A Vow of Silence

Chapter 30.

Nicole

My hand typed furiously at the keyboard as my other wrote down every location Gemma was connected to. This process was taking a lot longer than it would have when I was a detective. But now wasn't the time for comparisons and whatnot. I had ground to cover and something told me I didn't have a whole lot of time left.

Tracking Gemma was simpler than tracking Jax. Jax had errands to run, whereas Gemma was on a goodbye spree. It was the thing to do when you sensed impending doom, so I was trying to keep tabs on any known relatives. I know she'd want to say goodbye to the boys, and Wendy would do everything in her power to make that request happen.

Abel was still in school, so I was using my connections to pinpoint Gemma's route. For Tommy, I had ordered Wendy to let me know if Gemma visited the house. I hadn't banned her from the house and I made it seem like more of a safety precaution rather than a rule. So that Wendy would think I was just trying to follow the guidelines given to us by child services.

For Abel, I had asked his teacher to keep an eye out for Gemma and report to me if she came to visit him. I knew Nero, Unser, and Chucky were loyal, so if she needed any kind of escape route it would be through one of them.

I had spent my entire morning trying to find anything I could find on Gemma, and my lack of resources had kept me here for hours. I had finally just broken down and begrudgingly lost a hundred dollars to some rookie cop who was stuffing his face with froyo off-duty. I played the detective card and after losing a couple of Benjamin's, the kid finally let me use his computer.

I found out that Gemma had a father, her only living relative besides Jax and the boys. He lived a few miles North of Charming in a nursing home, and my gut told me that she'd go see him.

"Are you almost done?" the rookie cop whined, and I visibly rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, I'm good," I said sliding out of the police cruiser. I adjusted my jeans that had slipped down, and I could feel the young rookie eyeball me with lust. "Don't." My lips curled up in disgust as I brushed past him, not bothering to engage with a man who could hardly pay attention to his job without getting distracted by frozen yogurt.

As I walked away, I felt the phone in my purse vibrate. I groaned loudly when I saw that it was Jarry calling, even though I'd never given her the okay to contact me. I answered anyway, mentally preparing myself for any extra crap she wanted to add to my plate today.

"What?" I asked, skipping the formalities.

"Henry Lin is dead. He died this morning. He had multiple stab wounds and he was found in the hallway. No witnesses of course."

I groaned, "Okay? What am I supposed to do with this?"

"You don't seem to be surprised? Did Jax order the hit? Is that what he talked to Juice about this morning?"

I was taken aback by her accusations, "what are you ranting about right now? Jax never mentioned anything about going after Lin. He wanted him in jail, and he did things the right way by including you. And what do you want me to do? Cry for a dead man? Henry Lin killed multiple people and you want me to shed a tear that someone finally evened the score?"

"No, but I need someone to tell me what is going on! Juice wouldn't say a word today besides saying that he couldn't be saved. And that Gemma was the gatekeeper of secrets, do you want to explain to me what that means?"

"Can't explain what I don't know," I said shortly.

"But you can help me find out what the heck is going on here. Lives are at stake here Nicole, and I needed to put this fire out before there are feds crawling all around Charming!"

My agitation was growing with Jarry. She wanted to play good cop/bad cop so badly, but there were just some things manipulation tactics couldn't do. "WAKE UP JARRY! Charming is a series of bad events and if you want to be the sheriff around here, you're going to have to learn to keep up."

Jarry was silent on the other end before she spoke up again, "Unser wants an APB out on Jax for assault. Jax punched him this morning. What do you think about that?"

I scoffed, "So there was no prior conversation, Jax just felt like punching Unser." My tone was sarcastic because I knew that Unser had said something to rile up Jax. Unser, in his own right, was an asset to the club. No one just goes around damaging their assets.

"He said nothing happened. Jax just lashed out at him."

I chuckled as an amused smile played on my lips. "That doesn't even sound remotely true. I'd save your APB and not waste it on someone who's just now doing everything he should have been doing when he still wore the badge." I ended the call, not bothering to converse with Jarry any further.

If she went through with the APB on Jax, that would complicate things. But I knew Unser wasn't blameless and he's done more favors for the club than he should have. He'd be a problem; I could feel it.

However, I couldn't focus on Unser right now or his dumb APB. I needed to prepare for the inevitable. I needed to make sure that this family made it out of Charming, no matter what that looked like.

It's funny, I spent years in prison for crimes I didn't commit. I was a good detective, a good wife, and a damn good mother. And I should feel something right now, anything. But I don't. if anything it's like for the first time I'm being haunted by a ghost. Only this time, it doesn't feel like torment. It feels like she is begging me to come through, begging me to do everything she never could.

Her boys deserve to grow up away from Charming, away from all this chaos and malice. Jax, no matter how twisted he's become is so incredibly tired. It's like it's wired in his DNA at this point. There are days when I questioned if he could even be saved. Because someone that is that tormented has a hard time looking at themselves in the mirror. But I found out that I was willing to break every mirror in the world for him even if it meant that I'd never see myself again.