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Little Toy Bikers and a Woman on the Run

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Chapter 409 Running Leads

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David Hale hated seeing Jax and Scarlett together. It had nothing to do with his feelings for her; it had everything to do with not wanting to see her drawn into Jax's dangerous outlaw life. If she stayed with him, it was inevitable that it would end in tragedy. He didn't want that for her; it was that simple. He wanted to rescue her and make her see that Jax was nothing more than a criminal.

He had that sinking sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach that Louise was never going to be found alive. That might be what his gut was telling him, but his brain wanted to believe they could get her back.

He needed Jax's help, so he sucked it up and went outside to speak to him.

"Glad I caught you before you left," Hale said as he walked up to Jax and Scarlett. "Do you have a minute?" he asked.

"Sure," Jax said.

"It's OK, Scarlett," he said as she started to leave. "I need to talk to you too."

"The reward has given us some new leads. The county's going to join the search tomorrow, but even then, we don't have the manpower to get to every lead. Some of them are in areas where law enforcement isn't exactly welcome. Can you help us with these leads?"

"Yeah," Jax said agreeing quickly. "We planned on continuing the search tomorrow if necessary. I get what you're saying about some people being more likely to talk to us than you. Anything we can do to help find Louise, we're in."

"Thanks Jax," Hale said gratefully.

He didn't like having to ask Jax for a favor, but it wasn't about him and his ego. It was about finding Louise and just as Jax said SAMCRO was in it to do anything they could to find Louise, so was Charming PD.

"Where do I come in?" Scarlett asked. "I'm almost done with my list."

"I was thinking that you could work out of the PD tomorrow and coordinate SAMCRO's work in running down leads and forward the results to me."

Hale watched as Jax's hand came up and rested lightly on the small of Scarlett's back. It was a fairly subtle claim of ownership by Jax.

"Sure, I can do that," she agreed.

"SAMCRO is also throwing some money into the reward pot," Jax said. "We're going to be announcing it later this afternoon. The TV station is going to do an interview."

"Good. The more attention, the better. Hopefully one of the leads will pan out."

He left them and returned to his office. This was what he hated the most—the uncertainty of everything. He kept getting pictures of Louise being horrifically tortured and begging for help. His imagination sometimes got the better of him.

They just had to find her before she was killed.