Big Dog (16 page)

Another trunk contained men’s suits. Shiny silk shirts, and pinstriped suits, with two pair of leather shoes, that had the familiar rolled cloth, it contained watches and tiepins. One had a man’s pinky ring was imbedded with what she would swear was a dime sized diamond. She closed the trunks and left the attic, wondering what the nice old man had been doing here in the dying neighborhood. There was more than enough wealth here to allow him to live in luxury for the rest of his life and still have enough to keep the local dog shelter in cash for a year or two.

The attorneys had been there that morning, and told her that if she could, it would be best to comply with the court order. As the handsome Jethro Hall told her, “The place is considered a crime scene, they didn’t have to be nice about it and give you more than twenty-four hours. Take what you can get out and be happy.”

The police had been there and taken hundreds of photographs and videos. They said it was routine, but she knew they were carefully sifting through stolen property lists. They must have found another body this morning, because when she looked out of her back door, the black and gold SUV was there, and people were running around the spot that had just been opened in the parking lot.

At four o’clock in the afternoon, she was carrying another box of unknown stuff from the attic to put in the trailer, when a thunderous noise could be heard. She knew that sound. Hugh had promised to send a few guys, but this was more than a few. She came around the rental truck and was happy to see ten hogs pulling in front of the house. She recognized Seth and Georgie, and she remembered seeing the chubby guy that gave her shit the first day she went back to the crib. Tarzan let out a whoop when he saw her, and even Needles had come. Tilly, the uncrowned queen of the club’s bitches, brought Janice aka Juicy with her. Even Harlow had come, she was riding on Tarzan’s bitch pad, and Harlow never went out of her way for anyone that Future could remember.

Harlow, it seemed, had a personal agenda, and she walked right up to Future and held out her hand. “Here’s the deal, you tell me what I want to know, and I help you.”

Future took the offered hand and could feel that underneath the sarcastic bitch persona, Harlow was actually frightened. She was three months pregnant and didn’t remember who the father was. She’d been having sex with both men, sometimes at the same time. Technically either man could be the father of the child, except there were two children, one had blue eyes like her mother, and the boy had brown eyes. She could see their auras and Harlow was in for some fun when the twins got together with their fathers. “I would say both men, one child has brown eyes and one has blue eyes. Your eyes are hazel. Seth and Tarzan are lucky men.

“Now, since I know your secret, you can pack up the dishes in the hutch and kitchen if you want, one of the guys can carry them out for you.”

She ended up directing the packing, and even paid for rooms at the motel along the highway. When Tiny and his old lady showed up with the box truck, they loaded the cases of liquor into it, and as much of the fragile stuff as they could fit in the space that surprisingly held more than it was first thought to hold.

She ordered takeout pizza and gave her truck keys to Janice for a beer run. She had plenty of soft drinks, but the beer kegs had been destroyed in the fire.

The next morning, everyone was back to help and there was only her room and the basement to get packed and on the truck.

Detective Bellows and a uniform stopped by to check on the progress of the move, and everyone knew he was curious as to who the bikes in front of the house belonged to. Future didn’t bother to introduce any of the group to him except Janice and Tilly. The women amused themselves flirting with the detective and his colleague for a short time, and started hauling boxes to the truck.

A shout from the basement door got everyone in the house’s attention. Georgie and one of the Prospects came upstairs at a fact clip, with a box. George wasted no time dropping the thing on the counter and stepped away from it. The Prospect ran to the back door and hurled his guts out. Future reached to pull the flap back and stopped her hand in midair. “Are you fucking kidding me? Entire bodies weren’t enough? There’s heads too?”

She narrowed her eyes and walked over to Detective Bellows and touched his cheek for the few seconds it took him to jerk away from her touch. “You knew, you knew the heads were missing from those bodies, and you didn’t say anything to me about it. Is there anything else you neglected to tell me? Because I am doing my best to not go psychic bitch on you right now.”

Bellows and the uniform called in the discovery and headed down the basement stairs with the box.

Future’s room was now empty, all of the rooms were cleared out down to the rugs that had been on the floors. Every closet and loose board in the floors had been checked out to make certain they’d missed nothing. She left the floor safe open after taking her hard earned cash out of it. A couple of the more enterprising men had pulled the fountain from the spot in the back yard and loaded it, and the lawn ornaments that weren’t religious symbols, were stowed in the back too.

Before everyone left, Future handed out money to each of the people who’d come to help. She told them to keep it, they still had to buy gas and stay another night in a hotel along the drive back. Not to mention eating would cost a bit more. They started leaving soon after. She stood next to her truck where the Heritage was strapped down to keep it from falling during the drive to Hugh’s place. She wanted to walk through the house one more time, but the police had their tape up and uniforms were every ten feet or so. The place was now a death house as far as she was concerned. The heads cinched that for her. She waved to the detective as she started down the street. A new chapter in an old place waited, and the idea made her nervous.

She caught up with Tiny and Lila at the motel that night. Tarzan had decided to sleep in the truck since Harlow was riding with him. And most of the others either stayed elsewhere, or continued on toward home.

She lectured herself most of the way to the farmhouse. She had to stop thinking of Big Dog as Hugh. He had been there for her when she felt like a lost cause, but she’d sacrificed her pride to further the Bastards agenda too. If she was honest with herself, she could have found someone in the club that was good with a rifle, and paid them to take out the fuckers that had caused her to go to ground and lick her wounds. The beatings and torture had been severe, and she’d been through hell. Maybe she should have taken retribution sooner. One thing she did know, the time away from the family and the group had changed her. She no longer had the ability to allow someone to order her around like the trick pony that she’d often compared herself to. She had grown into her own while she was in her self-imposed absence. She was ready to acknowledge her accomplishments, and for the first time, she actually liked who she’d become.

It had taken caring people to help her come to the notion, and she wanted to hug Matthew for repairing her ravaged skin. She wanted to kiss Big Dog for being a horny Bastard with a screwed up sense of beauty. The text of a picture of his penis this morning made her grin. The caption: He Misses You, was as close to romance that she might get from him, but if he was offering more at some time in the near future, she would be taking him up on it.

She followed the box truck down the driveway to the farmhouse. When she parked her truck in front of the garage, and got out to stretch her legs, she stared at the house. It was built in the Victorian style with a tower and huge wraparound porch. The house was certainly huge as Big Dog had said it was. Toy trucks and a small bicycle laid on its side in the yard. The place was a house, not a cabin, or a duplex. It screamed sanctuary and home. She loved it.

The big rental truck pulled up beside the box truck and Tarzan got out. There was no sign of Harlow, but he might have dropped her off before coming there.

The bikes showed up shortly after the truck did, and the process of unloading everything began. Most of the boxes and trunks were offloaded into the pole barn so Future could go through them later, and not mess up the house with all of the clutter and dust. The dining room table and chairs looked like they belonged in the house and so did the chests of drawers, wardrobes, and the brocade fireside chairs. The beds were put in the pole barn for now.

Charlie let them in, saying Big Dog had to be in court again today, but he should be back shortly. The old man kept saying that he remembered a lot of this stuff from his childhood, and Georgie teased him about his age. That didn’t get a rise from the victim, so Georgie asked him how his woman was doing, “Is she ready to dump your old ass for a younger one like me.” Got the reaction he hoped for, and they traded insults for the next hour.

The trucks were unloaded except for the liquor and wine. Future told Tiny to take it to the clubhouse if he thought the club would want it. She pulled two cases of whisky and two cases of wine out of the truck to have at the house. “I just got the delivery two days before the fire and I’m glad that something survived. Even if it’s a thousand dollars worth of whiskey and wine.”

Chapter Fourteen

Tarzan took the rental back and Butch drove behind him to give him a ride home. Big Dog texted a message telling her to make herself at home, he would be coming home later than he thought. So she filled the deep old clawfoot tub with hot water and soaked until she was pruny. She looked through the fridge and got a beer and a thick ham sandwich, before turning out the lights and going into the small room with the curved couch and a large screen TV.

She was asleep before the sandwich and beer were half gone. That’s where Hugh found her when he got home. He’d meant to be here when she pulled in the driveway, but the paperwork on his adoption of Kevin had to be dealt with, and he stopped by Selma Pearson’s office to thank her. He’d run into Cliff Abbot, one of the members of the Bastards, and had to buy the brother a meal and a few beers in town. The poor fucker was so riddled with cancer the doctor’s thought it was linked to the pesticides that Cliff used in his exterminating business. He had an electric wheelchair that was his only transportation now, and he was bored. So Big Dog spent a few hours with him to let him know he wasn’t forgotten by the group.

The added plus to caring about Cliff was the man knew everything that went on in town. He wanted his brothers to know about the new gang of bikers that were said to be real hardcore. Sheriff Lorne Iszcabiec sat with a deputy behind the partition in the diner, and Cliff gave Big Dog the “someone’s listening” sign, when he brought up the subject.

“You know, Big Dog, this new group are said to make the Breed look like a bunch of rah-rah girls. They have a patch they say Satan inspired too. It is a sword and some kind of carbine crossed in the middle and all kinds of medieval weapons in the outside of the circle.” Cliff paused for a moment, and from the way he seemed to be trying to compose himself without laughing, Big Dog knew it was going to be a good one. He wasn’t disappointed.

“They call themselves, Satan’s Hammer MC, and they are spreading the reputation they have killed and stolen their way up the coast in California and coming this way. Yep, you boys had better watch out, they plan to take over the territory here real soon.”

It was his turn to try to compose himself without laughing out loud, he couldn’t help the choking sounds from escaping, there was no way he would disclose what he knew about the “New Gang”. He drank down half a beer and finally could say a few words without giggling like a schoolgirl. “Well, Cliff, you know how we hate all the fighting and shit that comes with being a MC group. If they show up, we’ll just call the sheriff and his men to deal with an outlaw group like that. We’re taxpayers and expect to be protected and served just like any other citizen in this county.” There was already a group called Satan’s Hammer in Kentucky and Tennessee. It would be interesting to see the real deal meet up with the bottom feeders.

The sound of glass breaking on the other side of the partition gave the two of them satisfaction. They loved to pull the arrogant sheriff’s chain, and the man was too damn dumb to realize it. This was a routine for Cliff and Big Dog, it gave Cliff some form of entertainment, and he enjoyed feeding half assed shit like this to the sheriff who thought he was being sneaky. If the dumb bastard would come to him and ask, he might get more cooperation, but there was no chance of that happening, the man would rather be shot by his own gun than ask for help.

When they left the diner, Big Dog explained the situation to Cliff, and they both laughed until tears rolled down their cheeks. It had been worth the time Big Dog took with Cliff. As soon as he was on his bike, and out of town, he opened the hog up and drove. He didn’t need to be psychic to know that Cliff didn’t have much time left on this earth. That might be the last time they got the privilege to fuck with the sheriff, and it made him sad.

Now that he was home and watching Future as she slept, he knew where they were headed. Her being here was proof enough that she’d learned to trust him. That pussy bike of hers was parked in his garage, and she was in a tank top and shorts, asleep in front of the TV. She looked like she was at home, and he planned to keep it that way.

He grinned, Kevin was with Muffy, and he had a beautiful sexy woman in the house. It was time to take advantage of the situation.

*****

Future woke up to sunshine blazing through the sheer curtains in the master bedroom. She stretched her legs and felt the burn in her muscles from last night’s activities. Hugh had gone out of his way to make an impression, and he succeeded. Her nipples hardened as she remembered his determination to turn her into one big nerve of pleasure. She learned to appreciate his stamina for making love. Last night couldn’t be described as screwing, it was too raw and beautiful to be reduced to something so impersonal. She’d tried to return the pleasures he gave her and hope she succeeded as well as he did for her.