Kota walked into the clubhouse and felt glad to see nothing had changed. At least, nothing on the surface had but he got a distinct feeling that under the surface, a lot of things had changed. Like the fact, his best friend Titan seemed smitten by his niece? He’d forgotten he even had a niece. His brother, Jesse had died a long time ago and then when Cat and Isobel just disappeared, they had looked for the two of them but they never found them. Then while he was in jail, she suddenly returned? What was up with that?
He got a cup of coffee and went over to the table. Sitting down, he carefully looked her over. He also noticed Titan had her practically sitting in his lap and that was something new too. Titan never had too much time for women other than to settle a need maybe and even that wasn’t too often, but now it seemed like he wouldn’t let this woman out of his sight.
Someone slapped him on the back.
Kota looked up to see his dad standing behind him. “So old man, what the hell is going on here? I’m in jail for a couple of weeks and suddenly, this place goes to hell in a handbasket?”
Hawkins sat down with his own coffee and stared at his son. “You’re talking about Cat and how she came to be here?” He shook his head. “It’s a long story, boy. You sure you wanna hear all of it now?”
Kota nodded at him. “Hell yeah, I do. I’ve been in a 5 by 5 for almost 2 weeks. Yes, I want to hear all of it.”
Hawkins exhaled heavily then told his son, “It started the day you were being charged. I wasn’t there but Titan told us that Catarina just showed up in court.”
Kota nodded. “Yeah, I saw her. She came in just as the judge was coming in. Titan brought her to my attention and when I looked back at her, I could see her shaking her head and crying as the judge read the charges they were bringing against me. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong so I couldn’t believe they were even charging me for that girl’s murder, let alone with two other murders. Then she slipped out of the courtroom. Titan sent Nash out to follow her. When I was being dragged back to my cell, Titan told me he would find out who she was and why she was there. At the time, we didn’t know who she was.”
Hawkins sighed. “Well, when she wouldn’t give him any information in town, he brought her out here. She didn’t want to come and made that perfectly clear to him but he assured her we wouldn’t hurt her. But that wasn’t why she didn’t want to come. She claims that we have ghosts in the woods around us and that they wanted justice. No one here knew what the fuck she was talking about.”
Kota stared at him then finally blinked his eyes. “Ghosts?”
“Yep, you heard what I said. Then your attorney came over and was showing us the patch they found that supposedly had Jenna’s blood on it, Cat freaked out. It was after the attorney left when she told us the blood couldn’t be Jenna’s and when we asked her what she was talking about, she showed us the outline of a key, the patch has on it, but it was faint. She was right though, the blood was your brother Jesse’s and the patch was his patch. One we didn’t even know was missing as the fire destroyed everything that day. She was only three years old, yet she described everything that happened back then. She was there hiding under the kitchen table, listening to Jesse and Isobel fighting. She said she heard a loud bang and saw Jesse fall. Then her mother ripped the patch off his cut and a small key fell through the cracks in the floor.” Hawkins stopped talking for a moment and shook his head as he recalled this event. “I thought that key was gone forever, but it wasn’t. She found it and gave it back to the club.” He looked down at his boots. “I didn’t know it but Jesse gave your mother’s ring to Isobel’s mother to give to his daughter one day. We found it among her things and that’s when we figured out she was Jesse’s daughter.”
Kota was in deep thought as he took in all this information. To say that this story so far was incredible was putting it lightly. His dad looked shook up while telling him some of it too. He glanced over at the girl who was his niece. “So why is she wearing sunglasses inside?”
Hawkins snorted. “You and this club were set up for the fall by Cat’s own bitch of a mother, Isobel. When Cat tried to run away from us after a fight, I started with her, Isobel and Billy Ray t-boned her car and tried to hurt her. She was knocked out cold and when she came back to her senses, she couldn’t see.”
Cash sat down on the other side of Kota and took up the story. “You wouldn’t believe it but those wolves in the woods behind the clubhouse? She knows their leader, the one that looks almost like her old dog, Bear.”
“What the hell? You for real?” Kota asked in disbelief.
Hawkins nodded. “Yeah, it’s the weirdest thing son. The first night she was here, she went for a walk early in the morning and the wolves found her. She wasn’t scared of them and that old devil of a wolf likes her. He came down out of the woods and protected her when Nash decided to slap her.” Hawkins hesitated then told him, “Later on, Nash got caught up in the woods by Isobel and Billy Ray. He got knocked out and they dragged him into a cave that we didn’t even know was there.”
Kota frowned. “How the hell did you find him? How did you even know where to look?”
“That’s just it, we didn’t.” Hawkins shook his head. “According to what we’ve been able to piece together, Isobel left my granddaughter with her parents after she left here. Then later on, Cat was in a terrible accident when she was seven that killed her grandparents. We found out later that Isobel had caused that accident. Caterina was thrown clear of the car but suffered a head wound that kept her in a coma for two weeks. She came out of the coma blind, just like she was after Isobel t boned her car a few days ago. Anyway, after she got her eyesight back when she was seven, she found she also had a gift. A gift she calls a curse but it’s that curse that brought her here in the first place. She can hear and see people who are in real trouble. She saw that woman Jenna get murdered. She had a repeat nightmare about it the night she came here and we heard every word she said. Son, I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like she was standing right there as it happened. It freaked everyone out.”
Cash jumped in again, “But it also proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you had nothing to do with that girl’s murder. That was how we knew Jenna’s heart was missing. Once we could prove that, the police had to reopen the case.”
Kota was shaking his head. “What the hell?”
“I know it doesn’t make any sense and she’d be the first one to tell you that,” Hawkins replied. “But she was right on the money, son. With the help of that wolf of hers, she found the cave Nash was stashed in. And that cave had more than one surprise too. Isobel had been using it as her bank. She must have been using that cave the whole time between then and now, as we never went in those woods, as you know. And damnit, all these years, she was that close to us. We found out she’s been a fucking drug dealer for damn near thirty years, which means she was dealing when she was married to Jesse. That’s probably why she killed him. Jesse must have found out about her sideline and her connection with the cartel. He would have hated that.” Hawkins paused as he swallowed hard then he said in a low voice, “We found Robby and Nicky’s remains too. They’ve been in that damn cave for twenty four years and we never knew it. When Cat came here, she told us we had ghosts in the woods and we had no clue what she was talking about but maybe we do now.”
“Ghosts? Wolves and visions? Damnit, Dad. Do you hear yourself talking here? Are we believing in voodoo shit now or what?” Kota growled.
Cash sat forward and said in a low tone, “All that voodoo shit got your ass out of jail, kid.” Looking angry, he got up from the table and stormed off.
With a sigh, Kota swung his gaze over to where Titan and Cat sat.
Titan was glaring at him.
Cat stared at him without her dark glasses on. Tears rolled down her face and she looked devastated.
Kota realized his words had been louder and more hurtful than he’d intended. “Well, shit,” he grumbled.
