"What are we missing?" Juice asked. He was staring at the white board in Kit's office that was crammed with names and addresses. Most were crossed off as dead ends. They had spent the past twelve hours trying to piece together any place that Salazar or his girlfriend could be. Friends and any relative within 50 miles no matter how distant had made the cut. They had been passing on the info to the Sons and Mayans to investigate.
Kit's phone vibrated on the desk. She glanced at it and then looked back to the board, declining the call. William had been calling since last night. She hadn't really decided what to tell him about her absence yet. She was too focused on the matter at hand to try and come up with something he'd believe. The truth would just garner too many questions.
"You should just answer so he stops calling," Juice said with a half-smile. "I'm guessing that's the boyfriend?"
Rachel must have told him about William. "If I answer, how will I keep him wanting more?" she said, smirking. "I just can't deal with it right now."
"Whatever you say." Juice yawned. "There has to be someone we've missed. Maybe they're at a dead relative's place or something."
Kit got up and started pacing. She had the same feeling Juice had. There had to be some small but obvious detail that they overlooked. "Why wouldn't he have made demands by now? He's obviously not going to kill her. There are Mayan charters all over the country. If he killed her, he might as well kill himself." She was thinking out loud.
"Not knowing is killing Alvarez," Juice pointed out.
"But the more time passes, the more of a chance he'll be found. Why else wouldn't he reach out? Maybe he can't. "
They sat with that for a few minutes until a knock at the door broke their concentration. Kit went to open it and let in two more sons. Jax and Opie came in with coffee from the café a few doors over in the strip mall. They hadn't received a call in nearly three hours so they decided to come over and check on the progress.
"Anything new?" Jax asked. He walked over to the board and crossed off a few addresses that they had looked into last night. The whole list was impressive. He couldn't believe that a single one hadn't come back with anything, not even a clue as to where this psycho was.
"We're in a bit of a rut. Any new developments with the Mayans?" Juice asked. He was exhausted and really grateful for the coffee.
Opie shook his head and sat down in one of the chairs across the desk. "Lumpy's not doing well, probably won't make it."
"That's the gym owner, right?" Kit asked. Something clicked. There was someone they hadn't looked into far enough. "Why did the mayor hire Salazar to kill him again?"
"Hale hired him to shake Lumpy up a bit, not seriously hurt him. He wants the old man to sell his business. It's the last piece he needs to start new development in Charming," Jax told her. "He admitted to paying Salazar once the guys got a bit rough with him. You think he might be helping them?"
She sat back at her desk. "Maybe not voluntarily." She started tapping away at her keyboard. She pulled up the first hit on Hale she saw. It was from Charming's town hall webpage. Jacob Hale Jr. was a developer, local entrepreneur, and a prominent member of the town. His family had money and the best investment for money was always property. "I think that Hale got in over his head. He didn't know what he was doing by hiring Salazar. What if Salazar threatened him and is blackmailing him in exchange for a safe haven? 'You don't help me and I'll tell everyone what kind of a man you really are.'"
"We've checked out Hale's house and buildings his company developed in town," Opie said.
"The ones you know about," she said.
Kit picked up her phone and started dialing a number she'd memorized long ago. The fastest way to find out what normal people were hiding was to look at their taxes. She had met an accountant that worked for the Internal Revenue Agency years ago at a party. She, and Sean occasionally, paid him for information on what exactly people were telling their government. Kit gave him Hale's name and he gave her five addresses of places he owned and another twelve that his firm had developed. Opie and Jax went down the list and crossed off the ones they'd already checked out.
"We should call the guys. They can check the rest of these out."
Kit typed them into her computer. "Not all of them. If what I suggested is true, Hale wouldn't keep them at a development site. Three of these properties are within Charming. It's a small town and I'm sure it would look suspicious if three Mexicans just moved into one of Hale's houses, one against her will. Neither of these idiots would want that. These two addresses are on the outskirts."
"Tig and Clay went here last night and said it was deserted. It was just land, no property," Opie said, pointing at one of the addresses on the list. "We can start at the other one and go from there."
"Let's go," Jax said, looking at each of his brothers.
"I'm coming too," Kit said, also getting up.
Jax was a bit caught off guard. He shook his head. "It's too dangerous. We need more leads. You shou-
"I should come with you. And I am. We're out of leads and I can't sit in this room anymore. I know the danger and I can take care of myself. This isn't my first rodeo, Jax," she said.
They stared at each other for a few moments. Jax really didn't want Kit to get too involved in this. Looking for a person from an office was one thing but being on the front line was another. He didn't want her to get in the way either. But she was smart enough to figure this all out and for that he had to give her credit. The determination in her eyes spoke volumes. She wouldn't back down.
"Alright," he finally said. "You'll ride with me. Let's go."
Kit smiled, pleased that he'd agreed. This was her find and she wasn't going to miss out if it was real. She made sure the gun in her bag was loaded and followed them out to their motorcycles. Jax gave her his helmet to wear and she got on behind him. The adrenaline was already flowing through her veins. She was practically giddy. It probably didn't help matters that she had her arms around the guy she was interested in. It felt good to be excited. This was why she loved her job, the thrill of the hunt. As they took off, she silently prayed that this wasn't another dead-end.
The final address that Jacob Hale owned was on land between Lodi and Charming. It was off the main roadway and down a long, winding, dirt road. Jax, Juice and Opie parked their bikes out of sight off the path. If this was real, the sound of motorcycles approaching would alert Salazar and that could end in bloodshed. They would just walk the rest of the way in. Juice and Opie walked ahead to scout the situation while Jax and Kit covered the rear.
"This road was driven on very recently," Kit remarked as she walked next to Jax. "A day or two ago, maybe."
"Yeah?" Jax was impressed with her work so far.
She nodded confidently and gave him a half-smile. "My father was a hunter. He taught me how to track in the wild."
"Hunt a lot of cars in your time?"
"Ha-ha. You never know who else is out in the forest with you. The most important thing is knowing your surroundings. That life lesson from dear old dad has always held true," she told him.
"You and your old man close?" Jax asked.
She shrugged. "Yeah, we were actually." She glanced at him. She hadn't spoken to anyone about her father in nearly a decade. Not even small talk. It was strange to be talking about him now with Jax. Whenever she thought about him, a lot of negative emotions usually came with it, but not today.
"Were?"
"He died when I was fifteen. Both my parents did. I moved out here to live with Rachel's family after that and I sort of never left."
"Must've been hard. I lost my dad when I was fifteen too. It sucks." He put his arm around her. He liked how it felt when they were like that, when she was close. It was like she was a perfect fit.
"Maybe we should start a club," she joked. "Fifteen and Fatherless. It will be super exclusive and incredibly grim and dark all at the same time."
He grinned. "I'm down if you are darlin'." It faded as he saw Juice and Opie start walking back toward them. They were walking quickly and had their guns out.
"There's a cabin with a car parked out front. It's Salazar's girlfriend's. I remember the model when we looked it up," Juice told them.
"We heard a woman yelling inside," Opie added. "Looks like we've got a live one."
Kit withdrew her gun from her small cross-body bag. She had a silencer on the end. She had always felt that guns were too loud and that drew a lot of unwanted attention. With her gun in her hand, her blood really started pumping.
"Juice, call Clay and tell him we'll need back up. We'll call Alvarez when we know for sure if his wife is in there. Me and Kit will take the back door. You guys take the front. We'll go in at the same time," Jax said.
Everyone agreed and both pairs made their way to the respective cabin doors, avoiding the windows. Jax pointed his gun at the lock on the back door. Kit was ready with her gun fully loaded. He fired and kicked the door open. A woman was in the middle of the room, frozen for a moment in shock. She quickly grabbed the gun on the coffee table beside her and started firing wildly. This had to be Salazar's girlfriend, Luisa. She backed herself behind the kitchen island. Juice and Opie had burst in seconds after Jax had and were the closest targets. They immediately moved as bullets started flying. The Sons started yelling for her to put the gun down and were firing back.
When a bullet flew an inch from Kit's head, she got into motion. Once the gunfire had started, Jax moved to the hallway off the kitchen and she had taken cover behind an armchair. She couldn't sit by and wait for this woman to run out of ammunition. If she was going to be shot, it wouldn't be as a coward. She moved into the open and was immediately hit in the arm though she hardly felt it with all the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Instead she took her shot, hitting Luisa's right hand causing her to drop the gun. Her next two shots hit each of her upper arms.
Opie took the opportunity to grab Luisa before she could do any more damage. Jax and Juice came to his aid and within a few minutes, they had her hands and feet bound. The VP then walked over to Kit, not in the least bit pleased.
"What the fuck was that?! Are you suicidal or just out of your mind?!" he yelled.
"I knew what I was doing," Kit told him calmly, her eyes not shying away from his. She shrugged off her jacket and saw that the bullet that hit her had actually just grazed her. The wound was superficial. She didn't make a mistake and she wouldn't apologize for what she did just because Jax didn't like it. "I took a risk and it paid off."
"A few inches over and you would be dead," Jax said. He couldn't believe her audacity. She put herself directly in the line of fire and for what? A few more seconds and they could have taken the woman down. Her impatience could have killed her.
"I guess it's a good thing that's not how things went." She walked off to the bathroom and found some clean towels. She wrapped one around her arm to stop the bleeding and took the rest for Luisa. Jax had quickly checked the rooms at the back of the cabin when they came in and Kit assumed that he hadn't found Salazar. When she returned to the main room, Jax was on the phone and Juice had found Alvarez's wife who was crying and very shaken up. Opie was questioning Luisa to little avail.
"Don't bother. We should just let her die," he remarked when he saw Kit with the towels.
"Not yet," she said. "Salazar's not here. She's the leverage you need to flush him out." She started wrapping the towels around Luisa's wounds. The woman allowed her to do it, aware of the fact she could bleed out if Kit didn't. She didn't move or make a sound except to whimper at the pain.
Jax closed his phone and walked over to Luisa, his anger still lingering. "Where's Salazar?" he asked, his tone hard. When she didn't answer, he kicked her in the stomach and asked again. It continued twice more until she finally relented that she didn't know. He never came back, she claimed.
"I don't believe her," Jax said, ready to hit her this time with his fists. He didn't believe in hitting women but this was an exception and it seemed to be working.
Kit stopped him. "She might be telling the truth. Just think about it. The only reason he wouldn't have made demands of Alvarez yet or come back here is because he couldn't. Someone or something must have stopped him." She turned to the girlfriend. "Where did he go when he last left?"
Luisa looked at Jax and then back to Kit. She'd rather deal with the good cop in this situation. She was already fucked. She had told Hector that kidnapping Alvarez's wife was a bad idea but he had done it anyway. Now she was stuck along for the ride. "He went to meet with Hale. He wanted to hurt the Sons of Anarchy too." She turned to Jax. "He wanted to take your son and needed to know where to find him."
Jax could feel his anger rising. The one thing that kept it in check was the fact that he knew Abel was safe, and Tara too for that matter. Clay had mentioned that everyone was still at the clubhouse. "That never happened. So, where the fuck is he?" He walked away from everyone. This was pointless. She didn't know anything more than they did. He went out to the porch and lit a cigarette. The Sons had done their bit. Alvarez could come collect his wife and the Mayans could deal with the rest.
A few minutes later, Kit walked out of the cabin. She was on her phone but she needed to find Jax. She had good news. "Alright love, I owe you one," she said and hung up, a smile spread across her face. "I found him."
Jax wondered who she had spoken to. "How? Where is he?"
"The police have him. I figured when we couldn't find him anywhere, he had to be locked up somewhere no one would have seen him, somewhere he couldn't just leave of his own free will."
"I'm sure the Mayans have at least one cop from San Joaquin on their payroll that would have said something."
"He's not with the Sheriff's office. He got picked up for possession. Apparently he was carrying quite a bit of meth. My guess is Hale planted it in his car and called it in to take Salazar off the street. Or he's just a meth-head which I wouldn't doubt at this point. The DEA have him. I know someone in the office and with a little sweet talk, he revealed that Salazar has made it more than clear he is very willing to start spouting stories from gangland."
"Jesus Christ." This could get bad. They needed to kill him before he gave the feds anything. SAMCRO was selling guns to the Mayans. If Salazar started working with them, they could use him to shut down the Mayans' drug trade and the Sons' gun running by kick-starting a RICO case. Jax would have to wait to discuss what their next move would be until Clay and Alvarez got there.
He looked at Kit. "How's the arm?"
She hopped up and sat on the wooden porch railing. "I'll live. I'll just have a really hot looking battle scar. How can any man resist that? It'll just drive them wild."
Jax couldn't help but laugh with her. He liked that she was the kind of person who could make light of terrible things like dead fathers and getting shot. "It will be pretty sexy, I have to admit."
"I guess it was all worth it then," she teased. Kit realized that his anger about what she did had dissipated. He had reacted in the heat of the moment. Rachel had mentioned that he was a bit hot-headed. She liked that kind of volatile energy. She also liked that he could let it go so quickly and focus on the things that really mattered.
The roar of motorcycles interrupted their moment. A few seconds later, the rest of the Sons of Anarchy showed up with Mayans following on their Harleys. There was a lot to sort out. Kit watched Jax go to meet his brothers and fill them in. She pulled a cigarette out of her purse and lit up. She had done her part for the day. There was no reason to go back inside.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out thinking it might be her DEA friend. It was William, again. She still didn't have an explanation to offer up. After taking a deep draw on her cigarette, she realized she didn't really care to think of one. She hit end and powered her phone off. She'd deal with that when she did.
A/N: I hope you enjoyed the latest instalment. Thanks for all the faves/follows/reviews. It always makes me smile and motivates me to write. xo A