With every update, Brooks’ plan became more and more brilliant. We raced around town for two entire days, clocking Chops’ blood trail and entering any store that he may or may not have stopped at. If the parking lot had his blood in it somewhere, we entered the store to take a look at things. We followed it throughout town, and with every parking lot and store that surfaced, we had more to dig into.
But Chops didn’t rear his head.
“Does any of the blood head out of town?” Brooks asked.
Porter shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. It’s all in town, and every main road, side road, and back road that leads out of town has no trace of him anywhere.”
Brooks chewed on his nail bed. “Did you drive at least a mile down those roads? Maybe his bleeding—”
Finn cleared his throat. “I was the one that did that, actually. With Tanner. We checked all of them too, Brooks. No sight of his blood anywhere to tell us how he got out of town.”
Brooks clicked his tongue. “So, is he hiding in town? In plain sight?”
I shrugged. “He could’ve called someone and had them come pick him up. You know, toss him into a van, haul his bike on a trailer or some shit. That might explain the lack of a blood trail.”
Brooks pointed at me. “He’s got a point. We need to start going through all of the footage we’ve pulled. Cole? Can you spearhead that with Porter?”
I nodded. “Can do.”
Brooks pointed at Tanner and Finn. “You two, come with me. We’re going to go check all of Chops’ hideouts that we know. If he really has gone underground, then you all know what that means.”
I grinned. “It means we get to take a vote.”
Brooks smirked. “And a fucking vote is what it’ll be if Chops doesn’t resurface today.”
Energy thrummed through my veins as I watched through hours of security footage with Porter. We put it on a 2x fast forward, trying to get everything to pass by a bit faster. We had some videos that documented Chops pulling into the camera’s line of sight. On more than a few occasions, he stopped to check his phone and clean up his wounds. He pulled little first aid kits out of the back storage on his bike, and every time he popped up into a new camera’s field of vision, he looked a bit different.
Like, at one point in time he ditched his leather jacket.
And at another point in time, he lost his boot.
And even during one of his other encounters with a stop in a store parking lot, he tore his t-shirt apart and wrapped tourniquets around the wounds he could deal with on his own.
But there was no evidence of a van, or anything that might explain why the blood loss stopped.
“Maybe he died and he’s in an alley somewhere,” Porter sighed.
I raked my hand through my hair. “Or the tourniquets worked.”
He chuckled. “He couldn’t even get one around his shoulder. He would’ve still been bleeding.”
I pointed at him. “You make a solid argument.”
Porter leaned forward. “Maybe if we pulled other shops’ cameras? Or possibly traffic intersection cameras? The man doesn’t just disappear.”
Then, Brooks charged through the door with the rest of the guys. “No, a man doesn’t just disappear. And I think I know what happened to him.”
A a loud bang sounded and I whipped my head around only to find Brooks heaving what looked like a partial bike handlebar up onto the kitchen counter. Porter and I walked over to it as we all gathered around, staring down at the mangled piece of scrap.
“The fuck is this?” Porter asked.
Then, Brooks tilted it back and showed us the blood spatter beneath it. “I think it’s part of Chops’ bike.”
My eyes widened. “You think he got into an accident.”
He shrugged. “Either that, or he’s leaving us a trail to throw us off his scent.”
Tanner whistled lowly. “Dismantling the bike in order to evade us is a pretty serious move.”
Porter nodded. “And if he did that, that means we can’t just look up his license plate or some shit. It’s actually pretty genius.”
I licked my lips. “And it makes sense with what we saw in the videos.”
Brooks crooked an eyebrow. “What did you see?”
I slid my hands into my pockets. “I believe Chops was discarding random items of clothing in different places. He kept showing up on subsequent cameras, and it was like his clothes were disappearing. First, his leather jacket. Then, his boot.”
Brooks pointed at me. “Show me the footage. I want to see it with my own two eyes.”
After getting everything set up to play on the flatscreen television in the living room, we played the clips of footage I had bookmarked at regular speed. I showed the guys where the pieces of clothing on him were missing, and it all but verbally confirmed our theory.
“Son of a bitch,” Brooks growled.
But Porter announced his next words as if a king were about to enter the room. And we all took a strong stance as Brooks froze.
“All in favor of Brooks assuming the role of President, raise your hand.”
All of our hands shot into the air like lightning as Brooks looked around.
“All in favor of removing the title of President—or any title for that matter—from Chops, raise your hand,” Brooks said.
We all put our hands down before thrusting them back into the air once more. And as Brooks’ hand crept into the air, relief washed through my veins.
We had finally overthrown Chops.
“All right,” our new President, Brooks, said as we all inched our hands down, “as your new President, my first order is for all of you to go home and get some fucking sleep.”
Porter blinked. “Wait, what?”
Brooks stared hard at him. “You heard me. There’s a fight coming. A fight we’ve all been waiting for. And we’re going to need our strength when it finally kicks down our door. I want you guys to stay alert, but I want you to stay alert while getting some rest. Spending time with those you love. Enjoying life for once. That’s my first command to all of you.”
“Should we instate a time to meet back here, then?” I asked.
Tanner nodded. “Especially since the girls are still here. Weren’t we going to hand them over to the police?”
Brooks snickered. “Already got it handled. You guys go home. Sleep. Eat. Enjoy life for a little bit. And come Tuesday morning—in four’ days time—we’ll all meet back here at noon for lunch. Got it?”
A small sea of heads bobbed before Brooks dismissed us, but I found myself taking the long way home. I knew Opie–my German shepherd—would be happy to have me home for a few days. But time off for most people wasn’t like time off for myself.
The club kept my mind occupied. Our tasks kept my body occupied. And when I had nothing to occupy either of those things, my mind started playing tricks on me.
It’s gonna be a long-ass four days.
Still, I pulled up the driveway and parked my car in my garage. Opie barked in the kitchen, and when I opened the garage door that led into my home, he leapt into my arms. I caught him as I kicked the door closed with my foot, and my beautiful service dog that had saved my life more times than I cared to admit licked at my face as if I had been away on deployment for months on end.
It made me smile as he wiggled in my arms.
It felt good to come home to someone who loved me.
“Hello there, sweet boy. Oh, oh, oh, I missed you, too. I missed you, too! Wanna go outside? Yeah? Pee pee? Come on. Let’s go.”
Opie followed me out into my fenced-in backyard and I eased myself into my chair. He brought me his ratty tennis ball that he refused to let me switch out and I threw it across the yard, watching him scurry after it. I owed Opie my life. Not only was he a fully certified working dog for my PTSD that I had personally trained to help me out, but he was my best friend. My only confidante. The one soul on this planet that knew every single one of my dirty, disgusting, volatile secrets.
And for some reason, he still loved me despite those things.
“There we go! Good boy. Now, go get it,” I said as I chucked the ball again, “go get it, Opie!”
With Chops now in the wind and officially tossed out on his ass, I hoped I could talk Brooks into letting me bring Opie around the clubhouse. Chops never allowed pets of any sort into that place, even though Opie was my service dog. And while I understood Chops’ reasoning behind his “no pet” policy when it came to that place, I never could understand why he simply wouldn’t listen to my reasoning.
Chops had this way of cutting people off like they were absolute idiots who didn’t know shit.
And I hoped that Brooks would be more understanding of the situation so I could be more useful to the guys out in the field.
“That’s right, boy,” I said as Opie hopped into my lap, “today was a big day. Yes, it was. Chops is gone, and Brooks is our new President. Remember meeting Brooks? Yeah? Oh, there we go. There’s Daddy’s kisses.”
Opie licked me all across my face and my heart soared with delight. He hopped off my lap and I ran him ragged with that ball until he finally made his way inside of his own volition. He sucked down water at a breathtaking speed while I prepared his dinner, and the second I set the bowl down he practically dove head-first into the food.
Which prompted me to spoil myself for dinner instead of eating some frozen fucking meal.
“Dominos Pizza, what can I get you?”
I held the phone to my ear as my mouth salivated. “Ah, yes. I’d like to place a delivery order for one large three-meat pizza, an order of garlic parmesan chicken wings, a small order of breadsticks, some of your cinnamon roll things, four dipping sauces of ranch, and two pizza sauce dipping containers.”
“Anything else?”
I opened the fridge. “Oh! And a two-liter of Mountain Dew.”
“All right, sir. That’ll be $38.94. May I have your address?”
I rattled off my address before I provided my card number, then I went to go hang out in the living room with Opie. The second I eased myself into my recliner, my feet went up and he jumped into my lap. I ran my fingers through his soft hair, allowing him to sink between my legs as I flipped through channels on my practically-pointless cable package.
I mean, I was barely home to enjoy it some weeks. And when I was here to enjoy it, I seemed to focus on the empty recliner next to me rather than what was on television.
“Ah, there we go,” I murmured.
Opie settled his head against my shin as he watched some game rerun on television. College football was a secret obsession of mine, and there was a Clemson game on television that I had missed a few weeks back. So, I leaned back, focused on the game, and readied myself for when Opie barked at the door for me to open it up.
And still, my eyes gravitated toward that empty fucking recliner.
I sighed as I envisioned what it might be like to have someone sitting next to me someday. Us, holding hands across the small side table stuck between the chairs. I imagined what it would feel like to fall asleep with a woman’s hand in mine while we both reclined back in our chairs. I wondered what kind of arguments we might have over whether or not to watch football or another romantic comedy after our days were done.
Fucking hell, I’m tired of the hookups.
Sure, they were good for a spell. They did what they needed to do, so it worked. But here lately? Watching the hookups walk out the door hurt a little more than normal. Trying to get them to stay for breakfast was like trying to wrestle a piece of candy out of a toddler’s hand.
The guys always teased me because they claimed that women “lined up around the block” to get a taste of the “big-dicked mechanic.”
I was more than my dick, though.
Or my money.
Or my disability.
I simply wished I could find someone who believed that as much as I did.
