Lance

 

It was an interesting first night.

 

I watched Jamie and Gigi together during dinner. Gigi lit up when she was with her teacher, and I could see how much Jamie cared about her. I felt good inside, as weird as it seemed. Gigi wasn’t alone.

 

What the hell happened to me? On Monday morning, I was a single dude, nothing in my way. By Friday night, I was a dad who actually gave a shit about my kid and whether she was happy.

 

Damn it.

 

It wasn’t just that she was mine, that I wanted to be the one who took care of her because I owned her or something. I felt responsible for her. She needed me.

 

It was new. My guys needed me. I was used to that. But they didn’t depend on me for, like, food. I made decisions and we worked together, but if I wasn’t around, they could probably make decisions without me. They might not have been the right decisions, but they would get along.

 

Gigi couldn’t do that. Everything was new for her. And I wanted to make it as good as I could. That was what scared me the most. That I could make or break this kid’s entire life. Was I ready for that? I had to be. Any parent had to be.

 

Then there was Jamie. Fuck, I wanted her. The more she pissed me off, the more I wanted her. The more she made me want to strangle her, the more I wanted her. I couldn’t explain it if I tried. I just knew she was different. Special. She wouldn’t put up with any shit. She was too smart for that.

 

And she loved my kid. I had to respect that. It made me want her even more.

 

I had to play it cool, which was new for me. Usually, women went after me. I didn’t have to try. I knew I wasn’t bad looking, but it was the power thing they were attracted to. And I knew how to talk to them, get them to smile.

 

That sort of thing didn’t work with Jamie. I had to rethink a lot of things. She didn’t care about me being the head of a club—she hated me for it, I could tell. She would rather have been anywhere else in the world than with us. Even though she seemed to get along okay with the girls, which was good. I didn’t want any cat fights in the clubhouse.

 

“How’s it going?” Flash muttered over a mouthful of food. I shrugged. “Is she staying?”

 

“Yeah, she’s staying.”

 

“You gonna let her take Gigi?”

 

“No way.” I didn’t take my eyes off the two of them.

 

“What are you gonna do when she wants to leave?”

 

“I don’t know. I have to find Rae. That’s it.”

 

“How are you gonna do that?”

 

I shrugged. “No idea.”

 

***

 

After dinner, I got together with Flash and a couple of my most trusted guys. Jax and Slate sat around my office, waiting for me to give instructions.

 

“We need to find Rae,” I said.

 

“We’ve been trying all week,” Jax pointed out.

 

“Yeah, she disappeared.” Slate shrugged.

 

“Nobody just disappears.” I stood up, pacing back and forth. My fists were clenched in the pockets of my jeans. “She has to be around somewhere, and if not, somebody’s gotta know something about where she went or why she’s gone. If she’s dead, I wanna know. If she’s holed up somewhere, I wanna know. And we haven’t been looking as hard as we could.” I stared at my men, even Flash, and they all looked at the floor. “Right?”

 

“There’s other stuff going on, too,” Slate reminded me.

 

“Yeah, no shit. But here’s the thing. We’ve gotta get this kid outta here one way or another. I want it to be under my terms. That teacher out there thinks she’s taking her. I can’t let that happen. But the whole thing is pointless if Rae walks back in, wanting her back. See what I mean? Do you wanna hand her over to a junkie who deserts her like that?”

 

“You know we don’t,” Jax muttered. “She’s a sweet kid.”

 

“Yeah, she is. I had a junkie mother of my own. I know what a bitch it is growing up in a house like that.” I didn’t wanna think about it, but the memories flooded in anyway. The way she was always stoned, always far away. When she wasn’t stoned, she was sick, shaking, looking for the next fix. She stole my toys, sold them. Sold my school books. I never had clothes or food. Then, she OD’d. I was sent to foster care. That was where the real fun started.

 

“Where do we go, then? We already talked to all the dealers we know,” Flash explained. “Where next?”

 

I thought about it. “What about the clubs? She used to like clubbing.”

 

“There are a million clubs downtown,” Jax reminded me.

 

“I think there are a few we can rule out. Like the gay clubs, the leather clubs. She wasn’t into that sorta thing.”

 

“How do you know? You didn’t even know she had your kid.” Jax smirked.

 

“That’s true. Maybe she went gay after she knew it would never get better than me.” We all snickered. “Seriously, though. I think if we all split up, we can find out something. Was she with anybody? Maybe he would know something. It’s a start.”

 

Flash nodded. “Okay. Why don’t we split it up into blocks?” We decided to do that, and we each took a three-block radius. Somebody had to find something in that amount of space.

 

Otherwise, I was screwed.

 

We left the office, wanting to leave right away. It was only around eight o’clock, so we had plenty of time. The lounge was full, everybody gathering around the coffee table in the center.

 

“What’s going on?” Then I saw what was happening in the middle of the room. A few of the guys were teaching Gigi how to play poker.

 

“Seriously?” I looked around for Jamie, but she was nowhere. “Where’s Jamie?”

 

“She went home to get some clothes. She said she’d be right back.”

 

“So you teach my kid poker while she’s gone?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay, as long as you don’t start betting.”

 

“She’s doing really good,” I heard.

 

“Yeah, she’s kicking…butt.” Erica blushed, but caught herself before she used the word she wanted to use. It was still funny to me, all of them keeping their language clean for a kid.

 

“Don’t let Jamie see her doing this. She’ll have her outta here in a heartbeat.” I signaled for the guys to follow me, and we went out to our bikes before splitting up.

 

As I rode, I thought about the mess I was in with Jamie. It was hard enough having Gigi around without Jamie getting in the way. And it was all hard enough without Rae being a pain in the ass. I went from having no women in my life to having three. It was almost funny.

 

I started going from club to club in the city, asking about Rae. I described her as last I remembered her. “She probably changed something by now,” I admitted. “But she’s short, and probably skinny.” I imagined she was, with the drugs and everything. “She has brown hair.” Gigi told me that much.

 

Over and over, they told me they hadn’t seen her. A few of them knew who I was talking about, though. “Yeah, I know Rae,” one of them told me, a tall dude with a lot of metal in his face. “She was here not that long ago. Hang on.” He went to talk to one of the bouncers. I wondered at Rae being in a place like that. Was she into piercing? When did that happen?

 

Metal Face came back. “Yeah, she was in here on Sunday night. I remember thinking it was weird since she’s not usually here on Sundays.”

 

Sunday. And Gigi showed up on Monday.

 

“Did she have a boyfriend or anything?”

 

“Yeah, she was in here with Bobby D. every once in a while.” I remembered Bobby D. from when I used to hang out at the clubs. I couldn’t believe he was still alive—he was a hopeless crack head even back then.

 

“Has he been around?”

 

“He’s here, I think.” I couldn’t believe it—good luck, finally. It was about time something went my way. Metal Face looked around the club. It was still early enough that there weren’t that many people there. He waved me over once he found who he was looking for. I slipped him fifty bucks for his trouble, and took a seat next to Bobby.

 

He looked like shit, but that wasn’t a surprise. He smelled like shit, too. I wondered when he last took a shower. What was his life that he sat there looking and smelling like that? And what the hell was Rae doing with him?”

 

“Bobby?” I nudged him. He looked half asleep, slumped over the bar.

 

He sat up, blinking hard. “Yeah?”

 

“You don’t remember me, do you? Lance.”

 

He squinted hard, trying to bring me into focus. “Lance? No shit?”

 

“No shit. How’ve you been, Bob?”

 

“Oh, ya know, the same.” He swayed a little, and I held him up by the arm without thinking about how much I didn’t wanna touch him. I didn’t want the guy to fall off the stool, though—especially if he had information for me.

 

“I heard you’ve been hanging out with Rae lately.” I stared at him so I wouldn’t miss anything in his face that might give him away. A look, a nervous tick, something. I spent enough years asking questions of both friends and enemies to know what to look for.

 

“Yeah, so what?” At least he didn’t deny it.

 

“So I was wondering where she is. And why she never told me I have a kid.”

 

“Oh, so you met Gigi, huh?” He grinned. I felt sick to my stomach.

 

“You know Gigi?”

 

“Oh, sure. I been to the house a million times.” He shrugged. I felt even sicker. My kid, around this walking sack of shit. I hoped to God Rae never came back from wherever she was.

 

“Okay, great. So you’re tight with Rae. Where is she, man?”

 

He shrugged. “I ain’t seen her in days.”

 

“Yeah, well, she left the kid with me, and I’m sorta worried about her. Gigi doesn’t know where she went. Nobody does.”

 

“Whaddya want with her?”

 

“I wanna be sure she’s okay. I wanna be sure Gigi is safe, that her mom didn’t get her into trouble. Maybe she saw something she shouldn’t have seen, you know? Maybe that’s why she’s hiding the kid with me.”

 

“Nah, that wouldn’t happen.”

 

“You seem pretty sure.”

 

“I am sure, man. Rae never let Gigi be around when anything was going down.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Like, ya know, when she had people over to use. Know what I mean?” I wanted to kill the bastard. Shooting up, smoking crack, whatever he was doing—right there in the house with my kid.

 

“Yeah, she’s the mother of the year,” I snapped.

 

“She wasn’t using, though. So I thought it was funny…” He trailed off, like somebody flipped a switch and he was disappearing on me.

 

“What? What’s funny? Come on, Bobby. Talk to me.” I pulled him toward me by the lapel of his dirty jean jacket. “Stay with it, man. Stay with me long enough to help me.”

 

He focused on me again. “I thought it was funny she was going to get some heroin.”

 

My stomach clenched. “She was using again?”

 

“That’s the thing, man. Like I said, she wasn’t on it anymore. For a long time, even. I was proud of her. I wanted to stop, too…”

 

I rolled my eyes. He was doing a great job of it. “Do you know where she went?”

 

“She said something about…meetin’ with…crow…”

 

“No.” I shook him. “Do you mean The Scarecrow?” My eyes searched his face, hoping I only heard him wrong.

 

“Yeah, man. Scarecrow. She was gonna meet with him. He had the stuff for her.

 

“Oh shit.” I let go of Bobby, panicked. She met with the deadliest, most dangerous drug dealer in town the night before my daughter showed up at my doorstep. It didn’t sound good at all.”

 

“And you haven’t seen her since?”

 

“No, man.”

 

“Not even that night? Not even once? Please, think hard about it.”

 

“I’m thinking hard, man. And I’m telling you, I ain’t seen her since then.” He shrugged, falling forward a little at a time. I left him there, getting up, going to the front door. I thanked Metal Face again before I left, then turned back. “Listen, if you see Rae in here, can you call me?” I wrote down my cell number. He promised to give me a call.

 

I texted the guys to tell them I talked to Bobby and gave them the basic rundown. As soon as I mentioned The Scarecrow, all of them lost their shit the way I had. They knew, like I did, that he wasn’t somebody to fuck around with. What the hell was Rae doing with him, then? Especially when she was supposed to be clean.

 

Wasn’t there anybody else she could have gone to? I thought it over when I got on my bike. There had to be something deeper going on. Something else was missing, some piece of the puzzle. No way she went from being clean one day to walking on the wild side the next day. If she was in trouble with The Scarecrow, no way I could help her. He was into some deep shit, and the stories I heard about him made even my skin crawl.

 

I remembered what Bobby said about Gigi. Rae always made sure she wasn’t around when people were shooting up at the house. Why would Rae let people do that in front of her when she wasn’t using anymore? Was she dealing? Maybe she was a go-between for The Scarecrow? Even if she wasn’t using, she might have been making money from it. Fuck. And she had my daughter in that house with her?

 

I couldn’t jump to conclusions. She might have relapsed. Maybe she took a taste on Sunday and decided she needed more. I knew it was just that easy—I had seen my mother go through it enough times to know too well.

 

I went back to the clubhouse, wanting to talk things over with the guys and maybe ask Gigi a couple of questions if she was still awake. I imagined she had kicked the shit out of most of the club at poker by then. I grinned thinking about it. Maybe there was something to be said for genetics after all. She played cards just like her old man.