Ch. 5 More To The Story

Nick’s POV

Evan closed his laptop and unplugged the small adapter he’d been using with the copy of Bennett’s drive.

“I’ll come back tonight,” he said. “I’d rather go through it when the place is quiet and I’m not getting interrupted every ten minutes.”

“That works.”

He picked up his laptop and looked at the safe behind my desk. “Leave the original where it is.”

“Wasn’t planning on carrying it around in my pocket.”

“You say that now.”

“I’ve managed to run this club without losing a flash drive.”

“You’ve also called me because your printer stopped working.”

“It did stop working.”

“You unplugged it.”

“That was one time.”

“It was last month.”

I pointed toward the door.

Evan laughed and left.

I was reaching for my coffee when somebody knocked twice and came in without waiting.

Teo.

Of course.

He shut the door behind him and stood there looking at me.

“What?”

He walked over to the chair across from my desk and sat down. “Okay, Prez.”

I waited.

He stretched his legs out in front of him. “What the fuck is going on with you and Claire?”

I picked up my coffee.

“That what you came in here for?”

“Yep.”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Okay.”

I looked at him.

Teo nodded. “Good talk.”

“Then get out.”

He didn’t move.

I drank my coffee.

He kept sitting there.

“You got shit to do?”

“I am doing shit.”

“Annoying me isn’t club business.”

“Today it is.”

I set the mug down. “Claire needed somewhere safe. She came here. Bennett showed up at my gate acting like an asshole. That’s what’s going on.”

“Right.”

“What?”

“You want the list?”

“No.”

“Good, because I’m giving it to you anyway.”

I leaned back.

“You didn’t sleep. You sat up half the night watching cameras even though I was already watching cameras. You personally took her and the kid shopping this morning. You’ve asked me three times if Bennett came back down the road. And every time Claire walks into a room, you suddenly know exactly where she is.”

“I’m the President.”

“You follow every woman who comes through the clubhouse with your eyes too?”

“Careful.”

“I’m not saying you’re being creepy.”

“Glad we cleared that up.”

“I’m saying I’ve known you too damn long.”

That was the problem with Teo.

He had.

I looked toward the window beside my desk.

He waited another few seconds before saying, “You gonna make me drag it out of you?”

“There’s nothing to drag.”

“Nick.”

I rubbed a hand over my beard.

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth would be a good start.”

I looked back at him.

Teo leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “I remember her.”

“You met her a couple times.”

“Enough. She was always around.”

“Yeah.”

“And you were always watching out for her.”

“She was a kid.”

“I know.”

Her dad had known guys around the club. Her family lived a few streets from where I grew up. She used to show up at the garage after school because she knew somebody would make sure she got home if her ride fell through.

At thirteen, she was all elbows, freckles, and bad attitude.

At fourteen, she decided I was the only person she could call when some idiot kid stole her backpack and dumped her books behind the football field.

At sixteen, she still had a habit of showing up at the garage, sitting on whatever workbench I needed, and talking until somebody reminded her she had somewhere else to be.

There had never been anything complicated about it.

She was Claire.

The kid I looked out for.

Teo rubbed his jaw. “So when did it change?”

I looked at him. “What?”

“When did she stop being the kid you looked out for?”

"The moment I saw her sitting in that car asking me for help."

“And you never heard anything about him hitting her?”

“No.”

That answer came out harder than I meant it to.

Teo didn’t comment.

“I hadn’t talked to her in years. Then she showed up here looking like that.”

“Nick, you couldn’t know what was happening in a house you weren’t in.”

“I know.”

Teo let that sit.

I hated when he was reasonable.

I looked toward the hallway.

Somewhere down there, Lilly yelled something I couldn’t make out, and Claire answered her. A few seconds later, the kid yelled again.

Teo heard it too.

He looked toward the door, then back at me.

“Well, fuck.”

“Pretty much.”

“You really are screwed.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“Nothing is happening with Claire.”

“Right now.”

“Teo.”

“I’m serious. I get it.”

I leaned back.

He kept going.

“She just left her husband. Guy put his hands on her, put his hands on the kid, chased them out here, sat down the road half the night. You’d have to be a real piece of shit to make a move right now.”

“I’m not making a move.”

“I know.”

“She won’t hear any of this from me.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“So do I.”

I looked toward the hallway again.

“I’m not gonna be another guy telling her what she should do because I want something from her.”

Teo didn’t say anything.

“She spent years with Bennett deciding where she went, what she did, who she talked to. You heard her on the phone this morning. Her own family told her to go back because he’s a good man.”

“Yeah.”

“She needs to figure out what the hell she wants when nobody’s standing over her telling her what the answer is supposed to be.”

“And you can do that?”

“What?”

“Stand back.”

I looked at him.

He smiled a little. “Just asking.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“Yeah. That worked out great.”

I flipped him off.

He laughed.

He leaned back in the chair. “You know what’s gonna happen now.”

“No.”

“Bennett’s not done.”

“That part I know.”

“He comes back, what are you doing?”

“Same thing I did last night.”

“Which is?”

“Keeping the gate closed.”

“And if Claire wants to go somewhere?”

“She goes.”

“You following?”

“I’ll offer.”

“She says no?”

“Then no.”

Teo nodded slowly.

“You sound like you practiced that.”

“I’ve had twelve hours to think about how not to act like Bennett.”

That wiped the grin off his face.

I looked toward the safe.

“USB stays locked until tonight. Evan comes back after Lilly’s down. Rafe needs to know we’re checking it, but I don’t want half the club standing around the office when we do.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“And keep somebody on the gate.”

“Already done.”

“Good.”

Teo stood and stretched.

I thought we were finished.

Then he stopped at the door.

“For what it’s worth.”

I looked up.

“She came here.”

I stared at him.

He rested one hand on the doorknob. “All the people she could’ve called, all the places she could’ve gone, she drove here.”

“She was scared.”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Didn’t say it did.”

“You’re saying it like it does.”

Teo opened the door.

“I’m saying when Claire Bennett was scared enough to grab her kid and run barefoot out of her house, she thought of you.”

Then he walked out and shut the door behind him.

I sat there for a while.

The safe was behind me with Bennett’s drive locked inside.

Down the hall, Lilly was arguing with Claire about whatever they were naming the stuffed dog from the store.

Claire told her absolutely not.

Lilly shouted back, “But Mr. Pickles likes Kevin!”

Claire said, “Mr. Pickles does not get a vote.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

Then I leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.

A little before nine, Evan came back.

Rafe followed him into my office, and Teo was already there by the time Evan set his laptop on the desk.

I checked the clock.

Nine on the dot when somebody knocked.

“Come in.”

Claire opened the door.

She’d changed into the clothes we bought that morning, her hair pulled back loosely. She looked around at the four of us before her eyes landed on Evan’s laptop.

“Lilly’s asleep.”

I nodded toward the hall. “She okay?”

“Out cold. Mr. Pickles and Kevin are apparently sharing the other pillow.”

“So Kevin won.”

“Against my better judgment.”

She stepped farther into the room.

“You’re looking at it now?”

“About to.”

Claire pulled the empty chair closer to the desk.

Teo moved his feet out of her way.

She sat down. “Good.”

I looked at her. “You don’t have to sit through it if you don’t want to.”

“I found it under my dresser. Grant nearly killed me trying to get it back. I’m sitting through it.”

“Okay.”

Evan looked at her. “I’m working from the copy I made earlier. Original stays untouched unless I need it to verify something.”

Claire nodded. “Fine.”

I opened the safe and handed him the drive anyway.

He set it beside the laptop, connected the copy, and started working.

For a while, none of us said much.

Folders opened.

Dates.

File names.

Initials.

Hotel names.

Vehicle information.

Claire leaned toward the screen.

“What is all that?”

“Still figuring that out,” Evan said.

He opened another directory.

Names filled the screen.

Most of them were women.

Some had full names. Some only had a first name or initials. Ages were listed beside several of them.

Claire stopped moving.

“Who are they?”

“No idea yet.”

Evan opened the first folder.

Photographs.

A woman standing outside a motel.

Another getting into a car.

Copies of driver’s licenses.

Booking photos.

Regular pictures that looked like they’d been taken from social media or somebody’s phone.

Claire leaned closer.

“I don’t know any of them.”

Evan went to the next file.

A spreadsheet opened.

Names ran down the left side.

Beside them were dates, motels, room numbers, vehicle descriptions, dollar amounts, and locations.

One had a highway exit instead of an address.

Another had a license plate.

Beside one woman’s name was one word.

TRANSFERRED.

Rafe pointed at it. “Transferred where?”

Evan scrolled.

More names.

More dates.

More money.

Claire’s hand went to the edge of the desk.

“What does transferred mean?”

“I don’t know yet,” Evan said.

Teo leaned over behind her. “Go back.”

Evan stopped.

“There.”

The initials G.B. sat beside one of the entries.

Then again farther down.

And again.

Claire stared at them.

“Grant Bennett.”

Evan glanced at her. “Could be. I want more than initials before I call it.”

“It’s him.”

“Claire—”

“It’s his drive.”

Nobody argued with that.

Evan opened another folder.

Saved messages.

Short ones.

Pickup confirmed.

Two ready.

Move before morning.

County clear until 0300.

Claire read each one as Evan scrolled.

Then he stopped.

Bennett says county road is clean. Use south route.

Claire moved closer to the screen.

“What?”

Evan opened the next one.

Sheriff has report held until morning.

Nobody spoke.

Claire looked at me.

I didn’t have anything to tell her.

Rafe pulled his chair closer. “Keep going.”

Evan did.

Motel receipts.

Cash transfers.

Copies of IDs.

Routes between towns.

Photographs of women getting into cars and vans.

Then a document opened with Grant’s full name across the top.

Sheriff Grant Bennett.

Claire read it.

Her chair scraped backward an inch.

“No.”

Evan stopped scrolling.

She reached forward and pointed at the screen.

“What is that?”

“I’m trying to figure that out.”

“No. What am I looking at?”

He looked at me once, then back at her.

“Claire, I need another minute.”

“Then take one.”

Evan went back through the files.

The payments.

The transportation records.

The women.

The messages about roads being clear.

Reports being held.

Then he opened another spreadsheet.

More women.

Different cities.

Different dates.

One of the ages on the screen made Rafe swear.

Claire stared at it.

“She’s eighteen.”

Nobody answered.

Claire looked at Evan. “Why does Grant have this?”

He rubbed a hand over his mouth.

“I think this is trafficking.”

Claire didn’t move.

Teo asked, “Sex trafficking?”

“Yeah.”

Claire shook her head once. “No.”

Evan turned the laptop slightly toward her.

“I’m not saying I know the entire operation yet. But the women, the hotel rooms, money, transportation, pickup and drop-off points, the messages about law enforcement keeping roads clear and holding reports—”

Claire cut him off.

“Grant?”

Evan looked back at the screen.

“There are his initials all over it, his full name is in at least one document, and the messages name Bennett and the sheriff.”

Claire stared at him.

“So yes?”

“Yeah,” Evan said. “He’s involved.”

She looked back at the laptop.

For a while, the only sound in the room was Evan clicking through files.

Another woman.

Another motel.

Another payment.

Claire said, “I thought maybe he was cheating.”

I looked at her.

“When I found the drive. For about five seconds, I thought maybe that was what he was hiding.”

She pointed at the screen.

“This was under our dresser.”

“Yeah.”

“Where Lilly sleeps down the hall from us.”

Nobody said anything.

Claire looked at the women again.

“How many?”

Evan shook his head. “I don’t know yet.”

“How long?”

“Don’t know that either.”

“Is he selling them?”

“I can’t tell you exactly what his role is yet.”

“But he’s helping.”

“Yes.”

She pushed her hair back from her face.

“That’s why he came after me.”

I leaned forward. “Looks like it.”

“He wasn’t trying to get me back.”

The words came out quieter.

“He wanted this.”

Her eyes stayed on the drive sitting beside Evan’s laptop.

Rafe asked, “Does he know you looked at it?”

“I never did.”

Claire shook her head. “I found it, shoved it in my leggings, and then he found the tape. That’s it.”

“So he doesn’t know what you know,” Teo said.

“I didn’t know anything.”

“You do now.”

Claire looked at him.

Then at the door.

“Lilly.”

“She’s safe,” I said.

Claire looked at me. “Grant knows she’s here.”

“He can’t get through that gate without us knowing.”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand enough.”

“No, Nick. If he’s involved in this—”

“I know.”

She stopped.

I kept my voice down because Lilly was sleeping two hallways away.

“That gate stays closed. Nobody comes onto this property without us knowing who they are.”

Claire looked at the laptop again.

Evan opened another folder.

More names appeared.

More dates.

More women.

I looked at him. “Make another copy.”

“Already did.”

“Make another one anyway.”

He glanced at me.

“One doesn’t stay here.”

Evan nodded. “Okay.”

Claire looked over. “Why?”

“Because Bennett knows the original is here.”

Her eyes went to the drive.

Rafe nodded. “If something happens to this clubhouse, that evidence needs to exist somewhere else.”

Claire sat back.

“Jesus.”

Evan started another copy.

I looked at the screen.

Too many names.

Too many photographs.

Too many women Grant Bennett had apparently counted on nobody ever finding.

Claire had found the drive because one of his shirts fell behind their dresser.

One fucking shirt.

And now she was sitting beside me looking at evidence that her husband had been helping traffic women through his county.

No wonder he nearly killed her trying to get it back.