“That’s news to me. I don’t have a relationship with my mother.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is. Is there something I can help you with?”
“Is there something you can help me with?” he repeated in a mocking tone. “Yes, you can tell me everything you know about her.”
“I just told you I don’t have a relationship with her. I haven’t spoken to her since I was sixteen years old. Whatever you think I know, I can assure you, I don’t.”
“Your mother killed my father for his money. Your mother framed me for kiddie porn. Your mother hired a woman to pretend to be my girlfriend to plant the evidence. The same woman who was involved in an attempted kidnapping. A kidnapping that she made my son help her with. A kidnapping that happened to be of a child that belongs to a member of your boyfriend’s club. Then, that same fucking night, the woman is found floating face down in your mother’s pond, and my son has been missing since. And you expect me to believe you don’t know anything?” he shouted.
It took a moment for his words to register.A child that belongs to a member of your boyfriend’s club.Which child? And was he saying the Blackwings had something to do with his son’s disappearance or the woman’s death? Or both?
I looked at him with utter confusion written all over my face. “What?”
“You really didn’t know?”
“I told you I didn’t know anything,” I said distractedly as his words played over and over in my head. Coal hadn’t told me about an attempted kidnapping, but that didn’t mean it was because he was hiding something, like a murder and a missing person.
“I can see that,” he said and started to turn to leave. “You might want to consider the company you keep. It’s not fun getting blamed for something someone else did.”
When I got to Coal’s house, I went straight to his room and closed the door. He wouldn’t be home for a few hours, but Game would be home any minute, and I needed time alone to think.
After a short nap and a long bath, I figured the best thing to do was to tell him what Carter said and flat out ask him if there was any truth to it. I wasn’t worried about Coal lying to me. I had a feeling he’d be honest. I just hoped it would be something I could accept.
The moment he saw my face, he knew something was wrong. “What happened?”
“Carter Perry was waiting for me when I got off work,” I started and noticed Coal’s body slightly tense.
“How did that go?”
I ignored his question and asked my own. “He said my mother hired a woman to pretend to be his girlfriend to plant evidence to frame him. Then, he said that woman and his son kidnapped a Blackwings kid. He said the woman was found dead later that night, and his son is still missing. He said it in a way that made it sound like your club was involved. Do you know what he’s talking about?”
He sat down on the end of the bed and sighed. “Yeah, I do. Last year, right after Thanksgiving, a man tried to kidnap Brinkley. He grabbed her out of her mother’s arms in the parking lot. Bear stopped him, but the guy got away. That guy was Carter’s son, Sean. Carter’s girlfriend, Mitzie, is also Mackenzie’s mother and Brinkley’s grandmother. She told Sean they could use Brinkley to get ransom money from us and that Mackenzie knew what was going on. Mackenzie didn’t know. So what Sean thought was a staged kidnapping was a real one, and Mitzie wasn’t planning on using her for ransom. She planned to take Brinkley to your mother so she could takepicturesof her.”
“What kind of pictures?”
“The kind Carter says she used to frame him.”
“Oh, gross,” I said as my stomach churned with disgust. “Is Brinkley okay?”
“She is now. She broke her arm when Bear tackled the guy running away with her. Other than that, she seems fine. I think she was too young to understand what happened.”
“What happened to Mitzie and Sean?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, even though I didn’t necessarily want to know. It was more of a need to know.
“Sean is the one who put Mitzie in your mother’s pond before he skipped town.”
“How do you know that and Carter doesn’t?” I asked.
“That I can’t answer,” he said carefully.
I pressed my lips together and nodded. I didn’t know what to say. I believed him, but I also knew he was leaving something out.
He leaned over and kissed my forehead, lingering for several seconds. “I’ll give you some time to think.”