SWNOVELS Truth and Lies: Chapter 15
After waking from a half-decent night’s sleep, we all head out to our bikes and get ready to find the diner where Miriam worked after leaving prison.
Sitting astride my bike, I turn to Gunner and give him the evil eye, ‘You keep your mouth shut. They won’t tell us fuck all if you start mouthing off. If Miriam worked for them, they probably like her, and you sayin’ anythin’ nasty will just have them clam up.’
Gunner gives me the stinkeye, but Tin speaks up, ‘Yea, I agree with you, Crack, Miriam was easy to like, she worked hard, she helped everyone if she’s still the same, they’ll like her, and if we’re disrespectful, they won’t tell us a thing.’
Glue and Runner are nodding agreement, so I look over at Gunner, who doesn’t look happy but nods his agreement too.
Riding through town, I keep my eyes peeled and see a couple of Raging Baron’s MC men on the streets. Now that’s interesting, what are they looking for?
I know Sharp has been speaking to Axel, the Raging Baron’s MC President, mainly because they do a bit of white knight shit, saving women from abusive husbands, that type of thing. I applaud them for it but not sure why they want to be involved in this situation.
A bike riding up alongside shows a Raging Baron giving us the eye, letting us know they’ve seen us in their area. Thankfully Sharp got permission for us to be here and wear our kuttes, or we’d have a brawl right now.
The biker sticks with us for a few streets then bursts forward and leaves us in his wake. Glue drops back and looks over to me, giving me the signal to turn off in a minute, and as he checks where the diner is, I’m happy to follow wherever he leads.
Pulling up in front of the diner, I realize it’s the diner where I saw the waitress that looked familiar, shit, that could have been her, and I let her slip through my fingers.
On entering, the woman smiles and gets ready to pour coffee from the pot into cups. I make sure to smile at her and nod, then lead the others to a table near the window rather than one of the booths that only holds four people.
The woman brings our cups and coffee, filling them up and handing us menus before walking back to the counter.
I keep my eye on her, but she shows no sign of nervousness, which may mean I was wrong about Miriam being here. She places dirty dishes on the hatch, which a man in the kitchen picks up, and then she washes down a couple of tables before walking back to us with a pad in her hand.
‘What can I get you? Have you decided?’ the woman asks, and that’s when I notice her hand is shaking slightly as she holds her pen over the pad in her other hand.
‘I’ll have full breakfast with a side of white toast,’ I state, keeping my eye on her.
The others place their orders, and she keeps the smile and is polite. Maybe it’s just our kuttes that’s making her nervous and not what I’m thinking.
Tin leans over to me, ‘Did she look nervous? I noticed her hands were a little shaky.’
‘Yea, I noticed that, but it could be just our kuttes. Ya know, some people are nervous about us. Let’s just eat and let her relax. I’ll speak to her before we leave. When I pay the bill may be the best time.’ I respond quietly, keeping my voice as low as I can.
The woman keeps busy, but nothing that I would think she wasn’t supposed to be doing anyway. Bringing our meals over, she smiles and speaks as you would expect. Nothing about her says she is hiding anything.
We all relax and enjoy breakfast. The man in the kitchen can cook. It has none of that greasy taste to it at all. Holding my cup up, the woman brings the pot and tops me off with a smile.
Another half an hour and the place is empty apart from us. I lean over and tell them to stand by the bikes, and I’ll pay and speak to the woman and the man in the back if necessary.
They all thank the woman and walk out, standing around the bikes and looking relaxed.
‘That was a great breakfast,’ looking at her name tag, ‘Thanks, Suzie, we enjoyed it, and I’m sure we’ll be back again.’ I pay her and make sure I place a large tip on the counter.
‘Can I ask if you’ve seen a young woman called Miriam? We’ve been led to believe she worked here after leaving prison. We wish her no harm. It’s just that a young girl has gone missing while looking for her, and we’re worried about where she is and if she’s safe.’ I let her see how worried I am and lean onto the counter, ‘I also want to try and prove Miriam’s innocence. I truly believe she didn’t do what she was incarcerated for.
‘The woman who she stabbed, I think, set her up, or at the least lied about what happened. I knew Miriam and never believed she would hurt Zara, but we were all told to leave it alone at the time.
‘Now, I’m not willing to keep quiet. If I can get justice for her and clear her name, I’d like to do that at least, I’m sure she’s suffered, and that cuts me.’
‘We’ve had others here asking the same questions; we don’t know who to believe, but we can tell you that although we didn’t know much about Mia, she would never hurt a child, and if you people were supposed to know her you should have known that and stood up for her, not watch her go to prison for something she didn’t do,’ Suzie states with some venom in her voice.
‘You called her Mia. Has she changed her name?’ I ask, taking the woman by surprise as I don’t think up to now she realized she’d dropped that piece of information.
‘I would like you to leave now. I have nothing more to tell you.’ she states and walks to the door, opening it and looking pointedly at me, ‘Come back some time for another meal.’ she says and closes it behind me once I’ve walked out.
Reaching my bike, I turn to my brothers, ‘She changed her name to Mia, and I think we need to speak to Raging Baron’s MC now. We’ve run out of information.’ I state grimly.
Mia
I’ve been two days locked in this room, and I’m about ready to go stir crazy, but I’m not telling Axel anymore than I have already. If he thinks I’m going to talk to him and then more people, he can think again. I’m ready to break this window and escape, and I’m crazy enough to do it.
Walking into the bathroom, I turn the faucet on over the sink and start to fill it while opening my backpack and taking out the underwear I need to get washed as I’m on my last clean pair now.
There is no bar soap, so I grab the shower gel and squirt enough into the water to wash these few items out. Once clean, I rinse well, then wring them out and hang them on the side of the tub to dry out. Thankfully the bathroom is pretty warm, so it should help them dry before morning.
Shaking out my clothes, I can see they are reasonably clean, and I’ll need to find a laundromat when I leave here as I’m going to be wearing my last clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt when I’ve had a shower.
After showering and dressing, I pick up and fold the towels and leave the bathroom as clean as possible.
Walking into the bedroom, a woman in a pair of shorts that are up the crack of her ass and a crop top which has half her tits showing at the bottom and just enough at the top that her nipples aren’t showing is stood looking at the few items I had left laying on the bed.
‘What are you doing in here?’ I ask her snappily. Nosy bitch is checking out my gear.
‘I brought you food and a drink.’ she turns, looking me up and down, which has me smirking as she looks at me like that when she’s standing there wearing hardly anything at all, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ she asks.
‘No one, now get the fuck out.’ I snarl at her, walking over to the door and throwing it open, which has the man in the chair opposite jumping up in case I do a runner.
‘What’s goin’ on?’ he asks, looking from one of us to the other.
‘Nothing, she was just leaving.’ and I push the woman out and slam the door.
Hearing the key turn, I know the door is locked again, so I walk over to the bed and place everything back into my backpack. I think to myself. I’m getting out of here tomorrow, even if I have to climb out of a broken window.
Taking the dome cover off the food, I see a nasty breakfast, oatmeal with lumps in it. No way am I eating that shit.
Picking up the coffee, I once more sit on the window sill and watch men coming and going. Then I notice the skank that was in here a while ago, she’s standing behind the dumpster and using a cell phone, and that’s when I see her looking up at me.
Yep, I’ve got that feeling, she’s reporting back to someone, so one of the Rogue Legion MC or someone else is the question. Either way, I’m getting out of here soon.
The lock turns once more, and the door opens to reveal none other than Axel. I turn back to the window when I know who it is, not going to play any more games with him or anyone else.
Axel sits on the end of the bed once more and watches me for a while, ‘If you’re innocent, why would Cara, the mother set you up? Do you have any idea at all?’
I turn to look at him. He can’t ask me anything I haven’t asked myself a hundred times while being in prison. I don’t want to play his games, so I just shrug my shoulder.
Axel asks me one question after another, and I just keep shrugging my shoulder. At the end of the day, I have no answers to the questions.
‘We need to get all the players together and find out what happened and why. I think Zara has answers if we ask her the right questions.’ Axel states, but I just keep my face without emotion and look out the window.
‘I’m not giving up on this, Mia. It’s five years too late getting the truth told. You need it told so you can have closure,’ he says, then stands and walks back to the door.
‘There is no closure on it, Axel. I’ve paid dearly, and I won’t ever forgive them. People that said they were my family, people that were supposed to have my back. I’ll go it alone from now on. At least then I can blame myself and not other people when things go wrong..’ I state quietly but mean every single word.
‘You need to move on once your name is cleared. MCs are about family, watching out for each other, supporting each other. If that didn’t happen for you, then they don’t deserve you ever to forgive them, but you can’t hate everyone for what a few did. That’s not healthy.’ Axel says, then quietly closes the door.