by Voss, Deja
Everyone is resting, and it’s time for me to make my move.
I grab the keys to my bike off the hook on the wall.
I better grab Brooks’s too just for good measure.
And the truck keys.
I don’t need him chasing me. Hopefully I’ll be back before he even wakes up.
I don’t care how horrible I feel, the moment I start up my motorcycle, I’m no longer inside my crappy deteriorating body. I’m free. I’m Esther. I’m everything I ever was before, and more. I’m complete. The really nice thing about being terminally ill is that I don’t have to even think about wearing a helmet anymore. Whatever happens, happens.
I swing by the ranch for a minute like I try to every day, to make sure that the girls know not to try anything shady. That I’m not dead yet. That I’m still watching them.
One of my dancers, Gina, is sitting in the gravel parking lot leaned up against the side of the building, her head hanging in her hands. I park my bike and go to her. The pretty young bleach blonde is ugly crying. I mean, bawling. Her mascara is all over her face, all over her hands. She’s gasping for air like somebody is choking her.
“Gina, honey, what’s wrong?” I ask.
“It’s my dad,” she bleats. “He threw me out.”
“You’re twenty-five years old, sweetie,” I say, rubbing her back. “You don’t need to be living with your parents anymore.” Gina’s dad is the local chief of police. I knew when I hired her, she was going to be an epic pain in my ass, but she’s a hell of a dancer, and the guys really love her.
She’d been trying to turn tricks at my brother Gavin’s bar, offering blow jobs in exchange for blow. I felt bad for her. She was a stunning girl, she just had major daddy issues, and ever since she started dancing at the ranch, she’d cleaned her act up big time.
Still, we had to go out of our way to keep her employment under wraps. She always danced in a mask, and covered up her tattoos with make-up. Whenever the local force came in for their monthly board meeting, we made sure she was nowhere to be found. Nobody could know who Gina, or as we call her, Majesty, actually is.
I value our relationship with the local police. I know it’s corrupt as fuck, but if I let them come in and get a couple free lap dances here and there, we don’t have no problem. At the end of the day, it’s just more dirt I have on them.
“Esther, I don’t want to tell you this. I don’t want you to be stressed out. I know you’re sick and you’re doing the best you can…” she bawls.
All the sympathy I have for her quickly drains from my body, and Esther the firm-handed pimp comes out to play. “He fucking knows, doesn’t he,” I shout. “What did I tell you, Gina? What did we talk about? Why’d you have to run your crackhead mouth?”
“I didn’t tell him. I’m not stupid, and you know I’m clean! I swear. I’d never do anything to hurt you. It was Desmond. Nick Desmond. He’s been blackmailing me, Esther. At first, he just wanted money, but it’s gotten worse. I played along for as long as I could, but that man is sick. His demands just got weirder and weirder.” She lifts up her tank top, her stomach covered in what looks like rope burns, red, angry slashes all over her torso. “I thought he was going to kill me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I say. “You know I have ways of taking care of things.”
“Esther,” she says, “you gotta take care of yourself. I thought I could handle it.”
“Obviously, you couldn’t,” I say. I’m so angry, I’m shaking. One of the main reasons why I opened this place was so that women would have a safe place to work without having to worry about this kind of shit. That fucking scumbag Desmond has been a thorn in my side since I was in high school. I could only imagine what kind of sick stuff got him off.
“I tried to tell my dad he was lying. I told him I just waitressed here every once in a while for some side cash. He had videos, Esther. He showed my dad videos of me dancing. Do you know how humiliating that is?”
Considering my dad sold me into prostitution when I was eighteen, I was having trouble in the empathy department there. Still, I guess for a normal person, that was probably one of the worst things that could happen.
My lip quivers as I try to come up with something to say, but my mind is going a million miles a minute. My stomach feels sick, putrid, and I’m not sure if it’s the pills and lack of breakfast, or knowing what this development could mean for my club.
“I told him I quit, Esther,” she says. “Dad promised there wouldn’t be no problems. This is all on me. I just wanted to tell you in person.”
“You silly stupid girl,” I whisper. “I don’t care how many cocks you suck for a living, you don’t ever let a man take your power. I don’t care if it’s Desmond. I don’t care if it’s your daddy. You’re nobody’s property.”
I have to walk away. I head straight for my bike. I need a nice long ride to clear my head. Business is going to have to wait until tomorrow. As much as I want to handle everything on my own, I need to talk this one over with Brooks.
I don’t have much time before I need to get back to the house and get myself dosed again.
Clock is ticking.
I rev my engine and take off down the side of the mountain, relishing the warm sun on my back, the cool breeze on my face, the way me and my machine are like one, and we are the only thing that matters right now, in this moment. Every passing second, I’m that much closer to my death, but aren’t we all?
If I could go out like this, drive off a cliff, wrap my bike around a tree, speed out in front of an eighteen-wheeler, I’d die a happy woman.
But I can’t die a happy woman right now. I have too much work to do.
Chapter 16
Present Day: Helena
“Everything looks good,” Chief Sanderson says to me. “Everything sounds good. We’ll get you started here within the next week as soon as we get things worked out with insurance. I’m so happy you’re back home where you belong, girl.” I’m doing my best to tune out the old, fat sheriff. 90 percent of what he says is deeply offensive on some level, and the other 10 percent is him ordering someone to bring him food, but I have a smile on my face as wide as a Cheshire cat’s.
Everything is falling into place. Even though the station only needed a part-time police officer, it was enough to get my foot in the door. It was enough to start networking and building the trust of the other officers. Knowing that I would soon have access to files and documents and evidence that might help put Esther’s case to rest made my feeble attempt to pretend like I like Chief Sanderson completely worth the effort.
“Do you have any questions?” he asks.
“Nick Desmond,” I say. “He and I were pretty good friends in high school. Is he still on the force? I’d like to work with him if that’s an option.”
He stares back at me, his jowls going up and down like a fish blowing bubbles in the water, like he’s trying to talk, but nothing’s coming out.
“He’s no longer with us,” he says.
“Oh?” I ask. I’m not trying to push it. I just need to get a feel for what’s going on.
“He was a troubled man. Probably best you don’t worry too much about him. He’s finally got the peace he’s been looking for all this time.”
Maybe he did. Or maybe the chief finally got his peace, knowing that the man he was trying to keep quiet for so long can no longer talk. That’s to be determined at a later date, though. Right now, my lips are sealed, too. My eyes are wide open though.
I don’t really like the long hug he wraps me in as I walk out the door. I don’t like the way he watches me walk down the hallway. This isn’t about me, though. This is about justice. Justice for Esther. Justice for all women, all people whose lives weren’t deemed as important as others. I power strut down the hallway, my heels clicking the whole way, picturing her in her glory days. In high school, she was always so wild and free, gorgeous, radiating goodness with a hint of mischief, always had a smile on her face and a kind word. T
he kind of girl I always wanted to be. The fact that her life was so short, so filled with suffering, even up to her very last breath, I wish I could’ve been there for her when she was alive. This is the next best thing I can do.
I can’t wait to get up on the mountain and tell everyone the good news. I stop at the grocery store and pick up some steaks and a bottle of red wine so the two of us can celebrate.
I blast my music loud all the way home, windows rolled down, the smell of wildflowers filling my Jeep. The sun is starting to set over the mountain, and I’m so excited I’m crawling out of my skin. I notice that the clubhouse looks like it’s pretty hopping tonight, rows and rows of bikes filling the parking lot.
You really never know what you’re going to get into when you set foot in the Mountain Misfits’ lair. Sometimes these people are all friends and families and wives and kids, and other times, I’m trying to figure out where the sluts fit into that equation because, most of the time, everyone seems to get along just fine. Some nights, old ladies are more than welcome at the clubhouse, other nights, they know better than to show their faces.
Being as I’m neither a slut nor an old lady, I don’t know what applies to me.
I’m just a cop.
I laugh at the thought. Just a cop about to walk into a den of criminals like it’s a perfectly normal thing. If it was anyone but me, I’d probably have to worry about being able to walk back out again in one piece. I can’t even lie, that kind of entitlement feels pretty nice. Besides, Brooks told me to meet him here, and I’m looking forward to seeing him. I haven’t been able to get this morning off my mind all day. There was definitely something different about our dynamic than anything I’d felt before. I wanted nothing more than to take him back to the house, make him a nice meal, show him how much I appreciate him, and maybe clear the air about a few things.
I’d rehearsed in my mind a million times over that it would never be my goal or intention to replace Esther. I know to an outsider maybe I’d come off as a crazy high school stalker, some woman just preying on a widower, trying to move in and be the new wife, like nothing has ever happened. That’s not what I want, though.
I’ve accepted the fact, even embraced the idea, that he could care about us both in different ways. I mean, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself here, maybe he doesn’t feel that way about me at all. I’ll never know, though, if I don’t take a chance.
If I know anything about Esther, it was that she loved the hell out of him, and wanted him to be happy and taken care of. If I know anything about his brothers, his mountain family, it’s that they want that for him, too. Maybe it’s too soon, maybe it’s not. All I know is I’m coming from a place of pure intentions, and I’ll be there for him either way. I’m going to see this Esther case through, too, no matter what.
I swing open the door, the air so smoky my eyes instantly start to water. It’s pretty much exactly as I expected it to be. Girls are in various states of undress, dancing on the pool tables, making out, showing off their plastic tits and tattooed flesh. Some of the guys are enjoying the show, others are cloistered off in their own little groups. I scan the room quickly, looking around for Brooks, but he’s nowhere to be found.
“How’d it go?” Gavin asks, greeting me with a warm hug. “Are you on the wrong side of the law now?”
“Sure am,” I shout over the loud music.
“You know I normally hate cops, right?” Goob asks, the lanky blond towering over me. I know him, Gavin, and Esther all have different mothers and the same father, but the way that they’re all so undeniably gorgeous makes me think their dad had a thing for supermodels. That, or he was a stud himself. Being sandwiched between these two brothers makes me feel like a troll that crawled out from under some bridge. “Get this girl a beer,” he says, nodding to Heat, who’s bartender for the night. The old guy is just slogging along at his own pace, a cigarette dangling from his lip that looks like it needed ashed about five minutes ago. “You know you’re way too pretty to be a cop,” Goob says.
“And you’re way too married to be staring at her tits like that,” Gavin chuckles.
I take a long swig from my beer, trying to keep myself from giggling like a schoolgirl. I’m flattered. I might not take kindly to being harassed by my coworkers, but that’s a totally different environment. Besides, coming from these guys, it’s not harassment. It’s just how they treat their women, how they appreciate them. Hell, Gavin’s wife is a surgeon, Olive runs a bar, and Esther had her own booming business. They know women know how to get shit done. They just also appreciate the female form. I don’t hate it.
“Where’s Brooks?” I ask, trying to sound casual. Gavin looks down into his glass of whiskey. Goob looks up at the ceiling. My heart shatters into a million pieces as I look over my shoulder. Of course I wouldn’t have noticed him there, sitting on the chair in the corner of the room, namely because a shirtless Jasmine was straddling his lap. I try my best not to gawk. “Looks like he’s busy,” I say with a shrug, trying to hide the urge to scream, cry, grab her by her hair extensions and throw her out the window. I know these two had a thing, but I hadn’t seen her around in a while.
Maybe I was reading into things earlier. I feel like a moron. A moron who needs something harder than this beer.
“Want to do some celebration shots?” I suggest.
I’m so pissed off, I don’t even care if I end up sleeping in my car tonight. The worst part is, I’m not even angry at him. I’m angry at myself for even entertaining the idea for one second that he had any interest in a girl like me beyond just being my friend.
I’m pissed off that I was so selfish that I mistook his kindness for something else. I’m an idiot. Heat lines up shot glasses in front of the three of us, and I let the tequila burn my insides to a level of numbness that used to be the norm for me back when I lived down south. If you fill yourself with hard liquor, you don’t have to think about the hole in your heart.
Except, there isn’t a hole in my heart. I have my sister. I have a group of friends who cares about me and is kind to me. I have Brooks, even if it’s not in the capacity I want him. I have a job. I have a purpose.
Maybe the hole in my heart isn’t the one that I want filled. Maybe it’s something else.
After about three shots, Gavin and Goob start wrestling each other, typical sibling shit, and Austin struts over to check out the commotion. He’s not exactly anything special to look at, and everything I’ve heard him say is downright crude and disgusting, but I don’t hate the way he’s looking at me. If Brooks doesn’t want to pry himself out from underneath that writhing pile of silicone to talk to me, fuck it, I’ll take what I can get.
“What do we have here?” he asks, picking up my empty shot glass. His thigh grazes the side of my leg as he pushes in between bar stools to stand right next to me. “Tequila? You know what goes great with tequila?”
He’s so close to me, I can smell the whiskey on his breath. He’s not exactly the most conventionally attractive guy. Hell, he’s not even one of the top ten most attractive guys in this room, but who am I to judge?
“What?” I ask. Even through my tequila goggles, I realize this is a bad idea. Just because I’m pissed off, drunk, and in the mood, doesn’t mean I should just bend over for the first biker that gives me the eye. I don’t want to be known as that chick. I slide my stool away from him just enough to let him know I’m not interested.
“My tongue in your ear,” he says with a boom of a laugh as he flicks his tongue my way, leaning closer and closer towards me.
Just like that, he crumbles to the floor with a loud thud, like he had a random heart attack or something, nearly taking out my barstool in the process.
“What the fuck?” he groans, clutching his stomach. It all happened so fast, I didn’t even see what happened. I’m just as confused as he is.
“Come on,” Brooks says, grabbing my arm. “We’re going home.”
Chapter 17
Brooks:
&nbs
p; “We are not going anywhere,” Helena says to me, scrunching her nose and squinting her eyes. She looks pissed. I don’t really care. I’ve warned her about Austin before, and I was serious. There is no reason why he needs to be anywhere near her, ever. He’s a dirtbag. “I’m going home,” she says, pushing right past me as she heads towards the door.
It’s not hard for me to catch up with her. She’s motoring as fast as she can on her short legs, but I can tell she’s a little tipsy by the way she’s zigzagging all over the place. How long has she been here?
“Stop!” I shout. “What the hell is going on?”
She stands in the doorway, biting on her lip like she’s about to burst into tears. “I’m not one of your club sluts,” she says, her voice so low, she’s nearly whispering. It doesn’t matter either way. I’ve already fucked up and made a spectacle. Everyone’s staring at the two of us, leaving Austin to fend for himself, laying on the floor clutching his side.
My heart sinks to my stomach. She must have been here awhile. I stand there with my jaw slack, trying to figure out how to get these words out of my head without sounding like an idiot.
“I’m not having this discussion here,” she says. “You go back to whatever it is you’re doing. I’m going up to Olive’s to check on Josie.” She pulls open the door and disappears into the night. You could hear a pin drop, while everyone just hovers around staring at me with their hands shoved in the pockets. The only person who doesn’t look fazed by it all is Jasmine. She rushes to my side, bare breasts bouncing in the breeze with that sinister smile on her face, and reaches for my arm.
“You know exactly what the fuck you need to do, son,” Heat says, pointing to the door. “And Jasmine, put a damn shirt on. This ain’t a titty bar no more.”