She studies me as we step outside. The chilly early morning air wraps us up and she crosses her arms over her chest to keep herself warm. “I hate to tell you this now that you’ve chosen me to go with you but I’m not good in a fight. Like, if someone comes after you, I’m no Tate.”
“Thank God,” I answer, laughing, and she grins at me. “And it’s not like that. I need to go talk to someone and it’s best to have witnesses when around this particular person.”
“Why?”
We reach my car and I open the passenger door for her as I reach into the back seat and grab one of my hoodies before handing it to her. “It’s kind of a long story but I’ll fill you in as we drive over there.”
“Okay.” She takes the hoodie with a smile and pulls it over her head. She’s swimming in it and it covers her skirt, too, making her look like she’s not wearing anything else, but she doesn’t seem to care as she sinks into the bucket seat of my sixty-nine Impala. Once she’s in the car, I shut the door and jog around to the other side, sliding behind the wheel. The rumble of the engine makes me smile and as I pull out of my parking space, she turns to look at me. “Start talking.”
I arch a brow. “You’re a bossy little thing.”
“I seem to recall you liking it last night.”
Well, she’s got me there. Shaking my head, I ignore her comment and begin telling her the Tawny saga as we drive through Baton Rouge to her apartment, starting with the way she worked her way through several of the guys, trying to get one of them to make her their old lady before settling on Moose and then framing him for assault. When I’m done, she falls back in her seat and releases a breath.
“Okay… well, now I see why you needed backup. Who the hell lets a stranger hit them so they can blame it on someone else?”
I shrug. “Someone not right in the head.”
“Clearly,” she agrees before turning to look at me. “You said she worked her way through several of the guys, right?”
“Yeah… why?”
She scowls. “Did you sleep with her?”
“Oh, hell no.” I fight back a shudder of disgust. “I told all of them to stay the hell away from her but do you think they listened to me?”
“Obviously not.”
I nod as we pull up in front of Tawny’s apartment. We haven’t even made it out of the car yet and I already want to leave. Sighing, I turn off the engine and climb out, waiting for Rowan on the sidewalk as she rounds the hood and when she reaches me, she slips her hand into mine. I peek over at her as we approach Tawny’s door, wondering why the hell this feels so natural but before I can delve too deeply into it, she knocks on the door. We wait for a few seconds before the door squeaks open and Tawny glances out at us through the crack.
“Why are you here?” she asks, her voice shaky and her eyes darting between Rowan and me. “I haven’t been back to the club or bothered any of you.”
I nod. “I know, Tawny. We’re here because we need to talk to you.”
“Why?” she asks, opening the door a little wider but not enough to let us into her place. Rowan takes a step forward and offers her a warm smile. It’s actually impressive given how disgusted she was by Tawny’s behavior on the way over here.
“Hi, Tawny. I’m Rowan, Kodiak’s sister, and we really need your help with something. Do you think we could come in and talk for a little bit?”
Tawny eyes her skeptically before glancing at me. “You really need my help?”
“We do,” I answer with a nod and she pulls the door open, allowing us to step into her apartment as she takes a deep breath. Rowan releases my hand as we walk into Tawny’s living room and I miss it more than I should. As Rowan and I sit next to each other on the couch, Tawny perches on the edge of a bar stool.
“I don’t know how I can help you…”
“I need to know about the guy you met in the bar… the one who punched you and tried to get you to blame it on the club.”
She sighs. “I’ve already told you everything I know about him.”
“Actually,” I say, trying to keep my voice soft and understanding so she’ll open up to me. “I wasn’t there when you showed up and I’d like to hear everything in your words.”
After studying me for a second, she sighs and nods. “Okay. Where would you like me to start?”
I pull my phone out of my pocket, pulling up the voice memo app and starting a new recording before I set it down on the coffee table. When I look up at her again, I notice that her hands are shaking but I can’t understand why. When she showed up at the clubhouse and got into it with Moose, Blaze threatened to take evidence of her drug use to the cops but none of us have ever done anything to make her feel like we would hurt her. At least, I don’t think we have…
“How about his name?” Rowan asks, pulling me out of my thoughts and I glance up at Tawny. She sighs.
She sighs. “Shit, I don’t know… I was so drunk… oh, wait. I remember. He said his name was Warren because his dad loved the book, War and Peace.”
“Okay,” I reply, ignoring her commentary. Warren can’t be all that common of a name and maybe if I search through the receipts at the bar, I might have a chance of finding him. Would he really be that careless, though? Turning back to her, I ask the one question that I’m pretty sure I already know the answer to. “What about what he looked like?”
She shrugs. “Average? I don’t know… he has brown hair and brown eyes. He was a little taller than me and slim but kind of unmemorable if he hadn’t socked me in the face.”
Her description matches every other one we’ve ever gotten from anyone who had an interaction with him and I nod in irritation. “What about what happened that night?”
“What about it?”
Gritting my teeth, I fight back my irritation and Rowan lays her hand on my leg, forcing me to take a deep breath before turning back to Tawny. “Like did he approach you or did you approach him?”
“Oh, it was all him. I went to the bar to drown my sorrows after Moose dumped me. I was already a couple drinks in when he came up to me and offered to buy me the next one. We started talking and I told him all about you guys and that I had just been dumped.”
I nod, remembering the way Moose told the story after she had stopped by the clubhouse to explain herself. “And framing Moose was all his idea?”
“Yeah. He said you guys weren’t as clean cut as you like to pretend you were and he wanted to expose you. When I said I didn’t want anything to do with y’all anymore, he brought up how funny it would be if a member got arrested for hitting a woman.”
“Right, and then he lured you out behind the bar and punched you?”
She nods. “That part gets a little fuzzy. He was plying me with drinks for most of the night and I was very drunk by then. He took advantage of that.”
“Do you remember anything else?” Rowan asks. “Anything that might help us find out who this guy is?”
“Well…”
I arch a brow. “What is it?”
“I don’t really know if it will help but I clearly remember thinking that right before he hit me, his face changed and he hit me way harder than he needed to…”