He texted Dodge, which was a way better plan. A blonde just walk in?
It took about five minutes before he responded, since Judge guessed he was busting his ass slinging drinks big time with how many cars were parked on the street.
Yeah, was the prospect’s answer.
Tall n curvy?
Hard 2 miss those fckn curves.
Judge’s jaw got tight. She in there meetn any1?
Not yet. Soon.
What the fuck did that mean? Keep an eye on her.
Not gonna B a prob.
Judge always texted slowly because of his big fingers. And sometimes he didn’t have the patience for it and would call instead. But he also didn’t want Dodge answering him out loud inside the bar where Cassie might hear him. Lemme know if she meets up w/ a man.
It took a few more minutes for Dodge to respond. Prolly gonna meet a lotta fckn men here.
Wanna explain that? Judge asked, cursing when he had fixed all his misspellings to at least where they were readable. But his fingers gripped the phone way too tightly.
Stel hired her, came the delayed answer.
Judge blinked at the phone in his hand. He read that last answer again. Stella hired her?
He smoothed a hand down his long beard. Then again.
That could be good. No, not good, fucking great.
It would be so much easier to keep an eye on her in a place she was around MC members and ol’ ladies. Hell, those were extra set of eyes on her which wouldn’t make her suspicious. And, while she was working, he wouldn’t need to sit and rot in his fucking Expedition half the night.
That also could mean she might not be skipping town as soon as hubby showed up, which was his original guess.
Maybe she was starting fresh instead. The only question was, was it with or without Dennis Lange?
No wedding ring. New town. New job.
Maybe Lange wasn’t showing up at all?
And if not, where the fuck was he?
Chapter Six
Judge downed a double shot of Jack Daniels, slammed the glass on the bar and chased it with the rest of his beer. A whine and a scrambling sound at his feet made him turn his head.
Jury rushed over to Justice and licked his mouth in greeting before wrestling Deke’s dog down to the wood floor as his owner entered The Barn through the bunkhouse door.
“Think they hadn’t seen each other in a fuckin’ week or somethin’.” Deke shook his head as he strode up to the bar, nabbed the bottle of Jack and headed over to one of the bus benches that had been moved in front of the stone fireplace in the center of church.
With a sigh, Judge followed him, dropping onto the bench next to his cousin. After Deke was done drinking from the bottle, he passed it to Judge, who tipped it to his lips next.
“You dirty a glass, it stays dirty ‘til one of the sweet butts gets her fuckin’ ass in here to clean it. You drink from the bottle, nobody gives a shit.”
True.
Deke kicked his boots up onto the stone ledge surrounding the circular see-through hearth and dug into his cut, pulling out a small tin. Out of that tin, appeared a hand-rolled, not of the tobacco variety.
Fuck yeah. Judge propped his boots on the stone, too, and settled in. Time to fucking relax until two am or so when he tailed Cassie back to her sister’s home.
Judge hated her closing up the bar. But for now, she wasn’t doing it by herself. However, what she was doing was leaving out the backdoor late at night into a dark alley and getting into her vehicle alone.
Because of that, he not only made sure she got home okay, he sat down the street from the Douglas house for a bit to make sure there were no signs of Lange.
There hadn’t been.
Still didn’t mean he wouldn’t show up. They had no reason to give up looking for him in Manning Grove until the New York bondsman called to say his ass was captured.
When he was, he wondered if Cassie would stay or go...
Fuck.
Or if he was never captured...
Judge ripped the lit joint from Deke’s lips as he inhaled and took a long hit himself, letting the smoke fill up his lungs.
He didn’t even know the fucking woman. She could be a total cunt who only went for rich, entitled, white collar fuckers, who screwed over charities and thought they were too good to go to jail when they were caught.
Fuck that tie-wearing motherfucker. He needed to be fucking choked with it.
He took another quick hit before Deke snagged the blunt back. “Don’t mind fuckin’ sharin’, but don’t bogart the whole fuckin’ thing.”
After they finished their WrestleMania match, the dogs barreled back to where they were sitting and settled by the fire with grunts and groans. Then Justice hiked up a rear leg and began to lick his balls.
Deke passed the joint back over and lifted the bottle to his lips. When he dropped it back to his thigh, he said, “Thinkin’ ‘bout headin’ to Rochester.”
“For what?” Judge already knew the answer and didn’t like it.
“To find that motherfucker.”
“Only supposed to nab ‘im if he shows up in the Grove, Deke.” It was a reminder his cousin shouldn’t need. He knew how it all worked, knew what their part in this whole thing was.
“Yeah, but it’s a bit personal for me. And the scratch is just a bonus.”
The scratch should be the main reason. They weren’t the goddamn Avengers. They were the last fucking people to be the moral police.
“What’re you gonna do? Land on the bail bondsman’s doorstep and ask questions? Deke, he don’t wanna part with twenty percent if he don’t gotta. We wouldn’t, either, if Lange skipped out on us. He ain’t gonna let you walk into the area he’s got covered already with his own bounty hunter and invite you the fuck in. In fact, it could fuck up workin’ with him in the future. Either him with us or us with him. Don’t fuck that shit up.”
“Can go up there all quiet-like and just snoop around a bit. See who he and the wifey hung out with. Check out their friends. Maybe someone knows something. Maybe the asshole talked about where he’d go hide from the law if he ever got busted. You know, while he was drunk or somethin’. Most white-collar assholes tend to run their fuckin’ mouths when they’re drinkin’.”
White-collar workers weren’t the only ones. “Right.”
“Can’t fuckin’ hurt.”
Maybe, maybe not. But he also didn’t want to step on that bondsman’s toes. And Deke doing all that work, plus the expense of him traveling, wasn’t worth the twenty percent. All of it, maybe. But twenty? Fuck no. They would end up taking a loss.
“Ain’t good business, Deke. You, of all people besides Red, are good with numbers. Run it by her and see what she says.”
“Already know what she’d say. Don’t need to hear it from her.”
“Maybe you do.”
“Fuck, brother.”
“No, Deke. Know it’s personal for you. It’s personal for me. But what he did didn’t do shit to us when you look at it close enough. It didn’t touch us at all.”
“It’s low.”
“Yeah, agreed. It’s fuckin’ lower than low.” Judge swallowed another mouthful of whiskey before handing it back to his blood cousin and club brother. “And anyway, you go up there, you might fall deep into some snatch and not come back for days. Not ‘til your nuts are wrinkled up and your dick’s shootin’ nothin’ but exhaust fumes. Can’t have you gone that long. Not with me tailin’ Cassie when she’s not at work.”