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I give up drinking, pull up my phone and call Dane. Voicemail. “Fuck!… Dane, it’s me. Can you call me back? It’s urgent!”
Shit, I really need to talk to him, so I call Bran, then Bernie, then Cade and the same, straight to voicemail.
Fuck it! I head out and jump in the truck. I probably shouldn't ride my bike since I’ve been drinking.
I pull up outside the house, and the lights are off, but I knock on the door anyway. It takes a few minutes, but Marie comes to the door. “Dice? What are you doing here?”
“Sorry to bother you, Marie, I need to see them.”
“Dice… they’re not here. They left when Ray went missing; they haven’t been back since.”
“Shit!” I tell her everything that happened in court today and send her a picture of the woman who turned up that I hacked into the court system for.
“Dice, I’ll let you know if they find her. They’re tracking down leads. They’re relentless. They will search till they find her and bring her home.
“Thanks, Marie. If you do hear from them, can you get Dane to call me…? I think I owe him an apology.”
“Night, Dice.” She takes a step back into the house and clicks the door shut.
Why does it feel like my heart is breaking? Like I’ve lost them all? The way Marie looked at me and spoke to me was cold and detached. I know she’ll know what’s going on. She’s so intelligent, and while she comes across as an apple pie sweet, friendly neighbourhood woman, she helped raise Ray, Bran and Dane, and she’s been around those men for years. I know she knows more than she says.
As I get back to the clubhouse, the wake is still going strong. That’s what it feels like a wake. It feels like we’re mourning the loss of someone we love. I bypass it and head straight to my room. I need to start looking for her. I need to bring her home, and I need to make her forgive me.
Steel gets released the next day. When the court officials went to the holding cell to take the DNA sample from the imposter, she was dead; it looked like she had taken some poison or something. She was on the floor, contorted at weird angles, eyes bulging and foaming at the mouth. We never got any answers, so they had to release Steel.
We’re all waiting outside as Ares pulls up in the truck with Steel and Scar. We all hug Steel and welcome him home. He steps back, taking us all in.
“Fuck I’ve missed you all. Someone please tell me you know where she is?”
We all glance around and then shake our heads.
“Fuck!” he bellows as he kicks the wooden post of the railing around the deck at the front of the clubhouse, splintering it into a million pieces, scattering pieces of wood all over the decking and leaving the railing hanging limp, unsupported. That’s what Ray must feel like.
“I’m looking through all the footage, what little there is. I’ve tried to contact the guys, but no one’s returning my calls. Marie says they left as soon as Ray went missing, and they haven’t been back since.”
“So what, she just vanished? Show me. Show me everything!” He pushes past and barges into the clubhouse, glaring over his shoulder. “Fucking now, Dice!” he barks as he continues toward the rooms.
Steel is already pacing when I walk into the tech room with Ares, Viking, Tank, Blade, Priest and Dozer. “Five fucking weeks, she’s been gone five fucking weeks, and no one was even looking for her? Fuck! What have we done? What the fuck have I done?” He slams his back against the wall and bangs his head back into it a few times before sliding down and crumpling to the floor. Cupping his face in his hands, he goes silent. The only noise in the room is his ragged breaths, and as he looks up, his eyes are red and glazed, and tears have tracked down his face.
“I fucked the doctor while I was in prison,” he mumbles out. “I thought Ray was behind everything. The guy that shanked me said, ‘Ray sends her regards!’ as he plunged the shank into my side, so I fucked the doctor, and she’ll never forgive me for that. She’s off god knows where, and I was getting my dick wet, wanting to hurt her for what I thought she was doing.”
“Hey! We’ve all let her down!” Ares crouches beside him with his hand on his shoulder.
“Speak for yourself!” Tank spits. “I told you! I told you all! And not one of you believed she wouldn’t do this. If we don’t find her, it’s on all of your heads.” He points at us all except Dozer and Priest and spits again, “This! This is on you if she doesn’t come back!” He turns, slamming the door and leaves.
“I’ll go after him,” Priest says as he leaves too.
“He’s right!” Ares says softer than I’ve ever heard him speak. His voice, normally so restrained and authoritative, is now barely a whisper. “I was the worst! I saw what I wanted to see even before she went. I didn't trust her over The Armoury thing, I was a twat! Now, let’s find our girl. The sooner we do, the sooner the grovelling can start.”
I fire up the computers, and we start from scratch. We find footage I couldn't before, now whether that's because I didn't look hard enough or it was hidden I can't be sure. We follow her as she leaves in the limo. We have footage of her leaving, and we track them till just before they get to the ball, and then the footage is cut. I backtrack, having an idea. “Who sent the limo?”
“It was one Bernie arranged. That's why it picked Ray up first, then they picked that guy… what’s his name, up before heading to the ball.”
I track the vehicle again, concentrating on the driver. When I get a clear enough shot of him, I pull a screen grab, download it into my facial rec programme, and leave it running in the background.
“What was the name of the hotel?” I ask. I know the footage was wiped, though.
“The Grosvenor.” Steel informs me, still from his position on the floor. “I thought everything was wiped?”
