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Chapter 632 Almost the Whole Truth

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Scarlett encouraged Jax to spend an extra night at the clubhouse. She knew her motives weren't pure; she was trying to put off telling him. It worked because she felt like an idiot when she finally reached the solution. Why had she been such a moron? The solution was so simple. She wasn't going to tell him the complete truth and she wasn't going to tell a complete lie.

Jax surprised her by having made Gemma's Spanish pork chop for dinner. It was simple consisting of rice, a can of tomatoes, an onion, a bell pepper , chops and seasoning. He explained that he'd always loved it and Gemma had been more than happy to give him her recipe and talk him through the preparation. Clay was still in the hospital and due to be released the next day or the day after and playing the dutiful wife was driving her crazy.

Scarlett looked at Jax over candlelight and was impressed with his cooking skill and that he'd actually made the meal romantic with the candles. She'd surprised herself by actually missing him when he'd spent the second night at the clubhouse. Typically, she liked a lot of alone time, but Jax was becoming the person she didn't mind sharing her alone time with.

"When I was with the guys, I talked to them about working Hale's leads on Louise's murder. We'll get to it starting Monday. I want to look at the leads and figure out who I want to send to follow up which leads."

"I can't believe we're finally getting back to our murder investigation. If there are any leads my dad or I can help with, let me know."

"The leads Hale gave me are talking to people who don't talk to cops—not the kind of people who will talk to strangers either. If they know anything, they'll talk to the MC."

Scarlett thought again about the MC link between Violet and Louise. She couldn't help wondering if she knew Violet and Louise's murderer. The sooner they could rule out the guys, the better. She was sure that Jax wouldn't believe that one of his brothers could be a brutal serial killer. It was one thing to kill as part of the MC, but it was different hunting and killing innocent women for fun, the thrill of it or to fill some sick need.

They cleared the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher before going into the bedroom. That was their refuge where they liked to watch TV together and talk.

"How about I take a shower first and while you are taking your shower, I'll get the ice cream ready."

"You got ice cream? What flavor?"

"Sack took me to the grocery story to get the dinner stuff and I got two flavors of ice cream chocolate peanut butter cup and blackberry cobbler."

"I love blackberry cobbler," Scarlett said.

"That's why I got it."

Jax was good about things like that remembering what she liked and what she didn't. She'd dated guys who could never remember even the basics of what she liked. She'd dated a guy for six months and he didn't know what color her eyes were. She knew that because he'd asked her. She had no idea how someone could be that unobservant, but the guy was a bit of a moron, so she shouldn't have been surprised.

Jax was already in bed, his back against the padded headboard both two dishes of ice cream complete with spoons waiting. She sat down cross-legged across from him and he handed her the dish he'd made for her with blackberry ice cream and a smaller scoop of chocolate peanut butter cup. He'd made his the opposite with a large scoop of chocolate and a smaller scoop of blackberry.

"Thanks," she said digging into her bowl.

"So how much longer are you going to avoid telling me what you told me you needed to tell me a couple of days ago? How bad is it?" Jax asked.

Scarlett looked at Jax, spoon still in her mouth. He looked so handsome in the soft glow from the bedside lamp that turned his hair golden and his eyes dark and mysterious. She felt a wave of love sweep over her. He knew her so well, but that was also a little scary. The only person she completely trusted was her father and trusting Jax frightened her.

"It isn't bad. It's more stuff I don't like to talk about that I need to tell you," Scarlett paused and took another spoonful of ice cream. "I told you a little about my mother, but not the whole story. She was a crow-eater for the SOA Laredo chapter when she got pregnant with me. She met my father and quit hanging around the MC."

"Is your father one of the Laredo guys?"

"No," she said shuddering faintly at the idea that her bio father was involved in sex trafficking children, "she'd been at my grandparents for a month and then she went to the clubhouse and was with one guy several times and another guy once. Both were from outside charters. I'm done trying to find my sperm donor. I just hope there isn't important medical information that I need, but I'm going to take that risk."

"If you know names or charters, I can help you if you want to pursue it."

"No, I'm good, but thanks. Anyway, my mom was happy for awhile and then she got tired of being a wife and mother. She gave my father an ultimatum either a completely open marriage where she can party and sleep around or divorce. She thought he loved her so much, he would settle for crumbs. He wouldn't. She didn't fight him for me because I was an obstacle. Some years later, the Laredo chapter went down for sex trafficking children. My father always followed the story with a lot of interest."

"Did your mother ever take you to the clubhouse?" Jax asked softly.

Scarlett shook her head suddenly realizing that Jax was concerned that she'd been a victim of the Laredo chapter. She finished with her ice cream and put the dish on the night stand.

"No. she never did that. She kept me away from the MC stuff at my father's insistence. He had primary physical custody and I visited her sometimes. Anyway when my father was at SAMCRO's clubhouse, he saw a guy that looked familiar, but he couldn't place where he saw him. It was driving him crazy."

"Who was it?" Jax asked.

"Mickey Smith."

"Smith?" Jax asked, his brows drawn together in thought.

"I need to show you," Scarlett said. "I'll get these out of the way," she said picking up the ice cream dishes and spoons and leaving the bedroom. She put the dishes in the dishwasher, returned to the bedroom and grabbed her laptop from her desk. "My father sent me the info he dug up on him." She opened the file her father sent her.

"My father got a picture of Mickey the next time he went to the clubhouse and did an image search. This is what he turned up," Scarlett said showing Jax a picture of Mickey Smith aka Buck Jeffers. It was photo of Buck Jeffers from a newspaper article on the child sex trafficking charges.

"Mickey Smith is Buck Jeffers," Jax said incredulously staring at the picture. "The Laredo chapter was disbanded, all traces from SOA history has been scrubbed and no one is supposed to have any contact with those guys. They were a disgrace to the Sons."

"I've got more proof," she said, pulling up another file showing a picture of the Maine chapter that Buck Jeffers claimed to be from and showed him a chapter picture showing the real Mickey Smith, a four hundred pound bald guy with a prosthetic left arm.

"That left arm is a dead giveaway," Jax said drily and they both laughed at the absurdity that Buck Jeffers had passed himself off as Mickey Smith.

"I don't know how he thought he was going to get away with it, but he did."

"So how long have you known?" Jax asked, watching her carefully.

"I found out a few days before your run, but I didn't want to spoil that for you and I didn't think Smith was going on the run, so I was waiting until after to tell you. If I knew he was going with you, I would have told you," Scarlett said honestly. She felt a little responsible for the mayhem on the highway.

"Yeah, I get that. I didn't know he was going on the run until he turned up with his shiny new Harley."

"Doesn't someone check this out?" Scarlett asked. She knew a little about how MCs worked from her mother and she thought it was Tig's responsibility as SA to do security checks.

"Yeah, it's Tig's," Jax said running his hand over his chin thoughtfully. "Clay vouched for Jeffers and said he knew he was Mickey Smith and had met him. Either he told Tig not to check into Jeffers or Tig did his job, told Clay and Clay forced him to keep quiet."

"I'm guessing Clay forced Tig to keep quiet."

"Scars, do you realize what this means?"

"That you don't need to prove Clay killed your father because the Mickey Smith lie will get Clay booted from the club?"

Jax grinned and shook his head admiringly.

"You do get it. Clay lied to get Jeffers into the clubhouse and if it gets out, the club will be embarrassed and it will open up that whole sex trafficking nightmare. SAMCRO will look bad like we are OK with what Laredo did."

"Do you think the Jeffers lie is enough to kick Clay out of the MC, but to also cause his death?"

"It's a huge betrayal. He lied to everyone and if the truth got out about Jeffers, it would be a major embarrassment for not only SAMCRO but all the charters. I'm not sure it's enough for him to die, but, first, I'm going to worry about getting him kicked out of the club. That will destroy him. His ego is wrapped up in being the club president. It makes him a powerful figure in Charming and he's going to lose that. That loss of status will be a brutal check to his ego."

"And Gemma. It's going to hurt her as well."

Jax shrugged. "I have to do what's best for the MC and Clay has to go. We can't let him out of the MC on good terms. When a member is kicked out, he becomes invisible not only to the MC and all its charters, but also all the friends of the MC. What doesn't make sense is why would Clay risk everything to help Jeffers? Clay wouldn't stick his neck out to help someone out unless there was something in it for him."

This was the tricky part and Scarlett felt uneasy about selling this lie to Jax, but it was near enough to the truth. She didn't have a problem lying to Jax, but it was making it believable that was going to be challenging.

"I can help there. There was a woman who worked with the police to bring down the Laredo chapter. The MC put a hit on the woman and her kid. She was killed a year or two later after the trial. My mother knew the woman and my father knew a Laredo cop at the time and Clay was the chief suspect. They didn't have enough evidence, so it was dropped, but suppose Jeffers had proof of some kind that Clay did the hit? He blackmails Clay into getting him in SAMCRO because he wants to be part of the MC life again."

"That makes sense," Jax said nodded his head thinking things over. "There's something that doesn't make sense though—your father seems to know a lot about the Laredo chapter. Your mother was killed about the same time this woman was killed." Jax looked at her and Scarlett did her best to keep her expression neutral. "You're the child of the murdered woman, aren't you?"

In all different scenarios of how this conversation was going to go, this wasn't one of the possibilities she'd thought of. Sometimes, Jax was too damned smart for her own good.