Vic Vaughn is Vicious by J.A. Huss

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - DAISY

“Do something, Mommy!” Vivi is about to get hysterical.

But this is not the time nor the place for either of us to lose our shit. So I rally, bend down, and place my hands firmly on Vivi’s shoulders. “I would like you to go into your room and play quietly for a little bit while I have a conversation. Can you please do that for me?”

Vivi, ever the little genius, understands that my calm tone means I need her cooperation right now because shit is going sideways. It’s kind of a single mom thing. Our children are just different. They just… know things.

So even though Vivi doesn’t want to follow my directions, she does.

I wait until I hear her door click, sure that she is out of earshot. Then I turn to the CPS woman. “OK. I need an explanation. I was under the impression that the lawyer had sorted things out last Sunday after Vic came into the substation in Bellvue.”

“Well”—the CPS worker tilts her chin up, like she’s about to get defensive—“it seems that Judge Castian in the family court took notice of that Amber Alert, Daisy. Which you asked for, I might point out. And he felt further investigation was necessary.”

“O. Kay.” I’m counting to ten in my head because I want to scream at this woman. I take a deep breath instead. “That’s fine. But why wait an entire week?”

“We had to conduct an investigation.”

“Without my knowledge?”

“Why would we tell you? You’re the one under investigation.”

“Me?”

“Daisy. What part of this are you not understanding? You took your six-year-old daughter to work with you. She walked out of your restaurant, went across the street—to a tattoo parlor!” She pauses here to blink at me just to make sure I understand how trashy that is. “Then her would-be father mistakes her for a niece.” Another blinking pause. “And spends the entire day with her. Taking her to all kinds of inappropriate places. Meanwhile, you—”

“I was there.” And yep. That came out bitchy. “I don’t need a play-by-play of the day.”

“Apparently you do, because you have since taken up with the trashy tattoo artist and are now sleeping with him.”

“First of all, he’s not trashy. He’s a very nice guy.”

She guffaws as she opens her binder and takes out a pen, clicking it in front of my face. “I’m writing that down.”

“Go ahead. I spent the week with him and—”

“Oh, and that reminds me. Those people up there in Bellvue?”

“You mean her aunt and uncle? The famous Spencer and Veronica Shrike? Owners of Shrike Bikes? Reality TV stars? Those ‘people’?”

“Yes. Them. And their friends. Do you have any idea who they are? I mean, I surely hope not. Because if you do understand who they are and what they have done, and you still allowed your daughter to spend an entire unsupervised week with them, then I’m afraid you really are an unfit mother!”

Fuck you. I don’t say it out loud, but fuck her. “She was not unsupervised. All the children up at the farm were supervised.”

“Farm.” She huffs. “Compound is more like it. And that reminds me of my next point. Are you aware that Vicious Vaughn is running guns up in the mountains?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ll take that as a no. But he is. He’s got a militia up there.”

I laugh.

She clicks her pen again and starts writing in her fucking binder.

I take another deep breath and begin to count. “He’s not running guns. I don’t even know what that means, but he’s not doing it.”

“Mmhmm. Did he or did he not just buy a two-hundred-acre parcel of land in Weld County last week? Cash?” And yet another blinking pause.

“He did, but he had that money saved up. He was looking at that land for years.”

“How do you think he saved up seven hundred thousand dollars, Daisy?” She snaps her fingers in my face. “Wake. Up!”

And now I don’t know what to say. Because my actual knowledge of who and what Vic is goes back one week. And I don’t know anything about his family.

“Finally,” she says. “You’re hearing me. Now listen. I’m not going to take Vivian out of the home.”

“Thank God,” I mumble.

“Yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“There will be hearings. The judge will decide if you’re a fit mother or not. So I highly suggest that you do your research, Daisy Lundin. And look these people up. They are not hard to find on the internet. I think you will be shocked by what you see.” Then she thrusts a piece of paper at me. “All the details for your first hearing are on this paper, including the conditions which must be met if Vivi stays in the home with you. Make sure you read it.” She turns on her heel and walks back towards the parking lot.

That’s when I realize that all my neighbors were watching this entire display.

I close the door and shut them out, but then I have to face Vivian. Who did not go to her room, but stood in the hallway with her back to her closed bedroom door.

She looks up at me with wide eyes.

“It’s fine. You’re not going anywhere, Viv. It’s me and you, kid. Forever. No matter what.”

“No.” She stomps her foot. “It’s me, and you, and Vicious. Forever. No matter what.”

“Vivian,” I say, trying to maintain my composure. “This is a very complicated adult issue that I need to handle. OK? I do not need any stress from you.”

“That’s fine.” She crosses her arms and sneers her words. “But it’s always going to be me, you, and Vicious. And everyone else up at the farm. I refuse to give them up the way I did Grandma and Grandpa’s farm.”

I let out a deep exhale. I’m not the only one who lost everything. She did too. And now we both get a second chance at a new family. So of course she wants to hang on to it.

So do I.

But that CPS lady is right. I don’t know these people.

“Vivian, I’m doing my best. Will you please, pretty freaking please, be on my side for this?”

She pouts. It’s not fair, I know that. I should not make her invest in my problems. Good moms don’t make their kids take sides like this.

But I need her. She’s all I’ve got.

“I’m on your side, Mommy. I am.”

“I know, Viv. So just help me out here, OK? Give me time to figure this out. We have to go to court”—I glance down at the paper in my hand—“next week. Then we’ll see what’s happening. I need to get a lawyer. So.” I sigh. “I guess there go all my amazing tips from last weekend.”

Vivi comes towards me, hugs me around the waist. “It’s going to be OK. Vic will fix it. I know he will.”

I pet her hair and nod my head. Agree with her. But I don’t mean it.

Vic is not going to be able to fix this. Because I have a sick feeling that everything that woman just told me has a bit of truth to it.

Maybe it’s just a tiny sliver. But then again, maybe not.

After I get Vivi breakfast, she goes outside to find some kids to play with, leaving me alone with my new crisis.

I have no school for two weeks—this is my day off. The first true day off I’ve had in months. I was hoping to spend it with Vic since he has Mondays off too. But I look down at the paper the social worker left and there is Vic’s name in bold, black letters.

Not just Vic, either.

Pops and Gramps are on the ‘do not associate’ with list. And the twins, and Vann, and Belinda, and Veronica. Spencer, Rook, Ronin, Ford, Ashleigh. Hell, even the fucking kids are on there.

So. That’s awesome. Vivian and I find a brand-new family and now the government wants to take them away.

I sigh.

They cannot be that bad.

Can they?

I flip open my laptop and do a search for Vicious Vaughn. There are pages and pages about Vic. And they are all tattoo-related. Articles, and magazines, and like a thousand results in the images. I have to add the words ‘arrests’ and ‘mugshot’ to my search to actually pull up any dirt.

And they are all old. Mostly for fighting. He does have one local article about a DUI arrest, but it was twenty years ago.

OK. I knew Vic cleaned up his act, but what about the pops?

It takes me a little bit of sleuthing to find out his name is actually Vernon. Which—can I say?—is adorable. Vernon. Vern. I smile. I kinda like the pops. But he’s the same way. In fact, it takes almost thirty minutes to uncover some dirt on the pops and it’s all stupid stuff. Drag-racing on some newly built highway north of town. Disturbing the peace for parties at the mansion. A couple drug charges, but it was all pot-related.

Gramps, though. He’s got quite the current record. But they are all senior moment things. And there are plenty of people on the Fort Collins Chat Board who think Gramps is a cool, local oddity who should be celebrated. Vinn, Vonn, and Vann have nothing but tattoo stuff. And Belinda has zero—I’m talking zero—results. Not even a picture of her with Vann. And there are lots of pics of Vann.

So what the hell? Right? Why was that lady so furious? And why does this town hate this family so much?

Oh. I forgot Veronica. She’s so mom-ly, so I’m not expecting much, but holy fucking shit. Her name is the actual pot of gold. Not Veronica Shrike. She’s as bright and shiny as the rest of her family. Veronica Vaughn, though…

I make a cup of coffee. Because there are at least a hundred news articles associated with her name. Not just her, either. Rook is… wow. There is only one word for the hate that pops up on the internet for the name Rook Flynn. The smiling, good-natured woman with the bright blue eyes and two little girls named after birds is… infamous.

She leads me down a rabbit hole that turns into a murder investigation where Spencer, Ronin, and Ford got off. On a technicality. But that’s not all. Rook’s maiden name—Walsh—is tied to some federal human trafficking trial whereby the entire FBI field office in Fort Collins is implicated in a long string of abuse, and secrecy, and some strange goings-on with the Federal Witness Protection Program, and eventually agents are put on trial or end up dead.

I pause to blink a few times. What the actual fuck am I looking at here?

I have no clue, but I keep going.

Then, about three hours into this deep dive, I find the name Sasha Cherlin.

Not Sasha Barlow, which is her name now. Not Sasha Aston, which should be her maiden name, since Ashleigh and Ford adopted her.

Sasha Cherlin.

I make another cup of coffee and keep reading. I can’t stop. I click every link. I end up on some conspiracy theory image board called the Chans where they have entire threads dedicated to this Sasha Cherlin name. The words ‘secret shadow government’ pop up, along with a list of assassinations and a fire that took place at a Santa Barbara mansion and killed hundreds of people over a decade ago.

I have to read those words again.

Hundreds of people.

Then these conspiracy nerds tie Sasha Cherlin to some incident out in Kansas where Sasha Aston killed a global drug trafficker her first time out as a newly minted FBI agent.

Could they be the same person, this nerd asks?

There are no pictures of Sasha Cherlin, but there is some fuzzy security footage from that Santa Barbara incident of a small girl—just a shadow really—pointing a gun at another shadow.

That’s all they have in the way of evidence so I’m pretty sure it’s bullshit.

I mean, child assassins? Stupid.

But the longer I look at that footage, and the more I squint my eyes and move back a little, the more I can see Sasha Barlow in that profile.

I close my laptop and sigh. Then go find Vivi and make us lunch.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“What?” I say. Because I wasn’t. At all.

Vivi crosses her arms and makes a face at me. “I’m not going to say it again. You’re not paying attention.”

“I’m sorry, Viv. It’s just… things are happening and I don’t know what to do about them.”

She cocks her head at me, narrowing her eyes. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. You need to call Jeeves.”

“Who?”

“Jeeves. The man who took us up to the donkey place that day I was with Vicious.”

“Wait. What donkey place? You went somewhere else that day besides the AA meeting and the swap meet?”

“Yep.” She pushes some wild blonde hair out of her eyes. “We went to the donkey reunion.”

This makes no sense. “Donkeys have a reunion?”

“No. The people. The people!”

She’s getting frustrated with me and I know I shouldn’t find it cute, but I do. “Calm down, Vivian. I’m not familiar with the donkey people.”

“The family reunion at the campground. Jeeves took us up there and Vicious did tattoos on all the people, I ate a jackalope hotdog, and rode a donkey, and then Jeeves told me the story about the killer jackalopes. But.” She holds up a finger, telling me to hold my commentary. “But the jackalope is really the code word.”

Code word? I just spent the last five hours diving down an internet rabbit hole of crazy about people I went swimming with yesterday and now my six-year-old daughter is telling me about code words? “What the actual freaking hell are you talking about?”

“Yep. Code. You call him and then—Oh!” Her eyes go big. “I almost forgot.”

“Now what?”

“We went to the art building too. That’s why I had the tattoo show at the farm. Vicious was mad that the lady didn’t invite him to the tattoo show, but that was good luck, really. Because that’s part of why we got to go see the donkey people.”

I press my lips together. Because I’m getting annoyed. “Vivian. You need to start from the beginning and tell me everything you did that day.”

She smiles at me. “OK.”

And then I go down another rabbit hole.

One I am now a part of.