Fanning the Biker's Flame - Piper Davenport Page 0,6

idea who they were talking about, but it sounded like whoever Alamo had dated before marrying Jasmine wasn’t nearly as good looking as she was.

“Plus, didn’t she shit on your cut once?” Gator asked.

“An ex-girlfriend took a shit on your cut?” I asked to uproarious laughter all around.

“We’re talking about my old dog, Alice,” Alamo said, gasping for air.

“Jesus,” I hissed out on a laugh as I grabbed a beer.

“How’d it go with the arsonist?” Alamo asked me.

“I sent all the specs to Sterling. I doubt I’ll hear from her again unless she hires him to do the job.”

“Did she really try to cook a cardboard box?” Gator asked.

I chuckled just as Rabbit walked into the kitchen. “Yeah.”

I gave him a chin lift. It looked like Doc’s private pow-wow was over.

“Sorry, man. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important,” I said, handing him a cold one.

“No, not at all,” Rabbit replied, looking preoccupied.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m good,” he replied, unconvincingly.

“Hey,” I said, changing the subject. “I scored tickets to the Roses for Anna acoustic benefit at Johnny Mercer next month. I thought maybe you and Parker might wanna come with me to the show. My treat.”

“Aw, hell,” he said, frowning. “I’m sure Parker would love that, but I won’t be around.”

“What’s up?”

“I’ve gotta go out of town for a bit.”

“The show isn’t until the end of next month,” I pointed out.

“I leave next week.”

“How long are you planning on being gone?”

“Six weeks,” Rabbit replied.

I cocked my head. “Where the hell are you going for six weeks?”

Rabbit was a computer genius. In fact, he’d been in trouble as a kid for hacking, which is how he found the club. Doc and the guys kind of adopted him and he was now married with two young sons.

Rabbit and I were pretty tight, and the fact he hadn’t said anything to me about this out of town business didn’t sit well with me. Not that he had to check in, or get permission, but we’d come up together in the club, so it was unusual he hadn’t mentioned it.

“I’ve got some…family stuff to deal with,” Rabbit hedged.

“Family? I thought you were an orphan?”

“It’s Jette. She needs my help with a personal matter, so I’m gonna go spend some time with her.”

Anjenette, or Jette as we all called her, was Rabbit’s foster sister, and they were closer than most blood born siblings. She’d moved out of Savannah a few years ago but I had no idea where.

I nodded, even though I was fairly certain Rabbit was feeding me a line of bullshit. But if he was, I figured he had his reasons, and I wasn’t gonna pry.

“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do for you or your sister,” I said.

Rabbit raised his bottle in appreciation and Doc called us to assembly.

* * *

Church was uneventful and brief. Doc let the club know about Rabbit’s sabbatical in as few words as humanly possible, only underlining my suspicions that some details about his absence were being left unspoken. Then again, I could be completely wrong.

“Shadow,” Doc called out as we were filing out of the meeting room, and I turned to see him waving me over to where he and Doom were standing. I walked to them and Doc handed me a stack of papers.

I immediately spotted the eight-point Maltese Cross of the Savannah Fire Department at the top of the cover sheet.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I want you to take a look at this and tell me if anything odd jumps out at you,” Doom said.

“This is an arson report,” I replied, skimming though the pages.

“That’s right,” Doc replied.

“From an investigation led by Lt. Bob Saunders,” I read out loud.

“Also correct,” he said. “Six months ago, a commercial building the club had its eyes on purchasing burned down. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I figured rather than sell, the owner had decided to burn it down for the insurance money instead. Either way, I moved on and was able to secure a building off Tolman road. Just after the loan closed, that building also burned down.”

I glanced at Doom. “Seems like one hell of a coincidence.”

Doom nodded. “That’s what I thought.”

“You think someone set these fires deliberately?”

Doc nodded.

“Why go through the hassle of burning down an empty warehouse?”

“Now that you’re a full patch, I can share this with you,” Doc said. “The Howlers are practically printing money with their pot business and we’re looking to follow suit