Hands All Over

Ch. 9 No Jinxes

Juice sat at the clubhouse computer searching through new parts for his Dyna on a suggestion from Happy. The killer had just come down from Tacoma and rumor had it, he wanted to go Nomad to stay close to his mother. His mother who lived in Bakersfield. He raised an eyebrow, Bakersfield only sounded familiar to him because Angela had just mentioned her mom still lived there. Her mom and aunt, actually. And if he remembered right, Hap's mom also lived with his aunt. Not only that lined up, but Angela kept mentioning a cousin from Tacoma, one that traveled a lot, one that taught her how to shoot, and was a demanding son of a bitch. It all lined up in the worst way possible. "Oh shit," he breathed.

His fingers raced over the keyboard as he delved deeper into Angela's family tree. Cousins weren't listed in the national databases, but with some research on her mom or dad, he could find what he was looking for.

He went into her Dad first and came up short. It made sense, their last names didn't match. He then decided to dig into her mom. That's where he found it. On a fairly recent census, it listed Graciela Ruiz living with Elena Lowman. Juice knew better than to search Happy's files, but he did remember Kozik and Happy talking once about his mom a few years back when he was prospecting. Kozik had asked how Elena was doing. The only reason Juice remembered this was because he thought Koz was talking about Hap's Old Lady and had been quickly corrected and cut down for his mistake. Though he'd been wrong then, he was almost sure Angela's mysterious cousin was Happy now. After closing down all the windows, he pushed away from the desk and headed to his Dyna. He wanted answers and he wanted them now.

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Angela was watching TV when someone knocked on the door. She'd been locking it now since her cousin had brought up the dangers of leaving it unlocked; the danger being him showing up unannounced. It wouldn't do her any good to have him barging in when she and Juice were together. When she opened the door, she was surprised to find a very pissed off Juice glaring back at her. She raised an eyebrow, she'd never seen him so wound up. "Um hey," she greeted awkwardly, a brow raised in confusion. If she wasn't mistaken, he seemed to be angry at her. "What's going on?"

He headed into the house, waiting until she closed the door before turning towards her. "When were you going to tell me the big bad cousin you're always talking about is Happy?" Juice blurted out, his voice louder than he had intended it to be. He'd wanted to go into it more stealthily, but when he was finally standing in front of her, he couldn't do it. He had to know straight answers. No beating around the bush.

Her dark eyes widened a little as a look crossed over her face that told him he'd been right in his assumption. Happy was her cousin, and she hadn't been planning on tell him anytime soon. She blinked at him, trying to find a way to answer his question that wouldn't piss him off. "I don't know."

"Do you think I'm stupid, Ang? That I wouldn't find out? I'm the fuckin' intelligence officer! This shit isn't hard to find!" he exclaimed, gesturing wildly as he spoke. In fact, it was pretty hard to find, but he was well trained in finding information so it'd been relatively easy for him. "And all this time, you acted like you knew nothin' about the club, about who we are. All fuckin' lies!"

Angela shook her head. No, she had never once lied to him. Yes, there were a few things she avoided telling him, but she had never once lied to him about it! "I didn't lie to you!" she shouted, her dark eyes fierce as they glared at him. "I never asked about the club because, honestly, I don't really care about it!"

"Then why are you with me, huh? To piss Hap off, is that it? Get back at him for making you move here?"

"No, I'm with you because I actually like spending time with you, stupid! I don't give a damn what cut you got hanging on your shoulders!" she yelled, fighting off the urge to smack some sense into him. "If I wanted to piss Happy off, I'd go fuck a Mayan for chrissakes! Not one of his brothers!"