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After laughing with her mother, she sighed, feeling less stressed. “I love you, Ma.”
“Love you, too, Jo. I want a picture of this Rex, preferably with his shirt off.”
“Goodbye,” Jolene uttered, still laughing.
“Call me in a few days. And I wasn’t kidding about that picture.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Jolene ended the call, took another deep breath, and headed back inside.
Rex
Rex joined Axle, Pike, Dragon, Keys, and Skull in the room they used for church, which is what they called their club meetings. Being vice president of the Howlers, it made sense that Axle wanted Skull to be included. Keys was their tech guru, so it was important for him to have the information he needed in order to do anything tech-y. Pike was the sergeant at arms, and Dragon was an enforcer. They were the ones responsible for club security. All in all, the five of them in that room with him were the dream team.
After running through the story again and answering all of the questions they had for him, Rex watched his president. Axle seemed stressed, scratching at his beard, jaw tight. His gray eyes were swirling, and it was obvious by the way he was twitching that his wolf was pissed off.
“We’ll figure this out,” Keys said, low. He may be human, but he was picking up on Axle discomfort and anger.
Axle gave a nod. “I’ll contact Ordys and Lira to see if they have any insight. They might have news about Black Forest Academy, because I can’t help but think this is connected to that fucking hunter academy.”
“Logical assumption,” Skull commented with a nod.
“What do you want me to do?” Pike leaned a bit forward in his seat across from Skull.
“Organize search parties to scour the town. I want that fucking Pathfinder found.Now.”
Pike gave a nod. “Are we pulling in both clubs for church?”
“Yes. Tell them to close businesses down for the day if they fucking have to and be here in an hour. We’ll do it in the cafeteria. Rex, organize with Top and Ginger a place for the Ol’ Ladies and kids to be, but I want them on the compound.”
“Until this is over?” Dragon asked.
“For the time being,” Axle replied, which meant that it was going to at least be for the night. They had done this enough times to know Axle would err on the side of caution when it came to the women and children. He didn’t fuck around with their safety.
“I’ll get started on seeing what I can find on cameras around town,” Keys said and looked over to Skull. “I might need help. You up for it?”
Recently, Skull had taken an interest in technology and learning what he could from Keys. As odd as it was for the vice president to be playing assistant to a member of the club who wasn’t Axle, that’s exactly what he had been doing.
“Yup, unless Axle needs me to do something else?”
Axle shook his head. “I’ll contact Crush and have her call in her members. We can handle church. I want answers.”
While Skull and Keys set up the computer equipment in their church room, the rest of them parted ways. Pike and Dragon went to gather members and contact their mates. Axle, no doubt, was calling Gorgeous to have her come to the compound with Nugget.
When he stepped out of the clubhouse, Rex headed across the street to the tattoo parlor, where he knew he’d find Ginger, and probably Top. Once upon a time, Top and Ginger had been married and had three children together. It wasn’t a love match, really, even though Rex didn’t doubt there had been love there. It was more about neither of them having faith in finding their mates, but they both wanted to be parents. They made a deal and gave that to each other. The marriage didn’t last long after their third child was born, but they had remained close friends. Rex even suspected they still spent nights together on occasion, or at least they did before Top met Connie Taylor, Gorgeous’s mother.
Connie had been a true mate to Top, but she had been a widow and was battling cancer. She refused to mate Top because she didn’t want to saddle him with dealing with her illness. That had been what she had confided in Rex once, when he asked her why she didn’t let Top claim her. He didn’t have a heart to tell her that mating didn’t work that way. Top was going to feel her suffering just as strongly without her carrying his mating mark, and that was exactly what happened. When she passed away, Top was just as torn up as he would have been had he mated her.
Rex didn’t know if Top returned to Ginger’s bed after losing Connie. He respected Top enough not to invade his privacy like that, but he would understand if Top had. He’d spent his own time in Ginger’s bed when they had been young and still prospecting for their respective clubs. She had always been a beautiful woman. Once things progressed with them toward marriage, Rex backed off and had put his relationship with Ginger firmly in the friendzone.
They were close friends and that wouldn’t change, but it wouldn’t be anything more than that ever again. He held his friendship with both Top and Ginger very close to his heart. The two of them had always been his go-to friends when he needed anything. They often gravitated toward each other. Rex suspected it had to do with the fact that they were so close in age. Sure, he had other friends, and so did they, but he trusted no one more than he did them, not even Score, who he also considered a close friend.
Rex shoved aside his mental trip down memory lane as he yanked open the door to the tattoo parlor and headed inside. After nodding at Vixen, who was doing something on the computer at the front desk, Rex headed down the hall and found Ginger and Top sitting together on the couch in the breakroom in the back.
“Interrupting something?” Rex asked as he stepped in the room and shut the door behind him.
Cuddled into Top’s side, Ginger shot him a smile. “Would it stop you if you were?”
Rex chuckled and sat down in the armchair at the end of the couch, turned toward them. He shrugged. “Probably not. I’m not against voyeurism. Recently, I’ve learned I’m not against a lot of things.”
