by Dale Mayer
God, she hated this. She wasn’t normally an ugly person inside, but Billy had that ability to bring out the worst in her. And for the first time, she realized that if he had been able to do that to her with no effort, it would have been easy for him to twist up Morgan, who he understood so well and used his love to his own advantage.
She reached over to stoke Morgan’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Morgan’s laugh was harsh, pained. “He hurt you as much as me, and for what?”
“For fun I think. For revenge definitely, and because he could.”
Morgan shook his head as he stared down at the letter. “I really hate to say it, but I think this has to go to the cops. It’s motive for his murder.”
“I would. Billy has already done the damage. Showing them this isn’t going to hurt us more. But it might help.”
“He says he has a stash of money. What if the guy he took it from is the one who killed him?”
“And what if he thinks we have the money now?” she asked in alarm. “That’s not good.”
“It’s not here, is it?” Morgan slowly perused the room. “I can’t see why it would be.”
“Not that we’ve found, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it was here.” She stood up. “We also haven’t searched the place entirely. And what’s the chance the cops found it?”
“They’d have asked us about the money.” He stood up and looked around. “I’ll empty the closet.”
“And I’ll search the bathroom.” She headed to the bathroom and opened drawers and cupboards. She had no idea how much cash they were talking about. Maybe it was in the bank instead. That’s what she would do. However, if she had lots to put in, that had to be done in such a way as to not raise any alarms. Then she got it.
“Morgan,” she stood in the doorway to the bedroom and called to him. “If it’s not here, maybe he had a safety deposit box.”
Morgan poked his head out from the closet and considered it. “That’s possible. But almost too sensible for him.”
Damn, he was right. Still… it was something that maybe the police could search for.
“We’ll keep it in mind in case there are any keys close by.”
Keys. She frowned. She’d seen a keyring somewhere. But where? “I actually thought I saw a set, but it didn’t strike me as odd.” She headed back to the small kitchen. Hanging on the side of the cupboard was a set of keys, but there was a single one hanging on the side. “There are keys here.” She brought them over to Morgan.
He took the set from her and flicked through them. “These two are the suite. This one is his bike. And I have no idea what this one is for.”
She looked over at it. Then snorted. “What do you want to bet it’s for your house?”
“It had better not be.” He dug into his own pocket and pulled out his key chain. Flicking through to his house key, he held the two up side by side. “Shit.”
“Been noticing anything missing lately?”
He glanced over at her. “Yeah, a few things, but nothing major.”
She nodded. “He’s probably been going in and out for awhile.”
Morgan nodded, but he was staring down at the other keys on Billy’s ring. He held out his hand and said in a quiet voice, “Let me see your house key.”
She gasped. “What?” But she dug into her purse and pulled out her house keys. She handed him the correct key and he held the two up together into the light.
They were the exact same.
*
Morgan stared at the evidence before him, his mind struggling to come up with something – anything – that would explain why his brother had a copy of Jazz’s house key. He wanted to punch someone – preferably his brother for having it.
“I did not give it to him,” she said, her voice faint.
He held out his arm, loving the way she raced in.
“God, Morgan. How many times has he been in my house?”
Too damn many times, but he kept his opinion to himself. His brother had caused enough trouble. Jazz had always been happy and relaxed, open about life, but he suspected that time of innocence. “We don’t know that he ever went in, but this is proof that he could have and wouldn’t have given a shit about invading your privacy if he’d wanted to.”
“I don’t think he’d have the keys and not go in. He wouldn’t be able to resist,” she said. She reached out and touched the full ring of keys. “How many other houses does he have keys to?”
“Who knows?” he frowned as he studied another key. Then groaned. “Damn. This one is likely to my garage.”
“Why would he have one to that?”
“Parts and tools. I actually only started to lock the garage up after finding bits and pieces moved around. I was blaming the neighborhood kids. But instead it was my own damn brother. Shit.”
How the hell had his brother gone so wrong? And if he’d done this, what else had he done? This was completely against everything Billy had been raised to respect.
And somehow along the way, he’d taken his own path into this perverted mindset. Had he been spying on Jazz too? Hiding in her house and watching her sleep? Or had this been a key for just in case…
Although just in case of what, he couldn’t imagine.
Damn. How had Morgan not seen the problems? And maybe more importantly – how had Billy gone so wrong?
Chapter 17
“Your shop… please tell me there isn’t one there for my shop.” Her heart damn near froze at the idea, but she wouldn’t put it past him. She needed to know her shop was safe, but was it? If he had keys to her home, it was easy enough to get keys to her business. And why? What did he hope to achieve from that?
“What do you think he’s been doing with them all?” she asked, hating the size of the key ring. “And does he have more?”
“No idea, but he wouldn’t have been doing anything good.” He handed her back her keys then offered her Billy’s ring. “Do you want to take a look while I see if he has more lying around?”
Wordless, she accepted the stack and studied the code on top. Morgan’s house key was labeled as MH, his garage as MG. Her house was JH. So that was a clear enough system. She systematically went through the keys and tried to match them up. That she found RH made her blood run cold. She could almost understand PH as he’d been sleeping on and off again with Perl, but did she have any idea that he’d had a key to her place? Then again, Perl’s sex life was wild and fairly broad, so maybe she handed them out to many men.
Then she found it. ATJ. All That’s Jazz. The store.
Shit. She found a chair and sat down heavily, trying to understand the implication of Billy having a key to her world, both business and professional. Besides creepy as hell and making her feel even more violated, how was that possible? And had he caused any damage?
How could she know? Did he just need to know he could go and snoop any time, or did he have a reason for gaining access to her business? They had a safe, and they did not write the combination down anywhere, but she’d be checking that as soon as she could. In fact, she wanted to go from here directly to the shop in case something had been stolen.
How had he gotten these? Was it so easy that anyone who wanted one could just go and get one made? She knew they had security systems being installed soon, but shit…
Morgan came back to stand in front of her. He reached out a hand. “What’s wrong?”
She held up the key. “I’m afraid it’s for my business.”
He shook his head. “Damn. I’m sorry, Jazz.”
“I want to go and check. See if he might have done something… anything that I am not going to like.” When she finally registered his deep silence, she added, “He’s already done it, right?”
“It’s possible. It’s also possible that someone else has a copy of these keys.”
“Damn it,” she whispered. “This is so not fair.”
“I know you don’t keep copies of the dragon tattoo, but is there any chance that ther
e would be anything that would allow someone breaking into your shop to find that image?”
“I know there was the original image, but I changed it a lot.”
“Do you know when you changed it and if you still have the original?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“I suggest while we’re at the shop, you might want to take a good look around. At the moment, it appears as if Billy was an integral part of whatever the hell is going on, and it could very well lead back to your business.”
She glared at him. “And that can’t be.”
*
“It doesn’t matter how you feel about it. What’s important right now is damage control and that we find the shooter. Then we’ll have to backtrack and figure out what else my brother did.”
She nodded. “Do we give the keys to the cops?”
“Not until we check them and find out for sure that they open the places we believe they do.”
“Right, then we had better get moving. It’s damn late.”
And she strode out of the dingy suite.
Morgan took a little longer, leaving after a long sad look at the remnants of his brother’s life. The landlord was waiting for him when they came out. “When can you clear the place?”
Morgan held his temper in check. “When does the lease run out?”
The landlord squinted up at him. “He paid monthly. So he’s got another week to get out.”
“Then hopefully the police will give the okay for it to be cleared out by then.”
And he turned and walked away, ignoring the landlord’s spluttering. It wouldn’t take him long to confirm from the cops when he could get the place emptied. Morgan would need to deal with this mess eventually, but it wasn’t a process he was looking forward to.
Chapter 18
The streets were silent as they ripped toward the store. Jazz had debated telling Roxy about the key issue but figured they’d better check it out and make sure of the facts first. It would be horrible to tell everyone then find out the keys didn’t actually open what they thought they opened.
When Morgan finally pulled up to the front of the shop, her mood had darkened to border on panic. She could see the lights in the back room on. A system they’d used for years. Now she had to rethink that.
But any thinking now was taxing her brain to the breaking point. She was tired, emotionally drained, and damn sore. Her shoulder was killing her. She wanted a hot bath where she could soak the injured muscles. A hot tub would be a blessing. She should mention it to Morgan. They hadn’t spoken of what they were doing as a couple after this mess, but she couldn’t imagine them not living together. And that meant she had to decide what to do with her house. It was too small for both of them. So rent it or sell it. She had no idea. The key had opened the back door to her kitchen. The same doorway where she’d been shot. Her backyard was private, so he could have used the key at any number of times to get in and not be seen. And up until now, she’d have thought it was secure.
Naïve. Then again, who’d have thought that people like Billy were out there?
Stupid.
She walked up to the storefront and waited while Morgan pulled out the right key. He handed it to her. She looked at it, then him, then at the door, and pushed it in and turned the handle.
The door opened with an almost silent click.
“Shit,” Morgan said beside her.
But she was already walking in a steady line back to the security panel to turn the alarm off.
When she returned to the room, Morgan stood in the center waiting. “Does anyone else know the security code?”
Perl and Roxy, anyone else?
She paused. “Not likely.”
“So even if he had the key, it wasn’t a guarantee that he could get in.”
“However, the alarm would of off if the code wasn’t entered with a few minutes. I do know that he was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Perl, so I’m not sure what it would take to get the code from her.”
“Chances are good that’s why he’d been sleeping with her in the first place.”
She studied the flat look on his face. “You are not responsible,” she said. “Billy was his own worst enemy.”
“He might have been, but having had a major hand in raising him, I feel guilty.” He waved a hand around her shop. “Look at all the shit he was into.”
“And maybe this was the extent of it,” she cried out. “It could be so much worse.”
At his glare, she snapped, “He wasn’t a wife beater, a child predator, or any number of other nasty things. He was a sneak and a thief and yes, that’s bad enough, but you are not responsible for what he was or what he was on his way to becoming.”
He nodded, a weary motion that told her clearly how very fed up he was, too. Well, so was she. She walked through her store, trying to figure out what someone of Billy’s ilk would find interesting. She turned on her computer and realized it was already on. She’d been in and hadn’t shut it down herself. That might be a problem right there. She imagined she’d done it a time or two. Billy would, in theory, only need to have his timing be lucky once, and he could get into so many more of her secrets.
The monitors turned on and the screens came up.
She sat back in shock. There was that same damn image from the bathroom mirror. It had been sent to her email. She already knew that, but someone had opened her email here at the store. The most likely of those would be Roxy or Perl. But why?
She pulled out her phone and called her best friend.
“Roxy,” she said without any preamble. “Were you into my email at any time today?”
“No, of course not. I have hundreds of my own to deal with, why would I want there to be more?” Roxy paused then said in a puzzled voice, “Besides, you get your emails on your phone… unless you’re having phone problems?”
“No.” She winced, knowing this next bit would be rough, but she trusted Roxy like she’d never trusted anyone else. “I’m at the store right now, and my computer was still on and my email still open. I thought I’d shut it down earlier, but it’s entirely possible that I didn’t. Sometimes you have to go into my email to check on a couple of things or pull up an order, so I’m just wondering if you did or if we have a problem.”
“I don’t think so. The afternoon was crazy busy so I can’t be sure, but I can’t remember any reason to have.”
There was an odd silence. Sort of a shocked, questioning silence. Thankfully not one pregnant with judgment. Then again, the two had been friends for a long time.
Hating to but having no other choice, she asked, “Would anyone else?”
“Meaning Perl?” Roxy’s voice was carefully neutral. “What’s going on, Jazz? You’re starting to freak me out.” With this last bit, her voice rose uncontrollably.
“And maybe you should be,” Jazz said quietly. At the shriek screaming through her phone, she added. “We found keys in Billy’s possession for Morgan’s house and garage, my house, and for the shop.” She waited a bit for her to digest that information then added, “And I think to your house.”
Dead silence.
“Keys to my house? To the business?” Roxy’s gasp was easily heard through the phone line. “That bastard!”
“Yes, we’re here now to double check that his key would actually open the door. We already checked my house.”
“Oh no. Why would he do that?” Roxy cried. “I know he was trouble, but that kind of trouble?”
“We also think, from a letter he left behind, that he took a substantial amount of money from someone.” She hesitated then asked gently, “I’m hoping that wasn’t you?”
“I don’t have any money for him to take,” Roxy answered, then she gasped. “Do you think that’s why he was killed?”
“It’s certainly a decent motive.” Jazz walked over to the safe in the back of the storage room. “Have you been inside the safe lately?”
Roxy groaned. “Yes, a few days ag
o when I did the banking.” She sighed. “It all looked normal then. But I had to change the code as I couldn’t get in. I totally forgot to tell you.”
“You couldn’t get in?” Jazz closed her eyes, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Was this what his key had been used for? She spun around to look at Morgan. “What do you mean you couldn’t get in?”
“You know that we have it set to lock out if too many attempts are made to get in? Well, it was like that. It was the day you went to the morgue to identify Billy. There was so much going on, I never thought to mention it to you.”
Roxy walked over to the safe. “What is the new code?”
“Hang on.” Roxy disappeared for a long moment then came back. In a slow, steady voice, she read out the combination.
After looking around the empty shop, hating to acknowledge the feeling of being watched, and more than just Morgan standing guard, Jazz quickly entered the combination and pulled the safe door open.
Just as it did, a hard voice sounded behind them.
“Now isn’t this just about perfect timing.”
Biker Blues: Morgan
Part 3
Dale Mayer
Chapter 1
Jazz started to turn around, but Morgan’s rigid arm held her in place.
“Who the hell are you?” Morgan asked the intruder in a casual tone of voice.
The locked arm on her back holding her in place told her exactly what Morgan was feeling. Pissed topped the emotions that came to mind. She didn’t recognize the voice of the intruder but understood the dangerous tone.
“None of your fucking business,” the stranger snarled. “Both of you move over to the doorway and stay where I can see you. Turn around if you’ve got a death wish.”
Morgan urged her forward to the doorway, keeping his big body between her and the stranger. Of course he would do that.