lady sticks her head in the door. “Tex said you wanted to talk to me about Brittany.” She looks hesitant.

I hop up and push the stool I’m sitting on towards her for her to sit on. “Yes, thanks for coming so quickly, Clara,” I tell her.

She moves the chair as far away from me as possible and sits on the edge, uncomfortably. I’m confused because she’s always been nice to me before. We share a bond, Gina’s her sister. We were both betrayed and got really close after that. Now, she’s suddenly acting weird around me, though maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones?

I squat down about ten feet away and ask, “What’s eatin’ you, Clara? You’re acting like I wronged you somehow.”

She sighs, “You got back with my sister and didn’t even tell me. How am I supposed to feel about that? She exploded my marriage and had designs on taking my house when she thought it was in my ex-husband’s name. I thought we were on the same page. You and I decided to cut our losses and move on. I get that Brittany was a club girl, but you gave her hope that she could find happiness with you and then snatched it all away without even telling her.”

“That’s not what happened, Clara. You know me. I’d never fucking do something like that, especially without telling you both first.”

“I hate to call a brother a liar, but we were both sitting in the back of the clubhouse bar when you brought her and your kids for that birthday celebration.”

“Fucking hell, I feel like I’m having to explain this to every damn person I meet. The only reason I took them to the clubhouse was to keep Gina away from Britt. I didn’t want them to have a falling out in front of my kids. It was just supposed to be a family party for our youngest boy. Sure, she tried to get back with me, but I told her no, like I always do.”

“Again, that’s not true. We had to listen to the club girls tell us all about how you’re getting back together and won’t have to beg for sex anymore.”

I start to get angry. “I feel like it’s fucking Groundhog Day, having the same conversation over and over again. The club girls were mistaken or lying. I did not get back together with her, and I have no intention of getting back together with her. After the clubhouse, I took the kids back to my place and spent the weekend with them.”

“Brittany is missing. Do you know where she is?”

Clara gives one short nod.

“Would you please tell me?”

Folding her arms in front of her, she states firmly, “I don’t want to get involved. She made me promise I wouldn’t say anything, most especially to you.”

I stand up. “What the fuck, Clara? I thought you were my friend.”

She scrambles to her feet. “I thought I was too. But then you started running around with my sister, inviting her to the clubhouse. Did you even stop to think about how running into her at what I consider my safe space would affect me?”

I stretch my neck to get rid of the tension building there. “Bringing her here was a mistake. I can see how badly I fucked up now. In retrospect, it was a stupid idea to let her anywhere near my new life, our new life.”

She gives me a suspicious look. “Are you being honest about not taking her back?”

Lifting my right hand into the air in front of my body, I tell her, “Hand to God, I swear I didn’t entertain that idea for a second. I need to find Brittany and make things up to her. I need to know someone didn’t abduct her.”

Clara finally tells me, “Brittany is fine. She told me that she’s going to visit her family for two or three weeks.”

Taking a step closer to her, I ask, “Are you aware that she cleaned out her apartment, smashed her phone, and deactivated all her social media?”

Clara’s mouth falls open in shock. “What? No, that’s not what she told me! She said she needed two or three weeks to clear her head and she’d be back.”

“Try her number.”

Clara pulls out her cell phone, and it goes straight to voicemail. I hold up the smashed phone for her to see. “It has tire tracks on it.”

Her eyes lift from the phone to me. “She intentionally ran over it?”

I shrug. “Clara, I don’t know. Maybe someone took her and made it look like she left me? All I know is we were getting along fine, and now she’s gone. Even if she thought I got back with Gina, Brittany’s the kind of woman who would give me a piece of her mind while walking out the door. Running off doesn’t fit with her personality.”

Clara looks like she’s going to throw up but forces herself to tell me the truth. “Brittany wasn’t well. She thought she might be pregnant, so I drove her to the pharmacy, and we picked up a bunch of pregnancy tests. She took them all in one fell swoop.”

My emotions are all over the place. “Brittany is having my child? That’s some shit I deserve to fucking know.”

“She told me it was a false alarm. She seemed relieved. That’s when she decided to take some time off and spend it with her family.”

My anger dies away, replaced by disappointment. I begin pacing as I shove one hand through my hair. In an exasperated voice, I ask, “Do you have any idea where her family is? Did she say anything about who she’s staying with?”

Clara shakes her head. “I probably should have asked and told her to call me so I would know she arrived safely. But I didn’t think about it. We were just so relieved that she wasn’t pregnant with your child.”

My head snaps up, and I glare at her. “What the fuck? Why were you both so happy that she wasn’t having my baby? I don’t make ugly, bratty kids or anything like that.”

“It wasn’t that. We thought you had gone back to my sister and the kids. Tusk, you have four children already. You don’t need another one gumming up the works.”

I find myself shouting uncontrollably, “Don’t fucking tell me what the hell I need! All this time, I thought you were my fucking friend, that you cared about me. I should have known better. Apples and trees, ya know?”

Tears jump into her eyes as she stares at me. “I’ve known you for years, and sometimes I don’t think I know you at all.” With that, she turns from the room and flees.

Zen, who has been sitting there quietly throughout the exchange, finally speaks. “I know you’re under tremendous stress but taking it out on Tex’s old lady was a shitty thing to do.”

I turn on Zen next. “I know we tend to categorize women according to which brother they’re with, but Clara and I have known each other for a long time—before any of you came into the picture, including Tex. She’s not just his old lady. She was my sister-in-law for years. We went to family reunions together and family vacations. She was supposed to be my friend.”

When no hint of understanding crosses his face, I say, “Just fucking forget it. No matter how many times I explain it, you won’t understand.”

“Well, we just got verification that Brittany left of her own accord. It looks like all you need to do is sit tight and wait for her to come back in a few weeks.”

“How can you be so sure she’s coming back? She donated her furniture and took all her shit.”

“Maybe she just changed her mind about that apartment. If she thinks you’re getting back with your ex-wife she might not want to be in the same complex as you. It could be that she plans to come back to the clubhouse and stay. God only knows what’s going through that woman’s mind.”

I don’t believe she just up and left me, so I tell him, “I’m just gonna have to keep looking on my own.” I barely choke out the words before storming out of his office.