Spark in the Dark

Chapter 88

Half Sack picked Juice up from the hospital the following morning. They rode back to the clubhouse as Sack talked Juice's ear off. Juice responded appropriately, but didn't contribute much to the conversation. As soon as they got to TM, Clay told everyone to be in the chapel in ten minutes. Juice went behind the bar to get a drink. He hoped the alcohol would steady his nerves. He knew what he had to do and was going to tell everyone once they were done in chapel.

Juice leaned against the bar with his beer. Opie was standing there looking at something on his phone. He set the phone down on the bar and took a drink of his coffee. Opie noticed Juice's beer and nodded.

"Rough hospital stay, huh?" Opie asked sarcastically.

"Yeah," Juice said with a fake laugh.

Opie looked like he was about to say something else, but was distracted by Bobby and walked away from the bar instead. Juice looked at Opie's phone, forgotten on the bar. Juice suddenly had an idea. He slowly reached over the grabbed Opie's cell. He pocketed it and walked down the hall to the room he had lived in before getting the townhouse. He shut the door and locked it. Then, for an extra precaution, he went into the attached bathroom and locked that door, too.

Juice looked through Opie's phone until he found Lyla's phone number. Then, he hit Send. It rang only twice.

"Hey," Lyla's voice greeted him. "Everything okay?"

"Hey, it's Juice. No, it's not."

"Oh my God. Opie?"

"He's fine. Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. Have you heard from Shawn since Cara Cara burned down?"

"No, I haven't." There was a pause. "Are you saying you haven't either?"

"No. She was supposed to come see me that night and never showed. Her phone has been going straight to voicemail ever since."

"Oh, shit."

"When we get off the phone, can you call Opie in a few minutes and tell him you haven't heard from her? Tell him you're getting really worried about her."

"Okay, yeah, of course."

"Thank you, Lyla," Juice said and hung up. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he went into Opie's call log and deleted the call to Lyla before walking out of the room and back down the hall.

"Let's go," Clay said and headed into the chapel. Everyone began to set their phones down in the cigar box on the pool table. Opie reached into his pocket for his and couldn't find it.

"Ope," Juice said and handed him the phone. "I must have grabbed your's thinking it was mine."

Opie took it and looked at Juice puzzled for a moment. He did a sort of shrug before dropping it in the box. Juice added his phone in with the others and took his seat at the table. Juice was surprised to see Jax there after everyone had voted to release him to the Nomad charter the day before.

Clay began telling everyone why Jax was back. The leader of the Aryan group they were up against, Ethan Zobelle, had his right hand man, A.J. Weston, kidnap and rape Gemma the night of Bobby's coming home party. Unser had told everyone she was in a car accident and Gemma never said a word to anyone. That is, until Jax decided to go Nomad.

Juice felt sick to his stomach. It took everything in him to not vomit all over the table. Gemma was kidnapped and raped and now Shawn was missing. This was so much worse than Juice could have imagined.

As they talked about what to do, they could hear the faint sound of one of the cell phones on the pool table ringing. It no sooner stopped before it started, again. Someone was calling over and over again.

"Who the hell's phone is that?" Jax asked.

"Sounds like mine," Opie said.

"Check it. Make sure your kids are okay," Clay told him.

Opie stood and walked out of the room to answer the phone. He reentered a minute later.

"Tig," he said, "when was the last time you talked to Shawn?"

"A couple days ago," Tig said casually at first. Then he realized something was wrong. "Why?"

"That was Lyla. She said she can't get ahold of her. She's getting pretty worried."

Tig stared at Opie for a second, then looked around the room. "When was the last time anyone talked to Shawn?"

"I saw her at Cara Cara the afternoon before the fire," Jax said. "Haven't talked to her since."

Tig suddenly stood. "I'm going to her house."

"Don't go alone," Clay ordered.

"I'll go with him," Juice volunteered.

He followed Tig out of the building. Luckily, everyone had gotten in the van before they were arrested, so Juice's bike was still at TM. They both got on their bikes and rode to Shawn's. It was a habit for Juice to go down the alley, but he followed Tig to the front of the house. Tig jumped off his bike and rushed to the front door. He pounded on the door loudly.

"Shawn!" He shouted when there was no answer and pounded again. "Juice, there's a garage around back. Go see if her car is in there."

"Got it," Juice said and did as he was told. There were no windows to the garage. The only way to see if her car was there would be to open the garage door. Juice put the code into the keypad and the door began to raise. Juice could tell pretty quickly that her car wasn't there. Juice slumped onto the side of the garage in defeat. All hope that she was okay had faded. Tig came rushing around the garage.

"She here?" Tig said and then saw the empty garage.

"No," Juice told him. Juice looked at Tig and saw he was fighting back tears. Juice had to look away to keep from crying himself.

"How'd you get it open?" Tig suddenly asked. His question caught Juice off guard.

"Oh, uh, those keypad things are pretty easy to hack if you know what you're doing," Juice lied. Tig nodded and accepted his answer.

"We have to get back to TM," Tig said, his voice sounding rough, and walked back to the front.

Juice took a moment to compose himself, then closed the garage door, and followed Tig.