“Where was Cody Miller yesterday between the hours of nine a.m. and noon?” Dax was sitting at the same interrogation table he’d been at the last time they hauled him in. Only then, it had been Angel’s brother doing the interrogation and he’d found out much later that Angel had been down the hall the entire time. Now Kyle was “too close” to Dax, supposedly, so a guy named Chris Matheson was conducting the interview. He didn’t think he was as badass as Kyle did, so that was a little bit of a relief.

“I had breakfast with Cody and my old lady. I guess that was around eight-thirty. Then I asked him if he could take some DVDs out to a guy staying at the Roadside Inn. I don’t really care to have strangers on the ranch…present company not excepted.”

Matheson rolled his eyes. “So that was at what time?”

“I guess about nine, nine-thirty maybe.”

“Did he go alone?”

“No, he took a guy that goes by the name Scalper with him. He’s the father of a friend of Cody’s and they were interested in knowing how we operate the DVD business.”

“You mean porn?”

“If that word makes you happier.”

“What time did Cody Miller get back to your ranch?”

“No idea. I didn’t see him until a little later.”

“So he could have gone to the Roadhouse Inn, killed Stitch, and gone back to the ranch in a matter of hours conceivably.”

“Conceivably, if he was looking to do something like that.”

“Did Cody know Stitch well?”

“Not that I know of. As far as I know he only met him the one time.”

“What were the Irish Mayhem doing on your ranch?”

“Visiting. Liam O’Shea and I are good friends.”

“Really? Friends? Not business partners?”

“Nope. We don’t have much business in common that I know of. But yes, Liam and I go way back as friends.”

“So if I ask your…old lady, she’ll tell me the same thing?”

“I have no idea what my old lady will tell you. She has a mind of her own. You’d have to ask her to find out what she’d say.”

Chris sat down across from Dax and said, “Look, Marshall, I’ve been on this task force for almost a year now. I’ve seen how you’ve brought that ranch and your club around to our side of the law. I’ve gone from three calls a day at least, to sleeping through almost every night. I haven’t had to clean up a murder in a long time, so believe me when I say that I’m not hoping your boy Cody had anything to do with this one. I’m hoping this one turns out to be a random thing that the Skulls have nothing to do with. But I’m going to be honest with you—it looks bad that Cody’s fingerprints were found at the scene.”

“It’s a motel, a popular one for quickies in the middle of the afternoon. I’d bet the ranch that you found a lot more than Cody’s fingerprints.”

“True. But your boy has been out of prison for less than a month.”

Dax chuckled. “All the more reason for his fingerprints to be at a no-tell motel, if you know what I mean.”

“It would behoove him then to produce a date he was there…and a woman, or a man, that he was with.”

Dax rolled his eyes. “You gonna ask every other dude whose fingerprints were in that room to do the same?”

“Cody’s were the only fingerprints we found that belonged to a felon on parole.”

“And you think whoever killed Stitch wouldn’t think to wear gloves or wipe their fingerprints down before they left the room?”

“You want to know what I think, honestly?” Dax didn’t respond so he went on. “I think that Cody killed this guy by accident or in self-defense, and he panicked. He didn’t go there to kill anyone, so he wasn’t worried about the fingerprints ahead of time and was in too much of a panic to worry about them afterwards.”

“Interesting theory,” Dax said.

“Maybe you could talk to him and tell him that if that’s what happened…it would behoove him to come forward, and tell the truth, and it would benefit your club.” Dax had done his best to keep a bored, disinterested expression on his face the whole time, but that made him laugh out loud.

“It would ‘benefit’ my club…how, exactly?”

“It would show the police and the community that you’re serious about going straight.”

Dax snorted. He was bored with this whole thing; his entire morning had been wasted already. He wanted to get back to the ranch. He had a lot of damage control to do. “If that’s all, I’d really like to get going now.”

“I’m not finished,” Chris said. “I haven’t gotten anything from you at all, Dax. I would think a man in your position would be a little more willing to help us out.”

“A man in my position?”

“Yes. You have been working on your club’s reputation. You’re in a relationship with the sister of one of our best detectives and she used to be a cop herself…I’m just saying, with all the work you’ve done to go straight, do you really want it all to go up in smoke for the act of one stupid kid that can’t seem to keep his ass out of trouble?”

Dax leaned across the table until he was face to face with Chris and only about four inches separated them. “Look, Detective, Cody is my family. He has made some mistakes, but so have we all. I don’t believe he killed this man and I’m not sure why you’re trying so hard to prove that he did. But trust me when I say I won’t turn my back on him and neither will the rest of my club. And, since you brought it up, the fact that my old lady’s family is in law enforcement, and she used to be, has nothing whatsoever to do with the day-to-day operations of my business. So, long story short…you’re wasting a hell of a lot of time by having me take up space in this interrogation room. And…one more thing…”

“What’s that?” Chris hadn’t moved back. He was trying hard to prove that he wasn’t any more intimidated by Dax than Dax was by him.

“I have things to do today, so I’d appreciate it if you’d either arrest me, or let me go home now.”

“And what if I say I’m not planning on arresting you, just holding you for the full forty-eight hours the law allows to see what you decide to tell me?”

“I’d say you were a fool. You’ll be taking up sorely needed space in your jail for however long it takes for my attorney to get me released. I’m not a person of interest in this murder, am I?”

“Not yet.”

“Good. So when or if I am, come and give me a ride back in…I’ll have my attorney meet us here. I’m leaving now, Detective Matheson, unless you arrest me. Your choice.”

Chris Matheson took a few more seconds to stare him down and then he stood up and shoved his chair in hard against the metal table. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Dax smiled. “Thanks.” He stood up too. “Can I take Cody with me or do I need to call the attorney for him?”

“That’ll be up to Detective Brady,” Chris said with a smile. He opened the door and let Dax go out first. Dax saw Kyle Brady at his desk. Of all Angel’s brothers, Kyle was the one he was having the hardest time liking. He almost smiled when he thought about Cody’s little friend being his girlfriend. Kyle had no idea what he’d gotten himself into, Dax was sure. If Hannah had shown her true colors, Kyle would have kicked her to the curb by now. He was all black and white, no gray areas. Dax was a lot like him, but they stood on opposite sides of that thin blue line. Dax strolled over to Kyle’s desk and said:

“Is Cody Miller free to go?” Kyle looked up at Dax and then over at Chris.

“That’ll be up to parole,” he finally said. Dax would bet that it was hard for Kyle to stay out of the interrogation room he’d been in. Kyle loved control, and the fact that Dax was in a relationship with his sister took a lot of that out of his hands, and pissed him off to no end.

“So, can I talk to parole?”

“Miss Hoffman is his PO. She was here, but she had to step out. When she gets back, I’ll ask her.”

“Cody didn’t have anything on him. I’d be willing to bet he passed your drug test. What violation was she thinking about calling him out on? He hasn’t done shit, and I’m getting a little sick and tired of these games you’re all playing, just because you think you can get away with it.” Dax’s patience was running thin.

“You can tell that all to Miss Hoffman. I’m done with him for now. Keeping him until she got back was her idea.”

“Where did she go?”

Kyle smiled again and pissed Dax off more before he even heard what his almost brother-in-law had to say next. “She had to go and toss a place, one of her parolees is up to no good…”

“She’s at the ranch?” Kyle didn’t answer him with words, just another smug smile that Dax really wanted to wipe off his face…and not gently.

* * *

It was six hours from the time Cody and Dax were taken from the ranch into town until they were in the car with Angel on their way home. Cody wondered if Dax had told Angel how he felt about Kyle. It was obvious when the two men were together that the fuse was lit and the explosion was imminent. In front of Cody, Angel didn’t ask any questions, and Dax didn’t offer any explanations. When they got back to the ranch, they dropped him off at the clubhouse and Dax told him they’d talk in the morning. It was already late afternoon, and Cody was exhausted, so he was grateful.

There were a few guys in the clubhouse, but everyone’s mood was subdued and no one even tried to talk to him as he grabbed a bottle of whiskey from behind the bar. He was in the mood for a fat blunt too, but there weren’t any in the box under the counter where they usually kept them. The place was spotlessly clean. Cody’s guess was that the blunts had either been tossed before the police arrived, or they had taken them with them. He passed Hawk on his way to the stairs and braced himself for a ration of shit. Instead, the old man patted him on the shoulder and just kept going. Something about that encounter gave Cody a sense of déjà vu, but he shook it off and kept going.

When he opened the door to his room and saw the mess the police had left it in, he was pissed all over again. He wasn’t pissed at the police or his PO, he was pissed at himself when it dawned on him that this was the kind of mess everyone else had probably spent the better part of the day cleaning up. He kicked his way through his things all over the floor and made a path to the window. He pulled the curtains closed tightly, stripped out of his clothes, and lay down on the bed. He lay there for a long time staring at the ceiling. The police hadn’t had anything concrete to hold him on, but they had seemed determined to keep looking. He thought about his life on the ranch and although the past month had been chaotic and stressful, every second of it had been better than life inside a 6 x 12-foot cell.

He sat up and opened the bottle he’d brought upstairs with him and took a swig. The whiskey burned going down, but the warm flush it gave him afterwards felt good. He took a few more drinks before setting it on the bedside table and lying down again. He wanted to go to sleep and just forget about everything for a while, but his head wasn’t cooperating. As soon as he closed his eyes, his memories began to run through his mind like faded old home movies. Unfortunately, his old home movies weren’t like other people’s. There were no smiling faces or family vacations. His mind wanted to take him back to that trailer when the old man was alive and every second of his life was filled with terror.

As he lay there he was taken back to a day he’d all but forgotten. He realized, as he began to remember, that was why seeing Hawk smile at him had given him a sense of doing this all before. He was suddenly back in the rundown trailer with Keller. They were both sitting on the dirty, broken-down old couch that Cody slept on every night, and watching as the old man was put in handcuffs. The old man’s parole officer had come by to do a check and found him as high as a kite. They’d tossed the trailer and found more drugs…lots of them. Cody and Keller usually weren’t home when that happened, or they had some kind of advance warning that sent them scurrying off to the ranch or somewhere else to hide. The cops had caught them all off-guard that day and the two boys had been told to sit quietly and wait. What they were waiting for, they weren’t sure, and Cody was scared. But he remembered feeling an odd sense of relief when the police put the cuffs on the old man. In his young mind at that moment, all he could think was that they were going to take the monster away and at least for a while he wouldn’t have to worry about getting beaten. Keller looked more terrified than Cody felt and even more so when the lady in the white suit came through the door. She looked around distastefully at their home and then at them before introducing herself as Peggy. She said she was a social worker and she’d be taking them to a safe place. Keller looked like he was fighting tears at that point, but Cody still thought that anywhere had to better than where they were…with the old man.

They were put into the back seat of the county car and driven for what seemed to be hours. When the car stopped and they opened the door, Cody could see that they were in front of a big, cement building. He couldn’t read yet, so the words on the sign over the door didn’t mean anything to him. Keller was told to get out of the car and before Cody could follow him, the car door was closed again. They left his brother at a group home and didn’t even let the two say good-bye. Cody cried all the way to the foster home they took him to. It was in an old house in an old neighborhood and the five other kids at the home were younger than him. The lady seemed nice enough, but she looked tired and distracted and not overly happy to see the screaming seven-year-old. She spent some time trying to calm him down, but the only thing that was going to make Cody happy at that point was to be with his brother. The second she left him alone in the room she’d told him was his, he climbed out the window and took off. He had no idea where he was going and the days that followed on the streets were pure hell. He remembered being cold and hungry and more scared than even the old man had ever made him. When he finally stumbled upon a bar with about ten hogs parked out front, he was so happy that he started to cry. He ran inside, hoping that Doc or one of the other guys would be there.

He remembered a lot of yelling. He was being told to get out, kids weren’t allowed in the bar. The bikers were all in a far corner playing pool and Cody caught the eye of one of them as the bartender was rushing him out the door. Just about the time he crumpled his little body to the sidewalk and started to cry, this big man in a biker vest with a hairy face and a gruff voice was next to him saying, “Kid, where do you belong? Why are you out here all alone?”

Cody looked up at him through the tears and the snot and said, “I’m a Southside Skull.”

He remembered the biker throwing his head back and laughing. That day was his first ride on a hog. The big biker put him on the seat in front of him and gave him a helmet that covered most of his face. He drove him over three hundred miles to Hanover and the ranch. Cody could remember that the guy working the front gate didn’t believe him when he said he’d found Cody in a bar. Cody had to tell the guy he was telling the truth. He didn’t understand why Doc’s crew were holding guns on the man and accusing him of stealing seven-year-old Cody. His savior didn’t say anything until Doc arrived at the gates.

“Hawk, what’s going on?” Cody ran to Doc and the old man scooped him up into his meaty arms.

“I found him in a bar between here and Providence. I tried telling your guys that, but they’d rather shoot my ass than listen.”

“Cody, what were you doing in a bar?”

“I ran away. I was trying to come home and I saw the bikes like yours and Daddy’s so I went inside. This nice man brought me home.” Hawk was the “nice” man. Cody hadn’t remembered until that moment that he probably owed his life to the old guy, and Hawk had never reminded him. Cody opened his eyes and he knew at that moment that he had to do whatever would keep this club and the people that belonged to it safe, even if that meant once more telling the truth, turning himself in, and going to jail. The thought of it made him sick, but it made him sicker to think about how selfish he’d been. He promised himself that from then on, he’d remember that these people were his family and he’d do everything he could to make sure he put them first, always.